How your office looks will reflect on the culture, productivity, satisfaction, and engagement among employees, and where your office is located might mean higher or lower sales, so finding the right office space for your business is among the crucial steps toward its growth. This applies to both new businesses and old ones moving to a new space.
The Benefits of Having a Healthy Workspace for Employees
Eighty-seven percent of employees wish to have a healthier office, such as fitness rooms, sit-stand, and ergonomic seating. While in the tech industry, ninety-three percent claim wanting to stay longer in companies that offer these benefits.
High productivity levels among employees result in a great boost for the business overall. These depend on the administrative effort of making the employees happy, engaged, healthy, and productive, all of which an office space can either make or break.
The Right Office Location Can Increase Sales
For small businesses that rely on foot traffic, choosing the right office or store can mean more or fewer sales. Customers or clients only buy your products or services when they see them.
Tips for Finding the Right Office Space
Employees’ productivity and getting more clients are just two important aspects when choosing an office location. There are yet so many factors to keep in mind when looking for a new place to establish the brick-and-mortar aspect of your business. Here are a few to consider:
Business types
All amenities will follow; the choice of location comes first, which will largely depend on the nature of your business. Every business will have differing needs. For example, if your business is home-based, you can add another space to your home or move to another.
Several e-commerce businesses are expanding by having a physical location, then becoming a wholesale or retail business with a brick and mortar store. Or you can also start fresh as a physical retail store. In this case, there are so many to choose from—free-standing buildings, airports’ retail spaces, kiosks for special events, strip malls, and the most common, downtown storefronts.
Manufacturing or distribution businesses don’t have that many options since it would depend on their special needs. If your business belongs to this type, you’ll need an industrial site to meet your requirements for warehousing space and many other special needs.
Accessibility
Accessibility is key. You’ll want both your employees and clients to easily access your office both by public or private transit. When your employees don’t find it a problem getting to and from their workspace, it can greatly improve their well-being and productivity.
Recent news shows some real reasons why employees arrive late at work—tardiness, being too tired, weather issues, procrastination, traffic, etc. are some reasons. The main culprit is traffic, a lack of parking spaces, and tardiness, all of which can decrease office productivity.
Aside from establishing your office in an accessible location, make sure the space you’re looking at provides enough parking spaces and options, especially if you meet with your customers or clients regularly. Adequate parking is sometimes the most important part of a business.
Demographics
When your business relies on foot traffic, observe a place first. The demographics matter most in this aspect wherein you put into the factor your target audience, so visit the area and take note of the flow of the crowd.
Note the average disposable income in that place and consider how in-demand your service or product will be. Choose the place where what you offer would be in high demand.
Even when there’s a high ebb and flow among the crowd, don’t go directly near to where your competitors are. It’s never good to be so close with a business rival, especially when your business relies heavily on foot traffic.
Proximity and price
While it’s not a wise move to establish your space close to your business rival, you can greatly benefit from being near to other businesses offering different products and services. This way, their customers become your customers too.
However, while you can benefit from choosing a location near restaurants where your clients can have lunch or other stores they can look into, the price might not always be good. Be sure to determine if the net income of your business can keep up with the costs in that area and figure out if there are hidden charges, such as parking, maintenance, or association fees.
Grow Your Business with the Right Location
Choosing the right location for your business is always crucial. Make sure to do your research in that area and see if it satisfies your requirements.
