Productivity is like a locomotive dragging your businesses forward. If it is absent, your entire train will be brought to a halt, and you will find very hard moving it even for a bit. And much like the mentioned locomotive, productivity can also be produced, enhanced, and lost due to myriad of small and unsuspecting reasons. That is why you should not take it for granted and rely on your employees to come up with that necessary drive on their own, but see what you can do to help them. And you can do a lot, starting with the work environment upgrades.
The Question of Color
We all know that different colors may cause different impact on one person’s mood. Namely, warm colors (red, yellow, orange) are often associated with creativity and warmth; cooler colors (green, blue, purple) will make you feel cozy and relaxed, while lighter color hues promote the sense of calamity and openness. Use this to your advantage, and balance employees’ emotions to create the perfect productivity cocktail (painting the conference room in bright yellows will do nice job promoting brainstorming). Just avoid going with too bold choices (if you want something garnish it should be much better to use it as an accent color) and dark tones, which will make the office look uninviting and cramped.
Desks and Chairs
There is nothing more poisonous to productivity than clutter, and clutter is, in most cases, the product of poor organization, and lack of sufficient storage space. Make sure the desks you are going to give your employees are the part of the solution and not the problem. Depending of the type of the work being done, those desks can be larger or smaller, but they should never let your employees feel constrained. Using them as the previously mentioned accents should not be a bad idea, either. As for the chairs, they should be comfortable and ergonomic, because, after 8 hours of sitting, they can not only impact employees’ productivity, but health as well.
Introduce the Plant Life
According to American Psychological Association nature can be very effective in lowering stress and anger. So, if you are not able to provide your workers enough time to take a quick stroll outside to recover their intellectual capacities, you should at least introduce enough plant life in their offices. Enriching previously barren and utilitarian workspaces with them can boost productivity for up to 15%.
The Right Temperature
When designing the office space, people usually tend to neglect the matter of temperature, going with “neither too cold, nor too warm” as their preferable solution. That is a big mistake because the right temperature has much stronger effect on productivity that it was ever given credit for. According to research conducted by Professor Alan Hedge, PhD, CPE, employee productivity improves as the temperature approaches the comfort zone. Raising the temperature somewhere from 20°C to 25°C reduces errors by 44% and increases keying output for as much as 150%.
Let There be Light
All of your employees should have an access to sufficient light in order to stay productive. Because it is impossible to provide everyone with window looking at the outside, you should resort to some other solutions. The first one would be installing the light shelves which will reflect daylight deep throughout the building. Alternatively, you can always add more led low bay lights which will give you enough light while remaining very energy-efficient, in the meantime. Just make sure the entire office space is organized in a manner which will minimize the annoying glare.
Today’s businesses environment is relentless, and, as the time goes by, there will be less and less space for those who are simply good enough. Fuel your employees’ productivity with some of the tips we gave you, and you will make all the necessary foundations to avoid being pushed down into the second league.
