For any company renting an office space, the “stay or move'' quandary is one that’s sure to appear at some point.
Sometimes, it’s an easy decision. When driven by cost, the need for facilities that your current property can’t provide or the location of your staff or clients, the solution can be simple.
More often though, it’s nuanced, with lots of factors at play - growth, lease opportunities, cost consolidation, the need for new tech and/or other facilities.
And, when both options appeal to different people within the business for different reasons, it can be tricky to reach a consensus.
However, having reached this “stay or go” stage of the decision process, let’s assume that your current office design is not working for you - because that simplifies your options immediately.
What you need is an office that gives you and your team all you require to get your best work done, day after day.
So if you stay, you need to refurbish your space, working within its confines.
And if you go, you’ll need to deal with an office move and configure your new workplace to deliver your requirements.
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So do you stay, or do you go?
To help you decide, here are the three questions we’d ask to help determine the solution that works best for you.
1. What’s driving your Stay or Move debate?
In our experience, there are two primary drivers that cause a business to consider moving premises:
- Space and function
- Lease, location and facilities
Knowing which of these factors is the most important motivator for your potential move is a big help in reaching the conclusion that will best suit your needs, so take time to work out which that is.
That then leads onto the other two questions…
2.Could your current space work for you?
The terms of your lease might be great, your costs tight and your location perfect - but if the space itself will never give you what you need, then you have your answer already.
But imagining what your space might become is often difficult from an internal point of view, where you see the space as it is day in and day out.
And, even if you can picture what it could be, it’s not always easy to convey your vision to others within the organisation.
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What you need at this point is a fresh - and expert - pair of eyes (hello :)
With years of experience in breathing new life into office spaces, we can approach your workplace design from an unbiased, objective and realistic viewpoint.
If we see potential, it’s based on years of design and fit out projects, where we’ve invigorated workplaces to deliver what businesses need to succeed in the modern era.
If your space could work? The solution is a Refresh
As design and fit out specialists, we don’t just deal with radical redesigns, or clean slate offices.
Our Refresh service breathes new life into a space, with a cost-effective, impactful and inspiring refurbishment that can be turned around quickly, yet achieves a complete transformation in how it looks, feels and operates.
And if your Refresh needs to accommodate a move to more modern working practices?
Our expert team are exceptionally well versed in helping companies modernise how they function, with plenty of smart design ideas up our sleeves to facilitate better collaboration, efficiency and productivity.
Learn more about our Refresh Service
DesignTonic X Tenet - Office Refresh Goals
3. How competitive is your Office rental on cost and facilities?
Of course it may be that your issue is less about your space and more about the cost or terms of your lease, the facilities on offer in your building and/or the convenience of your location for staff and clients.
A poor location is a deal breaker - and would already have made your decision clear, so let’s look instead at your lease and facilities.
If you have a lease break or renegotiation coming up, the first thing to do is to check your key dates and responsibilities carefully.
The “Landlord and Tenant Act 1954” provides you with a security of tenure that gives commercial tenants the right to renew their lease on terms similar to or updated from their current lease.
As well as seeking legal advice on this, it’s very much worth engaging an agent to help you research the commercial lettings market, even if you’ve decided you’d rather stay where you are.
Aside from the fact that you might find the perfect alternative, you could find yourself able to leverage competitive offers elsewhere to your advantage - and an agent can help negotiate a better deal for you with either an existing or new landlord.
After all, the lure of a lease that offers better terms of both cost and facilities fronts is understandably hard to ignore - and so is the retention of a good tenant by a commercial landlord.
DesignTonic X The Alternative Board (TAB)
Facilities are also a key consideration.
If you need access to tech that your property currently doesn’t provide, now’s the time to discuss your requirements with your Landlords to understand their position and timelines, if appropriate.
If they will never provide those facilities and you did still wish to stay, the next stage would be to liaise with your IT specialists and your design team to see if it would be possible to bring the function you need in yourself, and how it could be incorporated usefully, unobtrusively and attractively so it enhances how your office works rather than detracts from its aesthetics.
If you do need to move office?
If we don’t see how your current office could deliver what you need to go forward, we can help you pin down what you need, identify a new home that can deliver what you’re hoping for and bring your vision to life.
Speak to our move management experts, who can not only help you plan the perfect smooth office move - they can also combine it with the creation of a stunning new workspace that you can settle into seamlessly.
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Further reading:
Here are two more blogs which you might find helpful:
