Looking to Downsize Your Work Space?
During tough economic times companies may have to make some tough decisions. For example, departments that, only month ago were flourishing, may now be dormant with people having to go. This has an obvious flow on effect in that you have an over-supply of real estate. What are your options? If you are in a situation where you are leasing 500sqm of space and are locked in for the next 3 years you could have a problem.
It is highly unlikely that the lessor will buy the work space back from you, however have you considered sub-leasing? If you can find someone who can work alongside your organisation you could divide your space – sharing areas such as boardrooms and communication rooms and even leave the furniture in place.
Essentially you become a serviced office for others, only giving up square meters that you can easily reclaim rather than lost valuable staff who can be hard to find later when times pick up. The real art is in designing the subleased area in such a way that it can be easily undone allowing your company to continue operating when times are back to normal. If at all possible try to avoid having to build actual partitions, in most cases they will require Council Approval (to go up and to come down) which adds to time and expense. Additional partitions will also add costs for Fire Services, Air Conditioning and in most cases lighting – to name a few.
You may have to consolidate your staff and this can generally be achieved by ‘re-directing’ phones and data cabling. When your new neighbour moves in there will be no need to redo any of the structured cabling. If you can come to an arrangement on the power bill it will be a very painless exercise. You can take it even further by sharing your present receptionist / reception simply by modifying the existing phone system or by bringing in a second phone line so your receptionist knows who to answer for and how to best redirect the call. If you think that any of these suggested ideas could assist your company, give us a call and we can have a closer look at it, at no cost to you.
