Van Gooi: Getting ahead of the game
For Van Gooi’s office manager, Melissa Hendrikse, a good office move is planned upfront, not on the fly, with the things behind the walls decided before the window closes.
When electrical automation specialist Van Gooi took a larger office for its Utrecht arm, Van Gooi Energy Systems, the space needed work before anyone could move in. The kitchen was coming out and being rebuilt. There was no Wi-Fi, so cabling had to be run. Room for growth needed to be considered. Plus the facilities.
Melissa, Van Gooi’s office manager, was the person holding it all together and keeping things on track. When asked how she managed it, she says clear communication, planning, and a little breathing room. The first thing she locked in was the location.
It needed to be in the same area the team was already working in. That meant knowing how much space was needed, including the number of meeting rooms.
Next, she considered facilities, like the toilets, plus equipment like desks and monitors.
Then there’s everything the building itself has to provide: the climate system, the cabling for the Wi-Fi, pipes for the kitchen and water points.
“Once you know when you get the keys and when the renovation is happening, I always leave some space in between, because something can always go wrong,” Melissa says. “So it’s: first the renovation, then you can build it out with cabinets and the kitchen.”
Melissa’s advice: mapping it out
A move is a million things at once. Melissa says getting all your ideas out of your head and making a visual map of it would be her first bit of advice for anyone endeavouring to manage a move themselves.
“If you make a map you can draw it in and visualise it.” - Melissa Hendrikse, Office manager, Van Gooi
“Make a map and plan it out properly,” she says. In Van Gooi’s case, Melissa ordered the furniture first and arranged it afterwards. In hindsight, she believes the space could have worked harder for them, had she made a map from day one.. “Maybe the room could have been more efficient. You have a lot of space, but you have to think about it, and if you make a map you can draw it in and visualise it.”
The other thing she would flag, and a common issue, is the climate system. It was on her list and it got installed, but the question of extra cooling in parts of the office came up again once the fitout was well under way.
“For the air conditioning, they now say it might have been more convenient to add more installations, but we’re too late, because the ceiling is already done.”
By then adding it would have meant reopening finished work for a difference of a degree or two between one part of the building and another, and the company agreed together that it was not worth doing at that stage.
“When you make the plan for the renovation, that’s when those decisions need to be made. If you come afterwards, it’s too much work and too much money.”
Despite the gap, Melissa’s realistic about what running a move is like. “The basics are there, but there’s always something to improve. Something goes wrong, you have to change the plan and get creative with what you have.”
The essentials from day one
Like climate, hydration depends on speccing things early. Pipes need to be considered from the get-go if you want full control over the placement of the tap points. Luckily, Melissa was onto it.
Part of that came down to listening to her people, who knew what they wanted and made it known. The Utrecht team had been visiting the Van Gooi head office, where they already had REFILL+ Series 2 on three floors, and they had made themselves clear. “They’d always said, ‘I’m jealous, we don’t have it in Utrecht.’ So I said, ‘okay, when there’s a new office I’ll arrange it for you.’
“But you have to think about the installation, so the water pipes are in the right place.”
The kitchen was already being rebuilt, so rather than treat the dispenser as something to sort out after the move, she put its water and power into that plan.
“It’s better to think about it early so it goes smoothly, hopefully in one go.” - Melissa Hendrikse, Office manager, Van Gooi
“Once the new kitchen is rebuilt and the water pipes are done, the machine can finally be installed.”
Melissa understands it makes sense to get ahead of the game. Spec in the things that create a space people want to be in from day one, rather than just the skeleton first, or risk paying twice.
“You’ve already put in the effort and the money, and then you have to rebuild it again. Maybe they say we have to remove part of the kitchen and rebuild it. Then you’re doing it twice. It’s better to think about it early so it goes smoothly, hopefully in one go.”
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