How To Improve Productivity With Office Design

man and woman going over paperwork during a meeting

Creating a happy and productive workforce isn’t just about the salaries and benefits you pay your staff, it’s about providing your employees with a happy and energising workspace where they can thrive. 

After all, studies show that the average British worker spends 34 hours of their week working, so an office needs more than just four walls and a few desks to motivate and inspire. 

In this blog, we take a look at how your workspace can be designed to increase productivity.  

 

Harness Natural Light

Natural light office

Have you considered how much exposure to natural light your workers have on a daily basis? Natural light is a key element in any office that wants to encourage their workers to be productive and is shown to have many benefits including decreasing eyestrain and headaches.  

Not only does natural light keep workers more active and alert than artificial bright lighting, but it also resembles the outside world. If employees feel like they are trapped indoors, their productivity is likely to drop. Increasing exposure to natural lighting will help boost morale and productivity as it mimics the outside world. 

If your office lacks natural light, look at moving big, bulky furniture from blocking windows and consider adding skylights if the building will allow. If this isn’t an option, you may want to look for lamps and light bulbs that utilise natural lighting effects instead.

 

Ergonomic Furniture

ergonomic furniture

Ergonomics have always been key in the workplace and having office furniture that keeps employees comfortable and relaxed should be at the forefront of your office plan in order to improve office productivity. Your employees’ chairs and desks should be adjustable so they can be modified for individuals’ own needs. The right chair in the correct position with the perfect desk can reduce back and muscle pain, a common cause of lost work time and stress

 

Space For Collaboration 

Sofas for collaboration

A big part of your office should be a collaborative space where employees can go to work and converse with each other. Having a space that allows colleagues to discuss and generate ideas, means individuals are more likely to talk and learn from one another. Some people thrive off social interaction so giving employees the chance to bounce off ideas with other members of the team may be really useful for your business, and their own work ethic. 

 

A ‘Flexible’ Floor Plan

Open plan office

When it comes to your floor plan, it’s all about flexibility. Many business owners think they should stick to a traditional office design plan – cubicle or open. However, this isn’t the case anymore, and a mix of the two designs actually is far more beneficial to employees. The ‘flexible’ office plan incorporates elements of both the cubicle, more privatised plan and the open spaced office. This means that employees get the best of both worlds and can decide where they’d like to spend the day doing their work, this can help to improve the general productivity of your office.

You might wish to consider office partitions and glass cubicles – with the right design they are a great way to split up office space without cutting off communication and making employees feel isolated. Having private spaces for individuals to go if they prefer peace and quiet and time away from their colleagues means workers will be more productive in that environment. However, those who thrive in busy areas with lots going on will benefit from a more open space where they can talk to their friends while carrying out their day-to-day tasks.

The level of noise in an office is also key to productivity. A flexible office plan helps those who work better in silence, with no distractions, compared to those who can continue working with people talking and laughing around them.

 

Personality for inspiration

Office Acoustic breakout space

Try adding a bit of personality and warmth to your office decor – paint the walls of your office to tie in with your brand. You might even wish to put quotes or hang quirky paintings on the walls. Whatever you do, make sure the office isn’t dull and dreary. Colour has an important impact on peoples’ mood and therefore on their productivity levels. Keep it bright to keep your employees interested.

 

How we can help 

Above all, investing in your office design demonstrates your commitment to your team and staff members are much more likely to work hard for a business that tends to their wellbeing

 

If you’re relocating to new offices, or would like to refresh your current working space, please get in touch and organise a consultation with one of our experts to further explore the interior design and social distancing solutions available to you.

What Will Offices Look Like Post Covid-19?

high seated office chairs around a high desk

Previously, we wrote about some of the things you might expect to see when you return to your office, post covid-19. This looked at things like screens, distancing and hygiene as ways of mitigating any ongoing risks.

In this article, we’re going to take it one step further, and explore how office design might transform as a result of the pandemic.

With many companies having moved over to remote working in the early part of 2020, now is a great opportunity to take a look at your workspace, and think about how it could change to facilitate your future needs through an office refurbishment. So let’s take a look at some options, as well as factors that will have an impact on your decision making.

Number Of People

When thinking about new office designs, you’ll need to keep in mind the new context we all find ourselves in. If your people have been successfully working remotely for over three months, do you really need everybody back in the office?

For some, remote working is ideal and they’re more productive than ever when working at home. Others thrive in an office environment, surrounded by colleagues.

For this reason, you might want to consider the amount of people who’ll be working in your office post Covid-19.

If more people are working at home, then you’ll potentially have more space to play with when redesigning your workspace — so well worth thinking about. It also means you could consider what we’re going to talk about next…

Will Hot Desking Be Possible?

Hot desking is where multiple employees share the same desk — although not at the same time obviously. It’s ideal when you have remote workers who want or need to come into the office occasionally.

The problem is that current official advice says that hot desking should be avoided, as it could lead to the spread of Covid-19. With that in mind, if you want to look into hot desking as a solution, you’ll have to wait until it’s deemed safe to do so.

With that out of the way, what other design options could you look at?

Open Plan

Open plan working spaces have been popular since the 1960s. It’s always been a great way to increase collaboration and communication in your team. What’s more, if you have fewer team members in the office thanks to remote working, you’ll free up space.

But with Covid-19 still around, it’s important that you design an open plan office with that in mind. You’ll want to create the feeling of open space, while ensuring that teams aren’t too densely grouped together. Things like transparent barriers could become essential in this setup.

The key is to keep an open feeling to the space, while using things like transparent barriers, furniture and plants to separate the office into different meeting, work and socialising spaces. Get it right and you can achieve all the benefits of open plan working, while mitigating the risks of Covid-19.

Meeting Space

Having a space for meetings is important for any office. Ideally, they need to be separate from the hustle and bustle of the workplace, offering a quiet place for a team to get together and talk.

In the short term, with Covid-19 in mind, there will be an issue with enclosed meeting spaces. But the good news is that you don’t have to completely enclose a meeting space for it to be private and quiet. Strategic use of barriers and sound proofing mean you can create effective meeting spaces that still have enough ventilation and space to remain safe during, and after, the pandemic.

Building Health and Wellbeing Into Your Office

What ties all these ideas together? Health and wellbeing. It’s important to keep productivity, communication and collaboration in mind when designing an office space. And it’s equally important to make sure your team is happy and healthy. In fact, the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. The happier and healthier your people are, the more productive they tend to be.

What does this mean for office design? It means taking into account all of the above, and more. If people have safe meeting spaces and working spaces, they’ll be more confident and happy in the workplace. But you can go further. You could build dedicated breakout spaces into your design — offering people a space to relax and recharge their batteries during the work day.

To achieve this safely now, and into the future, you could ensure that these spaces are not enclosed. Instead, you can make sure that they’re quiet and isolated from the rest of the office using barriers and soundproofing.

What next?

With most people still out of the office, it’s a good time to start thinking about a redesign.

If you’d like some help with your office design, contact us for a chat today.