Setting up new office - lessons learned

I would like to share my thoughts from the recent office move and what we've learnt from it. You will need 7 minutes to read through.

Last year, due to our growth in Poland we've been forced to move out from our old office (which we've outgrown) and find ourselves a new home. For most companies this process is pretty obvious. Mostly it's the HR or Facilities in collaboration with higher management that makes the decision about where to move and what kind of space to build.

When it comes to our Polish Office for NewVoiceMedia, we've decided to go with a completely different approach. We decided to choose and build this new space with the people, because it is for the people. Below are 4 most important things that we've learned!

// Location

We've been thinking a lot about where to put our new office. Of course there were many voices, and many people tried to push their own ideas. We did something that we thought would be most fair for everyone, and we made this in an open and transparent way. In one of our conferencing rooms, we've put a huge print out of a map of Wroc?aw, and asked people to tell Us where they exactly live now (or where they plan to move in the upcoming future). We connected all the dots, and it turn out that our old office was pretty much in the middle of the crossing from all these lines.

Looking into surrounding streets traffic, we've found our central place and agreed to look only within a given radius (2 km). This slowed Us down dramatically, as we had our expectations about the standard of the new building, and therefore we couldn't find anything for some time. It was worth waiting though, as we ended up selecting brand new office: RETRO Office House.

What surprised Us a lot once it was all done, was that this was a very important to people and that they did notice all the effort. We've had voices saying that it was the first time they witnessed a company acting like this, being so transparent and fair about the selection process. It was easier for the people to squeeze in the old office for a bit longer, as they knew what we were looking for. It was also very important for the people to see where their colleagues travel from into the office, and made them happier about the final location.

// Open Space

People hate open space. Period. There's been so many articles and research about this, that I don't even want to talk about it. Biggest disadvantage of an open space floor plan is noise. Both ways - if there's too much of it, it usually means that it's hard to focus. If there's no noise at all, it might suggest that the work environment is a bit toxic as people are not talking to each other. Either way is bad.

But what to do as an alternative? Space divided into so called "project rooms"? It definitely helps the team, and makes it more comfortable for them, but unfortunately in the same time it's "locking" each team. They become small silos. Working and talking just to each other, they drift away from each other.

So what did we do? Open Space looks great, and feels great, it's just not that super productive. We decided to go with the sound dividers between each team spaces.

They were pretty expensive, and the producer said that they act like a sound barriers. They don't stop the sound entirely, but they lower it significantly (against to what the producer said). You can still hear people talking on the other side, but you need to focus to understand it clearly. The sound of the conversation is now like a background ambient sound. It's not as disruptive not to focus on your work. These barriers also allowed each team to "design" their space at their will. It's their private area. Of course we still have some people that are not entirely happy, but we believe it's a great alternative to both Open Space floor plan, as well as small project rooms.

// Car park allocation

Third important aspect when moving into new office was making sure to distribute parking spaces as fairly as we could. For many companies, when allocating parking spaces they would use the seniority of the role or length of employment. For Us these were not the ratings that we wanted to use.

Once again, within an open and transparent process - we've asked people how far away from the office they life, how many days a week they plan to spend in the office and if there are any additional aspects we should take into consideration. With all that data collected we've distributed spaces among all the employees, stating that the place might not come granted, as if we hire someone new, that would need this space more - we might give it away.

From the 25 parking spaces that we have, only 2 have been given to managers (and there's a total of 5 managerial roles in Wroc?aw). The process might not be ideal, and someone might be left out, but it's open and transparent to everyone. Same rules apply to all of Us.

// Office is for the people

Last thing that we've learnt from the move, is that the space that we've chosen, designed and build is for the people. Therefore there's a list of rules that we kept when setting up the new office:

1. People's comfort is the number one priority within the space, so we all have big desks (optionally it could also be a standing desk), very comfy and expensive chairs (people spend most of the day sitting, they need to stay fresh and comfy - so it's more of an investment) and any additional resources at their will (seating balls, kneeling chairs, standing platforms). We treat everyone equal, no matter of role within the organisation - everyone gets the same set up with 2 big screens, latest laptops and whatever else might be needed to work.
2. Space is for the people, so teams come as the priority. If needed managers and HR move desks, making space for new teams. We try to consult as many decisions as we can with the people, and for example before putting in a Foosball table we've made sure that everyone was comfortable with it, and for people that would sit to close to that area - we offered relocation to a quieter area.
3. All rooms and functions that we've build within the office comes from the conversations with teams and people and from their needs. Therefore we've 4 small meeting rooms which are ideal for 1 on 1 meetings (we run a lot of those). We only have 2 bigger conferencing rooms (which could be combined to one, and gather entire office) and one informal meeting room with a swing and sofas. Kitchen area has also been designed to make it's usage comfortable and to encourage people to eat together.

Collecting all above we've end up with a great space that we all proudly call our new Working Home. It's a place where we feel comfortable and are happy to come in the morning. It's such a shame that lots of companies forget about their most important asset - their People!

And I know what most of you might say - that it's not possible for bigger companies, but you know what? Excuses. You can always talk and consult the people. If not all of them, then at least some of their representatives (and I'm not thinking about management here).

People always come first. Period.