How to Create an Office Design Brief : Flexiform

Create an Office Design Brief with a Downloadable Staff Feedback Form & Checklist

To help your chosen office designer understand your needs and requirements, it’s important to assess your goals and aims to create a detailed design brief. We recommend input from all department heads and staff feedback to create a cohesive brief that works for all people. Rest assured, if you need help defining your brief, all office designers will help you flush out ideas and introduce you to potential solutions.

This guide includes:

Overall goals
Space, departments and staff numbers
Working styles
Current challenges and issues
Key Information
Timeframes
Growth & futureproofing
Budgets
Branding & preferences
Downloadable staff questionnaire
Downloadable checklist
Our available services

Office Design Goals- Increased Collaborative spaces.

Outlining Goals: What do you want to achieve?

Understanding your overall motivation and goals is important for any designer to understand. It helps prioritise spending and investments and ensure the end product works for you. Each goal is unique to the company’s aims and objectives. Here are some examples of goals ranging from cultural to practical needs:

To expand capacity and support growth.
To attract and retain talent or investment.
To support a switch to hybrid working and/or new workstyles.
To make the office more inclusive and accessible.
To give departments the facilities they require.
To utilise the office space to wave the brand flag.
To encourage staff back to the office.
To encourage collaboration and cross-departmental cohesion.
To boost staff health and wellbeing.

Most organisations will recognise some (if not all) of these objectives and the decision process may be around prioritisation.

Office Space Design - Interacting office departments and shared resources

Understanding Your Needs: Space, Departments and Staff Numbers

The fundamentals of office design are ensuring you have enough space for what you need now and in the near future. To kickstart the space plans, the designer will need to know:

The total amount of space per floor of the building (more on this later!).
The total amount of staff numbers.
The number of departments and the staff numbers within each department.
How each department interacts with others, does one department work closely with another and therefore need to be located near each other?
Planned working style, do all staff need to be accommodated simultaneously? Or are hot desking and hybrid working applicable? An occupation survey may assist in this decision process.

The next stage is more specific and can include questions such as:

What activities will take place in the office? Do you need to host events, showrooms or large team announcements?
Are there any specific spaces required? This can include managerial offices, HR offices, meeting rooms, office kitchens, prayer rooms, and outdoor spaces.
Who do you share your building with? Are there shared facilities?
What does each department need? For example, IT teams may need lockable charging equipment lockers, and double monitor stands, or a drawing department may need a plan chest. (See our services for Storage Analysis).

Working Styles: Defining how you’ll work

The way your company wants to work threads throughout each of these sections, and will have a huge impact on how your office space plan. Here is a quick round-up of the different types of working styles, you can mix and match styles to suit your needs:

Traditional: typically features rows of assigned desks with staff in the office daily.
Flexible Working: staff can choose their own hours, often staff can work from home.
Hybrid Working: where staff can work at home or in the office.
Agile Working: staff can move throughout the office to suit their schedule and working needs.
Smart Working: like agile working, however, workspaces are set up to support technology and communication.

Find out more on our working style blog here or download our smart working brochure.

Staff Distracted, unable to focus on work

Current Set-Up Issues: Troubleshooting.

Understanding your current set-up, what works and doesn’t is a great way to ensure they are addressed in the new office plan. This can include information such as:

Office acoustics affecting staff concentration and productivity.
Hot spots in the office such as crowded canteen, inconveniently located facilities or tight walkways.
Ill-supported technology such as laptops affecting staff comfort.
Lack of the right storage.
Lack of meeting/collaboration spaces available.
Lack of private spaces

Office Space Designer Requirements and Measurements

Key Information: What the designer will need

The office designer will require a CAD or Revit (BIM) plan of your office floors. Don’t worry if you don’t have this, most office designers (including Flexiform) offer a site survey service to measure and survey the building. Each plan would need to include details on:

Dimensions of all walls (Skirting to Skirting preferably).
Floor-to-ceiling height.
Locations of windows, doors and radiators with dimensions from the edge of the wall.
Dimensions of windows, doors and radiators.
Location of electrical points with a note of how many power and data sockets.
Dimensions of electrical socket location from edge of wall.
The location of columns and dimensions from both the vertical and horizontal walls are needed to get the correct placement.
Height of any bulkheads, ducting or hanging lights that may restrict furniture proposal.
Any comms units, light switches or wall-mounted equipment that will restrict planning.
Minimum walkway restrictions.
Fire exits and fire routes.
Location of service risers and access points
Location of fixed welfare facilities
Location of potential building works (new walls, door relocation).
Location of any fixed furniture, dimensions of product and distance from walls.
Dimensions of any loose furniture if it is to be retained.

Find out more about our site survey service.

Timeframes: Requirements and Restrictions

Communicating your time goals and restrictions can help ensure everyone is on the same page. This can be anything from ‘September – December is our busiest time of the year’, or ‘We have a big product launch in May and we’d love to host it in our new office’.

(Please note, that office furniture manufacturing and office planning can take time, so plan well in advance!)

Growth: Futureproofing your office

If you have plans for big growth, whether as a whole or as a department, it’s important to outline these plans to the office designer, so they can demonstrate how the capacity can grow over time.

Budgets: Office furniture for all budgets.

Outlining your budget early is a great way for designers to plan realistic and achievable office designs. Understanding your goals, requirements and current pain points all feed into assigning a budget to where is needed, whether that’s a wow-factor event space or investment in ergonomic office furniture. At Flexiform, we have a range of office furniture and finishes for all budgets, to scale in line with your budget and goals.

Branding: Your preferences

Integrating branding into your office interior design is important for installing a sense of company pride within your workforce. However, it could be designed to signify your commitments, ethos and values. Your commitment to sustainability may be communicated in your choice of furniture, finishes or integration plants… or your passion for inclusivity and wellbeing may be demonstrated through ergonomic furniture, prayer rooms, acoustics and choice of tactile fabrics.

Your office interior designer will also want to know your preferences in design from minimalism to biophilic design. Take a look at our case studies for inspiration.

Staff Questionnaire: Gaining Feedback

Staff input is a great way to shape your brief – of course, everyone will have a different opinion, but gaining a general view can help create an office that works the office works for them, and make them feel seen and heard.

Download our Office Environment Feedback Form here.

Help! Our services.

Gathering this information together may seem a bit daunting at first! But don’t worry, at Flexiform we offer a number of services to help you collate important information, this includes;

Storage Surveys: We can analyse your current storage facilities and talk to your departments to understand their needs and requirements. Find out more.
Site Surveys: We can create a site survey, measuring all key information required to draw up your building. Find out more.
Furniture Inventory: We offer furniture inventory and management surveys to collate your current furniture, condition. We can then work with you to refurbish, re-use, donate, recycle or store your existing assets. Find out more.

Our specialist teams are here to guide you through your office fit-out process from start to finish. Whether you need help defining your office goals, or you know exactly what you want, chat to our team of experts to chat through your project here.

How to Create an Office Design Brief