There is nothing worse than waking in the morning, getting out of your warm bed and knowing you have to go to a dreary office. Whether you are the employee or the employer making the office a better place to work will have a positive effect on you and your colleagues. Below are some tips to make your office a nicer place to work.
Introduce Outdoors
There is something automatically calming about nature and being outdoors, primary schools have even started making ‘outdoor classrooms’ because it is proven to help the children work better. This goes for adults too. Being in an environment where the sun is hitting your skin and you are lapping up the vitamin D is a great way to boost your mind power. If you can’t take your office outside or don’t like the thought of bugs crawling over your laptop be sure to have all of your curtains or blinds open and crack all the windows so you can hear the birds chirping and feel the breeze on your face. This is a great way to cheer anyone up, a happy office is a productive office.
Make It Homely
As stated above, a dreary office is uninviting and usually an unhappy place to work. Just as you can bring the outdoors in you can bring the home feeling in. Furnish it with colourful pictures, plants and cushions. Make sure there are tea making facilities, make the lighting comfortable. There is so much you can do to make the office look less… well, like an office. By doing this it won’t feel as if you are going to work but going from home to home and much more work will get done.
Embrace Downtime
Downtime at work is just as important, if not more so, than actually working. You cannot expect to get a full-time job completed accurately and efficiently without some sufficient downtime. And by this, we don’t just mean going to the staff room to have a coffee, we mean looking forward to a break, embracing your surroundings, you can even add some creative toys like Lego to fiddle about with. Your mind needs to completely relax to ensure you can carry on with your day so embracing this daytime and making it great will have a very positive impact on the rest of your day.
Open the Seating Plan
Some employers may think this idea shouldn’t even be entertained, but it has been proven having the ability to mingle with colleagues gets the work done to a better standard. Not only are you not shut off all day to conversation, you can share ideas, solve problems together and just co-work in general. Having a small screen up will ensure privacy but gives the ability to chat with another co-worker if you wanted, giving the option will give you happy employees!
Express Creativity
This one works providing everyone has their own office or personal space, allow freedom of creativity when it comes to the decoration. Any paint job can be painted over, any pictures can be removed and any accessories can be replaced. Letting your worker make their space their own will really show you care about their wellbeing and will make them want to work harder in turn. You won’t see a lot of employees allowing this so stand out from the crowd and reap the rewards.
Office Parties
This last one may seem like a bit of fun but there is method in the madness. Having a monthly or quarterly office party will bring all the co-workers together where they can share any ideas. Not only this, they will let loose and be completely refreshed for the next shift. Having parties also show you are willing to have a little fun and will allow workers to have fun if they put in the work. Make sure to make it a party and not a work get together though, properly unwind.
The bottom line when it comes to an office is that it should make everyone feel comfortable, everyone should be allowed a voice and an input and everyone should feel at ease. Putting these tips into motion will allow for the best work environment and therefore the best results.
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