Productivity is incorporated into the design of every successful business space. When your office is laid out to improve the working conditions of your employees both the business and the people working there benefit. The turn of the century has seen a lot of improvements in the way that office spaces are set up to improve the employee’s mental and physical health. No longer is simply maximizing space usage while cutting down facility costs the ultimate goal of office design. This article follows these improvements and goes over the most recent design trends to make your office more productive.
Casual Work Spaces
More and more offices these days are getting away from the space-maximizing cubicles and moving toward to giving employees more casual space within which to work. It may be a reaction to the more frequent use of mobile phones, laptops and tablets as an employee’s main workstation. When they’re not tethered to a desktop computer, many people find it easier to work in more casual environments that feature couches or other comfortable furniture. Being able to easily move to another work environment call also improve creativity and reduce burnout. Many businesses that use these types of casual spaces still enforce rules that allow work to get done.
Soundproofing
Many creative types need some sort of acoustic uniformity to get any work done. Whether this means listening to music through headphones, complete silence or background white noise depends on the individual. However, random, distracting noises are normally not very conducive to getting work accomplished. You can reduce these types of distracting noises by implementing soundproofing. This may be a simple as installing carpets in hallways to lower the sounds of foot traffic or adding plants and furniture to reduce room echo. You can take it to a whole other level by having your entire office acoustically optimized.
Personalization
By personalizing your office space to reflect the lives of the people who work there, you will not only increase the personal investment in the company the employees feel, you can also remind them of why they’re there in the first place. Visual reminders of the brand’s values interspersed with employee-specific touchstones can bring a team together and create more dedicated employees.
