An office needs to play a lot of different roles. It’s a place for doing day-to-day tasks of running a business, but it’s also a place to show off to your clients and customers. Also, since the employees will be the ones who will spend the most time in it, it also needs to be a personal space for them, and a place to relax in. The equipment you choose for the office will play a big part in how the office is used and perceived. That’s something to have in mind when planning the initial investing. This isn’t a place to save on if you want to have a happy team on your side.
Office chairs
Office chairs don’t seem like the highest tech purchase a company could make, but they are essential and they should be purchased with the needs of your employees in mind. Ergonomic chairs will make your employees healthier, more productive, and more comfortable. It’s also important to take into account how fidgety the person using the chair is since there are chairs made and designed to accommodate that and make the work more comfortable even for those who really hate sitting in place.
A break room
A modern office needs to have a break room. It allows the employees to relax, charge up their batteries, and it creates a sense of camaraderie amongst the employees. It’s also useful for the employees to take part in designing this room since it’s somewhat of personal space. Have in mind that the equipment used for this room should be chosen with its unique goal in mind. For instance, if your employees like to relax playing computer games, you’ll need a gaming laptop, bought for that purpose, ordinary office computers can’t be used for that.
No office phones
There are still companies that offer a service of the office phone system, which is a series of connected landlines with which you can communicate within the office or outside of it. This system has its good features but it’s far too expensive and it can be accomplished with more modern technology. What you should do instead is pay your employees to use an office plan for their cell phone. It allows for the same thing, but there’s no initial cost of installing a system and it’s more convenient for everyone to just have their cell phone number.
Renting
If there’s some large and expensive piece of machinery that will be used by the whole office, but that’s not used day after day, you may want to consider renting instead of buying. This will end up costing you less up front and that’s the immediate concern for a small company. In these cases, you need to put extra emphasis on taking care of these items, since they are not yours, and repairing them might be your problem if something happens. Even though this seems like an obvious thing, you’ll need to take the time to instruct the employees to keep it in mind.
Employee input
In the end, this is an issue that’s of concern for all employees since they will be the ones using the equipment. It’s important to ask for their input. This should be done in an organized way so that everyone’s opinion gets heard. The employees should help with a rating and reviewing the existing equipment but also with suggesting what needs to be purchased in the future. At the same time, the employees should be able to complain or offer suggestions about how the equipment is used as well as what kind of additional training they need for it.
The equipment is a big part of your office investing and should be taken seriously. The employees should take part in making these decisions as well.
