How To Design Your Office To Enhance Productivity

Look around your office environment. What do you see and how does it make you feel? How do you think it makes employees feel? Do you think it motivates and inspires them to work more productively? With only 13% of companies taking professional advice about office design, Philip Dodson from Office Planet explains how the office environment is key to commercial success.

Moving offices is one of the most important decisions a company can make. If planned, budgeted and managed correctly, it could improve operational efficiency, enhance corporate image and competitive advantage, increase your client base and improve your ability to attract and retain employees. With so much to gain, why is it that only 13% of companies actually seek professional advice about office design?

Increasing evidence demonstrates that the function and quality of the working environment has a direct and positive effect on the effectiveness of employees. This means that proactively managing the design, physical layout and implementation of needed technology in your workspace is vital to stimulating employee productivity.

Good office design can enhance moods and encourage interaction and conversation between employees. This in turn improves the flow of communication and the generation of ideas. But even getting the basics right can be a challenge; noise levels, climate control, toilets, furniture and storage are all key areas that can cause employee distress and lessen productivity.

Inspiring Creativity
To inspire creativity from your employees, you need to promote human interaction, which is vital to sparking ideas, and ensure you have the right tools and workspace available to develop these ideas. Itís about tailoring the working environment to how it will actually be used.

A workspace must have the flexibility to support different people and different tasks. For example, a lawyer may require a private office for client meetings, software engineers need open group environments for mind sharing whereas a salesman requires a home office to act as a base while traveling and a hot-desk once back in the office.

However you chose to structure your working environment, it should be conductive to spawning ideas from all staff, which includes people who need quiet to concentrate as well as those who prefer background noise, music or chatter.

Lighting
Equally important to the working environment is lighting. By using a combination of natural light and illumination you can recreate that ëfeel good factorí created by a sunny day, which spurs employee productivity.

Think carefully about where you place your internal offices and meeting rooms, you do not want to mask precious natural light. Illumination can be used for more specific tasks and to enhance the environment. Ceiling mounted lights will achieve general illumination without glare or reflection, thus reducing employee eyestrain, whilst accent lights can be used to help create moods and highlight and define different areas of the office.

Whilst natural light is most precious, variations in brightness can also cause problems, so window blinds may need to be considered to avoid extreme light intensities.

Managing Your Office For Increased Productivity
Thinking about imposing some general rules in the office will also aid in employee productivity.

Enforce A Clear Desk Policy - a clear desk means improved presentation, organisation and productivity. Itís also important for company security. Encourage employees to throw away unnecessary papers and clutter and donít leave sensitive documents lying around.

No Shouting Across Workstations ñ ask your staff to either leave their workstations to speak to a colleague, or to use the telephone or email.

Keep The Noise Down - install partitions to deaden sound and make sure people keep their voices down. Ensure employees hold meetings in meeting rooms away from main work areas and go to a ëquiet roomí when they need to concentrate.

Phone Policy ñ employees should be encouraged to turn down the volume on their desk phones and to try and answer it within three rings. If away from their desk for long periods, calls should be diverted. Mobile phones should always be switched to silent.

Prioritise Tasks ñ ensure employees prioritise their tasks. By finding out what motivates them to work harder, theyíll be more focused on their work and less disruptive to others.

Careful Planning Of The Workspace - arrange things so that everyone can access the people and resources they need. Organise workspaces around day-to-day processes and make it as easy as possible for people to do their jobs.

Empower Your Employees
By encouraging employees to personalise their area in the working environment theyíll feel pride about their workspace, which in turns aides in increasing productivity. Allow them to put up a family photo or keep a small plant on their desk.

Shared spaces such as libraries, meeting rooms, kitchens and even a designated ìchill outî room should all be provided within an organisation for employees to separate themselves from their workgroup or to escape the stress of a working day.

Research reveals that 9 out of 10 employees have no say in his or her working environment, so why not address this issue with your next office move?

Philip Dodson is Managing Director of Office Planet.

Office Planet can help you find new office space through their free office finding service (www.office-planet.net) or contact 0800 085 8326.