We all need our own voice in our workspace. Whether your workspace is used for remote work, in an office, of for a meeting place, you will need to plan your project for your voice, your best style. As furniture specialists, we plan use six steps to help us plan for your workspace design. Here are your top six steps from furniture specialists with over 20 years in the office and workspace design business.

 

Data Mine Your Space. You are the client.

No office space is the same. There is no one size fits all in the furniture world. We can of offer you the new styles, new trends and the latest and greatest, but there are still LOTS of questions that need to be answered. How smoothly a project goes, depends on if the correct questions are asked at the very initial stages of the project. There are many moving parts in a furniture project, and making sure you have the right team, asking the right questions, at the right time, is probably the most critical to getting the project moving in the right direction.

 

Space Planning

This is an essential service for your dealer to have access to. Guessing where to place your furniture could be a very costly game to play if guessed incorrectly. Having a dealer that has access to software that can plan where the furniture will sit in your environment is vital for a couple reasons. One, it takes the guessing out of the equation completely. Second, it makes the conversation between all parties involved in the project crystal clear, which means margin of error for mistakes is nearly diminished. Third, it makes getting a quote for installation very easy.

Design Services

When you’ve decided where all the furniture is going to live, next comes color selection. Nothing can deflate that unveiling of your new office furniture when you come to find out that whoever made the final decision on the color selection, selected stripes and plaids on your cubicle fabric. Ouch! That’s where design services come in at the dealer level. Having someone that can assist in making sure the workstation surfaces coordinate with the pedestal units, which coordinate with your seating fabric, which coordinates with your carpet, which coordinates with your wall color and so on and so forth.

 

Project Management Coordination

In very large projects, you may have several entities involved asking you to make decisions for your project. From architects to general contractors, internal facilities, furniture dealer, installers, finance companies, IT companies, VOIP suppliers, etc. It is essential to have a dealer that offers full project management coordination that can create a schedule to make sure all the pieces come together for a successful conclusion to your project.

 

Installation

Making sure that your furniture dealer can install internally, or has a great resource for subcontracting reliable national installers, who carry their own insurance is pivotal. Nearing the finish line and finding out the installation team isn’t quite up to par is devastating. There is nothing worse than having to let your dealer know the installers must come back because they didn’t install all your workstations in line, or at 90-degree angles, or the screws in the chairs aren’t tightened all the way, etc. Make sure you ask these questions while interviewing your dealers about the installation team they are going to select to finish your project. Once the installation team completes their work, all that your employees should need to do is unpack their boxes and get to work.

Final Walk Through

This might be the most personal and emotional portion of your project. Once everything is set, but before your employees are ready to get back to work, the final walk through occurs. It is the make it or break it moment. I can’t explain how cool of a felling it is to see the joy on someone’s face when they experience the final product of what you both worked so hard toward over the past months for the first time. It is the chance for us, as dealers, to really shine and to reap the benefits of hard work.