Outline Brief – How to Set Off in the Right Direction with Workplace Optimisation?

Billions of pounds are wasted every year due to the rampant phenomenon called poor-office-space-design; the precise reason why workplace optimisation has become more important than ever. Are you aware of the array of benefits it offers and massive cost savings it brings along?

Workplace optimisation is extremely rewarding in terms of boosted business performance, staff retention and outclassing competition. This unique process is marked by meticulous planning and results in unanticipated savings on property costs.

So why sit on your hands when you can boost your productivity and profitability with the compelling benefits of workplace optimisation? Let’s discuss how to embark on this journey to sure-shot success.

Preparing an outline brief – The First Step

A successful work environment is a result of careful and intelligent planning. An outline brief is exactly that and hence underpins achieving the same.

• An outline brief first captures your business goals and projections. It ensures that the understanding of an office design expert runs in parallel with the client’s. Also, it creates a strong foundation for creating an optimised workplace.
• This important process is executed by interviewing key organisational personnel who influence the decision making process.
• Next, existing work practices and office environment are observed. Then, the positives and negatives of the interaction between the workforce and the surrounding environment are identified.
• A report reflecting the current status of the business and its future projected position is prepared. This report serves as a springboard for right space planning and aims at ensuring harmony between each company requirement.

The Framework of an Outline Brief  

An outline brief covers the following business aspects in detail:

1. People

This report lists the people who will be involved in the workplace optimisation project, and their clear roles and responsibilities.

2. Objectives

General objectives of the project will be summarised. Also, required outcomes of the project are listed in the order of their significance for the company.

3. Timescales

The programme parameters must be listed along with key dates that need to be met unfailingly, and other dates that must be met for forward project movement; for instance, lease expiries, important meetings or year-end dates.

4. Budget

This significant aspect should be planned and communicated at the outset to provide a necessary direction to project execution team.

5. Furniture

It must be identified whether the existing furniture can be used or opting for new furniture is more viable economically and ergonomically. An outline brief lists the relevant objectives.

6. Information Technology

Consider the benefits of strategic IT guidance, and avoid analysing the details of your existing IT systems yourself. The efficiency and accuracy of an IT planning expert will ensure flawlessly dealing with the complications of delivering these systems.

7. Occupancy Levels

Identify your current occupancy level clearly and plan for the future based on your business growth plans, if any. A workplace optimisation expert will help you on how far must you plan for future expansion.

Hence, an outline brief must encompass of every piece of vital information and must ensure including all aspects of your business objectives. It marks the right beginning of a stunning future for your organisation.

While office refurbishments have traditionally been seen as a sign of company growth, an increasing number of businesses are utilising them to make the most of a stifled office space. Cuts and dips in budgets mean that many companies can’t afford to upsize and, often, are actually being forced to downsize to save money wherever possible.

This doesn’t mean that your working environment should suffer though. While employees rely on their office to keep them motivated and pique productivity, visitors and clients also rely on it to give them an insight into the kind of business you are, the kind of work you can produce and how efficiently you operate. People won’t discriminate between large and small offices either – no matter how big it is they expect the same level of presentation, which is why making the most of smaller offices with a new design or refurbishment is crucial.

Here are five key ways you can open up your new or existing office space.

Image credit: Office Snapshots

1) De-clutter

You’d be surprised how much larger a tidy office will look, so before you do anything clear up your workspace by getting rid of clutter. Old and unnecessary documents should be thrown away or shredded, rubbish placed in a bin and anything you don’t need to hand right away stored safely and neatly away. You could even buy in things like tall bookshelves, recessed shelving and desks complete with drawers to make your storage solutions as unobtrusive as possible too.

Image credit: Design Studio 210

2) Maximise light

The shadows cast in dull and gloomy rooms are a surefire way to make them appear smaller than they are. If you have the budget, incorporate more or larger windows into your office refurbishment to maximise the amount of natural light brightening up your workspace. You could even  save money by increasing your number of artificial lights. Just remember to include more than one large light to avoid pooling a bright beam in just one area of your office.

Image credit: Where We Design

3) Choose a neutral colour palette

While bold colours might look great in the vast offices of Google and Skype, they can easily overwhelm smaller workspaces. One of the easiest ways to open up limited space is by incorporating neutral colours such as white, beige, cream, robin’s egg or greyish blue, light oyster grey and, if you do want to be a little more adventurous, lavender. Colours like these reflect light which then gets bounced around your workspace, making it appear brighter, airier and, indeed, bigger. Obviously your office colours do depend on your branding, so where richer shades must be implemented in a smaller space try doing it subtly through things like office furniture or accessories.

Image credit: Arch Daily

4) Make use of transparency

Transparent features like see-through storage solutions and glass desks, partitions and even boardroom walls and doors create the illusion of continuity and, therefore, more space. Allowing the eye to see more of the room around and beyond each object, transparency breaks the feeling of working in an office full of obstacles, clutter and blockades.

Image credit: IOR Group Flickr

5) Go symmetrical

Buying quirky, mismatched furniture might be a great way to make your office look more unique, but if the room it’s in is bordering on the small side it can have the adverse effect of shrinking the space and making it appear more like a junk shop. Instead, add some symmetry by buying matching desks, chairs and other office furniture to add continuity and, therefore the feel of a larger office. Your furniture doesn’t even have to be from the same collection or product line; as long as it’s of a similar style and matching colour you can afford to be more creative.

