Why your office design matters
As a business leader, you are constantly grappling with the question of how best to optimise two of your greatest costs (and opportunities): people and real estate. When designed well, your workspace should be a hive of creativity and collaboration, bringing your people together to drive your company forward. It’s an environment that so seamlessly meets the needs of your people that they barely notice it's even there. They can simply focus on producing their best work.
However, this vision is far from reality for so many companies. An international survey of 10,000 workers by Ipsos found that 85% of employees are unhappy with their office environment and struggle to concentrate for extended periods of time. A dysfunctional workspace costs you money every day through poor productivity, culture, and wellbeing. Whether it's an outdated design that makes your people feel jaded, space planning that limits communication, or poor ergonomics that harm productivity and create health issues, a substandard office is not only an opportunity missed but a serious problem holding your company back.
Improving your office may seem like a daunting challenge, but at a time of such upheaval in the workforce, you have an unparalleled opportunity to change the way your people work. By creating a great workspace, you can ensure that you are maximising the performance of your people and ensuring a thriving future for your company.
3 Ways to Improve Your Office Design
Making big improvements to your workspace doesn’t always need a big budget. Here are 3 cost-effective ways to improve your office design that will make your people happier, healthier, and more productive.
Create Focus Zones
While the post-pandemic workspace is set to become a more collaborative hub, focus furniture is not obsolete – nothing could be further from the truth. Focus furniture creates spaces where your people can study or carry out tasks that need their full concentration. By giving your people the time and space to focus properly, you are eliminating many potential distractions and they will become more productive.
A recent study has shown that on average, employees lose 86 minutes each day at a workspace due to distractions around them in their environment – nearly 20% of their working day. Over time that can have a devastating impact on the engagement and productivity of your people. However, creating focus zones to improve productivity in your workspace can be simple and cost-effective. Check out our Best 3 Focus Furniture Collections for more information and inspiration.
Install Office Pods & Booths
In the age of hybrid working, office pods & office booths provide a great chance to focus and work in peace. Whether you’re in need of solitary space for private conversations, or craving time away from the background office noise to concentrate on a task, office pods and booths create an environment perfect for boosting productivity. While some office booths are single person, other larger pods are designed to create convenient and private meeting spaces for all types of meetings and teamwork. Whether it’s to bring your people together or give them time and space alone, the office pod is fast becoming a central part of the modern workspace.
Office pods are fast becoming an essential element of the hybrid workspace, with options to suit every brand and budget. The most important thing is that your office pods suit the needs of your company and your people, making them as effective as possible. Explore 5 of our top office pods and booths.
Increase Collaboration Areas
With the rise of the hybrid working model, the physical office and remote working are now more closely intertwined than ever. After months of social starvation, colleagues are desperate to interact and connect in a way that simply isn’t possible through a computer screen. While remote working has undoubtedly had some surprising benefits, one of the main benefits of a productive office – collaboration - has remained unfulfilled by replacement video conferences and phone calls.
Collaboration is the fuel that drives any successful organisation, and creating spaces that people can work together has never been more important in the workspace. By creating a variety of zones within the office footprint for staff to plan, discuss and share ideas, the workplace can become a hub of creativity and innovation. Collaboration and connection don’t need to be in competition with focus and productivity. As the element of your workplace that your people interact with the most often, furniture has an essential role in bringing your people together to create the future of your business. View our range of collaboration furniture to get some inspiration for your perfect workspace!
FluidSpace™
Want to create a cutting-edge workspace that constantly adapts to suit the needs of your people? Welcome to FluidSpace™ - flexible workspace that shrinks, expands, and even relocates with you! We have developed FluidSpace™ as a means of ensuring that companies have the flexibility and confidence to create exceptional workspaces for their people. It does exactly what it says – it creates agile, flexible workspaces that can be quickly and cost-effectively reconfigured to meet the changing demands of organisations.
By utilising office furniture such as office pods and zoning furniture to create rooms and zones rather than traditional methods of fit-out such as office partitions, it allows for maximum flexibility. This means new zones and rooms can be established without the need for disruptive and expensive construction works. Through FluidSpace™, you can create your own workspace that meets the current needs of your business and can adapt seamlessly to an uncertain future.
Improving Your Office Design
Your people spend around a third of their lives at work, so it is essential that you create the best working environment possible for them to thrive in. It's only that way will they be able to achieve their full potential, creating amazing results for your business.
A carefully considered office design can save you serious amounts of money by ensuring that your employees are present, healthy and in the best possible position to perform. It can enable employees to synergize, creating results far above the power of themselves as individuals. A great workspace can be a hub for your company that brings people together to create the kind of future that you want for your business.
Want to know more about improving your office? Download our Office Pods & Booths Price Guide to get great ideas for your office or view our office design gallery for more ideas and inspiration. Interested in creating a cutting-edge future-proof workspace? Check out our FluidSpace Guide to find out how to implement it in your own workspace.