The process of refurbishing the company office often takes a lot longer than people first expect. With proper planning and preparation, managing timings with an office refurbishment project plan makes life a whole lot easier.

This blog post will cover an overview of how long you can expect an office refurbishment to last, an explanation of how long each stage should take and advice on how to manage the timing of them most appropriately.

Here’s Our Outline Of Timings For Each Phase

But, please note, these are only indicative and they will obviously depend on many variables, such as: scale, resources, finances, contractor, design features, site access, and more. These are intended as primary guidelines, but you can read more advice on each section, below, with advice on how to manage each stage.

1. Landlord’s Permission: 1-2 Weeks

2. Acquire A License To Alter: 1-3 Months

3. Finalise The Design: 1-3 Months

4. (Consult Your Employees At The Same Time as 2.)

5. Completion Of Refurbishment Works: from 1 Week to 3 Months

Total Time (approximate) – 10 months.

 

1. Landlord’s Permission; 1 – 2 weeks

Tip; Meeting face-to-face with your landlord at the outset will make the whole process quicker. Find out what is possible and what is a non-starter.

A lot of time can be saved by contacting the letting company or property owners in the first instance to see what kind of scope you have for refurbishments or redesigns. Set up a meeting at your premises and see what is allowed and what isn’t. This will make the next step a lot easier.

You should also have your agreement checked to see what alterations you are permitted to undertake and what would have to be put right should you vacate the premises in the future.

Manage the timings of this by holding meetings and making sure it is a priority. The meetings only need to be short but getting them in the diary will help ensure discussing viability  doesn’t roll on and delay your project overall.

2. Acquire A License To Alter And Finalising The Design; 1 – 3 months respectively

Tip; Involve the designers or architects and the landlord together as early as possible to speed this up.

Following your initial chat, you should progress your design and plans to the point where they can be formally signed off by the landlord company. Ensuring that a complete as possible design is achieved prior to requesting the license to alter will speed up the process compared to having to send variations for approval after the event.

This 1 – 3 months timeframe includes discussion with your architect or designers and taking their proposals to the landlord for sign off. A good avenue of dialogue between all three parties – with you as the go-between – will ensure that you get your desired changes and the landlord is full aware of what’s going on, so should be able to grant a license more freely.

You should also allow 1 – 3 months for the final, “construction issue” design to be finalised by your architect or design practice. Elm will provide you with CGI rendered images of the finished product so that you can have the best possible idea of what your refurbished office will look like and it should help make your landlord’s decision easier.

The time allowed for both elements here can be overlapped to speed the general process up.

3. Consult Your Employees At The Same Time; 1 Week

Tip; A week gives employees time to think of suitable ideas and input, but a tight enough deadline not to neglect the task.

Whilst you are finalising the design and liasing with the landlord to arrange the License To Alter, you should canvas the opinion and ideas of employees who are working in the office. Giving them five days to discuss, think about and feedback their ideas on what could be included in the refurbishment to improve their office environment is a great idea. It boosts morale, let’s them take ownership of their workspace and makes staff feel appreciated.

They can also come up with some innovative ideas and improve their productivity and wellbeing as a result.

Giving a week to complete this task will mean that there is enough time for staff to process their ideas and filter out any which aren’t viable or sensible, but it will ensure the process is actually completed as it won’t feel like a pressing issue to staff going about their daily tasks.

4. Completion Of Refurbishment Works; 1 week – 3 months

Tip;  There could be lead times on delivery of furniture and other materials, this should be factored into your time planning.

No two office refurbishments are ever the same. Variables between projects can include the size of the office, whether employess will still be working during the works, working hours for the trades completing the refurbishment and, of course, the extent of the refurbishment works.

Elm can help you plan a programme of works to most efficiently manage the timing of completing the refurbishment. As a general rule – the quicker you want the works completed, the more it will cost. That said, the longer the works take the longer they will disrupt your business; and this could of course cost more. A responsible company such as Elm will help you find the right balance and ensure maximum efficiency in terms of timing and cost.

 

Maximum Total Time From Conception-To-Completion; 10 months

From the moment you and your directors decide to go ahead with an office refurbishment or full redesign, the whole process shouldn’t take more than 10 months. Most projects are quicker than this, of course, but follow these tips and it should be completed as quickly as possible.

 

Use A Checklist To Get Started And Not Miss A Thing

Download our FREE ultimate office refurb checklist and you can make sure all angles are covered if you want to refurbish your company’s office.

It’s printable and allows you to assign tasks and monitor progress, ensuring that you fully manage your timings.