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Ask HN: Tips and ideas for a new office

4 points by brunnsbe ↗ HN
The company I'm working for is moving to a new location up here in Helsinki, Finland. It would be nice to get some general tips on everything that has to do with setting up the new office at the new location including thoughts on:

* Work environment, we are thinking of rooms with 3 - 4 people in each room with the rooms divided by glass walls. We have open hands on how we want to split the big open office. We are in total 23 persons with seven developers. At least us developers want to have static desks.

* The kitchen, the new location has a separate lunch restaurant but we have a small kitchen as well. Currently we have a rotating list who's responsible for keeping the kitchen clean every day (the housekeeper only drops by twice a week) but it just doesn't work that well as people don't prioritize it or are away from the office at a customer.

* Rules on how and when you can disturb someone. Currently it feels like there's a lack of respect in walking in and asking questions or for help. Some companies have "quiet working hours" when you're not allowed to disturb anyone, does it work or not?

2 comments

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AdamN
* Open floor plan works very well (i.e. everybody in one large room) and is much better than divided rooms. * Have 4 rooms (with doors) available for talking on the phone, playing games, meeting, brainstorming. * Get a dishwashing machine for the kitchen to facilitate cleaning. * Set up a few pairing stations that people can plug their laptop into in order to move around a bit. * I find that headphones are the great 'do not disturb' sign - even if you're not listening to music.
brunnsbe
Currently we have one large room which feels quite chaotic, that's the reason why we are thinking of dividing the people into smaller blocks.

Separate meeting/phone rooms is a must, this is something we are trying to improve now when we move as we currently only have one meeting room which isn't enough for our needs.