How to Keep Your Business Running During an Office Refurbishment

The refurbishment of office space rarely occurs if all is well. There are teams who still have deadlines to meet, clients may have a visit and so on and so forth all normal business activities have to continue while the space is being updated.

The difficulty is to make improvements to the office without making it more difficult for normal work. This involves determining which areas can be closed and where employees may work temporarily and when noise and disruptive activities should be done.

An effective way to do this is to break the work into phases, set up temporary offices before construction projects begin and establish a timeline beforehand.

If you are planning a office refurbishment and want to know how to do it without slowing your business down, here is the step by step version.

What Is Office Refurbishment?

Refurbishment is the process of making an existing workplace more efficient for the people who work in it. It may range from simple changes like re-fitting flooring and furniture, to more complex changes such as re-planning, re-lighting, re-installing building services and electrical services etc.

The most typical refurbishment jobs are:

• Full-floor upgrades
• Department or zone refurbishment.
• Space reconfiguration for head count changes
• MEP and infrastructure improvements.
• Furniture, flooring and finishes replacement.

The planning aspect is crucial in every refurbishment project as it makes sure that the refurbished space will help the company run its workflow, budget and daily operations.

Why Is Office Refurbishment a Practical Choice?

Refurbishment is an opportunity for businesses to invest in their building when the building itself is still structurally sound but the layout, finishes or systems are now not meeting the needs of the business. Refurbishment is often the more sensible option if you don't want the unnecessary expense and disruption.

Here are some of the reasons why businesses gravitate towards refurbishment:

• Less expensive than a complete replacement.
• Faster turnaround
• No need to relocate
• Solves particular problems without re-engineering the entire product or service
• More easily tolerated with operations.

Proper refurbishment results in businesses seeing:

• Lower project costs
• Faster execution
• Minimal disruption
• Better long-term value

Step 1 Assess the Office Before Work Begins

The first step to any refurbishment is to evaluate the existing office. This helps determine what is working, what is not and what the business requires before design decisions are made.

Review the Existing Office Layout

The first step is to investigate the current layout to comprehend its usage.

• Existing workstations and cabins
• Unutilized or overcrowded areas
• Employee movement and bottlenecks
• Collaboration and meeting spaces

Recognise Workplace and Infrastructure Issues

The team then identifies problems that affect day-to-day operations:

• Outdated floors and finishes
• Poor space utilisation
• Inadequate storage
• Ageing furniture and fixtures
• Fire safety issues

Evaluate Lighting, Electrical Systems, HVAC and Acoustics

The building systems are checked to determine what needs to be reused or upgraded:

• Lighting levels and fixture condition
• Electrical load and point mapping
• HVAC performance and coverage
• Noise in meeting rooms and open areas

Understand Employee and Business Needs

The assessment also considers current and future business requirements:

• Current and expected employee numbers
• Department-specific requirements
• Flexible or hybrid working options
• Future expansion plans

A proper assessment helps prevent surprises during office refurbishment and provides a clear starting point for the project.

Step 2 Plan the Refurbishment Around Business Operations

Once the assessment is done, the next step is to create a refurbishment programme which serves the business, not the other way around. This is where the project changes from problem identification to planning how the work will happen while the office remains open.

Identify Business Critical Areas

Downtime is not an option for some areas of the office. These must be identified early:

• Reception and meeting rooms
• Departments with important deadlines or client deliverables
• Data centres and IT infrastructure
• Areas needed for daily operations

Map Employee Movement

Understanding how staff move through the office helps arrange construction areas without disrupting business flow:

• Entry and exit points
• Access routes to workstations and cabins
• Movement between departments
• Shared areas such as pantries and wash areas

Find Areas Which Can Be Temporarily Closed

Not every area needs to remain open during the project. Areas with more flexibility can be used for phased work:

• Underused meeting rooms
• Storage areas
• Breakout zones
• Low-traffic areas

Plan Alternative Workspaces

For areas that need to close, employees need somewhere to work temporarily:

• Seating in unaffected areas
• Shared or rotated workstations
• Work-from-home or other flexible options
• Common areas for short-term use

The four elements in place will allow day to day business to continue and refurbishment work to be done behind the scenes.

Step 3 Phase the Refurbishment While the Office Stays Open

It is a process called phasing that actually makes it possible to refurbish an office without closing it. The project is subdivided into phases with each one built based on the businesses ability to lose access to the space at that point in time.

A typical phased refurbishment plan is:

Planned to ensure that only one part of the office operates as it is being constructed, with the remaining parts running as usual. Generally, disruptive work (such as demolition, drilling, heavy installation) is carried out outside working hours or on weekends to minimize the noise and dust created to a non-working team.

This process takes a bit longer than a one-time shutdown, but is almost always the way a business will go about it because it requires them to never completely stop running.

Step 4 Set the Budget, Timeline and Work Sequence

After phasing the project, the next step is to finalize the site work order, timeline and budget. This is how to bring the plan to fruition.

A few things typically drive the budget:

• Scope of work for each phase
• Materials and finishes
• Furniture requirements
• Labour and after-hours charges
• MEP upgrades
• Approval and compliance costs

Timeline depends on office size, number of phases, material availability, and how much work needs to happen after hours. A small office in one phase might take a couple of weeks. A large, multi-phase project could run a couple of months.

Within each phase, site work usually follows this order:

• Demolition, where needed
• Civil and structural work
• Electrical and HVAC upgrades
• Flooring and ceiling work
• Furniture installation
• Final cleaning and handover

The real secret here isn't complicated: agree on the budget and schedule upfront, and stick to it. Most overruns come from changing the plan halfway through, not from the plan itself.

Step 5 Compile and Keep the Safety, MEP and Compliance Under Control

When an office is occupied during refurbishment, extra attention should be given to safety as the space is being used by employees during the refurbishment process.

Some of the main safety precautions are:

• Fencing around areas of construction activity.
• Preventing dust and debris from spreading.
• Marking clear walkways for staff.
• Limiting access to work areas.
• Maintaining fire safety measures.

MEP work also needs to be planned carefully as the office continues to rely on these systems. This includes:

• Shutting down HVAC during low occupancy times.
• Planning plumbing jobs to keep disruption to a minimum.
• Testing equipment prior to being plugged into the main office supply.

To prevent delays, fire safety approvals and building regulations and local authority requirements should also be taken into account before work begins.

How Serein Spaces Supports Office Refurbishment

Serein Spaces plans office refurbishment around the way the business uses the space, rather than treating it only as a construction project. The process includes:

• Office assessment: Examining the existing layout, infrastructure, building systems and business requirements before designing anything.
• Business activity planning: Identifying critical areas, employee movement and temporary work requirements to create a phasing plan that keeps the office operating.
• MEP coordination & compliance: Ensure coordination of MEP work to ensure safe performance of systems used by the rest of the office.
• Budget and schedule control: Making a detailed budget and realistic schedule prior to construction, and keeping regular updates.
• Quality inspection & handover: Proof of work after every work step to move on and finish the project by fully refurnishing and handing over a ready-to-use office space.

Conclusion

The idea of refurbishing an office whilst it is running isn't about speeding the job up; it's about sequencing it appropriately. If done well, an assessment will be accurate, a plan for phasing will be established and designed around areas that are critical to business, a realistic budget and timeline will be prepared, and safety considerations will be accounted for that address people working around the active construction.

Businesses that make it through a refurbishment are not necessarily those that have the most money. It's they who planned before the first wall came down.