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4 Top Office Design Trends for 2022

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Office Design Trends|4 Top Office Design Trends for 2022Since the pandemic outbreak in 2022, office trends have shifted significantly as efficiency, comfort, and functionality have become a focal point of office designs. At the same time, many people continue to work from home, although a recent study suggests that 90% of Americans are willing to return to the office. From design aesthetics to focus on safety and an interactive working environment, here are four top office design trends you should consider for 2022.

Merge home comfort to the office

With many people growing accustomed to working from home, you should consider comfort as a top priority in the office.

There are several ways you can make your office more comfortable, including ergonomic seating, warm lighting, outdoor seating, and so on. You may also want to consider your habits, especially after working from home. Did you move from one room to another or stay behind your desk all day? Although installing mattresses in your workspace is not recommended, a remote working study suggests that most people worked from the couch while others did so from their beds. This means adding a plush couch to your office space can benefit your team when they need a break from the traditional desk.

Prioritize sustainability

Living or green walls are now a common feature in today’s modern office. Real gardens and plant displays are mounted in many modern office structures as businesses incorporate green options in the workspaces. Since some rooms lack adequate lighting or windows, introducing some green life into your workspaces can offer a touch of nature and bring some outside into your office. Additionally, you can use the greenery to compliment your natural designing such as LVT and engineered hardwood flooring. Having plants and green life in your workplace can make your space feel more relaxing and homey while offering several health benefits.

Flexible, pod-style designs

Many businesses in recent times have embraced open office concepts. This has made pod-style or flexible office layouts more crucial than ever. It is normal to see employees seeking enclosed areas or private spots. Therefore, it is vital for open office plans to make room for features such as private areas and an office phone booth with enough space and seating for employees to make calls, research, and video conferencing with minimal interruption. These spaces can also be ideal for workers spending only a few days in the office as they work from home.

Safe and protected workspaces

In addition to CDC and OSHA guidelines on workplace safety, businesses and organizations are reconsidering interior and office designs that provide safe and protected spaces. Many are choosing hard surfaces and design components that are easy to clean, disinfect and maintain. The office space also features signs for social distancing, hand sanitizing stations, the number of people allowed to occupy a room at a time. These efforts are directed towards making your working teams feel safer.

If you are preparing to return to the office, you may want to consider redesigning your office space to inspire and promote collaboration and productivity. These four office design trends can help create a unique office space to get the most from your working teams.

5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

If you work from home or if run your own business, a garage conversion could be a great way to add a home office to your property, saving yourself the added expenses of rent or overhead.

Garages are enclosed spaces where cars or other items are stored, so they can be ideally repurposed for other uses. And because you are not actually building from scratch, you may not need to apply for planning permission, but you should confirm with your local council to be safe.

Below are some important tips to keep in mind when creating a home office out of your garage.

1. Clear the space

To create your dream office, clean and remove everything you currently have in the garage.

Find new storage options for bicycles, garden tools, car accessories, and Christmas decorations, or store them carefully in boxes that you can discreetly store elsewhere.

You should also thoroughly clean the garage before you do anything else. Make sure that there are no cobwebs or car lubricants left when setting up your new office space.

Part of clearing the space may include clearing land. You may be surprised at how much room you have in your backyard when you use a Forestry Mulching service. You may even find that you have the space to install an outbuilding for your office space. 

2. Be creative with lighting

When you change your garage space into a home office, you should be as creative as possible. Consider your garage a blank canvas to repurpose it as best as possible.

Garages are typically have the worst lighting, so make sure that your new home office is well lit.

I strongly recommend buying inexpensive lighting fixtures if your garage is not exposed to direct sunlight during business hours.

A creative way to add light into your office is to paint it with bright colours and/or use creative bright patterns. This alone gives the office a colourful and uplifting mood.

3. Make it comfortable and secure

As you are repurposing your garage into a home office, remember to make it as comfortable and as secure as possible. This means making it less susceptible to outside weather conditions. For example, you may want to replace the existing garage door with a modern insulated garage door, so that your office remains warm and cosy during cold months.

