Maximising your workspace with an office reception fit-out

You want your office reception area to be practical, but it should also say something about your business. In the same way your website should be designed to showcase your brand at its absolute best, so should your entrance area.

These days, office receptions can be multi-functional, serving as a members’ club-style waiting lounge for clients, as well as an informal meeting space or ad-hoc working area for your staff and visitors. Gone are the days of bland office furniture and dull carpets, when done well, your reception room can have a powerful impact on anyone who steps through the front door!

Below are a few of our favourite ways in which you can maximise the space in your next office fit-out.

If you have customers coming and going a lot throughout the day, you’ll probably need a manned reception area with a member of staff available to welcome your visitors and act as the face of the company. This will usually involve a standout, statement reception desk, a waiting area including welcoming soft seating, and may be closed off from the main office.

If you occupy a floor within a multi-tenanted building, guests are usually announced upon arrival into the ground floor before being directed to you. In this scenario, you could consider having an unmanned, open plan space, where guests can be greeted upon arrival once they have been announced.

If you operate more of a training style environment, with advances in technology, you can even use digital check-in systems and self-service software. This way, you can lose the reception desk and transform the space into a multi-functional area, while making sure your guests and delegates know where they’re going and still feel welcomed upon entry.

If you often have clients coming in for meetings, you might want to utilise your office reception area as a waiting lounge instead.

Add a touch of luxury with comfortable soft seating, coffee machines and an instant boiling/chilled tap. Coupled with some warm and welcoming décor, you can transform your office entrance into a stylish lounge where your visitors can sit back and fire up their laptop, charge their phone or catch up on the news channels while they wait.

If external visitors are a little more infrequent, you could utilise the entrance area as an informal meeting space for your staff and suppliers instead. Broken up with smaller seating areas and tables, you can create an ad-hoc working place for staff to have quick chats, brainstorming sessions, or do some quiet thinking away from their desks.

Clever partitioning can be useful in this instance, helping to divide the space into sections with different purposes, setting it apart from the rest of the main office. Often, we introduce sliding glass doors into glass partitioned frontage, to provide an open feeling when the door is open and a private space, when closed.

However you decide to maximise your entrance space in your next office fit-out, remember that, in business, first impression is everything. If you fail to showcase your company’s image well in this first instance, it could have an impact on the way your brand is perceived.

Get in touch for a chat about how we can help you transform your reception room into a high performing, multi-functioning and welcoming entrance space.