Whether you work alone or run a team of professionals, your environment is always a direct factor in how you perform on the job. You may not believe that people are solely the products of their surroundings, but work often is. Even government agencies support this view, by noting the effect that the behaviours of individuals significantly impact business outcomes.
In this piece, we’ll outline some effective tips to make your office an epicentre of productivity.
1. Mix your space
Co-working is more than just another trend that we read about on LinkedIn. There’s multiple benefits to mixing your staff with other businesses. To name a select few, there’s the sharing of ideas, the networking opportunities and the resources available when you set up in a co-working space.
2. Open plan is the best plan
Despite arguments to the contrary, open plan offices are one of the best ways to organise your workspace. Open plan desks encourage employees to work collaboratively and also promote socialisation. Further, this type of arrangement reduces perceived barriers between employees of different team and levels of seniority. When traditional corporate hierarchies are removed, employees can flourish.
3. Use tech to your advantage
Advancements in technology have many benefits when used in the workplace. To begin with, using software to run your business and maintain files will reduce your need to use paper. This will them shore up desk space, and resulting in a less cluttered environment. Providing your workers with a second computer monitor can also reduce the time they spent clicking between applications and internet tabs. Beyond this, technology will reduce the need to have meetings, and even dramatically reduce the use of time-consuming methods of communicating such as emails or conference calls.
4. Prioritise your employees’ satisfaction
People spend on average a third of their lives at work. It’s no surprise then that the more satisfied people are on the job, the better their performance is likely to be. There’s many ways you can facilitate a workspace which brings out the best in your employees. One thing that has become popular in recent years is offering fringe or other extra benefits to your employees. For example, you can offer massage sessions, professional development, or gym subsidies. For many people these days, a job is not rewarding simply for the money, but for what is offered as an extra incentive.
5. Only have meetings when you need to
Excessive meetings cut into the valuable time that can be spent actually working. Of course, it’s important to make sure you and your team are on the same wavelength, but you probably don’t need much else beyond this. Meetings also require transportation time, which adds up to hundreds of hours of wasted time in Ubers or on foot. The anti-meeting movement also has many well-known disciples, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos’s general rule is to keep meetings small and infrequent.
Your ideal workspace should be an environment where employees can feel comfortable, supported and inspired. Whether it’s small measures such as introducing a communal eating area or making way for more natural light to enter the building, the importance of creating a pleasant work environment isn’t overestimated. As founder of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson notes, the onus “is on employers to create a workplace that attracts great talent.”
