Building out Your Office Space

Take the blank palette of your office and make it a productivity lair

By Geoff Kohl, Editor-in-Chief, SecurityInfoWatch.com

Whether you’re a new company choosing your first office or a growing company moving up in the world, you may find yourself at some point being able to build out an office in such a way that will aid your business. Good office design means that the office becomes seamless between the worker and their product. Bad office design means you have employees complaining about noise or saying, “I wish we’d thought of this.” The guide below tries to tackle a few things that business managers may overlook as they hire a landlord and contractor to have office space built out for them. The goal here is to come up with office design issues that:

Can increase productivity.
Can increase comfort.
Can increase safety.

From issues like networking the office to sound control, storage, temperature and even lighting, you need to consider how these affect your business. After all, how productive your office workers are isn’t just affected by how many square feet their workspace is, though we cover that, too.

Determine size needs

Before you can think about the myriad things that go into office design, you need to think about space.
Try: I really like the office space calculator from Finch Commercial Realty. You can count people by their office size and by other office needs like storage and conference rooms. MrOfficeSpace.com has another calculator. Use them both and compare the numbers, and then make it “future proof”. OfficeFinder.com also has an office space checklist that gives you a good idea of what to think about, since size isn’t everything when it comes to the type of office that will work for your company. As you determine the size, make a list of how many offices/rooms you need and what sizes they should be. Your landlord may provide a build-out budget and provide some design services.

Network it to the hilt

Now that you’ve got your rough plan, you need to think about details. The one thing we’ve learned is that it’s much easier to wire a building for technology when it’s being built rather than when it’s finished. Drywall and HVAC systems get in the way once the walls are up.
Try: You or your contractor should contact a networking specialist to wire out the office. Solid core Cat 5 (aka Cat 5e) cabling is a common choice, as it doesn’t tend to degrade unless it was being flexed repeatedly and is designed to support high-speed networking standards. I’d put at least one Cat 5 network connection in each room, and consider adding extra connections in rooms that may have more than one person working or that may networked peripherals like printers/copiers.

Power up

The 1950s mechanical typewriter didn’t require you to plug it in. The powered 1960s and 70s typewriter needed one outlet. Today’s computer will require two outlets, one for the monitor, and one for the hard drive “box”. Add speakers and you need another outlet. Electric pencil sharpener? One more…and on and on.
Try: Just as you network to the hilt, make sure you have a plethora of phone and power outlets. Consider adding power outlets at or just above desk height for the offices that may be inhabited by the tech side of the office. Toss a PowerSquid in every tech office, which is like a power strip, but it works with the oddly-shaped power converters like cell phone chargers. Make sure you build in a power back-up for networking equipment and essential electronic. You can create a power back-up system so that some outlets are always on and protected by the back-up system.

Reduce the noise from machines

The sound of business sometimes equals money, but other times it will give you a headache. You can plan your office in such a way to minimize noise levels and decrease noise-issue confrontations.
Try: Put your noise-producing office equipment like loud printers and beeping fax machines and photocopiers in a separate room or hallway where the sound doesn’t interfere with business conversations. On the other hand, if there’s too much water cooler talk, put it amidst the noisy copiers. If you have particularly noisy equipment, you may even want to add foam panels like these from O’Neill Engineered Systems to the rooms’ walls to decrease sound. Partition noise isolation pads help cut noise down that can be transferred through walls, like between the warehouse where the forklift is running, and the warehouse office.

Think about the people noise

Consider who’s working for you—the booming voice of your top salesperson, the quiet voice of the product designer who likes to work in total silence, the customer service staff where phones are ringing off the hook, and the accountant/controller who gets annoyed by people who conduct conversations right outside her door. By planning different areas of the office (the sales corner where the “boomers” talk, or the “ringer” corner where the C.S. staff lives), you can reduce office tension.
Try: Besides placing people in areas where they are less likely to disturb others, you can mask the sound with pink noise. Pink noise is the friendly neighbor of white noise – aka static. Armstrong’s i-Ceilings provide pink noise sound masking, music and paging using speaker titles that blend in with normal office ceiling tiles. Scamp is another manufacturer of sound masking systems. Insulate interior walls if you don’t want conversations to go from office through walls to the next office, and consider acoustic tiles if you need professional sound isolation and control.

Consider the outside light

We all want the office with the view right, but you also don’t want your employees staring off on a summer day, daydreaming about what they could be doing.
Try: Orient the office in such a way that windows provide sunlight without being distractions. If you have much say in the building materials, you can always choose an opaque glass. Or consider adding a window film like one from Llumar, which can control glare that would otherwise hit computer screens and work areas in afternoon sunlight. The company also makes films that make it harder for thieves to break through windows.

Consider inside lighting

Traditional fluorescents aren’t always the best choice. Their slight hum and the subtle tint they give off can be distracting. Nonetheless, they are among the most efficient and inexpensive lighting solutions on the market – hence their ubiquity. If you’re planning the lighting, you may want to design in flexibility, and consider issues like glare and special needs lighting.
Try: Have the electrician offer more lighting control rather than less. Some computer users prefer to use less light than the person who may be working predominantly on paper and the phone. Full-spectrum lighting tries to approximate the sun’s spectrum and is reputed to be easier to read with. Inside lighting is also affected by wall color. Darker walls, ceilings and cubicles absorb light, leading to a cave effect. Lighting design is tough to plan as you build out your office space, so use task lighting like these lights from HumanScale.com, to fill in for design challenges. Luxo and many other vendors make a line of office lights that are designed to project light up on walls so that the light is reflected through the room rather than projected at a specific area. This helps reduce glare on computer screens.

Plan for storage

Every business needs more storage. Maybe it’s our pack-rat mentality or compliance mandates that require us to keep records longer. Whether we’re storing printed records or data back-up disks, you need to plan storage for your office. If possible, design rooms into the office that can be dedicated to storage. If that’s not possible, integrate storage units into the existing space.
Try: Companies like Office Depot will be able to sell you an array of common storage devices. L.K. Goodwin’s product line can deliver your cabinet needs, especially if they lean more towards the industrial design. You may also want to add in fireproof file cabinets like tthose from Schwab to protect irreplaceable documents and server back-up tapes.

Consider the building’s HVAC and insulation

Air temperature and air quality are factors in the workplace. A 2004 study by Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory found that warmer workers make less mistakes than cold workers. Humidity and airflow are also found to affect the productivity of workers.
Try: Work with your contractor to make sure the HVAC system will have high enough capacity to deal with the business design. Make sure that you have proper insulation, because while 64 degrees is OK for active people, it is below the 72-degree number that Canada’s Center for Occupational Health and Safety finds ideal for mental office work (which is usually sedentary). Fedders Corporation offers a variety of indoor air quality solutions, from ventilation to air cleaning to humidification control systems. If you’re dealing with a lot of long-term storage, especially of perishable type items, you may want to look into integrated humidity and temperature controls from a company like Honeywell.