If you’re invested in your business’s success, you should be invested in your employees’ success as well. If you’re invested in your employees’ success, you should be invested in building a great office environment. Creating a better office space starts with little changes to make it more friendly, inviting, and functional.
Fitness Equipment
Having fitness equipment at the office is a big step towards making your office more employee-friendly. Having a fitness room set up in your office building will motivate your employees to come in earlier so that they can get their workout in before work. Having this equipment can be a real benefit to employees who would otherwise have to invest in a gym membership so it will be a big deposit with those individuals.
If you decide to add a fitness center to your office building, make sure that it is situated near a bathroom. And if possible, try to have a shower available for use as well. This will make the transition from working out to working in the office easier for your team members.
Conference Rooms
Having great conference rooms is another way to make your office better fit the needs of your employees. The key to having great conference rooms is having a variety of different sizes available for use. When you have different sizes of rooms with different equipment, you’ll be able to better accommodate different types of meetings.
If you add conference rooms dedicated to use for employees, make sure that your scheduling system works efficiently as well. Otherwise, you may end up having a lot of overlap or issues with people trying to reserve the rooms but having other employees doing the same.
A Break Room
Having a great break room can make a big difference in the office environment. Don’t just throw a table and some chairs in a corner and call it a breakroom. Try to devote specific space with comfortable seating, bright lighting, and a variety of snacks for employees to eat. Having a nice place to eat lunch and grab a few snacks will make it easier for employees to focus on their work when they are working.
Try to think through the number of employees you will need to accommodate in the space at a given time. You don’t want to have too much seating because you don’t want it to be too easy for employees to start congregating in large groups but you also don’t want to have too little seating that the break room isn’t functional.
Kitchen Space
Having a great kitchen space as part of or adjacent to the breakroom will also make it a lot easier for your employees to enjoy being in the office. As you plan out your breakroom, focus on investing in good quality materials. Using quality cabinets ensures you won’t sink more money into the kitchen.
Workplace kitchen cabinets can get more wear and tear than you might think so taking the step towards getting solid ones will pay off in the long run.
Supply Cabinets
Having designated cabinets for various extra supplies is essential to keep the office running smoothly and to ensure that all your employees are able to access the tools they need quickly and efficiently.
Consider utilizing a large closet with various supplies including paper, pens, and pencils to paper products. Carefully mark a space for every different object and try to group the various supplies. This will help make the process of finding what an employee specifically needs much faster. This will also reduce the time spent reorganizing because the system will be relatively intuitive to all employees.
Game Room
Having a game room in your office building not only prompts a more fun environment for your different employees, but it also sends the message that you want your employees to take time to relax a bit and that you want your employees to be friends. When employees feel like they are appreciated by their coworkers in more than just a professional sense, they are likely to be more devoted to their team projects and to put in their best efforts.
So while it is true that having a game room could reduce some workplace productivity, introducing it in a way that still emphasizes productivity while celebrating fun rewards for hard work can really help your employees enjoy the workplace more.
Printers
Having available printers throughout your office is important so that you can better maximize office efficiency. Work to situate these printers throughout the office so that they are easily accessible for everyone. Do some research beforehand about the different printer needs of various individuals in the office to figure out where they are needed the most.
For example, your human resources department might actually need to have multiple printers readily available in order to print and then hand out various announcements around the office whereas other departments might not need as easy access.
More Natural Light
Adding more natural light to your office space can be a bit of a challenge if your office is situated in an older building or if there simply aren’t many windows. If you can, try to open up the area by ensuring that you aren’t blocking your windows. Having more natural light will help improve the workplace environment.
If your windows don’t bring in a ton of light or if you don’t have many windows, add more mirrors to your space. Adding mirrors to your space allows more light to reflect in the different rooms which can maximize the light you do have. You should also try painting your walls a lighter color to help emphasize the light more.
As you work to build a better office space, focus on a few things at a time. For example, focus your efforts on making the breakroom a really fun and functional place to be. As you start to see success from those efforts, move on to the next thing; soon, you’ll start to see meaningful results.
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