Office Renovation Checklist: 7 Tips for Successful Office Remodeling

Often, when the words office space renovation begin to creep into conversations they are met with wide eyes, horrified faces and feelings of trepidation. Historically, renovations get a bad rap due to slowing down productivity, leaving departments outside of facilities and IT to pick up the slack on top of having to do their jobs, and general transition chaos.

While office space renovations aren’t typically received well, it has been done before, organizations on a large, enterprise scale have successfully completed an office space transition or renovation, so it’s not impossible. We’ve outlined the top tips for a successful office space renovation, hoping to alleviate the dreaded burden that most companies envision when kicking off a big project like office space renovation.

1. Establish a goal and never let it out of your sight.

Most facilities professionals don’t get up on any given day and decide “Today is a day we renovate the office,” without reason. There’s usually a reason. If there isn’t a reason, that’s task number one, establishing a goal or reason for the big transition. Once you have that in mind, keep it in mind and don’t let it get sideways or skewed. Often, office moves or renovations can bring up other things not related to the goal you set out to accomplish in the first place. A goal establishes a traffic lane and it’s your job to stay in it, addressing the other things after the big goal has been met.

2. Take a look at your office real estate spend.

With the all-in cost of real estate on average costing over $200/sq ft, the cost is too high for companies to have blind spots on how space is being used. Many large organizations have tens to hundreds of millions of dollars invested in meeting room spaces around the globe. Do you need to spend that money on renovating if half of your workforce works remotely?

3. Use data to your advantage.

Piggybacking on the last tip, data is critical to make decisions that are informed. If you don’t have data on your space, how can you make a sound decision? You hear all the time “There’s no meeting rooms, we need more space…” If you have a look at the data on your space and how it’s being utilized, maybe you don’t need to do the office space renovation to begin with.

4. Smart office spaces are fun, but don’t lose sight of the job.

Organizations are renovating just to have a smart office space, which in theory is so fun. Imagine starting a meeting saying, “Hey Alexa, start my meeting.” Sounds fun, right? But, what you aren’t considering is the fact that you had to tell everyone in the room to be quiet, just so you could say talk to Alexa, costing you minutes of productivity.

5. Collaboration is key.

On average 11 million meetings take place each day. If your organization is thinking about renovating their space with no real goal in mind, let collaboration be a driving factor. Is the space set up to be most beneficial for optimal collaboration whether that means in person or with remote workers? Can people effectively communicate? These are the types of questions that must be factored into an office space renovation.

6. Success isn’t free.

Layout is very important, but investing in the right technology for an optimal office space is too. Don’t skimp out on obtaining quality collaboration and office technology so your office renovation is as successful as possible. If 92% of companies say they use video conferencing, perhaps your office renovation budget should include a technology upgrade if you don’t have already in place or it’s outdated.

7. Align your teams.

Majority of the time, office space renovations involve facilities management professionals. However, most companies don’t account the large role that the IT team plays in an office space reno. Aligning your teams and ensuring that they are both involved in optimizing office space can only be beneficial.

Renovations don’t have to come with the preceding reputation that they have. Companies will evolve and the workforce will only continue to become more global, so office spaces will shift, it’s a given. But, it’s up to companies to empower themselves on the data that surrounds their office space to ensure they are making informed decisions with the help of a solution like Vyopta.

Utilizing Vyopta’s Room Insights allows users to reduce real estate costs, improve room technology ROI and make data driven decisions.  While we can’t renovate your office space, we can give you the insight you need to ensure that an office space renovation is needed in the first place – which in turn helps set you up for a successful office space renovation to begin with.

Room usage data is a costly blind spot for enterprises – learn more about our surprise findings in our white paper.