Our first meeting is important because if it goes well, we could be working with you for a good six months. Maybe more. So it’s a great chance to see how well we’d gel on your office interior design project. We’ll introduce the CBS team, scope out your project’s top-level requirements and get to know each other. When it comes to your office design, you’ll quickly discover that we’re less about style over content and much more about form and function. This first get together is just one of the ways in which we try to make us working together less like work.

The word ‘brief’ is a bit of a misnomer here. Our office design and build brief is actually quite detailed. It’s our favourite way to really understand you, your business and your people. Here’s where we find out about your culture and working practices. Plus we’ll start to challenge your norms, thinking about what, how and why you do what you do. It’s crucial that we understand your people and processes because everything we design and deliver is based on their requirements. That’s how we transform your working environment and inspire your team to be happy and productive.

We’re good at gathering information on how your current workspace is being used without us getting in your way or the process getting tedious. But only by surveying and interviewing your employees and other key people, can we find out about your current working patterns, how your team perceive their office environment, and how they’d like to see themselves working in the future. This gives us a firm basis to start to re-imagine your workspace. We’ll explore what will work best for you and your business. And we’ll suggest the perfect office design solution to create a dynamic space that inspires creativity and productivity. Your business is unique so we’ll create an office design solution that’s bespoke to your people and your operation.

You’re not fully fit for business if your workspace doesn’t fully fit the needs of your operations and people. So get us in early in your planning process and we’ll help you specify and select a place where you’ll prosper. We can survey potential premises, provide expert and experienced advice on the most appropriate site, and undertake test fit block planning to evaluate the optimum size you need. Then with a little imaginative thinking – such as using space efficient design – we could reduce your rental footprint. This could save you money while still creating the exceptional workspace your people will love.

Based upon all the insight and feedback we’ve gained during our briefing process, we’ll come back to you with our initial office design concepts. There’s no art for art’s sake here. These concept plans and visuals will show you how we see your new workspace, including the tone and feel of the interior. But we’ll cover all the practicalities of the layout, too. So you get a complete picture of how your offices could look and work. And talking about practicalities, at this stage we’ll also present you with high level cost estimates.

We do sweat the small stuff. So once you’ve appointed us to collaborate with you on your office refurbishment project, we’ll refine and evolve our designs to create a more detailed vision of your new workspace. As you’d expect, these designs are based on an agreed layout and framework for specifying furniture and finishes. But we also undertake further surveys and interviews at this stage to ensure we have the level of detail we need to finalise the creation of your new workspace.

With the left hand side of our brain in charge, we’ve developed a ‘before and after’ survey process to ask your team key questions about how they’re affected by their current workspace. Our pre-project survey is always anonymous, provides an honest picture of how your team really feels about where and how they work, and gives us invaluable feedback which influences our final designs. Our Employee Survey ensures we tailor what we do to the needs of your organisation. Furthermore, the same survey is also retaken post-completion. This enables us to measure the effectiveness of our work and you to gauge your return on your investment.

Money matters. We know how important costs are to every kind of business. So our aim is to spend your budget like it was our own. Once we’ve finalised the office design for your transformed workspace, we’ll provide you with a final detailed cost schedule for the project. That way you’ll know where every penny is going. Then we’ll work through and agree with you a contract to help guide our collaboration.

Even if your team are all in place and we have to work around them and your operation, our planning and communication processes will ensure that all goes smoothly. And based on our three decades plus of experience and for your peace of mind, we’ll create a detailed delivery programme of the works for your office transformation project. You and your team will know exactly what’s going on, where and when. Then we’ll continually update you as office interior design project unfolds so you are always fully up to speed on progress.

Confusing? Complex? Contradictory? We all know that regulation and legislation can be difficult to understand and negotiate, but CBS has many years of experience for you to rely upon. We’ll ensure all local authority and landlord checks and consents are in place before any works start, so you don’t have to worry.

D-Day. The moment the actual build of your new workspace commences. This is when all our work on a detailed and planned vision starts to become reality. We’ll meet with you weekly to update you on all the exciting progress being made and reassure you that everything is on track. We can also produce a photo or video diary of your office interior design work. This we’ll happily share with you, so your people can enjoy every step as the project evolving as well.

We always work hard to keep costs controlled and within the agreed budget. But, even with the best planning and will in the world, additions or variations can occur during an office design and build project. Our process for managing extra work and costs is clear, so you are always in control. First and foremost, we’ll always try to minimise these as much as possible. Secondly, we’ll do our best to flag and discuss with you any potential additional expenses before they occur. Last but far from least, we’ll only ever undertake extra work with your prior agreement.

This is the final touch before your team gets ready to get their feet under their new tables. To make sure your furniture is pristine and in the right place when you’re ready to occupy your newly designed workspace, it’s usually the last element of the project to be delivered. We have a highly skilled and dedicated team who deliver, construct and install your furniture and it’s always just in time for you to relocate to your newly transformed office. Just add your people and you’re good to go.

To us, the handover of your freshly transformed workspace is a new phase not the end of our collaboration. That’s because we don’t just ensure your project is delivered as promised for occupation from day one. We’re also ready to offer you help and support, should you need it, from day two and beyond. You can occupy and enjoy your new offices with complete confidence and peace of mind, because when we say we’re with you every step of the way, we mean it.

We love ‘wow’ moments. For us, your team’s first sight of their new workspace is the single most exciting part of the project. We hope you think so too. Because even though our imaginations are powerful, the reality can be even better. You’ll find your newly finished workspace is fitted and furnished exactly as it was visualised during the design phase and as we promised it would be during the delivery phase. All that’s left is for you and your organisation’s greatest asset – your people – to get the kettle on, settle in, relax, enjoy and be inspired to do great things.

Unless you need our help and support during your move back into your newly designed workplace, we like to give you and your team some time and space to settle in. But once you’ve got your collective feet under those tables, we pop back. This time it’s to re-run our Employee Survey. This helps us better understand and demonstrate the impact and value of our work. The results will give you a clear measure of your return on your investment in your office design project. We’re very positive about this process because we are well used to seeing significant improvements in a client’s team’s productivity, motivation and Employer Net Promoter Score (eNPS), a method for measuring how willing an employee is to recommend their workplace to those they know.

It’s reckoned that most of us will spend one third of our adult lives at work. Little wonder then that the research shows people who are happy at work are more productive at work. The newly designed office environment we’ve helped to create for you will deliver a positive work vibe. But there’s more. It’s carefully considered and executed layout and design will encourage your people to collaborate, get creative with ideas and do lots of other remarkable work as well.

All the research confirms it – a carefully designed, delivered and inspiring new workspace helps an enterprise to recruit and retain staff. The UK job market is incredibly competitive with too many roles chasing too few suitable candidates. So finding and keeping the right people is mission critical for every kind of business. An inspiring workplace, one people actually look forward to going to each day, makes for a happy team – a team that stays the course with you. One of our clients, Juice Plus even reported people walking in off the street with their CV because they want to work in their cool new office.

We’re big on the little details. But as a result of all that in-depth briefing, research and analysis we’re able to design and deliver a workspace that offers you and your team a real opportunity for change. One where you can establish an inspirational and refreshed culture of collaboration and working practice. And those new collaborations and working practices will empower you to improve everyone’s efficiency and productivity. This is what we love about what we do. Because we believe we only succeed if your business does the same.