Designing a Space that Works for your Business

If you haven’t heard the exciting news, we’re moving!

Before making this leap, our team gathered to discuss the pros and cons of our current office. We talked about what worked, what didn’t work, and what could improve our work flow and productivity. The cons ended up outweighing the pros, hence the decision to move. The process of designing a new office entailed a lot of work and thought. However, we found the most important step was first talking with all team members and getting their input.

Each job has a different set of tasks associated with it. Some employees may have work that takes extreme concentration and close attention to detail. They need a quiet space, clear of frequent interruptions where they can fully concentrate. Others may need a space where they can brainstorm and generate ideas with others on their team; they need an area that enhances creativity and allows them to write on walls, lay out concepts, work collaboratively, etc. An employee in Human Relations may frequently have private conversations and access to confidential information. They would not work best in an open-office type of layout, but rather in an area that is clear of frequent foot-traffic. These are just a few examples of how the work area needs to be conducive to the type of work the employee is trying to accomplish.

Having a meeting to discuss the type of environment employees work best in was extremely beneficial; we believe it will ultimately aid in creating a more efficient and productive team. We know it can be difficult to accommodate all requests, however working together to develop solutions that are advantageous to all is ideal in creating a team that runs like a well-oiled machine. It’s proven that engaged employees are more efficient and their happiness levels at work are greatly increased when they feel their opinion is valued… win-win!

• Have you changed your office layout recently? What tips can you share with us?
• How do you make your office conducive to the type of work you do?

LM

Revamping Your Website

It was a tricky and timely process, but we finally got there… Our new website is finished! And we learned a lot along the way. Here are six tips to consider when revamping your company’s website.

1.      Create 3-5 “benefit statements”

Before you start diving into color schemes, background images, and all that fun stuff, create 3-5 “benefit statements.” These are things that you want people to “take away” after visiting your site. Your audience needs to understand what benefits you bring to the table and they need to gain an understanding of this within the first couple minutes of visiting your site. Questions to ponder when creating benefit statements:

o   What can we do that no other company can?

o   Why choose us over a competitor?

o   What misconceptions do people have about our company?

o   What has made our company thrive?

2.    Consider ALL of your audiences

As a market research company, we have many different audiences looking at our site. We have repeat clients, potential clients, current research participants, and others who are “information seekers.” You need to make sure your site caters to all audiences’ needs. Along with that, think about what your site is doing for each of your audiences, and make it easy for them to find what they need.

3.    Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water

Your old website was perfect at one point in time, so there are still some good pieces of it that can be worked into the new site. Much of our content was the same, so we used a lot of the old wordage and just updated it and organized it better.

4.    Incorporate social media

Having a social media presence on your website is crucial. Regardless of how many Likes or Followers you have, the social aspect on your website makes your company look modern and easily accessible. Add the social media icons on to your site or add a feed if you are frequently posting updates. To better promote your online brand, your social sites and your website should work seamlessly.

5.    Ask your colleagues for feedback!

You can get a totally different perspective if you look from the outside-in. After looking at your website over and over, you may be blind to some things that others see when they go on to your site. Asking colleagues for their input about your current site will help in the development of the new website, and will give you better insight into what your audience actually sees when they are on the site.

6.    Consider where your audience will be accessing your site from – laptop, tablet, mobile phone, etc.

Everyone is on-the-go today and going online in many different ways. This is plain and simple: Make sure your website can be easily viewed and read from all mobile devices.