As an added advantage, a modern insulated garage door will provide extra security for your tools and equipment when you are not at the office. On the plus side, this type of door will be a strong deterrent to thieves.

Finally, you should also invest in a good heater and fan to be comfortable during all seasons.

4. Design your new space

Even though one of the reasons for repurposing a garage into a home office is to reduce the cost of overhead and rent, you still want your new office to be a great space to work in, and to reflect your personal taste.

Of course, you can simply invest in an ergonomic chair and desk, but why not take the opportunity to design a really nice home office?

Personalise your new workspace with a workstation, relaxation sofa, and an entertainment system. You can also add some practical details such as rugs, framed pictures, and throw pillows.

5. Setup and work

Make sure you have reliable and effective technologies that will make it easy to do your work.

Many households now have wireless networks, but often the wireless signal is weak or absent. To solve this problem, buy additional routers or wireless signal amplifiers to boost the network environment in your new home office.

If necessary, invest in higher-quality data storage, processing and printing technologies.

Furthermore, wire everything to keep cables clean and to have minimal interference.

Finally, converting your garage into a home office is both doable and easy. Try the tips in the article and see if you can put your garage to good use.

Ready To Work In Your Own Office?

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting Your Own Business|Ready To Work In Your Own Office?If you feel you’re ready for an office of your own, to take your home business or new business idea into, put a brake on the process for a moment. You need to stop and think a little more about what you’re getting into, and whether or not it makes sense for you and your career goals at this point in time.

So, why not take the questions listed below and apply them to your situation? It’s much better to be cautious when spending capital like this, rather than accept the risk and let things fall through much faster than you ever thought possible.

How Long Have You Been in Business?

The amount of time you’ve been in business is key to knowing whether you’re ready for your own office or not. If you’ve got a business that’s at least a year old, and better yet, you’ve been operating for at least 5 years, you’ll have an advantage over someone just starting out and trying to build their brand. You’ll already have done all of the necessary foundation work, and now you’re simply expanding to something bigger and better.

How Many Offices Are Around You?

The amount of offices in the same area as you is a good indicator of the kind of competition you’ll come up against. It’s one of the main reasons why businesses fail in the first year; if you’ve got an overwhelming amount of competition to try and beat out of the water, you won’t have the time or resources to focus on your customers. You’ll be constantly trying to innovate, and do better than the company just down the road, and who knows if you’ll be able to pull that off?

At the same time, you need to be sure there’s enough office space for you to move into as well. You need to look into private office rentals in your area, if you don’t have the capital to outright buy an office of your own (as many small businesses don’t).

Why Would You Need an Office?

And of course, ask yourself why you’d be in need of an office for the future. How many bullet points can you jot down on paper to answer this question? You’ll need at least 3 to ensure you’ve got a viable strategy to work off of in order to pay for your expansion; you may need an office to house more employees, which means you have more customers to service, which means you’re making more profit overall.

And do these kind of profits outweigh the costs of moving into a commercial space? If not, your expansion plans may need a bit of refining before you go any further.

Your own office is something you often dream of, of course. But you need to be sure you’re ready to take it on; you need to ensure that you’ve got the funds and the need behind you for such a space. Don’t rush your expansion process.

How To Run A Business From Home

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | How To Run A Business From Home | Home Business | Home OfficeRunning a business from home can be incredibly beneficial for those that want to set up a business alongside other priorities such as children and family, or if they would like to start up a business with limited funding. To find out whether your home is appropriate to run your business from, this article will guide you as to what you need to do to make your home suitable for a business.

Create a Better Business Space

The first thing that you need to do to run a business from home is to turn your home into a better space for business. Although homes make better places for working than offices due to the limitation of distractions and noise levels, you should ensure that your home is suitable to run a business from. For instance, you need to create an office or workshop space in your home that is separate from the main body of your house to limit the disruption to both you and your family and give you space to work and store equipment. You should also ensure that there is sufficient space for a home office; a loft conversion could be a good idea. If this sounds like something you might consider, be sure to check out conversions with Visionary Lofts for the best ideas.

