Choosing an office space is no small feat. To make the task a less daunting one, here are five top tips to make sure you make the right choice for yourself, your staff and your business.
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Location
Location is of paramount importance when choosing an office space for a number of reasons: it will affect the price you pay, the amount of time spent commuting, and will too be impacted on by whether clients or customs will need access to the premises. It is further and doubly important if you employ staff to consider as well their commuting distance, needs and the impact a location might have on them in order to create and maintain a happy, and so efficient and hard working team. Therefore, in order to find the right location, it is paramount to consider and explore your options, taking into account all of these factors before making a decision.
It is also important to consider the location and address and what both might convey about your business. That is, a legal firm which operates from a premise on an industrial estate is likely to raise some eyebrows, for example. So, before thinking you have found the perfect place and assuring yourself that the address, if clients do not need to visit in person, doesn’t matter – think again; even for businesses which have little or no face-to-face contact with clients, an address can help to persuade or dissuade a potential client from becoming an actual one.
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Price
We all want a good deal, whatever we are looking to buy, rent or invest in. That said, it is important not to be too tempted or blindsided by a good price on an office premise; after all, if something seems too good to be true it often is, as the old adage warns. At the very least, set a sensible budget and stick to it. This will almost always help to tailor your search and save you a lot of time and effort wasted looking at premises which are not viable options for you.
Further, it is necessary to get prices and familiarise yourself with the average rates within all of the areas which you are looking at as potentially viable. Doing this may instantly rule out certain locales whilst also potentially opening up new areas for consideration. For a quick and easy way to compare rent prices across all areas of the UK, the Colliers Research website features a handy interactive map tool which permits you to do exactly that.
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Office Type
Unless you have a reasonable amount of experience setting up and creating the ideal office space, it is strongly advised to turn to those who do and at least consider renting a serviced office space such as those provided by providers like The Storage Works in Blackburn.
Serviced office providers like those offered by The Storage Works provide multi-occupancy, fully serviced office spaces that can be rented for short or long periods and consequently prove a popular option for both start up businesses and well established ones. The pros of renting a serviced office often far outweigh the cons. In fact, often the only real issue which deters businesses from making use of serviced offices is the price. The reality though is that businesses which are able to sensibly budget to afford use of a serviced office space, logically, stand to grow far quicker because a serviced office is a readymade and purpose created premises which operates to make this true in order to continue its own business.
Therefore, by far the best way to save money, time, stress and ensure you provide yourself and staff with a pleasant environment and one which is conducive to conducting business is to factor in and capitalise on the convenience, amenities and security of working from a multiple occupancy serviced office.
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Lay Out
Office spaces often advertise the amount of floor space they offer, but this can prove problematic as the amount of space an office has tells very little about the amount of usable space, shape or ‘floor plate’ of a premises.
As Clarke is quick to point out: ‘The shape of a building, where the lifts and stairs are and the amount of circulation space all make a difference. It all depends on how the floor plate is laid out’ and not often how much square feet is up for rent. Further, Clarke states: ‘the ideal office has a usable space/circulation space ratio of 85:15’. This is useful to consider as it can be applied to all office spaces and will quickly narrow your search and so enable you find and get moved into the right space for you and your business.
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Room to Grow
Speaking of space, an important question any business owner should ask themselves (and a successful business person always asks) is whether an office space provides potential in which to grow a business or expand it. After all, whatever the nature of a business, that is the goal and aim of all businesses.
A business owner who looks at potential office spaces taking into account only the immediate needs of their business and any current staff is not only exposing a lack of ambition and business acumen, but potentially damaging their business in the long-term. After all, only two scenarios result from such short sighted thinking; either a business fails to grow as a result or the business grows and needs to relocate, possibly several times causing disruption to the business itself, its staff and costing you, its owner, money, time and effort which could instead be used to further and better your business.