Office interior design matters for more than just aesthetic reasons. When done well, it’s a proven productivity booster, and it can have a profound impact on the health and well-being of employees. It can also enhance workflows and corporate culture. So clearly, choosing a commercial interior designer is a decision that should be taken seriously. And like other serious decisions, it is best made with meticulous research, and by being broken down into smaller chunks.
This article explores the questions you’ll need to answer in order to choose the best commercial interior designer in your area. Gather answers from each of the commercial interior design services you’re considering, and you’ll have an easy way to compare them and let the winner emerge.
Do you have experience with similar projects?
When hiring any kind of consultant or outsourcing operations for your business, the first thing you’d usually look for is experience in your industry. You shouldn’t treat a corporate interior designer as any different in this regard. You’ll want them to have experience with other businesses in your sector, and ideally with projects of a similar scope and with similar aims.
The reason this experience is valuable is that it means the commercial interior design firm is already familiar with the regulatory requirements and other challenges of workplaces in your industry. Ultimately, this means they’re less likely to make errors. They can also work faster because they’re not learning everything from scratch.
What is your process for understanding my business and brand?
Every good interior design consultant for offices knows that they can’t just transplant a successful design for one client into another’s office space. It’s important that commercial interiors reflect and reinforce brand identity. So, the best designers always begin by discovering as much as they can about their client’s brand and culture, along with their goals for the space.
Each office interior design consultant will have their own process for learning about this. They might conduct interviews with senior management or the staff who will use the space, or they might use questionnaires or map workers’ journeys. There’s no single best way, but mixed approaches tend to work better than questionnaires alone.
How will you measure the success of the project?
A good commercial interior design consultant understands that they are not an artist, but a business person. As such, they’ll be results-oriented and will decide if a project is successful based on measurable outcomes, not how subjectively beautiful or clever their design is.
Examples of the kind of metrics they’ll be interested in include space utilisation and operational efficiency. Customer dwell time is also an important indicator in the case of customer-facing businesses like shops and restaurants. Employee feedback often matters too, so don’t consider it a waste of time if a consultant says they like to follow up with a satisfaction questionnaire.
How do you address compliance and regulations?
When you’re hiring a commercial interior design consultant Singapore, Sydney, and other cities around the globe will all have their own unique requirements and regulations. If your finished workspace is found to have fallen afoul of these, your business may face fines or further disruptive work to bring it back into compliance. In the worst case, you may have to cease operating there.
You need to choose a consultant who can work within the parameters set forth by the authorities, not just one who knows how to choose custom furniture for commercial spaces. Local designers should already know the relevant codes and regulations well, but if you’re partnering with someone from out of town, you’ll want to hear that they’re working closely with local experts. They should also plan regular compliance reviews as the work progresses.
How do your designs contribute to sustainability and wellbeing?
Corporate social responsibility is a big concern for many modern businesses. So, it’s not unreasonable to expect your new workplace to contribute to any sustainability or wellbeing goals your company has. In terms of sustainability, you should discuss with your designer about making your workplace more energy efficient, and using more healthy, renewable materials in its construction.
Enhancing wellbeing means more than just meeting workplace health and safety legislation. It means things like decreasing workplace stress, improving air quality and creating a distraction-free work environment. These can directly impact employee satisfaction, health and productivity, so make sure you ask every potential corporate interior designer how they are factoring this into their plans.
How will you keep costs under control?
A commercial interior design firm doesn’t typically maintain an inventory of all the materials they’ll need. It’s impossible, as each project is different. Therefore, they have to order on an as-needed basis, which means prices can fluctuate, and they’ll only be able to supply you with an estimate to begin with. This isn’t usually a problem, as long as you can guarantee that prices will not drastically exceed this.
To help ensure that they won’t, find out how your designer manages their costs. Do they maintain close relationships with contractors and suppliers who give them reliably good prices? Do they plan costs early and prepare alternatives in case certain aspects of the design are too expensive? You should ask similar questions about their timekeeping, too.
Who will be my point of contact?
It’s not unusual for firms to bring out their most senior or best commercial interior designer to lead their pitch, but then to delegate the day-to-day management to junior staff once you’ve agreed to work with them. Some may even outsource the work entirely to consultants.
Neither necessarily means things will go wrong, but in case they do, you’ll want a point of contact who’s well-informed of the overall plan and the day-to-day work.
Conclusion
An effective office interior design consultant operates as a business and for businesses. They’re more concerned about using design as a tool to improve your operations than making a powerful visual impact, and they certainly won’t mind answering questions like the ones above for their clients. In fact, it will help you both to discover if your goals and values are aligned, and whether you’re both serious about the work.