The Need For Effective Space Planning In The Workplace
Office space planning is a fundamental practice in commercial interior design.
The first step in the interior planning process is to evaluate how your business will use a space. Your office setup is then designed according to what you hope to achieve from the space.
Space planning an office is done to promote functionality by taking into account the different factors that contribute to a more efficient workspace layout.
Proper space planning will support a more conductive office environment, where a motivated workforce essentially leads to higher level of business productivity.
Planning and utilisation of office space
Before coming up with an office layout, you need to first identify capacity of the floor plan. In other words, the number of personnel your office space can accommodate.
Through delineating the total accessible area and its capacity, you are able to make more informed decisions in allocating the space and planning for utilisation. It helps you determine whether the entire space is necessary for your organizational needs or if you ultimately require more room than what you have. For instance, more walkway space may be needed for people to better navigate the space.
It is also important to consider future growth prospects to ensure your workplace can accommodate an expanding workforce.
By analysing and understanding how your company's headcount may shift over the next few years, you are able to offer some leeway in your space planning to include future employees.
This way you mitigate any potential setbacks regarding the occupant capacity of your office.
Planning a productive office layout
Equally integral to efficient office space planning is the needed to allocate spaces based on the types of workspace that employees require to work more productively.
As employees typically spend most of their working hour seated behind their desks, their job roles and responsibilities will determine where they sit for convenience purposes.
For example, employees that often deal with paperwork are assigned a workstation near the print room.
For employees that mainly perform individualised tasks where a high level of concentration is needed, choose a workstation layout plan that allows them ample privacy to better focus. Whereas collaborative-based spaces should be designated for staff whose positions involve frequent teamwork.
The same goes with placing members of the same team close to one another so that they can quickly convene for group discussions.
Your space planning needs to also account for the presence and accessibility of shared facilities that employees will require in the workplace. This may be the pantry area and lounge room or washroom with sufficient cubicles.
The planning and layout of your office should ultimately be aimed at streamlining workflow by accommodating employee needs.
Benefit of space planning in the workplace
A good office plan factors in every single detail that can influence your work environment. That said, workplace analytics is a requisite of effectual space planning.
Hence you need to recognise your business objective as to how it corresponds with the office layout, how it hinders employee productivity in terms of their work quality and quantity, alongside the ability of functional spaces to promote the daily flow of a workplace.
Understanding the purpose of the office layout and the distinct functions tied to a specific space will allow you to establish your office setup and seating arrangement based on the available interior.
A thoughtfully implemented and executed workplace plan thus underpins a functional office layout where employees can thrive within their roles.