During an office redesign, your employees need to know what they’re doing. Will the office be closing whilst the refurbishment takes place? Will they have to work from home or will there be alternative workspace? There are many questions you need to answer so you’re employees know what they’re doing to avoid any confusion. Here are the questions you need to answer for your employees when redesigning your office.

Will the office be closed during the refurbishment?

Have you planned what will happen to your business during the office refurbishment? Are you staying open or closing?

You will need to manage potential disruptions if your business is to stay open during the renovation; noise, dust, traffic and storage of materials can impact your staff. Temporary power outages or contingencies for suspension of internet or phone connections will need to be planned too.

 

If the business is staying open, where will employees be working?

Will you be offering alternative workspace? Asking your staff to work from home or will they continue to work in the office whilst the refurbishment takes place?

Try to ensure staff have plenty of prior notice if they are even going to have to move desks for any length of time.

 

Do your employees have to do anything?

Just like when  moving to a new office,  it could be a good team-building or cost-saving exercise to have staff help with the refurbishment.

Downing tools to prepare the office for when the tradespeople arrive the next day, as a team, can boost camaraderie  and encourage staff to take ownership and pride in their newly renovated workplace.

This is also a good chance to canvas staff’s opinions on what to include or how things could be improved from their point of view. Again, increasing their emotional stake in the business and building loyalty.

Lastly, don’t forget, give notice of any tasks that staff will have to so that there are no surprises.

How long will  the refurbishment take?

This is basically a catch-all point; but don’t forget to tell staff the obvious things.

When you have been involved in planning your office refurbishment from the outset – getting quotes, working on the design, liaising with contractors, getting sign off from the MDs – it can be easy to just get started without passing on the obvious to staff.

How long will it take? How will it impact staff? Why are we having a refurb? Will anybody be moving desks? Is it just decoration or will there be new ICT equipment and so-on? Failing to inform your employees can cause morale to decline and some employees may even threaten to leave if their work life is drastically impacted.

 

Now you can prepare your office refurbishment in advance

You can prepare for your office redesign in advance to avoid any complications.

Download our FREE office refurbishment checklist so your office redesign goes smoothly.