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OFFICE SPACE PLANNING FAQs

Answers to questions we hear the most. Still have questions? Awesome, just give us a call or send a message!

FAQs

Answers to questions we hear the most. Still have questions? Awesome, just give us a call or send a message!

BT360 Meteor by Via Seating

BT360 offers used and reconditioned furniture solutions. Often clients will mix new and used or reconditioned furniture to save on the overall budget of new design or new office upgrade. Used office furniture comes with reinstall issues, meaning you can’t necessarily rebuild furniture the way you like, as you have a specific and limited amount of parts and pieces used for the original installation.

When you partner with BT360 early in your project (generally about 6 months prior to a lease termination event), we will evaluate the furniture you currently own. You can then use that credit towards a new furniture design we provide or a consignment solution to reduce your cost to sell or remove the furniture. Keep in mind that furniture removal can cost as much as $125 per station and $250 per office, so getting a furniture company involved early can help significantly with getting out of your space on time and pursuant to the lease termination criterion to avoid rent penalties. 

We have been a long-time partner of GSG Capital, LLC who offers customized financing plans for new, established, expanding or relocating businesses.

BT360 provides furniture installation through our trusted partners to provide certified, full-time, vetted installers who are trained in every furniture line. Whether you order new or reconditioned furniture, we have you covered. 

BT360 has 3 manufacturers’ showrooms including our “Need it Now” inventory, Reconditioned selections and New options. We also offer a Test Drive which includes free delivery to ensure you love your selection before you purchase. Short on time or unable to visit in person? Ask for a live video tour.

BT360 provides design services, scope of work proposals and furniture solutions for businesses who may want to simply improve their current space. Our office designers create a plan to re-carpet, paint and provide new furniture, remove existing furniture and if needed coordinate the technology upgrades. We have been involved with many office spaces upgrades, (Veritiv, Air Gas, Mark Spain, The Fish Radio Station, Actemium, Light Networks and more) where businesses chose to extend their leases, yet wanted an updated look for employee retention, additional staff or avoiding significant moving costs.

Bt360 specializes in office move management. Our team members have 25 years of experience in the moving industry and property management industry orchestrating significant moves for clients like AT&T, Southwestern Bell, Northrop Grumman, Clark Oil. Save thousands of dollars by allowing a professional consultant to manage everything from space planning to furniture procurement to decommissioning your space in addition to getting your employees from point A to point B with minimal business downtime.

Measuring office space is critically important before a relocation or redesign. Most office spaces have updated CAD drawings. However, sometimes with renovations or older buildings, there may have been changes or improvements to the space, which can impact how the office furniture will fit relative to design. We assist with diligent and thorough field space measuring to ensure every post, window, nook, etc. is accounted for so when your furniture is designed, it assuredly will fit according to the most current drawings.

Believe it or not, the fees movers and installers charge to dismantle, move and rebuild office furniture can be as costly as looking at a reconditioned furniture solution or even a mid-line new furniture solution. Keep in mind, moving workstations (when factoring in the moving cost and technology installation) can cost as much as $700, which doesn’t include the time you have in managing such an event. Call or email us for an evaluation or comparison for the best solution for your project.

The support and client servicing you receive from the dealer is quintessential to your long-term furniture initiative and success. The selection of your dealer is as important as the furniture. Are they invested long term in their community? What type of warranties will they provide? Who will maintain and repair the furniture? What will become of your old furniture? Will your dealer be there through the lifecycle of the furniture? Does your dealer stay up on trends in design and in office environment management to help you recruit and retain the best employees, keeping your offices up to date, ergonomically efficient and comfortable for the employee teams?

We recommend allowing 4 to 6 months to ensure you have space plans and colors determined well in advance, or in concert, with a signed lease or renovation project.

Delivery costs are a combination of: the difficulty in accessing the building you are moving into; whether we can deliver during the day or after hours; if we can deliver after hours yet assemble the furniture during the day; and of course, the uniqueness of the furniture in terms of parts and pieces. We typically factor in 10-12% of the overall furniture cost for installation and delivery.

Color enriches our lives in both subtle and powerful ways. The office environment is no different. Smart employers understand that color schemes in the workplace can have a profound impact on the mood and productivity of their workers, as well as the comfort of clients. For example, if you Google the most productive color, you would find blue. If researching the happiest color, you will find yellow. We are happy to assist with color branding for furniture and interior walls.

After 30 years of experience, we highly recommend you consider a company that trains and certifies their movers and installers into every line of furniture they handle, move, install or dismantle. When contacting some movers or installers, ask if they use temporary help or day labor to ensure you are aware of who will be entering your space and if they are even qualified to work on your furniture. This is also a chance to make sure everyone is vetted, legal and an employee of the contracted company in your space.

Obviously, it varies contingent upon the design of the space, who the executives are in the space, and the type of work being accomplished. The industry standard is about 150 to 175 square feet. Considering that most offices use a 6’ by 6’ footprint, this average is inclusive of open space, café seating, lounge areas, etc.

