Laying out a small company office in Vietnam: reception, the director's seat, meeting rooms and moving day

Short answer: lay out a small company office in this order. Draw the floor plan with doors, windows and fire exits; put reception right at the entrance; give the person in charge a seat with a solid wall behind and a view of the door, without hiding them away; put the meeting room somewhere quiet and bright; and only then fill in the shared work area, the kitchen and the nap corner. Most feng shui advice about offices turns out to be about light, noise and circulation, so getting those right covers most of it.

Earlier articles in this section dealt with one person's seat in an open-plan office, the home office and the objects on a desk. This pillar article takes a different position. You are the owner or manager, you have just leased an empty floor in Vietnam, and you have to place an entire team. If you are a foreign manager working with Vietnamese staff, there are a few extra things worth knowing, and they are covered along the way.

Planning a whole office is different from choosing one desk

Choosing your own seat affects one person. Arranging ten or twenty people means every decision has winners and losers: who gets the window, who sits near the toilets, who has their back to the corridor. Many Vietnamese employees do pay attention to the feng shui of where they sit, even if they rarely bring it up with a manager. A seating plan with clear reasons behind it heads off a lot of quiet grumbling.

The rule this article follows: use feng shui as a checklist for light, movement and a sense of security, never as a way to rank people. Nobody should end up in the "bad" seat because of their birth year or element.

Start with a floor plan

Draw before you buy furniture. You do not need software; squared paper and a tape measure will do.

1. Measure the walls and mark the entrance, windows, columns, power sockets, network points and air-conditioning units.
2. Mark the fire exits and existing fire equipment. These routes must stay clear; no cabinets parked in front of them.
3. Stand in each corner in the morning, at midday and in the afternoon, and note how far the sun reaches.
4. Note the noise sources: lifts, stairwells, the street, outdoor condenser units.
5. Divide the floor into zones: public (reception, client meeting room), work, and service (kitchen, storage, toilets).
6. Only once the zones exist do you start placing individual desks.

This sequence matches the way a feng shui consultant usually works: establish the main door and orientation first, then discuss individual seats. The difference is that you also write down what you measured.

Reception and the entrance

In feng shui, the main door is where energy, khí, comes in, and it should be bright and unobstructed. In an office, the door is also the first impression for clients and job candidates. A few things help:

• Put the reception desk to one side of the door, so the person sitting there sees who comes in without blocking the way.
• A visitor standing at the door should not be looking straight at the toilets, a cluttered storeroom or the lunch table.
• Avoid a large mirror directly facing the entrance. The belief is that it pushes energy back out; the practical problem is that people are startled by their own reflection and the mirror bounces glare from the lights.
• Provide somewhere to wait, with a chair and water, rather than leaving visitors standing in the corridor.

If there is no dedicated receptionist, the person whose desk is nearest the door will greet visitors whether you plan it or not. Choose someone comfortable with that, and say clearly that it is part of the job.

Where the person in charge sits

The "command position" applies to the director's room or desk: a solid wall behind, a view of the entrance, and a diagonal line to the door rather than sitting directly in line with it. Many feng shui books recommend putting the director's office in the deepest corner, far from the entrance, to "hold the energy".

In a small company, that has to be balanced against another need: the boss must be approachable. A director's office at the far end of a long corridor with a closed door can make staff reluctant to knock, and in Vietnamese workplaces, where hierarchy is felt quite strongly, that reluctance is real. Some compromises:

• Place the director in the deep corner but use a glass partition or a low divider, so staff can see they are there.
• Without a private room, put the director's desk at the end of a row, back to the wall, facing the shared area.
• Avoid placing the desk directly under a large cross beam. The traditional term is xà đè, a beam pressing down; plenty of people simply find sitting under a heavy concrete beam oppressive.
• Put visitors' chairs facing the desk, not with their backs to an open door.

The meeting room

The meeting room is where many people sit close together for long stretches, so problems with light and air show up there first.

Round or rectangular table

Round and oval tables are popular because there are no sharp corners pointing at anyone, and they feel more equal. Rectangular tables suit meetings with a clear chair. Both are fine; choose based on how your company actually meets.

The chair's seat

The chair usually sits at the end of the table furthest from the door, back to the wall, following the same logic as the director's desk. If the room has a screen, put it at the opposite end so nobody cranes their neck.

Light and video calls

Anyone sitting with a bright window behind them turns into a silhouette on camera. Position the camera so daylight falls on people's faces rather than behind them. A windowless meeting room needs an extract fan, or the door left open between meetings, because stale air makes people tired and irritable, which feng shui calls stagnant energy, khí tù.

The shared work area

Most of the floor is where staff sit every day. Where to sit in an open-plan office covers a single seat in detail; here the question is arranging the whole area.

• Group people by how they work. Those who talk to each other often sit together. Teams that spend the day on the phone go away from teams that need to concentrate.
• Keep the number of people with their backs to the main walkway low. Where you cannot avoid it, put a low partition or a planter behind them.
• Make the main walkway wide and straight. Feng shui likes energy to meander, but an office needs a direct route to the fire exit.
• Nobody should sit in the direct blast of an air-conditioning unit. In a tropical office this is the number one complaint, far ahead of anything about direction.
• Share window seats fairly, or give the window to a common area everyone can use.