One of the ways that you can do this is to renovate an existing room, build an extension to your house, or look around for a bigger house that can match your needs. In order to make this financially viable, The Money Hub can help you to get the bad credit mortgage that you need through loans, whether you need to extend your mortgage for expansion or get a mortgage for a bigger house.

You should also make sure that your office is a welcoming and relaxing space. When renovating your home office, you should try to access as much natural light as possible to boost your mood, personalize the décor as much as possible to help you to stay engaged with your work and remain inspired, have enough storage to ensure that your workspace is not cluttered. You also need to make sure that you have an office chair and layout that can limit back pain and eye strain and allow you to keep working for longer periods without discomfort, Office Reality has a wide range you can choose from.

Invest in the Right Equipment

You also need to make sure that you equip your office with all the items that you need to succeed, such as the latest gadgets like laptops and printers that can help you to perform your work to the best of your ability. You should also invest in the software that you need. For instance, it is also important that you are able to establish reliable communication channels to allow your clients and any employees to contact you at all times. If you fail to get a secure WiFi connection or mobile signal, this can lead to your business losing trust with its customers. One of the best communication methods for small businesses at home includes Skype, which can allow you to video chat with contacts for business conferences and networking purposes, needing only an email address to do so.

Create a Timetable or Work Plan

It is difficult when running a business from home not to let your family and other commitments impact on your workload. Therefore, you should make sure that you are able to create a plan to help you to schedule your workday. Then you can prioritize your most important work and ensure that you are able to stay on track amid the chaos of a family home. There are many paper organizers, and even online software applications that you can download to keep you on track too.

4 Tips for Running a Home-Based Business from a Rented Apartment

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Home-Based Business|4 Tips for Running a Home-Based Business from a Rented ApartmentYou hear of home-based businesses all the time and, of course, you usually don’t think of them being run from a rented apartment. If you are honest, you think of a home that has a spare room in which to set up shop and perhaps even a nice area where you can meet and greet customers or clients if the need should arise.

Actually, a huge number of home-based businesses are run from rented apartments, but there are a few challenges that are a bit different than what you’d experience when running a business from a home you own. If you are considering going into business for yourself from home in an apartment, here are some tips you might otherwise overlook.

1. Check Zoning Codes in Your Area

Zoning codes are of vital importance if you are going to operate a business. To do it right, you’ll want to register it as a business, but some areas of the country are zoned for residential only. You’ll want to check this out before you take another step.

2. Talk to Your Landlord

If you can’t see anything in your lease that would prohibit you from running a home-based business, then it’s probably safe to assume that it should not be a problem. This just may be the case but if you are going to be seeing a lot of foot traffic, so it’s a good idea to get the property manager’s approval before advertising you are “Open for Business.”

3. Licenses and Insurance

This is something else many apartment dwellers don’t think of when running a business from home. You will want to get the appropriate business licenses and occupational permits if required in your city/county. Also, you should get the best renters insurance coverage you can find. When seeking a renters insurance quote, ask about the various kinds of coverage. For example, you’ll probably need liability if anyone is going to come to your ‘place of business’ and you’ll want contents insurance because of theft and loss due to natural disasters or fire. Obviously the amount of coverage you purchase will have an impact on renters insurance cost, but by comparing renters insurance online you will be able to find the most inclusive policy for the lowest amount of money.

4. Keep Work and Play Separate

Finally, even though you might be limited on space, always keep work areas and living areas separate if at all possible. Some people move their television and games systems to their bedroom and use the front room as their office space – or vice versa. It really isn’t quite that important how you do it, as long as you set aside an area to work so that when you are working you are in the right frame of mind.

It really isn’t that much different than setting up a home-based business in a family home, but the major differences will be that you have a landlord involved when you are renting. If you get permission to work from your apartment, it can be a stepping stone to bigger and better things.