Do Your Facilities Make a Stunning First Impression?

The entry sign to a Workgroup member’s building is crooked, which bugs the heck out of the marketing manager.  Yes, because of remote work, fewer staff come to the office, and clients rarely visit anyway. 

But she cringes when recruits and clients do take a tour, because she knows they’re getting a bad impression that’s hard to shake.

It does not take extra money to make a good impression.  In fact, lavish facilities can make bad impressions.  In truth, people are more impressed with an efficient layout, cleanliness, and good signs.

The real problem is complacency.  It’s easy to stop noticing the crooked sign, the wilting landscaping, and the chip in the conference room table.  Family businesses tend to be particularly sentimental about their buildings.  It’s hard to tell one’s parents their “house” is out of date.

Below is a checklist to help you be objective about what story your building is really telling.  You can use it with your architect or interior designer.

Participants

Sarah Hoke, Mike Markiewicz, Bill Mitchell, Jerry Pettigrew, Vicky Strobel, Derrick Van Mell

The Tour Tells the Truth:  Scripting the Six Stage

CEOs take the tour very seriously.  They use it to tell a story to a key staff or board recruit, a banker or investor, a community leader or a member of the press, or of course a major prospect or customer.

There are six stages to these tours:

1. Approach: REI uses an ice ax as their front door handle.  When guests and employees drive up to your building, even if you’re only one tenant of many, they’ve already formed an impression.
2. Entry: At one company, the person at the reception desk has a title plaque:  “Director of First Impressions.”  A design firm had a monitor scrolling through their cool work, so waiting was fun.
3. Meeting Rooms: A Workgroup member rejected having a monolithic table in the board room, opting instead for modular desks with lots of technology connections.  Not just practical and flexible but sent the message about humility and collaboration.
4. Work Areas: An architecture firm knew that a) it’s a more efficient use of space to have all the cubicles together and b) seeing a sea of cubicles makes everyone’s heart sink.  They broke up the workstations with islands of collaborative spaces.
5. Social Areas: You can’t claim to honor “work/life balance” if your break rooms are in the worst space in the building.  An environmental engineering firm gave their break room a prime corner spot—with a clear view of the outdoor picnic tables.
6. Exit: I was knocked out after having been greeted at a Milwaukee manufacturer with a “Welcome, Derrick” sign, that when I left the sign had been redone to say, “Thanks for visiting, Derrick.”  Even a small gesture of appreciation facing you when you leave can tie a bow on your first impression.

The CEO of contract manufacturer, whose plant was way out in the country, would stand on a particular spot on the plant floor:  he knew that from that “X marks the spot” his guests could see how material flowed and how the whole process was supervised.

Brand Mirror

Do your brand colors show up in your spaces?  They don’t have to be—in fact, probably shouldn’t be—dominant, but they should be accents in almost every space.

Is your logo clearly displayed by your entry and in your meeting rooms?  It’s in your conference rooms where emotional things happen:  closing a deal, making an offer, tackling a problem, or taking a big decision.  Those are the moments when you should remind everyone in the room who you are.

Do you display your products in the waiting area?  A small distributor has a two-foot-square display case of the electric motors they sell.  The parent company is Japanese, so on top of the case is a photo of the founding family in kimonos.  A law firm I know displays the ten most recent client letters of appreciation.

Is there a presentation of your origins and milestones?  Even a simple timeline with photos and short captions will convey your pride, purpose, and legitimacy.

Values and Culture Mirror

A large insurance company proclaims their friendly culture, yet there’s an armed guard at the entry.  Security concerns are real, but the messages need to be managed.

Your “values statement” describes your culture to be, or at least what you want it to be.  So, it makes sense that your facilities reinforce that critical message.

Trustworthy

• Are all the spaces clean and the landscaping trimmed?
• Do visitors get a warm greeting when they come through your front door?

Caring and Inclusive

• Does your break room have the same quality furniture as what’s in the managers’ offices?
• Do your managers’ offices take up all the window spaces?

Efficient

• Does your plant and warehouse have simple, sensible, and obvious flow?
• Is there clutter in your offices?

Innovative

• Is your meeting technology up to date?
• Is your interior design up to date?

Sustainable

• Does the building landscaping show you care about the environment?
• Is there a sign or poster describing your sustainability measures?

Collaborative

• Can you easily reconfigure meeting room furniture?
• Are your office workstations fixed in a rigid configuration?

Fun

• Do you social spaces include photos or bulletin boards of staff events?
• Are there fun amenities or art in the work areas?

Lights, Camera…

Even a middle manager can use these ideas to make sure their own team’s space is sending the right signals.

Script:  Write a script for giving a tour with key talking points for each of the six stages.  Ask new employees to help update it annually, so you don’t get complacent.

Signs:  Invest in good signs, not just for the main entry, but for the little things, too.  We’ve all seen the handwritten signs with peeling Scotch Tape that will absolutely draw the eye of your visitors.  This is essential in a hospital or clinic when people are anxious and disoriented.  Seeing a tatty sign on the X-ray machine is off-putting, to say the least.

A Closing Thought:  You Are the Biggest Audience

“Architecture is the art which works most slowly, but most surely upon the soul.” – Ernest Dimnet

While the tour is critical to the CEO’s key audiences, the biggest audience is you and your employees, who of course tour the facility every day.  Sure, they might be used to it, but that only means that the cues and miscues sink deeply into their psyche.

Everyone should feel a little lift when they come to work and reach for the front door handle.

Related Terms

• 1.6.1 Facility planning
• 1.2.4 Brand
• To dive deeply, read “Buildings Matter: Why Buildings Can Make or Break Your Business.”