How Much Do You Value Your Office Space? 165
reason asks: "I've heard that office space costs around $10,000 per employee, and sometimes much more. I have a great office: it's a nice size and I have a lovely view out the window. It's a good working environment, and I know I'm lucky. Still, if it came down to dollar terms, I'd be willing to share my office with a colleague or even move into a cubicle in exchange for a mere $5,000/year pay rise. Am I undervaluing what I have? If you have an office to yourself, how much would they have to pay you to make you willingly give it up? If you don't have an office, how much of a pay cut would you be prepared to take to get one?"
Re:Cost is way lower, differential cost is even le (Score:3, Informative)
I did not include the cost of buying or leasing furniture, PCs, etc.
This report has details of rental rates in San Jose [grubb-ellis.com]: $23 - $30 per square foot. At less than 200 square feet per employee (10 x 10 office plus shared space), that comes out to less than $6k. There are plenty of less expensive places in the Bay Area (although San Francisco is more expensive).
Actual office space costs from a business owner. (Score:4, Informative)
We have 4 people in the office currently, plus a nice-sized workbench space to build servers and a conference table area. We could easily fit 5 people in the same space.
Rent, plus electricity, water cooler, phone, and 6Mbit DSL connection, costs around $1300 a month. $1300 divided by 5 people is $260/month per person. That, on a yearly basis, is $3120 per employee.
Yes, I suppose we could all work from home and save the money, but productivity would be dramatically decreased. For one thing, we do a lot of datacenter work, and we need quick and easy access to the datacenter during business hours (and space to build servers!) Plus, I like the "office environment" where we can easily chat with each other. A lot of ideas come out just from us talking. Plus, there is a comfy couch where anyone in the company can crash out or just sit and think, and some snacky things to chew on while pondering problems. These are fun amenities that I couldn't justify the cost for as easily if they were at my house.
Also worth mentioning is the comfort our customers derive from us having an office. It's a lot easier to sell customers on our dedicated servers and colocation services if they know they can come knock on the door whenever they have a problem. For whatever reason, the "everyone works at home" thing is not considered a professional way to run a small business, and having an office is seen as a must-have for customers to take us seriously.
Re:Don't forget the "More Important" factor (Score:5, Informative)
my take would be they'd rather share a small office together than be stuck with you.
Re:Per Square Foot (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google and Me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Cost is way lower, differential cost is even le (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what sort of office rent statistics you are looking at, but even downtown SF is going to be $35.00 PSF for Class A office space (unless you have a huge company and get some sort of bulk discount).