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Deciding to change offices is a big deal – how do you know when it’s the right move for your team? Here are the signs.
Signs It is Time to Move Office
The office is where you spend a huge proportion of your life. Think about it: if you work eight hours a day, five days a week in the office that’s over 2,000 hours a year. Who wants to spend 2,000 hours a year in a place that doesn’t inspire or excite them?
Of course, moving office is no small decision. If you’ve got a team of people relying on you, deciding to relocate your company is not a choice that can be taken lightly. However, staying put in the wrong office is a waste of money that sometimes prevents businesses reaching their full potential. In fact, research has shown that the office environment and employees’ happiness can have a real impact on productivity.
So, how do you know when it’s time to start looking for a new office? Here are the signs that it’s time to move offices that you shouldn’t ignore.
The office feels crowded
Since you signed the lease a few years ago your company has grown even more than you could have hoped for. Now, there’s barely enough space to move around the office without crashing into somebody’s chair, accidentally elbowing a cup of tea off the desk, or tripping over a pile of paperwork. You’ve crammed in as many workspaces as is physically possible but that’s come at the cost of a relaxing and spacious work environment. Packed in like sardines, your employees are struggling to do their best work while having to listen to their coworkers talking loudly on the phone next to them because all the meeting rooms and phone booths are already booked out.
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s probably time to move to a new office. With more space to spread out, a bigger office can work wonders for your team’s productivity and focus at work. For example, you might put some sofas in the corner by the window for informal conversations and brainstorming sessions; individual phone booths for private calls, and meeting rooms for focused collaborative sessions. With more space and types of spaces, you can give employees the freedom in the ways and places that are best suited to their needs.
The office feels empty
On the flip side, maybe you implemented a hybrid working policy during the Covid-19 pandemic and have never looked back. Now, with each employee only coming to the office two or three days per week, you hardly remember what it was like to have a full house. With all the empty chairs and desks dotted around the office, the atmosphere might be verging on too quiet at best and ghost town at worst. Not to mention, you’ve suddenly found yourself paying expensive energy bills to heat a huge office where only a handful of employees are in every day. You’re basically throwing money away on rent and bills!
If your hybrid working team no longer needs a huge office space, there’s no point continuing to pay expensive rent and bills for a mostly empty space. Consider downsizing to a more suitable office where you can save money and enjoy a cosier space. You can always rent out a big meeting room in a coworking space for those occasional days when everyone needs to be in the office at the same time!
Your employees just don’t feel excited about going to work
It could just be the rainy winter days and the chilly, dark evenings, but if your team is struggling to feel enthusiasm about going into the office it might be time for a change of scenery. It’s human nature to get bored of places if we see them again and again and again. And, when we’re bored, we’re not our most creative or motivated selves. If you’re feeling bored of the office you can bet your employees are bored too, and it might actually be impacting their job performance!
If, to borrow a line from Marie Kondo, the office no longer ‘sparks joy’, it might be time to switch things up. Even just small changes like a new office with more windows and natural light or a coworking space with opportunities to network with more people can make a huge difference in how you and your employees feel about your work.
Your lease is expiring anyway
When you signed your office lease a few years ago you had no idea what the world of work would look like today. A mass transition to remote working during the Covid-19 lockdowns; the rise of hybrid working; a greater emphasis on the office as a place to collaborate and socialise instead of a place to work independently. The likelihood is that the office that seemed perfect before the pandemic and subsequent recession probably no longer serves your business’ needs.
With the lease expiring, it’s the perfect time to re-evaluate your office wants and needs. Would you be better off somewhere smaller? Bigger? More accessible by public transport? Better suited to team collaboration? With bills included?
You want to update your look
If you’ve changed your look or rebranded your business, you’ll want an office space to match. Customising a whole office space can be expensive, so a good option is to choose a managed office.
In these offices, you just need to tell the provider exactly how you want the offices to look and they’ll handle it all for you: equipment, layout, design, colours, and more. This is a great solution because then the cost of the bespoke fit-out is divided in the cost of rent across your entire tenancy, rather than you needing to pay for it all upfront.
You’re struggling to hire or retain employees
If you’re finding it hard to hold onto your talent or hire new employees, this might be another sign that it’s time to move offices. Of course, your office probably isn’t the only reason people aren’t sticking around but it can definitely be a contributing factor. With many businesses moving to sociable coworking spaces or sleek serviced offices that offer amazing perks and amenities, an old or boring office can be a real push factor.
Since the pandemic and the increase in remote working, many employees want the flexibility to work from home and are happy to switch jobs in order to secure this. To tempt them back to the office, you need an office that has all the perks they can’t enjoy at home: socials and networking events with the rest of the coworking space; on-site gym; a meditation and relaxation room; a good coffee machine. If your office doesn’t provide the perks that other companies are offering it’s going to be tricky to hire and retain employees in the future.
You clicked on this article
Let’s be honest – if you clicked on an article titled ‘Signs it’s Time to Move Office’, you’re probably already thinking about moving. Maybe you’re tired of all the hassle of a private office and want to move to a flexible managed office where a provider will handle all the maintenance and upkeep for you. Perhaps people in your network are singing the praises of their new coworking space and you’re thinking about giving coworking a try.
Maybe you’re worried about the rising costs of heating your big office when your employees work remotely most of the week. There’s a wide range of reasons that you might be considering switching to a new office – why not give it a try? The beauty of flexible workspaces is that they often allow short leases, making it easy to give a serviced office or coworking space a go for a few months while you figure out if it works for you.
Ready to find the perfect new office?
The world is changing rapidly and growing numbers of businesses are opting for flexible, exciting, and non-traditional workspaces over the old-fashioned office lease. In 2020, there were more than 19,000 coworking spaces in the world. By 2024, it’s predicted that there will be nearly 42,000.
If you’re considering moving to a new flexible office that will inject new life into your business, boost your employees’ satisfaction, and enhance company culture, Future Squared can help. Specialising in flexible workspaces such as serviced offices, managed offices, coworking spaces, and virtual offices, they pair businesses with their dream offices all over the UK and Ireland. Use the Future Squared office search tool to find your perfect office space today.