Clever solutions for cramped offices keep employers on the right side of the law

Organisations around the City may be inadvertently breaking the law by not providing permanent office employees with the required space to work in. With commercial space at a premium and workers flooding into London, employers are being stretched to find the mandatory 11 cubic meters in which to work.

Specialist City moving company, Cadogan Tate, believes advanced storage solutions are the only way in which London’s firms can combat the crisis of the confined workspace.

The workplace health, safety and welfare code states the 11 cubic metres per person rule is a minimum requirement and in some instances may be insufficient depending on the layout, contents and the nature of the work.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) can issue employers with 20 day improvement notices to ensure office workers are not risking their health and safety by being forced to work in pokey surroundings.

Cadogan Tate states there are simple ways offices could achieve the required 11 cubic metres per permanent employee.

“When you think that some London businesses in West End are spending almost £15,000 to accommodate one office worker every year, it’s important to make every inch count,” Cadogan Tate Managing Director Neil Paul said.

“Offices around the City do not utilise space effectively with clutter, old files, archives and badly designed layouts costing businesses thousands of pounds each year. The answer can be as simple as:

• moving old files and unused furniture into storage regularly.
• archiving at least every three to six months.
• reconfiguring desks once old files and archives have been stored offsite.
• ensuring that obsolete IT equipment is sent for recycling.

“Many businesses don’t realise how valuable and easy it is to put idle items and files into storage, which can cost as little as 60 pence per square foot each week.

“There’s no reason to compromise on location or office size, especially when office space is wasted by document containers, empty water-cooler bottles and disused equipment.”

According to a survey by the Capita Group the average London office have more than 10 per cent of floor space taken up by filing cabinets, areas that could be used for additional employee workstations or ensuring office employees are not working in less than ideal conditions.

Woods Bagot’s corporate interiors expert Mimi Dietrich said working in cramped and congested conditions was one of the biggest complaints they heard from many clients when discussing their existing working environments.

“Confined and cluttered workspaces are not only unsightly, they also impact on employees’ productivity and efficiency. A work environment that is designed to 'fit like a glove' and address these issues, creates an uncluttered and highly organised workplace, which in turn produces a productive worker.

“There are simple solutions to solving this age-old problem including reconfiguring workstations to utilise space more efficiently and ensuring unnecessary, dust-collecting items around the office are placed in storage. Considering we spend a good proportion of our daily lives at work, it’s important employers take the ‘claustrophobic’ office problem seriously.”

Last year’s review of the London Plan[1] says an additional half a million office jobs will be created in the next 20 years, which accounts to at least an additional 7.67 million square metres over that period.

“There is going to be a very real need for city offices to reconfigure their office plans to ensure they are complying with the code,” Cadogan Tate’s Neil Paul said.

Central London office manager Engela van der Berg says that by archiving files at her office, space for additional work stations was created.

“After moving old paperwork into storage we literally had enough spare office space for another three desks. We were of course still complying with the HSE code but by a simple reconfigure and reorganisation, we were able to ensure our staff weren’t working in less than ideal conditions,” Ms van der Berg said.

For more information about Cadogan Tate, please visit their website at www.cadogantate.com or call 020 8963 4004.

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