Kitchen, nap area and toilets

Many Vietnamese offices keep a lunch break in which staff eat at or near their desks and then nap, often on folding beds or reclined chairs. That makes the service zone more important than in many other countries.

• Separate the kitchenette and lunch area from the desks, so food smells do not hang over the work area all afternoon.
• Without a dedicated rest room, choose a corner where lights can be dimmed and blinds drawn at lunchtime. Folding beds and mats should be easy to store afterwards.
• Toilets need a working extract fan and a door that closes. The traditional advice is never to put a desk facing the toilet door; in practical terms, nobody wants to sit facing a door with smells and foot traffic all day.
• Kettles, microwaves and rice cookers should be on their own adequately rated socket, not on an extension shared with computers.

A foreign manager who is new to the midday nap sometimes sees it as idleness. It is a long-standing, widely accepted rhythm, and a workplace that makes room for it tends to get a more alert afternoon in return.

The God of Wealth altar and shared objects

Many Vietnamese companies, especially those that sell, keep a small altar to Thần Tài, the God of Wealth, and Thổ Địa, the earth god, in the office. Placement and daily practice are explained in the little floor altar in Vietnamese shops. In an office, add the following:

• Staff hold different beliefs. Making offerings is a task for the company or a designated person, and nobody should be made to take part.
• Many office buildings ban or restrict burning incense because of the fire alarm system. Check with building management first. Electric altar lamps and electric incense are common alternatives.
• Never put the altar in an escape route, under a smoke detector or next to fabric curtains.
• On offering days, keep the tray small and clear it promptly so the office does not smell of food left out.

If you are a foreign owner and your Vietnamese team or partner asks to set up such an altar, agreeing to a small, safely placed one is a simple gesture of respect. You are not expected to perform the rituals yourself. As for individual desks, what to keep on your desk in a Vietnamese office goes into detail.

Quick reference: each zone, the belief and the practical need

Moving offices without the fuss

Many Vietnamese companies pick an auspicious day to move and hold a brief ceremony, similar to the nhập trạch ritual for moving into a home. You can keep the ritual without slowing the work:

1. Choose the moving window around your workload first: avoid reporting deadlines and big deliveries. If you or your partners want, pick a lucky day within that window.
2. A week before, photograph and label cables and equipment; everyone packs and labels their own personal box.
3. Have network, power and air conditioning working in the new space before moving day, so nobody arrives to an office where they cannot work.
4. On the day, if the company holds a ceremony, do the small offering in the morning and move the furniture afterwards.
5. On the first working day, walk everyone through the fire exits, extinguishers and main circuit breaker.
6. After two weeks, ask each person whether their seat has a problem, and make one tidy round of adjustments.

An example: a twelve-person company on a small floor

A twelve-person design studio leases a rectangular floor. The entrance is in the middle of a long side, a row of west-facing windows runs along one wall, and the lift and toilets are on the opposite side.

The manager's first sketch puts the director's desk in the window corner, because it is "deep, with a wall behind". Standing there at three in the afternoon, the sun hits the monitor head on. They revise: the staff desks run parallel to the windows with roller blinds; the director moves to the deep corner on the shaded side, back to the wall, with a diagonal view of the entrance; a small meeting room sits next to reception so clients never walk through the work area; and the kitchen and nap corner go near the lift and toilets, behind a partition.

Nobody faces a toilet door and nobody sits under an air-conditioning outlet. When one employee asks whether their seat "clashes" with anything, the manager shows the plan and explains the reason for each position. That is the end of the conversation.

Common mistakes

• Buying furniture before measuring and drawing a plan, then arranging the office around whatever was bought.
• Giving the director the best room and pushing the meeting room into a dark, windowless corner.
• Parking a filing cabinet in front of the fire exit because the space looked empty.
• Installing a large plant or a big aquarium to "attract wealth", then letting the plant wilt and the water cloud over because nobody owns the job.
• Assigning seats by each employee's birth element, so whoever lands in the worse seat feels singled out.
• Hearing a consultant declare that the office has a serious problem and buying an expensive set of objects in the same session.

When to ask a professional

• Fire safety, escape routes, building rules: building management and the relevant authorities.
• Removing partitions, drilling into beams, renovations: a structural engineer and building management.
• Electrical load for many devices: a qualified electrician.
• Persistent back pain, eye strain or other complaints among staff: a doctor or occupational health specialist.
• The office lease: a lawyer.

If your company decides to set up a God of Wealth altar in the new office, choose a statue that suits the wall space, place it securely and use an electric lamp where the building restricts open flame. The Vietnamese-language shop Vật Phẩm Phong Thuỷ, which delivers within Vietnam, has a range of Thần Tài and Quan Công statues you can use to compare sizes; a large set is not necessary.

Frequently asked questions