For whatever reason, there’s often an obsession with having a huge office. Perhaps it’s an ego thing, but many entrepreneurs are eager to move into a huge office with loads of floor space. The thing is, you’re tricked into believing this is necessary. As the last twelve months have shown, few businesses actually need an office to operate at optimal functionality! Instead, a smaller office may be more beneficial as you save money on operating costs.
Why do people avoid smaller offices? It’s this idea that you need lots of space to be productive. Or, you worry that there won’t be enough room to breathe, making everyone feel cramped. Neither of these issues needs to become real if you learn how to make a small office work for you…
Keep it as minimal as possible
A reason many small offices seem unbearably cramped is that they’re full of lots of junk items. Look around your office and consider how many items you actually use every day. You should get rid of things that don’t get used, throwing them out or selling them online. I know what you’re thinking: what if I don’t use something that often, but still need it around? Well, you can see on sites like https://www.storefriendly.com.sg/, that self-storage facilities exist to help. You can store lots of your business equipment in a storage facility, taking it out when you need it. This is actually a genius thing to do with filing cabinets as it keeps all the information more secure. You can couple this with digitising your physical data, meaning you have access to copies on your computer.
Restrict employees access
As mentioned in the intro, the last year has shown that working from home, well, works! You can still be productive as hell without having everyone in the office. Therefore, you should restrict employee access to your office during working hours. This is a formal way of saying that only certain employees have to come in on specific days. Some can work-from-home for half the week, then they can swap with the ones that go to the office. This limits how many people are in the office at one time while ensuring everyone continues to work productively. Thus, your office never feels cramped or overcrowded!
Bring your own equipment to work
Many offices can feel super cramped because they’re full of desks and computers, with wires everywhere. A way around this is to ask employees to bring their equipment to work. Instead of massive computers with wiring everywhere, your staff bring in their laptops. It makes a huge difference in how spacious an office feels, while also letting you play around with desk layouts. Again, productivity isn’t negatively affected as they have all the tools they need on their laptops. If you have enough money, you could provide work laptops for everyone as a nice bonus perk.
The fact remains that small offices are nowhere near as troublesome as they might seem. You can get a lot done in a small space, so don’t assume that your business has to splash the cash on a massive office!
