Creating Employee-Friendly Workplace: An Office Space Planning Guide
The physical workplace is not simply the room where office staff sits and perform their duties. It is the floor plan of the office, the picture hanging on the wall, employees ‘demographics and physical perks including meals, cafeteria with a good environment, on-site gym, well-designed lounge area for the employees to unwind.
How office space impact productivity?
Your surroundings have a huge impact on your productivity. Working under pressure or in a toxic controlled environment makes it harder for the employees to perform to their full potential. According to the ADP research institute, more than 60% of European employees use gadgets including laptops, tablets and smartphones provided by their employers. The more you liberate and empower your employees, the better results you will get. Your workspace needs to make your employees feel relaxed, excited and energized at the same time.
According to an Everest College survey, around 83% of the U.S. employees are stressed at their jobs. A report issued by Health Advocate states that stress negatively impacts the productivity and performance of employees and can lead to a $300 billion loss in productivity. More than 93% of employees in the tech industry revealed they would love to work long term with a company that offers a relaxing working environment. This means, to retain your best employees you need to do proper office space planning and provide your workers with a relaxing environment to work in.
Importance of creating an employee-friendly workplace:
According to Lancaster University of Work Foundation, 70% of the companies in the UK will make flexible working a part of their operations by the year 2020. There are several reasons why companies should invest in designing the type of workplaces employees like to show up to. The fact the productivity and performance of the employees depend upon their well-being cannot be denied. Even the smallest changes in the physical workplace can have a dramatic impact on employees’ physical and mental health.
According to various studies, employees who enjoy the environment they work in are more engaged, productive, active and healthy. If your employees are not performing as per your expectations, try to revamp your workspace. If you are confused about what to do, then this article is for you.
Use of Color Psychology:
According to Carl Jung, colors are the tools for psychotherapy. Every color has a specific meaning and every person perceiving this color evaluates its meaning and behaves accordingly. They an automatic influence on a person’s behavior. Therefore, choosing the right set of colors to add to your office space planning guide should be your priority. If you want to trigger a relaxing and energized mood in your employees, then you need to choose the right set of colors. Your choice of colors will set the aura of your productive office space.
- While office space planning, you can choose warm colors for the walls and furniture to add a warm feeling to your workspace.
- Pick cool colors for your walls and furniture to add a calm and serene vibe to your working space.
Which and how psychology colors impact on the workplace?
According to the University of Hawaii at Hilo, there are various ways you can translate colors into your workplace environment to boost the productivity and performance of your employees. Some of these colors include:
- Green and Blue:
If you want to create a feeling of calm and ease in your employees, green and blue are the best colors to add while office space planning. If the lighting in your workspace is not optimal, you should add more green to your surroundings. It will reduce anxiety and put less strain on the eyes. The color blue is found to be helpful in lowering heart rate and blood pressure. However, make sure the workspace is well-lit since the darker tones of these colors induce sad feelings.
- Yellow and Orange:
Yellow and orange are known to trigger happy and warm feelings in a person. However, keeping them too bright can lead to feeling of anger and frustration. Therefore, make sure to choose the right tones while incorporating these colors into your productive office space design.
- Red:
The color red is known for stimulating and exciting employees. This color regulates heart rate, respiration and brain activity of your employees. However, the color red should only be used as an accent and as not the main color.
- Pink:
Subtle tones of the color pink have a relaxing effect on the minds of the employees. Choose the right tone to make sure that your workspace doesn’t lose its professional aura.
- White:
White is another reflective color. However, it can strain eyes if it’s used alone. It induces the feeling of clarity and cleanliness.
You can translate the colors that work for you into your furniture, wall art, floor and much more. You can avail discounts on your purchases by buying office essentials during off-season sales.
Introduce multiple ways to work:
According to Gensler's Workplace Index, there are four major workplace essentials employees need to perform their best. These elements include space to:
- Focus
- Collaborate
- Learn
- Socialize
To meet these requirements, you need a lot more than an open floor plan or a cubicle. You need to provide your employees with a variety of modes to work to their full potential. The majority of productive office spaces have more than one-floor plan. Offering your employees an open environment to work adds to their productivity and performance. There are so many examples where the working space comprises cubicles, co-working cafes, conference rooms, presentation areas, collaborative innovation hubs, smaller meeting rooms for each department and much more. Cisco, LinkedIn and Airbnb offer their employees similar environments to work at.
The key to pushing your employees to their maximum potential is to throw away your single floor plan and replace it with a number of collaborative floor plans. Follow an office space planning guide that focuses on the social needs of the employees. You can revamp your workspace on a budget by using promo codes and coupons.
Choose the design that reflects culture:
According to 94% of administrators and 88% of workers, distinct workplace culture is pertinent to the success of the business.
The offices at Cisco are quite advanced in terms of technology. Being a global technology company, it is working on the capabilities to enable an employee to have his working space, desk or conference room customized to his needs. He can easily set the lighting, temperature and other elements according to his taste and preference. He can even import his contacts and work information to the location he is working from.
Pandora is an internet radio streaming company. The wall art and design of the organization’s working space reflect their passion and love for music. After studying both of these examples, we learn to maximize the productivity of workers you need to invest in reflecting the culture and values of the company. You need to be focused on what your business is all about rather setting Ping-Pong tables, placing bean bags everywhere or adding art which has nothing to do with your culture just for the sake of doing so. You need to make strategic investments. You can redesign your workspace without going out of your pocket.
Observe the way your employees work:
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals a full-time employee spends around 8.44 hours every day at their workplace. Atlassian and Mars Drinks put sensors on their employees’ desks to observe how they work. They realized that the majority of the employees spend very little time at their desks and move around to get work done. They use conference rooms, quiet areas and smaller meeting rooms to work besides working from their desks.
To accommodate these needs of your employees you need to redesign your productive office space. You need to make sure that the working environment you are offering your employees is strategically designed. Your office space planning should depend on how your employees like to work. You can ask for time to time suggestions from your workers to make your work environment better.
Think of your physical space like software:
According to 67% of employers, an up-to-date redesigned workspace makes their companies appear more attractive to the new employees. Therefore you need to treat your working place like software. You need to upgrade, iterate and update your software to make the most out of it. Similarly, to make your workers work to their full potential, you need to upgrade your office every now and then.
You need to test and experiment with office layouts to make your working environment better. Make sure not to make abrupt or constant changes that distract your employees. Let them adapt to the changes and monitor the outcomes. This way you will be able to find the right design strategy for your working space. You can get a discount on your furniture and equipment purchases during mega sale events like Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
How to design productive office space on discount?
Do you want to redesign your workspace the way your employees want but you don’t have a big budget? Don’t worry! You can still manage to do so by using saving coupons. There are various sites that offer a great discount on furniture purchases using coupons. These sites include Groupon, Business Insider, RetailMeNot. Moreover, you can receive discounts on laptops, desktops and smartphones using discount coupons available at FactoryDiscounts, BuyDirectOnline, ClothingRIC, finder and many more. You can shop for your commercial workspace essentials during the holiday season, Click Frenzy or Black Friday. This way you will save considerably on the purchase of your office equipment and furniture.
To maximize the productivity and potential of your employees, you need to design the kind of workspace that they love to show up to. You need to observe their working behavior to see what works best for them. This way you will be able to design the space that improves the performance of your employees.