While some businesses will spend as much as $5,000 to $10,000 per employee for an office arrangement, during the last few years, we are seeing that number decrease. In the case of our furniture solutions, we average approximately $1550 to $2550 for finished offices and open offices which include workstation panels, benching or desking systems.

BT360 has identified more than 267 tasks associated with a business transition and furniture project, which means you, as a manager could add 300 to 400 man hours to your job. If your schedule allows or you were hired specifically to manage as such, then you are aware of what’s involved. If the project was delegated, this will become a full-time job for the coming 6 to 9 months. Our clients have realized the benefit of including a fee for move management in their project to alleviate the strain on their employees.

BT360 Draper Seating
BT360 Boss Alexa

It varies considerably relative to manufacturer, dealer, quality, construction, laminate versus wood, new, used or reconditioned. A quality dealer can help tremendously with breaking down these issues and their relative meaning for your office environment. A few things to consider include-

-How important are ergonomics?

-Do you need new furniture throughout your entire office?

-Product quality

-Origin of manufacturer (local vs import)

-Warranty

-On average you can furnish a 20-employee office for about $1850 per seat (chair, desk, storage pedestal)

In short, the price of a product correlates with its quality, design and functionality. The good news is that we can hit just about any budget for new office furniture. One of the great advantages working with us is our ability to mix new and reconditioned furniture, which can save you as much as 40 to 50% on your office design plan.

Cubicles are panel-based workstations that provide the most privacy for the employee. Benching is typically a minimal panel design… more like a table with a screen divider, usually much more open in design to invite collaboration.

A typical conference room chair is 22” and as a rule you should leave 4” on either side of the chair. So, expect to allow 30” per chair. A general rule is: number of chairs = table size or circumference / (width of chairs plus 8"). Typically, a 6’ table holds 6 chairs and an 8’ table comfortably fits 8 chairs, and so on.

We offer industry leading chairs for ergonomic support from manufacturers like Sit on It, All Seating, Via and Compel. Ergonomic chairs provide support by offering multiple adjustability options to best suit your needs. Ergonomic is difficult to define but basically means getting as much adjustability as possible to maximize productivity by reducing operator or employee fatigue or discomfort. Seat height, arm height, lumbar support, tension control and knee-tilt adjustment in chairs aid in ergonomics support.

Consider at 40 hours per week, an employee can rack up 1900 hours a year sitting in a chair. Multiply that by the number of years a person works, and you would be somewhere in the range of 14 years of sitting. Yikes! Right?  There are hundreds of opinions and papers written on ergonomics, which clearly shows that a supportive chair increases productivity and maximizes efficiency for the person sitting in it. Often people worry more about the look of the chair than being concerned about the health influences of the chair. Look for Lumbar Support, Adjustability, Wheelbase, Swivel Base, and Fabric. For example, the best chairs have 5 adjustments, and some have as many as 14, believe it or not. As for the wheelbase, if the floor is carpeted, you may want to ensure the wheels move easily to avoid unnecessary strain when moving within an office space. Email us at Ti*@BT************.com for the rest of the intelligence on chair selection. 

 This is a very important question with both safety and discrimination implications. If everyone was the same shape and size, it would be easy, right? The mistake some buyers make is buying a chair rated for up to 250 pounds for everyone in the office, yet you hire someone that exceeds that weight. Make sure you consider having a couple of chairs that are rated for a heavier or larger person, and equally important, make sure you buy the right chair for the right area. For example, a conference room chair might be built for 2 or 3 hours of sitting, versus an ergonomic task chair which is rated for an 8 to 10 sitting day.

Sound masking is the introduction of an unobtrusive background sound (White Noise), like airflow that reduces distractions by making human speak unintelligible. A typical solution includes small speakers in the ceiling and a small box in the area you need the masking. Check out our resource library for more on sound masking.

While many clients are provided a 3 to 4 week estimate for furniture delivery, we strongly recommend allowing 8 to 10 weeks total from the day you sign-off on your order, space plans and place a deposit on the furniture to allow for any logistical nuances you may encounter. The physical space build out, development of your move management plan and final broom sweep of your previous space will add to the overall timeline, so remember to factor in some additional time.

Working with an Open Line Furniture Dealer, like BT360, provides a great advantage for a buyer as they can offer any line of furniture you seek. In the case of BT360, we also offer Closed Lines like Steelcase, Knoll, Haworth, Herman Miller and others in a reconditioned solution - which is often 50-60% less expensive than purchasing new.

Alternative vendors like AIS may not share the name recognition of the larger brands, they still offer high quality solutions. AIS manufactures top-tier office furniture systems, benching, desking and seating with a focus on their award-winning lean manufacturing and creative ingenuity. AIS gives its customers the option to place custom orders that are manufactured on demand, often in 10 working days. Their product lines include interchangeable parts and components that can be mixed and matched to create an upscale modern look comparable to Steelcase, Knoll, Herman Miller or even Teknion. These solutions can be installed quickly at lower cost and reduces overall business downtime.

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