Perception of a great office environment differs for every company based on workplace culture and the work style of the employees. Creating the right office environment and making the space comfortable, inviting and fun to be in will not only help accomplish tasks, but it will also motivate the employees to look forward to work every day.
There are many physical changes that can be made to office space for maximising productivity. If you work in an open-minded office, try, or talk to your HR and manager to make implement these. They may sound a little unconventional, however, thinking outside the box can be just what’s required to boost brainpower and send productivity levels skyrocketing.
Hot-desking
Thanks to the advancement of technology, employees don’t necessarily need to be chained to a single desk. Instead, they can move around the workspace just by carrying their laptops from one place to the other. Some companies have taken this to the next level by eliminating personal desks and opting for a configuration called “hot desking.”
It simply means that no one in the office has an assigned desk or seating area. Instead, when you come in for work every morning, you can sit anywhere you wish to. For this to work, your company should take special care to create spaces in the office that can easily be reconfigured for different tasks and evolving teams.
Naps
Research conducted by Harvard University have proven the beneficial effects of taking a short catnap during the day. A 20-minute snooze has been associated to improve learning ability, creativity and retaining memory for up to 180 minutes after the nap. If you can convince your boss to buy one of the fancy nap pods, then that could benefit the entire office. They are specially designed to be time efficient while increasing the productivity of the users.
Bring your fur baby to work
Pet therapy is known to help manage stress levels at the workplace. Talk to your office about planning a day in a month where everyone can bring along their pet to work. Working alongside pets not only helps in dealing with stress but it also helps in increasing communication skills and bonding within the team.
However, make sure the idea is liked by everyone before you talk to your HR. If planned properly, it can definitely have a positive change in the workplace environment.
Ambient music
Listening to music is like giving your brain a full-body workout. Rather than just lighting up one area of the brain, which is what you would expect to see in individuals reading or doing math problems, playing music causes multiple areas of the brain to light up.
This enables effective and creative problem-solving skills, in both academic and social settings. When exposed to music, people are known to present enhanced memory functions and have higher levels of executive function — a category of interlinked tasks that includes planning, strategising, attending to detail, and requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects.
‘Fun’ breaks
Encourage colleagues to take social media or exercise breaks, schedule an occasional team, birthday or target achievement celebratory lunch and go out and have fun for two hours. Mandatory breaks allow you to clean your mind, reduce mental fatigue and boost team morale. Remember to not set a strict time limit. Controlled breaks aren’t effective. Each person is different, and different personalities and tasks need different time frames and styles of breaks. Encourage employees to take breaks as they see fit, which will let them enjoy their breaks rather than watching the clock as they wait for the allotted break time to start or end.
Changing the layout of an office isn’t just about improving productivity. It’s about making the workspace an inviting and enjoyable place for people to spend 40 hours of their week. Employees greatly value flexibility and a company’s openness to innovation and adaptation as the working world changes. It makes them feel valued and cared for, like they aren’t just machines to accomplish tasks.
Experiment with some of these unconventional ways to improve workplace productivity.
