This week, Small Business editor Caitlin Sykes talks to business owners about work spaces.
Andrew Berry is the owner of recruitment firm Superior Personnel, which has six staff in its Auckland office and three in Hamilton. The firm moved into a refurbished Auckland office space last year.
What were your motivations for moving into a new office space?
My wife and I bought the business in 2013 and it was housed in an old office that was a converted factory space. It leaked and was generally a terrible place. We knew we would move, but it wasn't the first thing we wanted to do with the business, so we had about 10 months in the old space. We also wanted to take the opportunity of moving to replace everything - including the furniture and IT equipment.
What were your key considerations when you were planning the project?
Before buying the business I was in the Police for 14 years. That prepares you for many things, but refurbishing an office isn't necessarily one of them. So I asked around some friends who were in business if anyone knew someone who could help us. A friend recommended Spaceworks, and I got them on board to project manage it for me.
The first big decision was that the space would be open plan. In the old place everyone had their own big offices across a big space, and it meant you could go a whole day hardly talking to anyone unless you got up and moved around. We're a recruitment business specialising in industrial and commercial temporary recruitment, so urgency is important to our clients. But it's very hard to have those quick conversations when there are walls and corridors between people. On the other hand the staff had been used to having their own offices for a number of years, so there was a balance to be struck.
Andrew Berry, owner of Superior Personnel.
When we found the space we're in now one of the things we liked was it had good road frontage. It was also newish and freshly painted white, so it was totally blank. We'd recently rebranded the business so that provided a blank canvas to show off our new brand. Very early on we brought all the staff out to this space when it was empty, told them what we were thinking of doing, and got everyone's feedback on that.
What were some of the key decisions you made during the project?M
Because we were going to be upgrading all of our IT as part of the project, we met all our suppliers in the space and went through everything together. That way everyone knew who was doing what and when.
Because it was essentially a big white space, we wanted to introduce lots of colour to bring it to life, so we put in really colourful desk surrounds. We were also conscious that shifting to open plan meant there was going to be more noise than people were used to, so we did things like use soft materials on the desk surrounds, and used a lot of plants and put in a living wall. The greenery looks great, but also serves to help deaden some of the noise and purify the air.
We also have a long wall that runs right down the space, which we could have painted different colours, or hung some artwork on but we decided we were going to put a whole lot of quotes on it. We got input from staff on things that were important to us as a team, and then put them up on the wall. When we have people in here those quotes really engage them in the space.
What impact has the new workspace had on your wider business?
The biggest change has been in increased communication and cooperation. Now we can hear what other people are doing, so for example I might hear that someone is looking for a person with a particular skill set and I'll say 'I interviewed someone like that yesterday'. That's created a huge improvement in productivity. Since we bought the business we've been trying to further develop the sense that we're one team, and the move has really enabled that to happen because everyone now better understands what's going on across the business.
The other important impact is we're finally proud to bring clients here. In the 10 months we were at the old place I can't think of a time when we invited a client into the office, but now we're able to bring clients in here for meetings. We also had an opening for the space and clients are still talking to us about that a year later because it is a distinctive space. Everyone feels proud to be here.
