What does your office look like in 2022?

Introduction –

Our goal with every blog post or information we provide to clients, partners and prospective clients is to educate and prepare you for the hundreds of tasks and action items required to physically transition or relocate your offices. This can include an office move, newly furnishing your offices, resourcing reconditioned workstations, or adding wall graphics to your offices to bring colors and motivational slogans to improve the productivity and comfort of the space. 

You may need a template or strategy for a “back to work” strategy that requires a home office solution, or hybrid approach in your offices to limit the number of people in the offices at any certain time. These are uncertain times requiring a quality, consistent, plan for your office environment and most importantly for your employees, so they feel safe, relevant, involved, and comfortable when you decide to relocate or renovate your workspace. 

Being Prepared and Understanding Employee needs-

Some of the issues you will need to manage during your move management and office furniture project will include employee meetings about moving to a different office location, transportation to the new office, daycare for employee children, where to eat, what the new office design looks like, ergonomic seating and desking, and whether to brand your offices with your colors.  and on and on, as we have identified 360 or more tasks to complete a professional office furniture project.  As you may know during 2021 and 2022, it is tougher and tougher to hold on to great employees or for that matter find and retain them. This may help with some of the areas you might focus on, for keeping your office at capacity and high productivity.

Employee Turnover Statistics-

• 30% of job seekers have left a job within 90 days of starting. (Jobvite)
• 50% of employees voluntarily leave in the first two years of employment. (Manila Recruitment)
• 32% of employees plan to change jobs this year. (CareerBuilder)
• 82% of employees said they’d be more loyal and less likely to leave if they had more flexible jobs. (Flex Jobs)
• $11 Billion is lost annually due to employee turnover. (Bureau of National Affairs)
• Over 50% of global companies have difficulty addressing employee retention. (Manila Recruitment)
• 30% of American workers say their job is “just a job to get them by.” (Pew Research Center)
• Women (44%) are more likely than men (39%) to leave their current job for a new one with a flexible work environment. (Globe Newswire)
• 35% of employees leave when the distance or location of the office is too much to burden. or they use the business transition as an excuse to find a new gig. 
• More research and help at https://businesstransition360.com/move-management/ //SHRM.0rg, https://www.bomageorgia.org// BT360solutions.com

Helping you during that next office furniture project-

The goal of this post is to HELP YOU! Business Transition 360. like other professional furniture dealerships, are constantly researching and learning what designs are best for each client, while  offering creative ways to manage a business relocation or renovation event. We’ve personally achieved savings up to $250, 000 on furniture related projects which involved furniture decommission,  consignment sales, even mixing new and reconditioned furniture to control costs.  

Consignment or trading old workstations can also help control cost when considering a completely newly designed workplace. As an example, when you start talking with moving vendors, be aware that there are companies who can comprehensively manage the contents, furniture and technology move. The labor and logistics issue of today are affecting industries like moving, due to the lack of qualified labor, time to train and vet the labor, nor do moving companies understand furniture construction and disassembly of stations, desk units, or packing a high security document area as seen in hospitals, law firms, or accounting and defense contractors. During the pandemic and beyond, we see more and more moving companies struggling to stay open. You can have an experienced office furniture management company help you through these challenges and potential hiccups. 

Our experience with comprehensively managing a project, is that YOU essentially are contracting an expert to work alongside you for creating a winning business transition. You can avoid the disorganization, damage by too many teams involved, the impossible tasks of knowing these teams are vetted, have no criminal records, have been trained, and that you can communicate with them.  

 20 years in the relocation industry with United Van Lines and now 12 years managing a furniture dealership has taught us, that the lowest price is NOT the way to manage a business transition. the way to manage is to see who can provide the very best Return on investment. We, like others in our industry have seen the destruction an unskilled or untrained mover can do when trying to dismantle a workstation or organize a file system. You need to ask all the right questions should you choose a favorite mover you have worked with for smaller projects. We immediately trained our installers to move furniture then provided incentives for not only executing a move, but for understanding the entire scope and how they fit into the plan (furniture install and moving, moving technology and contents, reconfiguring office furniture or even reconditioning office workstations or benching. 

The project gives our teams more hours per project, while ensuring our client is dealing with only highly trained movers and installer we contract or are employees of our company. They are vetted, carry drivers’ licenses, have phones and are the kindest souls on the planet. We appreciate that there are movers that are professional and can deliver the solution you need. We can help you with the countless questions to vet contractors for your office relocation. (Learn more at www.bt360solutions.com).

What to do? What to Do?

When you are faced with this challenge and because it’s probably one of the more disruptive events in business, there are countless things you need to prepare 12 to 6 months prior to move or office furniture project: This list only represents 10 of some 360 tasks and sub tasks you need to define-

1. Announcing to Employees that you are moving-There are many creative ways to deliver this announcement so the employees feel involved and get excited about the move. 
2. Build a list of all details you need to work through-Email us for our Move Management Task list
3. After the announcement of the move-Get Employees involved immediately about the new workplace-This may help retain key people.
4. Leadership will need to define a budget (space build out, move, furniture, space planning, design, decommission current space, motivational wall art and graphics) to help ease the stress of what investment you need to make for the business transition. (www.bt360solutions.com)
5. Define the timeline for workflow, downtime, if employees need to work from home, how to stay operational
6. Start office furniture discussions at 12 months. Delays, transportation, deliveries and installation can be delayed during current supply chain issues. Think 12 to 14 weeks for a complete redesign and all new furniture. 
7. Talk to Communication and Data companies regarding how you will move your network or build a new one (www.djj-technologies.com)
8. Build a furniture and move team to get needed assistance to manage the 12 months of tasks, action items and details for the business transition event
9. Office furniture is a “made to order industry” so it’s critical to find a company that is responsive, understands all aspects of the project, offers substantial office furniture solutions. You will need to find a company that has 2- and 12- year warranties on their products and services, is a premier buyer with the manufacturer, and offers in house space planning and design.  
10. Depending on the size of the project, you will need an architect, designer, furniture expert and move management manager

This is a post for you and for your questions about what goes into a move management and office furniture project, to better prepare you for the next office renovation, relocation or office furniture need. Here are some of the inquiries and questions we hear and don’t hear (clients don’t know the right questions to ask) every day-

1. What should I do with my old office furniture?
2. When should I start planning for the move and having furniture delivered?
3. What types of office furniture do you sell?
4. Do you have design and space planning services?
5. Do you have new and used office furniture?
6. Can you help me with 3D images and Color Renderings for the new space?
7. What are the average lead times for domestic related office furniture deliveries?
8. Is it important to factor in seating and desking ergonomics when designing my offices?
9. We are on a limited budget; can you provide a solution with great value and price?
10. What’s Trending in Office Design?

BT360 has identified more than 360 tasks and action items in the checklist we provide for planning a comprehensive move and office furniture design project. Contact us at Ti*@bt************.com or Ca****@BT************.com for a free copy of the checklist.

2022 Office Design Trends