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The layout of your office is more important than you imagine. It’s not just about presenting your clients with a stunning space or impressing shareholders and suppliers. Your office layout needs to work for your employees. Get it right, and productivity will increase, get it wrong, and you may find a tired and uninspired team who can’t wait to get home.
One of the most essential features in a productive office space is lighting. Bad lighting can create a terrible atmosphere amongst your employees, and it can lead to irritability, lack of focus, headaches and fatigue. If you are renting a building, it can be hard to have control of your lighting but creating a bright atmosphere, especially one with lots of natural light will improve the productivity of your staff, give them more focus and inspire creativity.
You can create a lighter space in several ways but, keeping to a white office scheme is a good start. This can brighten up all shapes and sizes of office. You should also consider replacing any dividing walls with glass and aluminium walls like these from OWS Fire Rated, using blinds to create private spaces when the rooms are in use, or leaving them open to give the illusion of more space when they aren’t occupied.
Clutter is another issue in offices, especially with all the wiring from peoples computers and hard drives. Try to control all your wiring; there are loads of solutions you can use from building it into walls or under the floor to simple cable ties to help neaten up the look. Creatives will often work in a cluttered environment as it helps them to work on innovative ideas, but clutter is a distraction which can make you lose focus and result in less productivity.
Encourage all your team to tidy up as they go. Ensure you have an organised office space so that everyone knows where everything is. Modular storage is a great idea which can make a real impression in the office environment while being very practical. Think form and function when you are working on the interior design for your company’s base.
The organisation of your people matters too. So when you work on a layout, try to imagine all the different divisions within your employees. Keep your PR team near your design and advertising team. Have your sales guys near your accountancy department. Use space to create exciting areas that are defined so that people can come together but also switch off when they need to focus.
You should also look at air quality and temperature. Make sure the whole office has access to warm areas in the winter and fresh air during the summer months. If you have an air conditioning unit make sure no one has a desk near it, they will end up far too cold or distracted by the noise of the unit, and this will create an issue when they are trying to be productive.
