If you want to create an environment that’s conducive to productivity, then you’re going to need to implement some office interior design fundamentals.
Having a well-structured, carefully laid-out office is crucial to business success; if your office is chaotic and disorganised, then the efforts of your workforce will likely reflect that lack of organisation.
That’s why it’s critical to make sure that you mindfully design your office for maximum productivity rather than leaving it as an afterthought. The layout and structure of your office matters, and if you don’t put the right level of effort in, you may suffer for it later on down the line.
Here are some of the most critical design essentials that go into creating a great office environment for you and your employees.
Integrate lots of natural light
If you don’t have much natural light in your office, your employees might start to feel depressed or tired. Artificial light is all well and good, but you need to have some windows so that your employees don’t feel like they’re working in some kind of dungeon or prison.
Large windows with a good view of the outside world are pretty much essential. The bigger the window, the more natural light you can let in. Just remember to have some curtains or blinds so that your employees can still work comfortably on bright and sunny days.
Make sure to include a break room
When your employees don’t have anywhere to go at lunch or during a break, they might start to feel like they’re trapped within the same office space. Letting them leave the building to walk around or visit their favourite restaurant is obviously a good idea, but you should also consider a break room.
This will give your employees space to socialise with one another, and if you include some games facilities – perhaps a table tennis table, for instance, or a foosball table – then you’ll also give them a chance to unwind and relax during their breaks, which will make them more productive when they return to work.
Meeting rooms are crucial
While it’s a good idea to ensure that everyone has a private cubicle or workspace of their own (even a desk would be appropriate), including communal and collaborative spaces is also critical to good office interior design. This is because a good workplace needs to feel open and welcoming for employees rather than closed off.
There’s nothing wrong with having closed-cubicle design if that’s how you want your employees to work, but it’s important for them to know that they can enter the collaborative space – whether that’s a meeting room or just an area in your office – whenever they like for group projects and tasks.
Add plants
When you include plants in an office’s interior, it’s known as “biophilic design”, a school of thought that embraces living things and an organic feel over the harsh, artificial atmosphere that some offices can have. Biophilic design can boost employee physical and mental health, so it’s well worth considering.
If you want to implement biophilic design, you should add lots of plants around your office. It’s also a good idea to consider coating some walls with plants, and you should make them living plants if possible; plastic plants could just further increase the feeling of alienation that employees might feel in an artificial office space.
Create an aesthetic
It’s important for employees to feel like they’re part of a holistic organisation that doesn’t just value their time and work, but that also has a cohesive brand identity. You should try to reinforce that brand identity in your interior office design whenever you can so that your employees know what organisation they’re part of.
This can include adding company graphics around your office, but you should try not to be overly corporate when doing this; sometimes, employees can feel as if their individual creativity is being suppressed when there are too many reminders of the corporate identity around. Try to add some fun posters or memes for an extra personal touch.
Make sure your employees are comfortable
This is a tip that combines practicality and aesthetic, but it’s important to make sure that your employees are comfortable while they’re working in your office. A lack of comfort doesn’t just contribute to employee unhappiness; it can also be the cause of accidents or workplace-related injuries, which can be a disaster for both your employees and you.
To maximise comfort within the workplace, you should make sure all of your employees are equipped with solid, dependable office furniture. You could also consider implementing standing desks, which are often thought to improve posture and to be more ergonomic than traditional sitting desks.
Implement the right colour scheme
Getting your office’s colour scheme right isn’t necessarily easy, but it is an essential step on the road to great office interior design. A good colour scheme should be simultaneously calming and galvanising; it shouldn’t be too unpleasant for your employees, but it shouldn’t send them to sleep, either.
Using a mixture of vibrant colours and pastel shades in the right areas will create the perfect ambience. When you want your employees to think creatively and be excited, lead them into a room with sharper, brighter colours, and when you want them to settle into a work rhythm, pastel shades are arguably the way to go.
