The office is an environment in which we spend a large period of our lives operating in. Far too many people constantly feel stressed and negative in these surroundings, which results in them being unhappy and unproductive at work and at home. This is behaviour that can be contiguous – when someone is clearly feeling down, others will question why and the negative feeling with spread, eventually bringing other staff down. As a business, this could be harmful to your production.
Due to the delicate balance of human nature, it's not always possible to make everyone feel happy all of the time - you can't stop them from feeling down, but you can control the mood inside of the workplace. Improving the mood will work to help to improve the overall feeling of your employees and you'll find that productivity will rise as a result.
A great way to improve the atmosphere in the workplace is by improving the surroundings – it's been proven that anoffice refurb and/or an upgrade in facilities will have a profound effect on the workforce – making their jobs easier, which causes less stress and less of a chance that they'll feel down.
Here are 6 other tips on how to create a happy workplace
1. Use plants to add colour – Being inside all day, technically isn't natural. Being outside, amongst nature, is natural – so if you can combine the two, that would be a great help! Being close to plants can promote a sense of wellbeing and research has shown that an increase in a person's ability and concentration will enable them to focus on the job in hand. Aside from that, the bright colours help to make the office more lively and engaging, perhaps reminding people further, of the world outside of their office windows.
2. Create a 'culture of improvement' – A better way to promote a more positive feeling throughout the workplace is by making sure that every employee feels that they're valued and that their opinions count. Aside from helping them feel more attracted to the business – it'll also help your business to improve through the creation of this culture of improvement.
A popular method that many businesses adopt is the implementation of 'suggestion boxes' – but it's been found that in many instances, this method is somewhat disposal and many suggestions aren't followed up, let alone debated in an open and public way.
A great way to improve the culture of the office, is by making sure that the process in which ideas are seen, debated and either approved or turned-down, is done in a transparent manner across the business. Every idea should be clearly displayed to everyone around the office - this would make the process more diplomatic and allow staff to feel more involved, especially if they need to make a decision on how to vote for a particular suggestion. The most beneficial aspect of this for the company is that the staff will be constantly thinking about new ideas which could improve their workplace, which will only help your business to make long-term gains.
3. Improving colour – If you look around your office, can you see an inspirational working environment packed with a pleasant mixof colours, or a bleak, lifeless vastness of greys and whites, which will only leave you feeling uninspired and bored? As part of an office refurb the colour of your surroundings are extremely important – it's been proven that colours are able to impact our moods. Implementing bright colours that match your business ethos and branding, will be a great way to lift the morale in the office.
4. Encouraging ideas – On a similar theme, the workplace works best when the whole team are able to suggest ideas which they feel would help to improve their experiences of working. The best way to do this is to create an area and a time in which staff are able to sit together and discuss any issues, ideas, or projects that they're currently working on. This will promote teamwork and provide more focus to everyone, as they will be able to fully-understand what everyone is doing, how they're doing it and perhaps, how they can improve by using similar methods.
5. Healthy rewards – Research has proven that employees who feel healthy, are more likely to be better focused and more productive. Promoting healthy living is a good place to start, but also to offer them healthy snacks (such as fruit) every day will help them on the way to feeling more focused and productive. Other snacks such as nuts, raisins, low-fat yogurts and green tea will all work well too - and won't cost that much! The staff will see this as a perk and will be going into work feeling positive, knowing that the company is providing them with extra benefits.
6. Introduce some downtime – Without taking regular breaks in order to recharge for a while, it's been proven that employees will lose focus and productivity will go down as a result. Better work is achieved by being smarter, not by the amount of time in which someone works – having people struggle to work for long periods of time is no good to the business. Think about ways in which you can create a good environment for them to take a break in; be it a sitting area and fill it with games, books, television – giving them an opportunity to switch off for a while and you'll find that the quality of their work will go up as a result, again, which can only be of benefit to the business as an whole.
Undertaking an office refurb has been proven to improve productivity in the workplace. At Oaktree Interiors we endeavour to put in place an effective office relocation plan, transforming your interiors and providing you with a smooth and effective transition for your company. If you'reinterested in any of our office refurbishment services, please don't hesitate to give us a call on 0845 474 3556 or send us an email at hello@oaktreeoffice.com
