An office refurbishment can breathe new life into your workspace, improve productivity, and enhance employee satisfaction. However, the process can also pose challenges for maintaining business continuity, especially if you are refurbishing multiple areas of an office. From assuring employee safety and productivity to preparing temporary workstations, a well-planned approach is crucial to avoid disruptions and ensure your business operations aren’t interrupted.
Employee safety during an office refurbishment
Employee safety should be at the forefront of your refurbishment plans due to the presence of construction materials, equipment, and contractors in the office. Here are some key considerations to keep your staff safe:
- Limit access to active work areas: If certain areas of the office are under construction, you will need to ensure to have restricted access in place to prevent employees from accidentally entering hazardous zones. Investing in temporary things such as barriers, signage, and partitions to separate construction areas is a great way to ensure your staff know where and where not the enter.
- Coordinate with contractors: You will want to work closely with contractors to ensure they adhere to health and safety regulations, especially in the industrial sector. Your contractors will also conduct risk assessments and put specific safety measures in place to protect everyone on site.
- Maintain emergency exits: Make sure that emergency exits and fire escapes remain unobstructed at all times, including in the spaces that are getting refurbished. Your contractors will need to ensure they reroute or adjust exit paths if necessary, and inform employees of any changes.
- Minimise dust and noise: Dust and noise can impact both health and productivity. You will need to arrange for dust control measures, such as air purifiers or screens, and also consider noise levels during work hours. This could mean purchasing noise-cancelling partitions, building temporary offices or ensuring you schedule meetings and focus times at particular points of the day.
Maintaining workplace productivity
Due to the level of distractions, noise and movements, maintaining productivity in an office that is undergoing refurbishment can be difficult. In order to keep workplace momentum and keep your business running smoothly, you will need to ensure to plan ahead and implement strategies that help your employees focus.
- Consider remote working: If feasible, you may want to consider remote work for employees in roles that don’t require them to be onsite. This can help reduce the number of people in the office and allow your team to work in a quiet environment, away from construction noise. You will also need to ensure that you can provide them with the right equipment and systems.
- Temporary workspaces: If remote work isn’t possible for certain roles, temporary quiet zones or external buildings is one of the easiest ways to avoid distractions. You might repurpose meeting rooms or allocate alternative office spaces nearby.
- Communication: To ensure your staff are kept in the loop, you will want to share a refurbishment schedule with your team so they know what to expect and how this may impact their coming weeks or months. By providing updates on when specific areas will be affected, employees can plan their tasks around periods of high disruption and you can also ensure that certain rooms or equipment are available.
- Flexible working hours: If possible, allow employees to work flexible hours to avoid peak construction times. For instance, they may prefer to start earlier or finish later if it means avoiding the loudest or busiest parts of the day. You will also need to discuss this with your contractors so you are prepared for when and when not they might be working.
Preparing your workspace before refurbishment takes place
A smooth office refurbishment relies on careful preparation from the beginning. From clearing the space to creating a storage plan, taking the time to prepare your area before work begins can reduce delays and minimise disruption as well as keep employees organised during a time that can disrupt their work.
- Prior to any office refurbishment, your team and your staff will want to ensure that you have cleared and decluttered the affected area. This includes removing personal items and equipment.
- Invest in some office storage to ensure important items are kept safe and organised.
- Make sure that you back up all your digital assets and anything that has a slight risk of electrical errors. During an office refurbishment, there could be technical errors or mistakes made with wiring, meaning your files and documents need to be backed up properly.
- Protect any furniture or equipment with protective sheets that may be exposed to dust and toxins.
Office refurbishments by Advanced Commercial Interiors
Looking to create a new, modern workspace for your employees to thrive in and turn your old workplace into a place of opportunity?
ACI is based in Nottingham, covering the whole of the UK including Derby office fit-outs, Birmingham, Leicester office refurbishments and Manchester. We’ve created a wide range of office design solutions for our clients across many different industries. Our work is completely tailored to each client, so whether you know exactly what you have in mind or if you’d like our experts to point you in the right direction you’re in the right place.
Give us a call on 0115 939 7572 or drop us an email with your project enquiry and we’ll be in touch.