Many businesses want to improve their workplace in order to boost productivity and employee wellbeing. However,sometimes it can be difficult to think of ways that you could improve your business' office design.
To give you a helping hand, here is a list off our suggestions that could help you to update your business' place of work.
If you optimise specific areas of your workspace for different tasks and different departments, you could potentially see an increase in productivity.
For example, if your sales or customer support team is frequently talking with clients on the phone, this could be very distracting for other members of staff if they are located in the same office room. However, if you have a room dedicated for specific job roles, or workplace activities, such as a room where people are busy talking on the phone for large portions of their working day;you could mitigate the noise issue by utilising acoustics in your office design. If you would like tolearn more about using acoustics in an office space, you could read our blog titled, “Considering Acoustics In The Open Plan Office", it discusses things such as phone booths, acoustic furniture, and acoustic panelling.
If you give a specific room a purpose, you can customise it to achieve this purpose. For example, you could include a large open plan office environment for a work area that is designed for co-operation and collaborative work. In addition to this, you could also create designated areas for quiet work, thus allowing your workforce to complete their tasks in optimised spaces.
This could be a key fob, an employee ID card, or some other form of keyless entry. Firstly this is a fantastic strategy to protect your office from theft and uninvited visitors; however it can also be used as a fantastic tool for keeping track of who is in the building. Indeed, this could be very useful for businesses that are utilising flexible working hours, as they will be able to know what times their employees are in the office.
With regards to flexible working, this could have many advantages for your businesses. Indeed, many people would argue that flexible working can improve productivity; this is because instead of your staff working the typical 9-5,they can choose to work at the time in which they feel most productive. It could also reduce absences caused by sickness as flexible working could reduce stress,and stress can have a negative effect on both physical and mental health.
Utilising modern office furniture in your workplace is very important. Indeed, today's office furniture goes far beyond comfort alone. A piece of workplace furniture such as an office chair is not merely an object to sit on. In addition to providing a piece of furniture for your staff to sit on whilst they complete their tasks, modern office furniture is also a fantastic opportunity for your business to express your brand identity, for example a tech company could opt for vibrant furniture in a contemporary style.
However, it is still very important that your furniture is comfortable for your employees. Indeed, as your employees could be sat on chairs for hours at a time, it is critical that your seating choices support your employees. As such,whilst there are many opportunities with regards to different styles of furniture, it is very important that you do not forget about the importance of comfort.
Creating areas in your office for dedicated purposes can be very useful. If a space is multi-purpose, it could very easily become cluttered as it needs to be able to cater to a variety of different needs.
However, in addition to creating spaces for different areas of work, it is also important that you create a space for employees to relax. This area is sometimes known as a break room or a breakout area. A room that is dedicated for relaxation could provide your employees with the space they need to collect their thoughts; returning to work motivated and rejuvenated. Additionally, a breakout area could be a fantastic room for informal meetings, perhaps organising some office activities such as a fundraising event or organising some future team building exercises.
If you're searching for inspiration for your workplace design, you can find lots of advice and information on the Active blog. As written above we have information and advice with regards to acoustics in the workplace, however we also have lots of other blogs about other office topics such as office refurbishment, relocation and furnishing services.
For example, if you would like advice with regards to office relocation, perhaps you would like to read a list of “6 Tips To Find A Good Office Location", or perhaps information about “How An Office Relocation Will Be Of Great Benefit To Your Business".
However, if you would like to learn more about
furnishings and the furniture within your office environment, we have lots of blogs
to choose from discussing things such as, “Is Furniture Negatively Impacting Your
Office?", “The Importance Of Modern Office Furniture",and “Look After Your Office
Furniture – And It Will Look After You".
If you are interested in our professional services for office design, office refurbishment, office relocation, or office furnishing, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our friendly and dedicated team.
Additionally, if you have any questions regarding any of our services and you would like to make an enquiry, please contact our team by calling us on 0845130 9066.
However, if you would prefer to reach out to our team using the internet, you could get in touch with the Active team by using the methods below.
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Or by following us on Twitter @activefmcouk or on Facebook @ActiveFMLtd.