If you ever thought that an ideal workspace was all about laptops and chairs, nothing could be farther from the truth, but it all about makes your office.
There’s a lot more to it. Employers often profusely invest into employee remunerations, only to later wonder why their employees still left them! In fact, only about 12% of the employees actually leave for money, as found by a study of 19,700 post-exit interviews by the Saratoga Institute.
Such scenarios bite into the idea of adopting a different approach to making your office a conflux of unity, creativity and productivity.
Here are 10 must-have elements for a complete office:
1. Aesthetic Appeal
This involves anything from crafting unique office layouts to simply including various forms of artwork around your desks. An aesthetic appeal goes a long way in enhancing your and your employees’ working experience for many reasons:
- Art inspires creativity – Any form of art at a given place creates feelings of peace and satisfaction. Such emotions are promotive to thinking actively and openly.
- Art engenders better client relationships – Business meetings need not always be robotic interactions about numbers and bottom lines. We’re humans after all! Artwork at workplace makes you connect with clients on an emotional level. It adds an authentic touch to your interactions, which your client may miss while meeting your competitors.
- Most employees prefer it – Several studies reveal employees’ general appreciation for art at an office. A survey conducted by the BCA and International Association of Professional Art Advisors revealed that more than 80% respondents expressed that artwork at the office was important to them.
That is good enough reason to incorporate elements of aesthetic value into your workspace. Can’t afford unique structures? Not a problem. Even paintings at desks make a difference.
2. Comfy Furniture:
We all love cosy chairs, don’t we? Purchasing great furniture for your office is the best long-term investment you can make for your office. Think about it. Your chairs are what your employees spend about 95% of their time with. And that is just one example. Durable furniture reduces cost and hassle involved in frequent repairments. Any minor disturbance after the commencement of work creates huge productivity hurdles. Hence, reliable office equipment and furniture are a must-have.
3. Mixed Ambiences:
Monotonous office layouts often cause rigidity. It is hence, a great idea to incorporate different places with an assigned purpose. Separate restrooms, presentation rooms, conference/meeting rooms and multi-storeyed workspaces are some good examples. This becomes a good way to provide your employees with an authentic working experience.
4. A Natural Touch:
Did you know that plants at the workplace can drop ambient noise by about 5 decibels? That is just one benefit of giving your office a natural feel. There’s more:
- Enhanced quality of air – Replace those ‘air purifiers’ with a bunch of peace lily pots and see the difference!
- Plants boost creativity – A Texas A&M University study revealed that merely keeping plants and flowers on a desk boosted idea-creation from employees by 15%!
- Enhanced visual appeal – This doesn’t even need evidence. All of us would agree that a place replete with greens appeals to us both on a visual and an emotional level. Maybe, it’s our biological instincts doing all the work. Regardless, it makes a positive difference – the part that counts anyway.
5. Quality Mentorship
What good is a workforce that lacks frequent feedback from seniors? If you want your workers to consistently improve their skills and grow your organization, you must make it a habit to have brief daily feedback sessions with your employees. This ensures effective mentorship that gets great output.
6. Sociable Staff
A sociable staff is critical to an authentic working experience. The more interesting interactions and exchange of ideas are encouraged among employees, the more inspired they get. Organising frequent corporate events and other co-curricular group activities are some effective ways to pursue this cause.
7. Brainstorming Sessions
Every so often, an exceptional way to break monotony is to leave everything and dive into short bursts of brainstorming sessions. If made into a regular exercise, it can provide substantial benefits in terms of ‘pushing your limits’ of idea-generation and uniting with your teams.
8. Flexibility of Motion
Arguably, humans have been programmed to walk, not sit! Hence, it only makes sense to meet this vital biological need of your team of homo sapiens. As discussed earlier, separate restrooms and lounges in an office arrange for an employee to move around and unwind herself once too often.
Soon after the massive tirade against sedentary lifestyle started, standing desks at offices have become insanely popular. And rightly so! They offer substantial benefits such as less obesity risk, better posture and longevity.
9. Flexibility of Time
It is instructive not to limit your employees within the confinements of a rigid schedule. Every day is different for everybody! On a good day, one may want to work with consummate concentration and deliver accordingly. Whereas on a bad day, the same person might want to take a break for an hour or so and start afresh. A typical 9 to 5 scenario fails to fit into this key requirement of a satisfied employee. A 2014 SHRM study on flexible working arrangements showed a substantial increase in parameters like productivity and employer’s trust after flexible working hours were leveraged. Moreover, a decrease in absenteeism was observed. What’s great about is that it requires little to no investment!
10. Flexibility of Location…wait what?
Yes. Today’s technology allows you to be almost anywhere in the world and yet work independently of a fixed office. You can become a ‘digital nomad’ who has ‘digitally nomadic’ subordinates stationed away from her town and yet get your work done!
All you need is a rented coworking space! It mostly provides you with all the previously discussed elements and much more. Also, with the steady rise in the popularity of the coworking spaces, you can find them almost anywhere in the world!
It is certain that incorporation of the aforementioned elements into your office will make it a productivity powerhouse.
Wondering what to do if you lack a complete office yet? Rent one!
