How To Make The Most Out Of Your Office Space

Your work environment, especially its design, plays a very important role in your productivity and output. Many businesses are doing away with the traditional office structure that includes clusters of cubicles in the middle of a space with surrounding private offices. Nearly 70% of offices these days tend to go in for a more open office concept. 

These new design concepts are not merely trends. Rather, they are means to give employees more comfort, choice, and freedom to move about the office. Unfortunately, most employers are not willing to invest more into workplace design. As a business owner, what are some things you can do to make the most out of your office space on a lower budget? Check out these design tips to help you make small adjustments that yield big results.

Create a productive layout

Your office layout is a reflection of your business’s personality. It also determines the energy of your space. Determining the layout of your office goes beyond just separating departments into different spaces. There should be proper planning and consideration for creating the best layout. One of the important factors to consider when thinking about your office layout is its concept. Open spaces are the current popular concepts that many modern offices use. It creates a sense of collaboration and encourages regular interaction. 

However, your concept should reflect the type of business you have, its brand, and the type of environment you want to create. Open spaces can sometimes leave little room for privacy, so it’s important that you also consider providing quiet rooms for more private discussions and tasks. How you also design your office plays an equally important role in deciding your office layout. Colors can communicate the vibe and energy of a space. Yellow and green are excellent choices for offices that thrive on innovation and creativity. Blue creates a more calming environment and improves communication.  

Furniture

Many people working in modern office spaces spend most of their days sitting, whether in meetings, having lunch, or working from their desks. The type of furniture you purchase for your business is of utmost importance. While it does well in creating a specific theme or ambiance of your workplace, it must also provide comfort to its users. Your choice of furniture can affect your staff’s productivity more than you think. 

When placed correctly, furniture can make your office look more spacious, no matter the size. For smaller offices, it’s best to use multi-functional furniture to reduce the clutter of individual pieces. You can also place bigger furniture pieces against walls to create a larger open space. Instead of closed-off cubicles that can seem uninviting, you can also invest in furniture that has space for more seats. For example, you can get a long table with shorter partitions that fit close to 20 workers. This type of furniture makes collaborations more linear and can make staff appear more approachable. 

Another benefit of having quality and comfortable furniture in your office is promoting your employees’ well-being. Ensure that your furniture is easily accessible to all and doesn’t affect their health. Throw in a couple of neck rests and pillows as well. 

Keep your office clutter-free

In most busy offices, it’s likely to have a cluttered environment. It’s very easy to get used to clutter as you spend more time in the same environment. However, it would be best if you kept your office neat. Having a tidy office can improve your workers’ productivity. Having a decluttered office makes it easier to find specific documents, saving you a lot of time. Clutter affects your physical space and your mental space as well. Sometimes, a cluttered office can reflect your workers’ state of mind. 

If you are decluttering your office, you must keep only the important things you need. You can also rearrange your space based on how often you use certain items. Place the most used items like your pens, chargers, and notebooks in areas like your desk drawers. Another excellent way of getting organized is digitizing your physical documents, especially if paper forms more than half of your clutter. Several software programs help you easily scan documents. You can also switch to digital notebooks like Google Docs and Evernote. The good thing is that you can synchronize them across several devices. Digitizing your documents also makes it easier to find documents more conveniently. 

If your work involves storing physical documents and other items, you can invest in a proper storage item like a filing cabinet or storage shelf. Ensure that your shelves are sturdy to be able to support heavy items. If you’re interested in getting shelves, click here to learn more about the best options. 

Make use of natural lighting

Workspaces that have little to no windows can feel pretty small and claustrophobic. With 90% of workers spending time indoors, relying solely on artificial light isn’t too bad. However, it will be much better to have more windows to make a room feel more spacious and allow more natural light to enter. A study revealed that most workers consider accessing natural light as a top attribute or feature in an office space. Offices that have good natural lighting make the space appear warm and inviting. It also reduces the need for you to use artificial lighting for most of the working day, causing a decrease in your utility bills. 

There are a few simple tips to adopt if you want to increase the amount of natural light in your office. Sometimes, it could be a simple rearrangement of your furniture. Perhaps, you have a big cabinet blocking light because it covers a window. You can also encourage employees to spend their breaks outdoors. 

Create zones in your workplace

It can get difficult to find the perfect mix of privacy and collaboration. No matter the size of your office space, you can create zones in your office that can make work more efficient and productive. If you have a small business space, you can create separate zones for group sessions and individual work. 

For your group zones, you can place furniture like couches or tables to accommodate three or more people to help them collaborate better. More personal zones require more privacy. By establishing these zones, you can distinguish between the various types of work in the office and be able to accommodate everybody’s needs. 

Take advantage of remote work

If you’ve got a smaller office and are worried about having an overcrowded space, you can allow your workers to work remotely. Or, you can create a remote schedule and rotate workers weekly or monthly. This strategy helps free up space, making it a place for employees who might need it for meetings or conferences. 

Remote or hybrid work schedules might not solve all your space issues, but they have many benefits. It makes working hours more flexible, especially because it allows you to work when you feel the most productive. It could be the standard 9-5, and for others, it can be early in the morning or late at night. It also improves your employee’s work/life balance, as they have more time to spend with their loved ones and other important activities. It also eliminates the amount of time spent commuting or getting ready to leave for work. 

Reduce noise levels

The level of noise in your office varies depending on your team’s size, office structure, and the overall company environment. However, too much noise can affect your ability to focus on your work. Too much exposure to dust can also increase your stress levels, effectively decreasing your productivity. 

You can set up a dedicated quiet space in your office or invest in sound-absorbing acoustic wall panels to limit the amount of noise in the workplace. You can also install sound insulation materials to reduce noise in an office space. Well-placed plants also reduce noise levels, especially in open space settings. 

Improve the air quality

Air quality can affect your workers’ ability to focus on their work. It can impact the comfort, health, and well-being of your employees. When there are pollutants in indoor environments, your workers are more susceptible to respiratory illnesses. Several studies continuously rank indoor air pollution as an environmental health issue. Poor air quality can cost you a lot of money on medical care and lost productivity. You can have air filters installed and let in some fresh air by leaving windows and doors open whenever possible. Ensure that you don’t block ventilation units. Plants are also great choices for filtering air naturally, as they take in carbon dioxide and provide oxygen during the day. 

As a business owner looking for a new office space or interested in changing your current space, these tips should help you get started. Office space must encourage creativity and productivity. It would be best to always search for more ways to improve your office space and make it a place where employees feel the most comfortable.

Special thanks to the following source(s) for the image(s) used in this article:

• https://pixabay.com/photos/office-space-office-sunny-coworking-1744803/

DISCLAIMER: This is an affiliate article. We post affiliate articles with the intent of helping you grow. They are not written, researched, or necessarily endorsed by our team. They are simply content submitted to us by what appears to be respectable affiliate sources, people, and organizations, which upon initial review, seem solid and helpful to our community, so we post them. It is up to you to personally verify the facts, links, organizations mentioned, the validity of the information presented, and any/all claims made in the article(s). To report an issue with any of the information, links, or organizations mentioned in this, or any content posted on our website, or if you simply have a question or need something we can help you with, please contact us now.