4 Tips to Make Your Office Space More Productive
Employee efficiency can make or break a business. A motivated and competent team can be your organization’s most valuable asset. This performance and productivity are directly related to your office’s working conditions, environment, design, and layout.
Improving your office's work environment doesn't have to be complicated. Only minor changes like improving lighting or changing the color of your walls can tremendously impact employee productivity. Here are four ways to enhance your office space so your employees can work there while feeling at ease:
1. Ambiance
Environmental aspects of your office space, such as lighting, colors, air quality, and temperature, can significantly affect your employees' productivity.
Believe it or not, tidiness and air quality have a direct impact on employee performance. Arranging for regular cleaning sessions with experts like Think FM London is a great and carefree solution that will let you focus on your business and work processes.
The brightness and the tone of the lighting both matter. Dim lighting can be depressing and cause eye strain and headaches. Similarly, having highly bright lights can cause headaches. Warm-toned lighting creates a comfortable and relaxing environment, best used for break rooms. Use cool-toned lighting in the main work area to boost mood, productivity, and alertness. Try to incorporate natural lighting in the morning and bright artificial lighting when the natural lighting is too dim.
When choosing the color of your walls and furniture, try incorporating vivid colors, as they can boost productivity and focus. Avoid neutral and drab colors that might make your employees feel sluggish.
Ensure that you install air filters in your office, as poor air quality can negatively impact cognitive function and the ability to focus, increasing response times and lowering productivity.
2. Comfort
It's essential to make your office space as comfortable as possible for your employees.
Invest in comfortable furniture for lounging areas. You should also ensure that workstations are ergonomically optimized to reduce discomfort or pain. These ergonomic checks include chairs reclined at 100-110 degrees that support the back's lumbar region and monitor roughly an arm's length away and adjustable desks. The desks should also be at the correct height so that the eye level is roughly 2-3 inches below the top of the monitor.
3. Emphasize Decluttering
Cramped, cluttered, and disorganized office spaces covered in piles of documents and office supplies don't make for a healthy, productive workspace. They can severely deplete your employees' motivation and mood, making them feel sluggish and trapped.
Messy desks reduce productivity as more time is spent looking for important information and documents, leading to stress and reduced concentration. So, it's vital to declutter and clean the office space frequently. Instruct your employees to file and organize their documents, too, keeping the space uncluttered and clean.
4. Layout
Conducting all your operations from one room can be detrimental to your staff’s mood. Make sure you give your employees sufficient working room and more than one space to work from, as a change of environment can take away the monotony from the office routine.
An office should include a personal workstation, meeting rooms, breakout rooms, lounging areas, and even kitchen and refreshment areas. It's also essential to separate your rooms according to different noise levels.
For example, machines like printers and photocopiers can be placed in another room, and the main area dedicated to work can be in another quiet space. This is so employees aren't constantly distracted and can stay productive. When leasing commercial land, make sure that your lease terms allow you to modify the exterior and interior of your office space according to your needs.
The organization of people also matters. Employees tend to be more productive when sitting near coworkers with similar goals or clients. So, it's crucial to organize different groups of people according to their function or let them move around and rearrange themselves freely.
Endnote
Boosting your staff’s productivity does not have to include rewards and benefits, although these encourage healthy competition too. You can easily improve your workplace environment and increase your employees' productivity by working on your office space: improve your lighting, add vivid colors, minimize noise and distractions, and optimize comfort to ensure your employees feel energized and focused.
