If you’re in charge of an office space that feels a bit basic and uninspiring, then there can be a lot of benefits to changing that. An office space that is designed to help people feel energised, comfortable and happy can help with your overall working culture, improve productivity, and even help with staff retention.
Here we look at some easily implemented ways to enhance the office space you have available, to make it a better place to work for all of your team:
Decide How to Use the Space
If space is limited, then it is important to think carefully about what you need from it, and perhaps even cast aside traditional ideas about things like seating. If you have staff who all work from laptops and sometimes work from home, then a good way to maximise the potential of your office space can be to do away with people having fixed desks of their own at all and go for a hotdesking policy. This also encourages people to keep the desks they work at free of distracting clutter and paperwork.
If hotdesking isn’t right for you, and you want people to have their own desks, then you can also make more of your space by having managers sit in the open plan environment, and use any separate offices for other purposes, such as meeting rooms.
You may identify the need for some areas that your office doesn’t currently have, such as a comfortable ‘break out area’ for more informal discussions. If you have space to create these kinds of areas, then using room separators can allow you to have them feel more private without changing the structure of the room itself.
Lighting is More Important than You Might Think
The light level in your office is important to how healthy and productive staff members feel. Natural light is best, but naturally, even if you have large windows and plenty of natural light, there will be times later in the day in winter, or when the weather is bad, when you’ll need good artificial lighting too. Whatever your lighting needs, it is a good idea to meet them with LED lighting, which more closely imitates natural light, and is also much more energy efficient than other types of lighting. Consider installing more lighting, and design it in a way that makes sure there is plenty of light for every employee, paying particular attention to small areas like server rooms.
If you need someone to come and install new lighting for your office, check out MyBuilder.com where you can post your handyman job and get responses. This can also be a good resource for any other work on your office, if you are asking ‘where can I find a handyman near me?’.
Use Colour
Colour can have a very real effect on the mood and productivity of people in your office. While you may not be able to paint the walls if you are in a rented office space that doesn’t allow you to make those kinds of changes, you can still inject colour in other ways, such as with coloured cubicle dividers or room separators, coloured artwork on the walls, and accessories around the office. Different colours can have a different effect, for instance, blue is associated with calm and focus, red with energy and dynamism, and yellow with stimulating creativity. Neutral colours can give a sophisticated, soothing effect, but stay away from the classic office grey, which people tend to associate with monotony, in favour of elegant neutrals like cream, earth tones, or deep slate greys.
You can also use colour in your office in a way that reflects your company’s brand identity, which can be a great choice if a lot of your clients visit your office space.
Comfort
When it comes to comfort in the office, there are of course regulations that dictate what type of office furniture you need to make available to your staff to help them avoid any health issues from prolonged periods at their desks. However, you can go beyond doing the minimum to meet these requirements, and aim for an even more comfortable office space, offering areas with soft, comfortable seating for breaks or casual meeting sessions, and even considering providing things like noise cancelling headphones for those who work best without the distractions of the office and outside noise. Consider also getting some low maintenance, live plants, to both add decoration and improve the air quality.
All of these changes can be implemented very easily and can also be done inexpensively. Enhancing your office space is well worth doing, so why not take a look at the space you have, and start considering how you can make it a better environment for everyone?
