How To Plan Your Office Space
Proper office space planning can boost employee productivity and as a result, improve your bottom line. Canadians spend an average of 36.4 hours at work per week, according to the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. When you add it up, that’s a lot of hours employees spend in the office each year. To help your employees make the best of their time while they’re on the clock, put them an in office space that encompasses what we feel are three of the top priorities in office design.
Priority #1: Productivity
Designing a productive work space is as simple as:
1. Incorporating Nature – Decorate your office with plants and flowers and select neutral-colored office furniture.
2. Utilizing Natural Light – Relocating? Select an office space that has a lot of large windows. Whenever possible, keep closed offices away from the outer part of the building.
3. Minimizing Distractions – Determine sources of distractions such as microwaves or noise from possible area highways. Keep your employees located as far away from these distractions as possible.
4. Giving Employees Privacy – Furnish your office with un-traditional workstations that give employees their privacy while still allow natural light to shine through their work area. The perfect example of this is our modern panel system that allows privacy with 50” glass partitions.
Priority #2: Efficiency
Keep employees who often work together, seated together for easy access to collaborate. Plus, consider placing office supplies and technology such as printers, fax machines, and extra paper conveniently located near departments/employees who use them most, thus cutting back on travel time. The layout of your workplace should support work activity.
Additional ways to make your office more efficient though office space planning include:
Giving Your Employees a Good View – Decorate walls with attractive artwork. According to Stylist.com, research shows having a view makes workers perform better – with one study revealing that computer programmers with views spent 15% more time on their primary task, while workers without views spent 15% more time talking on the phone or to one another
Designing Open Spaces That Encourage Collaboration – Give employees a space
where they can get away from their what may be tight, work areas. This area should
be furnished with comfortable seating and couches. Encourage them to utilize it for
brainstorming sessions and coming up with great ideas. It could even serve as
a great area for them to stretch their legs or work from their laptops for a change of
scenery. For seating, try these collaborative seating options from Global:
