Why your office environment is important
At the time of publication, many of us are self isolating and feeling the impacts of the global pandemic on our businesses and workload. Perhaps this is an opportunity to think about business planning - working ‘on’ the business rather than ‘in’ it? We hope this blog gives you a little inspiration!
When we talk about the ‘office’, we’re really referring to ALL of your work spaces – the immediate office space, communal dining or meeting zones, kitchen and bathroom facilities and even your entry foyer.
Whether or not your office is one where you regularly welcome the general public, you are likely to have employees, contractors, external third party consultants, or suppliers that might visit your business from time to time. (Yes, it’s important to consider other people, not just you as the boss!)
The visual aesthetics, layout and functionality or your work spaces all need to represent your brand. Why?
First impressions are everything!
You want to be taken seriously, and truly connect with your clients/customers/visitors. You want them to experience your brand subconsciously, and they simply can not un-see things (like the time I had a massage, and under the massage table was rubbish bin, so I was looking directly down through the hole in to that half filled waste basket…sure I could close my eyes, but I had already seen it. It totally ruined my massage experience. Where are your rubbish bins??)
Respect:
No matter how amazing you are at what you do, or how much business you generate, there is a need to respect yourself, your business, and anyone who visits or resides in your work digs. How you present yourself and your space is a direct reflection of this.
Health and well being:
There is an enormous mental health benefit for having an environment that is safe, clean, organised, purposeful, functional, practical, and a true representation of your brand.
Enjoyment and productivity:
Your employees should love coming to work each and every day, no matter what challenges are thrown at them. At the very least, they should love being in their office/work space.
Future proofing:
As your business grows and adapts to operational and process changes, or becomes flexible to accommodate staff needs, your space may need to evolve to suit. By having a space that represents your brand at its core, and is designed with flexibility in mind, decisions around growth and change will be much easier.
Concept to completion. A branding board is used before, during and long after the design work has been completed.
Branding boards
Designing a corporate environment, like any space, requires a holistic approach that considers a multitude of factors and people, and truly understands your brand at its core (and your brands’ vision for the future).
The journey on how every single person will interact with or use the space is key to getting the layout and functionality right first, then you can consider the colours, finishes, lighting and materials to create the mood and environment that your brand represents.
Have you had a ‘branding board’ created for graphic design purposes – for your logo, website, social media, marketing? It is essential to continue with this for your interior, because we are all about COHESION! People make decisions around what to buy/interact/engage with based on emotion, not always logic – and your work space is a key piece in creating this emotion!
It’s important to know and understand what your brand stands for and what it represents. This is a ‘workshopped’ process, that every single brand (aka business) needs to do. You might be surprised what you come up with! Trust us, once you see your brand as inspiration images and colours on a page, it’s a total lightbulb moment. Every single marketing strategy, or decision from here on in, will be SO much easier once you have this in place.
If you don’t yet have a branding board – we can create this for you as a starting point (we are after all, the masters in moodboards!). Then we will base the concept for your interior on this board. The bonus is – you then take this board and use it for all of your branding and marketing direction – win win.
The branding brand for Melanie Redman Design.