How To Improve Your Office’s Working Environment

April
7, 2021

4 min read

This story originally appeared on ValueWalk

If you have a positive work environment, your employees will be more likely to feel like they’re included, valued, and necessary. And all of this positivity combined can also have a direct impact on your bottom line.

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Tip To Improve Your Office’s Working Environment

If you’re ready to reap the benefits of a better working environment for your employees, here are some ideas for how you can upgrade your offices.

1. Appropriate lighting

All offices need to be well-lit in order to eliminate darkness and shadows, but it shouldn’t have any excessive glare. Allowing ambient daylight inside certain areas of your office space is also much more desirable than cold, fluorescent lights. Not only has exposure to natural sunlight been proven to prevent employee headaches and fatigue, but having the appropriate indoor lighting also improves their mood and productivity, as well as making it easier to complete laborious work tasks.

If you don’t currently have much sunlight coming in, you can look at trimming back any greenery outside windows or installing some skylights. If it’s simply not possible to increase the natural light, make sure you use the closest temperature bulbs and incorporate some natural greenery in your office with some indoor plants.

2. Office setup

If your staff spend most of their time each day at work, your office environment should be a happy place where they feel comfortable at all times. But if the physical appearance of your office space is drab, dreary, and dull, it won’t be an environment that’s conducive to work. In fact, your staff may even feel depressed about coming to work each day.

So make sure the design of your office space includes updated office equipment with comfy ergonomic furniture and any other high-quality amenities. You should also be flexible with your staff by allowing them to choose the elements of their workspace, while also allowing them room for a little personalisation.

3. Quiet areas

While ergonomic chairs and desks are helpful while employees are working, it’s just important to provide them with adequate quiet areas away from where they relax from their desks. Quiet rooms give staff somewhere they can retreat to whenever they need to take a break from work. They can also be used to hold casual meetings or to collaborate on a difficult project.

If you don’t already have somewhere suitable in your office for your staff to use, you should consider creating a break-out space by incorporating some comfortable lounge chairs, bean bags, and some temporary walls for privacy. Simply by ensuring there somewhere, your employees can take time out during their workday, it can reduce stress while improving productivity and overall mental health.

4. Office accessibility

With 1 out of every 4 Americans living with some sort of disability, it’s unfortunate that so many working environments are still a major barrier for these people. That’s because when many employers are setting up their strategy for diversity inclusion, they overlook people with disabilities. Simply by creating an accessible working environment for able and disabled people, you’re also setting yourself up for a productive future and a great reputation.

The good news is that those businesses with disability inclusion are more likely to outperform their peers. So not only is hiring workers with disabilities the right thing to do but providing inclusive support for them in the form of workplace accessibility will also increase your chance for success which can mean big things for the future of your business.

5. Noise reduction

While offices with open layouts are sometimes a necessity, not all employees like them due to the possibility of distraction and level of noise. And these aren’t the only complaints about open-plan offices either. So if you have no other choice of office layout, it’s important for everyone to reduce their noise as much as possible.

While each office will be different, simply incorporating these ideas into your workplace environment will help improve employee happiness which will increase your business productivity overall.