How your office looks and feels can impact the way your employees work. If your office is conducive to productivity, then you can expect employees to have an easier time meeting deadlines and producing quality work. Otherwise, you may be missing out on the chance to unlock your people’s true potential.
People need more than just a desk and a computer to work efficiently. More than that, they need a workplace atmosphere that can help them focus, motivate them to work, and help keep their stress levels at bay. If you want your office to be as conducive to productivity as possible, here are some elements that you likely need to fix or get rid of:
- Blank walls
Blank walls can make your office feel like a prison, a hospital room, or something just as dreadful. It can also make your office look devoid of any personality, which is not the first impression you want to make on potential investors and clients when they pay a visit. That said, refrain from leaving your walls blank as the day they were made. While you definitely don’t have to fill every space with a piece of artwork or a picture, it helps to decorate at least one part of the wall to give them something to look at while pondering their next idea.
Installing a commercial vertical garden is also a great idea if you have the space for it. Green can encourage calmness and tranquility, while indoor plants can help boost productivity in turn.
- Outdated furniture
Using old furniture is a great way to save money, but are you keeping eyesores by doing this? Going for a retro vibe is not a great idea for any modern office, so if you still have pieces of furniture lying around that belong in the last century, it’s high time to replace them with more modern, sleeker-looking ones.
- Bad décor
Your initial office design involved placing a few pieces of décor around that, at that time, seemed like a good idea to spruce up the appearance of the place. But is that old faded plaque of the company logo doing anything for the space? How about the numerous knick-knacks that you placed on the shelf? Or that severely outdated rug in the lobby area?
If the décor is not working for the overall look of your office, don’t hesitate to get rid of them. Chances are, your employees are sick of looking at them, too. And if they don’t like the way their workplace looks, it may subconsciously affect how well they do their jobs.
- Poor lighting
Lighting is a critical factor in workplace design. Aside from affecting productivity, lighting can also play a role in employees’ health as well. For instance, excessive overhead lighting can trigger headaches more frequently than calmer lighting. Furthermore, poor lighting can increase levels of stress and anxiety, especially in high-pressure work environments.
Consult with an interior designer to determine if the lighting in your office is conducive to productivity or not. If your lighting is harsh or lacking-chances are, your productivity levels are not optimal because of this.
- Uncomfortable office furniture
Are your employees using non-adjustable desks or chairs with no cushion? Are they frequently complaining about back pain or needing to stand up to stretch more often than normal? If your employees keep getting distracted by discomfort, they likely aren’t reaching their full potential when it comes to efficiency nor productivity.
If this is the case, it may be time to invest in newer, more ergonomic furniture that can help employees maintain good posture and avoid body pain related to uncomfortable desks and chairs.
- Open office layout
Many modern offices use an open office layout to maximize space, encourage collaboration, and improve communication. However, an open layout only works for certain types of offices, and applying it to the entire work floor is usually not a good idea for productivity.
If employees regularly engage in calls, providing cubicles is a great way to limit distractions from each other. But if you don’t want your office to look “caged in,” dividing the office space by department with partitions and leaving the department area itself with an open layout is a great alternative. Moreover, you can provide private offices or cubicles to give employees an isolated space when they crave solitude or need utmost privacy.
Many things can affect our productivity at work, and that includes how our workplace looks. If you want to maximize productivity in your office, start by addressing these productivity killers as soon as possible.
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