Fixtures & Fittings You Need for Your Business’ First Office

Congratulations, after starting up your business, getting clients on board and hiring some staff, it’s time to get your first office, after all you can’t really have clients come over for a meeting in your living room, now can you?

So, you’ve found the perfect office, it fits right in your budget and there’s plenty of room to grow a bit… BUT it’s bare and needs to be filled with essential fixtures and fittings to really make it an office, rather than just a big beige room. So today, we’ll be talking you through what you’ll need to deck out your office.

1. Desks & Chairs

You’ve got your office, but at the moment it’s just a big room. First things first you’ll need somewhere for everyone to sit and work. So, desks and chairs are in order!

You need to work out what sort of desks you’ll need; most offices will be fine with standard desks, but just make sure to buy a few more than you need, otherwise when you hire a new team member they’ll have to double up on desks or you’ll have to order a new desk every time you get a new employee.

Now chairs, so simple, yet so important. As you probably know comfy chairs = happy employees, so you won’t want to cheap out on your seating arrangements. Find some nice office chairs that fit in your budget and you’re ready to go (also leave an option for employees to get their own chairs if they really like, some people live and die by their office chairs) and like the desks, make sure you have a few spare for new hires down the line.

• Computers

When it comes to computers, things start to get a bit dicey, depending on what your company does you’ll have different computing needs that you’re likely familiar with already such as: Video editing or graphic design will require Macs, web developers would prefer a computer running Linux and general admin will work better on Windows.

Then after you’ve chosen the type of computers your company will need, it’s time to look at Desktop vs Laptops, it’s quite easy to work out what will be better for your company (or on an employee by employee basis), if people are going to be going to meetings, working from home or just moving about the office, a laptop works best for them. However, if your employees are going to be stationary or need a powerful machine, desktop will be better for them.

• Kitchen Utilities

If you have an office full of people, in a matter of time they’ll be hungry or thirsty, so you need facilities in place to make sure everyone is happy and filled up.

For keeping everyone from getting thirsty, you can easily find a decent coffee machine/kettle for your office and get all the other bits you’ll need (coffee, milk, sugar etc.) regularly delivered. For mugs you can splash out and get some company branded mugs, or ask employees to bring a mug from home, but make sure you have a few spare mugs for any visitors. Also access to drinking water is a must, but most offices will come fitted with a tap for water, if not you should look into getting a water cooler.

Now food, first things first, you’ll need a fridge, it doesn’t need to be big, just big enough for everyone to fit their lunches in. Further than that, having a microwave in the office will be great for employees, lots of people prefer a hot lunch to sandwiches/salads so something to warm up food is a must.

• General Fittings & Fixtures

Now this section will vary depending on what was in your office when you moved in, for example, window blinds, some office’s will come with some fitted, but some won’t so be ready to pay a visit to a company like DotcomBlinds to get those sorted.

Other things you’ll need are heaters & air con. Lots of offices will be pre fitted with these, but some won’t so you may have to account for the cost of buying space heaters for the winter and some desk fans for the summer if you don’t already have them.

Beyond that you’ll certainly need some filling cabinets to keep important documents locked up inside, luckily these are an item where there isn’t much variation in efficacy, really any filing cabinet will do whether it be from IKEA or Amazon, just try make sure it fits in with your office décor.

Finally, you can get some extra fittings per your liking, maybe you could put up some shelves around the office for storage or showing off some awards your business has won. Maybe a big whiteboard or TV mounted to a wall to display sales stats, etc., to keep up team morale, it’s all really up to taste what you add, but you can really go crazy with it.

from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/business/fixtures-fittings-you-need-for-your-business-first-office/