Want to boost your team’s output without hiring more staff or buying new software?
Workspace configuration may be the low-hanging fruit you’re overlooking. Many companies spend dollars on wages, technology and development… but overlook how the space itself impacts how your team thinks, focuses and collaborates daily.
Here’s the kicker:
Research from Steelcase has found that companies who optimise their working environment experience an average 17% productivity increase. Now that’s some serious ROI on simply redesigning your furniture and layout.
This template organises the floor planning principles and design decisions that drive productivity.
Let’s jump in…
Interior design for offices is no longer a “nice to have.”
It’s a core business decision.
Let’s look at it this way: your employees spend 8+ hours a day in this environment. From lighting to noise levels to chair comfort to distance to a meeting room. Each aspect is either enabling them to do their best work or creating barriers.
A poor layout creates:
Good design actually eliminates friction so people can do their best work.
It begins with selecting the furniture pieces that will serve as the foundation for your space – this includes quality office desks that allow employees enough comfort and working surface area to do their job. Choosing office furniture that isn’t ergonomic is like building a sleek new sports car and fitting it with bicycle tyres.
There is no single “perfect” office layout. The right design depends on:
Here are the three layouts working best right now.
This is becoming the desk arrangement for most offices today. Rather than assigning every employee a desk you stationise various areas for tasks.
For example:
Employees shift locations throughout the office hour depending on their task at hand. Clever, eh?
The beauty is it’s quite simple why this works. There is no one environment suitable for all tasks. Deep thinking and brainstorming require vastly different atmospheres.
The fully open office is dead.
Why? Because noise and lack of privacy destroyed productivity for most employees. However, the fully cubicled office is dead as well – it crushed collaboration.
The Sweet Spot by Oliver Heath is a hybrid open plan. Rather than just leaving it open you:
It allows you to have your cake and eat it too without making people choose between concentration and collaboration.
Large teams require organization. Neighborhood floor plans assign teams based on department or project into “neighborhoods” inside of a larger open area.
Each neighbourhood has its own:
Employees believe they are “one of the guys” even if the company grows to a large size. That culture is more important than most entrepreneurs understand.
Here’s a stat that should make every office manager stop and think…
Ergonomically designed chairs and desks can improve productivity by approximately 17% and help alleviate musculoskeletal problems.
Seventeen percent. From furniture.
See how much of a difference a proper chair and height-adjustable desk can make. The furniture isn’t artwork—it’s the powerhouse of the office.
When choosing furniture for interior design for offices, focus on:
Don’t cheap out. Cheap furniture leads to sore backs, stiff necks and exhausted employees – and those issues will end up costing you much more than quality furniture ever will.
Ready for one of the biggest secrets in office design?
Biophilic design. That’s just a fancy way of saying “bring nature indoors.”
It works because people aren’t meant to sit in front of four grey walls for 40 hours a week. Nature elements soothe the nervous system and release brainpower to do the work itself.
A report from one company found that biophilic design increased productivity and creativity up to 15%. Whoa, take a step back. That’s a huge jump just from adding some greenery.
Here are the easiest ways to add biophilic elements:
You can still accomplish a lot here even with little money to spend. Begin with flora and fauna, build upon that.
Noise is one of the biggest productivity killers in any office.
An International Workplace Group report reveals 85% of employees think quiet zones have a positive impact on their productivity.
That’s a huge number. Most offices STILL lack even ONE adequate quiet area.
To fix this, build acoustic intent into your layout. The basics:
The goal is to allow people to pick their own noise level based on the task at hand. There are times that call for silence. There are times that call for white noise. The office should enable both.
Office design used to focus on impressing visitors. Now it’s about driving tangible business performance improvements.
The data is hard to argue with…
Smart layouts, ergonomic furniture, biophilic design and proper acoustic zoning can all contribute to an office that keeps people happy – and productive.
To quickly recap the keys to a productive office:
You can take it one step at a time. Choose one area your team needs most and focus on that first. Cosmetic improvements for office spaces can have huge payoffs – sometimes in a matter of weeks.
The right space turns ordinary teams into great ones.