5 steps to a more productive office

Researchers have said for years that the physical workspace of a business factors directly into productivity, job satisfaction, and, yes – profitability. A well-designed office is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to retain workers and make them more productive. Try these five top tips to transform your office into an enjoyable and efficient workplace. 1Get your layout right. Bad office layouts are created, not born. This is often as a business grows and more staff are squeezed into the nearest available space. An office configuration that suited the way business was done five years ago probably doesn’t work now. To find out if your office is dysfunctional complete a space analysis either in-house or hire a design consultant. Find out how people are using existing spaces. Study whether the layout of the building is helping or hindering employees in the quest to get work done. An analysis will often reveal inefficient organisation of space. 2 Inject some colour. This could be as simple as adding a great piece of artwork or as difficult as repainting your whole office. Combined with the right layout, colour can improve productivity. Used correctly, colour can be used as a unifying element of a company’s brand identity, re-inforcing your brand to clients and employees. We don’t however recommend that you paint your entire office in your corporate colours – use it as an accent. If repainting the office is not an option, try adding a few pieces of colourful furniture throughout the office. If you have screen partitions, you could either replace these with more colourful ones or have your existing screens re-covered in a bold fabric. If budget is an issue, why not try adding a couple of cool sofas or ottomans and a strong colourful piece of art. 3 Get the lighting right. One of the most overlooked and underestimated elements of the office is lighting. Too much or too little lighting can cause headaches (at best!). While fluorescent light is the best type of light to work under and is a popular choice for most offices, not many have anti-glare diffusers attached to control the light. Problems such as glare on your computer screen result from both artificial and natural light, but can be corrected. If glare is a problem in your office, look at replacing the diffusers. Fluorescent lamps also fade with age. ‘Re-tubing’/replacing the lamps of your existing fluorescent lighting will inject new life into them and give a consistent level of light throughout your office (which needs to be at a level of 500 lux at your desktop). Halogen spot lighting can add a nice sparkle and warmth to an otherwise utilitarian space. Use these to highlight artwork or create pools of light along a corridor floor. Even if the only areas with halogens are the reception and meeting rooms (or the boss’s office), the general atmosphere in the whole office will improve. 4 Use innovative materials. There are so many products available now; you don’t need to use solid materials like timber. There is the ability when completing a retro-fit (upgrade of your existing space) to replace some of your existing feature elements with modern and innovative finishes. Interion has a great selection of timber veneers and resin finishes that would be great accents. Why not replace your boardroom table top with a modern veneer or replace your reception counter front with a metal veneer panel from Metalier. Small changes can make a remarkable difference. 5 Choose furniture that suits your business. There are two main areas in an office space; front of house and back of house. Front of house areas like the reception, boardroom, and meeting rooms should reflect who your business is and what it stands for and what impression you wish to make on your clients. Ask yourself this question and then buy furniture that reflects that. Whatever you buy needs to be functional and practical. There is no point buying a glass-top boardroom table if no one is around to clean it, or funky meeting room chairs that give you get a sore backside after five minutes! The back of house area needs to be absolutely functional. This isn’t to say it can’t look great. Just make sure you evaluate what you need. More and more businesses are going for rectangular desks as the size of our office equipment decreases. What about the task chairs in the office? Most of us spend a great deal of our day planted on our task chairs. We spend thousands on a great bed yet many people quibble over spending a few hundred dollars on a good chair. Get the best chair you can afford. It should at the very least be height adjustable – although other features such as seat tilt, back rest height, tilt and lumbar adjustment will make a good chair even better. With all the adjustment options, one type of chair should work for everyone in the office. Elizabeth Whaley is director of Spaceworks, an Auckland-based commercial interior design practice. Visit www.spaceworks.co.nz.