Office space in 2021: here's what you need to know
The world as we know it has changed. The way you run your business...
How to get back to work in our new normal
It's a new week, and we hope you're all keeping well and healthy...
Is working from home affecting your home life?
A few days ago, I asked my 10 year old son whether, if he was working and the lockdown was lifted, he would choose to go back to the office and work, or rather carry on working from home like his parents have been. I was quite surprised by his answer: he would opt to go back to work. I imagined that the response from a young boy who now has his parents around all the time would be the total opposite, ie. "No! Stay at home mom! It's such a jol - there's freedom and we play monopoly!" But the reasons behind his choice were interesting. He told me that he finds it very confusing with us working from home. He feels like he doesn't know when we're working and when we're available to play with him, and he sees how distracting it is for me that I can't be left alone for long periods without being interrupted.
6 Ways to make an open plan office work
Ah, open plan offices. They come with that mystique of being cool and quirky, like the office you'd imagine for a tech startup, or a niche creative agency. But for the many advantages they do offer - improved team collaboration, being able to fit more people in a smaller space, and saving money walls and single desks - an open plan office space still brings with it its fair share of challenges. Here are six pitfalls of an open plan office - and how you can work around them.
4 Ways to get the most out of your landlord
Whether you're buying a shiny new Range Rover or a solid Toyota for the family, you'll get to test drive it before you drive off with it for the next 3 to 5 years. Even when you're buying a R300 bottle of wine at a restaurant, you're able to taste it first to see that it's not corked. Yet when it comes to investing in an office lease - which could mean hundreds of thousands or even millions of rands for your business - you can't "test drive" anything to do with your new office before you move in! With this in mind, we've got four pieces of solid advice on how to get the best out of your new office lease...
Are collaboration areas increasing the sale of headphones?
For about the last five years, we've seen and promoted the inclusion of collaborative areas within office spaces. We've seen a heavy a push towards vast open spaces, which we justified through the belief that they create better communication, transparency, knowledge share and inclusion of managers and supervisors with their teams. We've long held the belief that people need to communicate, collaborate and meet throughout their day at the office.
Does flexi-time mean all the time?
Over the last few months, we've been conducting quite a few interviews thanks to our growing design department. One of the topics that can came up regularly was the opportunity to have flexible working hours.
What we've learned about office interiors...
We are interior designers and space planning consultants and we got it wrong! It’s interesting to think that a professional in their field can make mistakes in their own industry. However, you only get an opportunity to constantly improve and better yourself or your environment, if you take chances and are willing to get things wrong. This is how we grow, improve and learn.