An office is a place where we go to work. This means that its most prominent feature should be to provide the staff with maximum functionality.
The desks, furniture, office supplies, machines and equipment should be placed in their proper places. If these things are crammed within the office space, and people are not able to sit properly or retrieve essential papers on time, the functionality of the office will be impaired.
If you daily encounter things that need to be moved away to reach your desk, or there are a lot of papers on your desk that they seem to be spilling over, you surely have a problem with proper placement and fixture of your office furniture.
Your office may have the most attractive design, yet if the furniture is not fitted in a proper manner, it will never be able to accomplish maximum functionality.
In the article below, we will discuss a few tips for fitting the furniture in your office in the best possible manner.
Space and Layout
When you plan to fit your office with furniture, the very first thing that you should consider is the space available. The second thing is the layout. You need to account for the number of cubicles, the number of desks and chairs, and how you plan to place them.
You also need to consider the style that you want to accomplish. There will be a lot of your staff members sitting within these premises, and you need to consider their preferences as well so that fewer distractions and undesirable elements are hindering their performance.
Next, come your visitors and customers. You expect a lot of visits from outsider to your office who will not be working within these premises but will be coming here often. This requires a reception area where they could wait, and a meeting area if the staff needs to carry out a private conversation with one of them.
There is another aspect to take into account: you might be re-fitting the old furniture or discarding it entirely in order to get a new one.
Utilizing Maximum Space
The first and the most important tip for fitting furniture in the office is to measure the available space. You must know precisely how much room is available to you for carrying out the fitting procedure. You must also measure the furniture and fixture that you are planning to fit within those premises.
Then, comes the layout. It is much better to plan a layout on paper with the measurements that you have taken, rather than going for it headfirst. Once you have the layout clearly defined on paper, you will know precisely how your furnished office will look once you have placed all the furniture inside it.
If you need amendments, they can be done right there on the paper without having to move all those heavy things around.
The Desk
The desk is the most important piece of furniture in the office. So it would be best if you planned its positioning accordingly. There are a few factors that come into play when you are positioning the desk.
If you need to use a few electronic devices while you are working – printers, fax machine, scanners and other devices – your desk should be placed near wall sockets for easy access to electricity.
The next aspect is the availability of light. It is obvious that you will be sitting on the desk for the better part of the day so it should be near a window that provides ample natural light; however, it should not be too near the window because this will cause distractions while you are working.
The space should be quiet and peaceful in order for you to remain focused on the task at hand at any given time.
You must also make sure that you have easy access to and from the desk at all times without any physical hindrances.
The Equipment
While fitting furniture within your office, you also need to account for the office equipment and its proper placement within the premises.
Moreover, office furniture not only includes the desks, chairs and cubicles. It also includes the filing cabinets and fixtures for placing equipment.
The photocopier, fax machine, and paper shredder are all necessary items within an office, and you need to have proper places for them while carrying out furniture fitting.
Take, for example, the photocopier. Each one of your employees will need easy access to this machine throughout the day. So it is better to build a separate cubicle for this machine.
If you are going for cubicles, each one of them must be equipped with an electricity socket and a networking socket. The cubicles should be placed in such a manner that they provide a spacious corridor for accessing them.
The Filing Cabinets
Files and papers are an essential aspect of every office. Most of the time, these files are divided into two categories: the live ones, and the old ones.
The live ones are those file that is being worked upon. These are immediately required for work by the staff. The old ones are those that are not immediately required by anyone.
Most of the times, the old files are put into stores so they will not pose a problem when you fit your furniture. But, you need to make room for the live files. This is where the filing cabinets come in.
Filing cabinets should be fitted in a row in a separate part of the office where they are accessible by each staff members. The cabinets should be spacious enough to house a lot of files so that the staff does not need to go to the store each time they need files for reference.
Do you need cubicles in your office?
Cubicles take up a lot of space, but they are essential when it comes to providing your staff with private spaces for carrying out their work.
The best possible action is to make these cubicles only as big in size as necessary. This site can be determined by taking into account the size of the desk, the chairs, and the necessary equipment within each cubicle.
The Final Word
Fitting the office furniture requires proper planning and execution. The office should be spacious, attractive, and functional.
Since you know your office well enough, you can plan the fitting procedure by yourself. You can always seek help from your employees who are also a part of the office, and this can offer constructive advice.
However, if you are maintaining a rather big office, it is always advisable to seek help from a professional.