Opening and starting your own startup company is a major life choice that can lead to tons of freedom both personally and financially. But running a startup also involves a lot of stress and necessary work to ensure that your startup performs well and remains successful. You might be surprised how much productivity you need to garner out of your team to ensure that your startup is a success. But what may surprise you even more is how much your office space impacts your team’s productivity. Here are a few ideas on how to transform your startup’s office space to increase productivity to help launch your business.
Create an Open Office Area
The old way of doing an office space with separate cubicles, offices, and closed doors is gone. That is just not the way that work is done anymore, especially in a startup culture where everyone’s opinion and work is valued and necessary to guiding the future of the business. Having an open plan space for your office that involves minimal walls and closed off spaces can help to increase productivity and promote collaboration and cross talk during work that can help achieve a team atmosphere and help encourage workers to stay on task. With an open floor plan office space, you can keep everyone always collaborating. Just make sure to provide some spaces for privacy when workers need it.
Build Conference Rooms
There are few things as important in an office space as a conference room. Conference rooms help set the tone for meetings and pitches, and are especially important when potential investors and guests visit. An appropriately-sized conference room gives you one room where you can gather the whole company if needed, where everyone can understand the ramifications of what is going on at your business. It also provides an official space where meetings and projects can be worked on in some privacy. If you don’t yet have a conference room set up in your office space, you need to work on that ASAP.
Add a Lounge Area
If your employees and you have no area of your office space that is dedicated to relaxing and taking a break, when necessary, everyone is going to feel the weight of that. Everyone needs breaks, even in the most workaholic type of startup atmosphere, and to encourage people to take breaks that are truly restful so they can get back to work at full force when they are done, you need to have a space dedicated to rest. Having a lounge area that promotes rest and relaxation separate from the rest of the office which should promote productivity is a must. This will help achieve breaks that are truly restorative.
Add Parking Lot Space
Nobody likes dealing with finding parking, particularly in the early mornings when arriving for work. If your office doesn’t have a dedicated parking space with room for every employee, then you are setting yourself up for failure. When people need to walk from a far-away parking space to the office after their commute, they are already frustrated and flustered with the day when they walk in the door. The same is true of a poorly maintained parking lot that causes damage to your employees’ car. A contractor can determine if you should replace your parking lot or if you can patch the cracks in your paving. Maintaining a good parking lot saves your employees time and energy that could be better spent on work.
Standing Desks
There are few things that are as bad for you and as uncomfortable as sitting at your desk for ten-plus hours per day. If you are looking for ways to make your employees more productive, you should be thinking about ways to make them more comfortable. When people are comfortable, they can focus their thoughts and energy towards their work rather than their discomforts. Consider investing in modular desks that allow for standing options so that employees can get out of their seats and more around a bit while still doing their work. This is a great way to keep productivity flowing without discomfort getting in the way.
Focus on Natural Light
While artificial light is a necessary piece of equipment for an office space – particularly startups that can run long hours before and beyond daylight hours – it should not be the main way your office gets light. Try to focus on using natural light wherever possible in your office so that artificial light doesn’t bother your employees. Natural light is healthier for your eyes than artificial light and can foster an atmosphere that is more inspiring and freeing rather than cold and boring the way artificial light can get. Keep your blinds and curtains open during the day and soak in those sun rays.
Plants Plants Plants
Your office space needs plants. There, that is the whole tip. Plants and greenery in your office helps your employees feel connected to the earth and nature in a way that many corporate office spaces simply don’t allow for. When we feel disconnected from nature and other sources of life, we can easily shut down, and this keeps people from achieving their maximum creativity possible. Creativity from workers is an essential piece of the productivity puzzle for startups who often thrive by providing unconventional and forward-thinking products and services.
Incorporate Unconventional Amenities
Like we mentioned earlier, it is important to think about employee comfort while at the office to maximize productivity. This means that providing some unconventional amenities can help stimulate working. No, this does not mean go crazy and put in a game room with a pool table and video games, but it does mean to think about things that might make your employees’ lives easier. For instance, a nice espresso machine rather than a Mr. Coffee might help employees avoid unnecessary Starbucks runs during working hours or providing healthy snacks for employees can keep workers at their work and focused rather than worrying about their other needs.
Running a startup is an exciting endeavor. But to keep your startup successful, you need to promote peak productivity from your employees. Use these eight tips to get the most productivity possible from your employees by reimagining your office space.
Check out this short article on how to create a positive environment at your office!