Growing pains? Make sure your office isn’t one of them:

People spend half of their waking life at work. Therefore, making sure it’s as comfortable and pleasant as possible for your staff is of the utmost importance. Not only does a pleasant working environment help to boost productivity, but by law, each and every employee is entitled to a minimum amount of floorspace to work in, and as their employer, this is something that you’ll be required to provide.

Even if your office does provide your staff with enough space, it could still be time to move if you find yourselves tripping over furniture, cramming documents into full cupboards, and struggling to find an area in the building to hold client meetings!

Upscaling your office isn’t just important for legal requirements, however; getting your office right can bring a lot of value to your business. Providing a nice and spacious place to work doesn’t just increase your employees’ morale and productivity; it also makes it easy to recruit more staff and having a large enough workplace will also give you room to grow and ensures its fit for purpose.

Here are the top signs you’ve outgrown your office, and should be considering a change of scenery…

You have more staff than you do space

Employees sharing desks or having to work in close proximity to each other is a sure-fire way of making them have disagreements over desk space and start to notice that their desk mate has a bad habit of chewing noisily, bringing in smelly lunches, or over-aggressively typing.

If everyone can smell what the boss is cooking, this is a big sign that you need to move; and you might even be breaking the law. According to Regulation 10 of the Workplace (Health, Safety, and Welfare) Regulations 1992, your staff should be provided with a minimum of 40 square feet of floorspace each. To check if your office is big enough, just divide the total volume of the room by the number of people that would typically be working in it; if this is under 40 square feet, then it’s time to look at relocating.

Navigating your office is like completing an obstacle course

Cramped furniture and piles of bundled wires doesn’t just look messy; they present a legitimate health and safety risk! So, although the office tough mudder team may enjoy an office that looks like the final event in Gladiators for a few days, the Health and Safety Executive may not find it so amusing.

As well as providing each employee with 40 square feet of space to work in, you’re also legally required to ensure that they have enough space to move around both comfortably and safely. As an employer, it’s your duty to prevent anything that can put your workers at risk of tripping, slipping, or falling, and you’ll be held accountable if an accident were to arise in the workplace due to a lack of space. So, take this into consideration when assessing if you need to move offices!

Your local coffee shop has become the default meeting room

Holding meetings in your local coffee shop can provide a much-needed break from the confines of the office, and it can be a nice gesture to take a client out for a coffee during a meeting. However, although this is a good option for more casual meetings that don’t require privacy, you’ll need to have your own meeting room if sensitive information is being discussed.

To combat this issue, choose a bigger space with meeting rooms, or even rent a serviced office; they’ll be able to provide them for you!

You can no longer hear yourself think!

Finally, one easy way to determine if you’ve outgrown your office is to check the noise levels. Sure, a little background noise never hurt anyone, but if you’re struggling to hear the rest of your team during discussions (or you’re simply struggling to hear yourself think), let’s face it; your workforce isn’t exactly going to be the most productive!

Wearing earphones to work isn’t always an option, unfortunately. So, if you find yourself faced with this issue, then it’s time to find a bigger office space.

Rombourne’s Kingston House provides premium serviced offices with a vast range of options to suit all business requirements. Ideally set on junction 16 of the M4 on Lydiard Fields Business Park, why not book a viewing and take that next step in either a larger office or perhaps the first office.

‘We are more than just a serviced office provider and pride ourselves on not only the professional service we deliver, but the sense of community spirit we encourage within our centre’ – Danielle Mottram 

Please contact Danielle Mottram on [email protected] or 01793 683550 or please visit www.rombourne.co.uk where you can view a gallery of images and video tour of Kingston House.