As you can see, opening up a space doesn’t have to be done by knocking through walls and spending money on a physically larger office. By simply creating the illusion of space in a more toned down office refurbishment you can have a really positive impact on the atmosphere in your workspace and, in turn, the people passing through it.

Do you have any of your own tips for making a small office appear larger? Leave a comment!

Victoria Crawcour graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a degree in Interior Design. She can be found putting her degree to good use at Desk Centre; designing office interiors for commercial and corporate fit out projects.

After several hard years, the UK gaming industry is experiencing a revival. A lot of startup companies and larger corporations are flooding to the UK to be a part of this new video game revival. In case, you are oblivious to how influential the UK has been in the gaming world, perhaps the names Lara Croft and Grand Theft Auto mean something to you. Both of these games were developed in the UK.

Corporations are being drawn to the UK, due to their corporate tax breaks and the immense amount of talented game developers that reside in the area. These companies are placing studios all around the UK, focused on being able to develop the next big game for the masses. However, the games are not going to be the traditional video games of the past. As consumers tastes tends to be shifting away from video games to personal computer and digital games, the market is also shifting its sights in that direction also.

The Microsoft Corporation opened up its studio in London, last November. The company is fixated on making online games for mobiles, PCs, and tablets. Lee Schuneman who heads the London office has proclaimed in countless interviews that setting up the office in the area was not to engage in experiments. They want to be able to make hits.

The revival that has taken place in the gaming industry of the United Kingdom, comes shortly after the UK experienced a massive drop in the amount of jobs being cut between 2008 and 2011. After these larger companies began to close down in the area, the country decided to respond to the changes, by offering digital companies the ability to take advantage of tax cuts.

Richard Wilson, the company head for the Independent Games Developer Association representing the gaming industry in the country, states that since 2011, there has been an explosion with various startup companies popping up all over the place in London.

In the United Kingdom, almost eighty percent of the gaming studios have focused their efforts on creating games for the digital sector. The rest of the companies in the area, are still focused on producing video games that can be sold in various retail outlets around the world. Microsoft does not predict that their digital-game production tasks are going to take precedence over the console gaming systems anytime soon. However, Mr. Schuneman did add that the digital gaming sector is quickly growing, and may eventually surpass the console sectors.

With the government’s incentive to lower the costs of corporate taxes and offer companies an immense amount of tax relief, the UK economy has seen a massive increase in the amount of businesses moving to the area. In an attempt to attract companies that are in the gaming industry, the UK government proposed a credit on taxes for the gaming industry. This credit will provide the industry with twenty five percent tax relief, on up to eighty percent of the production budgets required to create a game.

The United Kingdom could be seeing a surge in the amount of multinational companies moving to the area to do business. More than forty companies have been inquiring about relocating their company’s headquarters to the United Kingdom, in order to take advantage of the cuts on corporate taxes.

The United Kingdom chairman of the Ernst & Young Company, Steve Varley, has revealed that they know of a large amount of firms that are interested in relocating from various countries around the world, to the United Kingdom. The high numbers of companies interested in relocating will be the boost that George Osborne, the chancellor responsible for lower the corporate tax rates in the UK, was hoping for when he initiated his new government policy.

Companies that are interested in relocating to the UK, have the ability to bring an additional £1bn of annual tax revenues to the area. Aside from bringing more money to the area, more companies moving into the area also equate for at least 2000 additional high value management jobs being offered to the residents of the country.

Mr. Varley also states that the new figures that suggest that foreign businesses from North American and Asia believe that the push that the Prime Minister is giving to renegotiate the legal agreements in Britain with the European nation appears to be extremely attractive to businesses interested in relocating. The renegotiations that are planned, will have a small negative impact on the foreign domestic decisions that take place in the UK.

A survey was conducted that asked over three hundred investors who resided in different parts of the world, what they think about Britain moving towards a renegotiated and loser style of relationship with the RU. Investor attitudes around the world differed in their opinions. Thirty six percent of the investors that were interviewed agreed that renegotiating would make the UK appear more attractive as a location where foreign direct investments would be implored.

Asian and American investors showed a lot of positivity about the change. Seventy two percent of American investors, and sixty six percent of Asian investors believe that renegotiating the relationship with the EU will make Britain appear to be an attractive FDI location. Ms. Varleys comments regarding the renegotiation were brought to the attention of the Global Investment Conference.

A lot of the main financial advisors for Europe will be attending the conference. The Prime Minister and the energy secretaries are expected to play an influential role in promoting the United Kingdom as a great place for other businesses to come to do business in.

The goal is over the next coming years to attract hundreds of billions of pounds of investments in infrastructures in the United Kingdom. This will be accomplished by delivering major partnerships and projects with various companies and also various investors within the United Kingdom, and also influencing investors that reside overseas as well.

With more and more companies beginning to see the UK as a competitive economy, more than forty companies around the world are interested in leaving their present company headquarter sites to have their headquarters placed in the UK.