Many workers spend upwards of 2,100 hours a year in their work environment. If you have employees who work long hours, they may spend nearly as much time in the office as they do in their homes.
You want to create an office that’s both inspiring for your employees and welcoming and comfortable for your clients and customers.
The challenge for any business is to create a well-functioning space, but also one that provides inspiration for workers and maybe even showcases some business personality.
Are you wondering how to create an office space that’s welcoming and productive at the same time? Keep reading for some ideas you can integrate into your office space to create a memorable and engaging environment.
Water Features
You might be surprised to learn about the impact the sound of water can have on the brain. The sound of water is naturally calming for many people. Those water sounds can actually guide the neuronal waves in our brains, creating a feeling of peacefulness.
What connection could this have for office decor? And how can you bring water sounds into the office?
If you run a busy, even high-stress office, the calming effects of water could have a profound impact on productivity. It can also provide the following:
- Stress relief
- Improved concentration
- Noise control
- Anxiety relief
Water can also create a way to add visual interest to your office space. You can place the indoor fountains for the office in common areas, conference rooms, and busy work spaces. They also create an artistic statement in the entryway or lobby of your business.
Plants
Another interesting decor option for your office space involves adding greenery to your space. Plants can act as a nice contrast to the features of your modern office.
Plants not only add greenery and a feeling of freshness, but they also soften the space holding desks, technology, and other office features.
They can also benefit employee health and productivity too. In fact, one study found that office spaces with plants had employees who were consistently 6% more productive than offices with no green plant life.
One study found an impressive connection between lowering stress and being around natural plant life in the office. In some cases, stress levels dropped as much as 37% when an office included plants.
If you have an active and busy office where colleagues work in teams, plants can also act as buffers and help to reduce noise in the office workspaces.
Welcoming Seating
If clients or customers enter your workspace, you likely have a lobby or entry with seating. You don’t want to arrange the kind of seating that makes the guest feel like they’re at the dentist’s office from their childhood.
Arrange furniture that facilitates conversation, so you can sit with them and engage. Consider your furniture as another way to add visual interest to your business. This can be through color or texture in the furniture.
Also, keep in mind; nobody appreciates sitting on furniture that’s uncomfortable. It immediately sends the vibe that someone isn’t welcome in the space.
People from all over maritime Southeast Asia are carefully picking out their wooden furniture in Singapore so everybody feels comfortable and welcome. Further, consider adding some furniture that people can use to work on-the-go. This might be a coffee table where someone can sit down with a laptop, or seating with built-in charging stations.
Lighting
Another important office decor consideration should be the lighting. Of course, your workers may have preferences about lighting. Is it overhead lighting or task lighting? You might be surprised how much happier and more productive your employees will be when they opt to get rid of bad overhead fluorescent lighting.
One study found that lighting in the workplace can impact employees:
- Mood
- Circadian rhythms
- Physical health
- Productivity
Quality lighting can also improve creativity in the business workplace. Most workers would probably agree that they are most productive and creative when they feel awake and alert. Good work environment lighting can help your employees feel energized and add to creativity levels.
So, what kind of lighting is best for your office space? Of course, most people might ask for natural lighting whenever possible. Fluorescent lighting has been shown to cause headaches and other adverse effects on the human brain.
More offices that need big swaths of lighting are going to LED lighting over older fluorescent options. Not only is this type of lighting more gentle on the eyes, but it’s also more energy efficient.
Color for Inspiration
It used to be the norm that office space was painted in the most generic, bland color possible. You could go looking and find thousands of white-walled office spaces.
Color, though. can act as inspiration for creativity. It can take a bland environment to one that feels energizing.
If you’re not ready to commit to a big paint job on the walls, there are still other ways to integrate color. Consider adding color through art (more on this shortly), furniture, and rugs.
Don’t forget to consider your own branding colors and find ways to integrate that into your decor.
Art to Add Impact
Wall art is another way to add both color and visual impact to your office decor. You don’t need to settle for big-box boring art that all looks the same, either.
Look for unique art pieces that bring interest, movement, or texture to work walls.
You might also consider custom art from your branding materials. This might be especially important if you have clients or customers in and out of your office space.
Even if you don’t want to spend a fortune on art, you can have custom posters created that could highlight some of your projects.
Smart Office Furniture and Arrangement
Gone are the days of metal desks in a row. Consider how your employees work through the day. What kind of workspace would enhance their productivity?
Maybe they need a larger workspace and would benefit from tables versus a desk. Maybe they need areas that facilitate collaboration.
Before rushing out to buy the boring box desks, take the time to get feedback about how your office should be arranged. Then use the other ideas on this list to help enhance that work environment.
Create an Inspired and Welcoming Business Space
You know you’ll appreciate happy, creative, and productive employees. Consider the ways you can enhance your workspace with water features, color, art, and plants to facilitate that positive feeling.
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