Workspaces with Stimulating Design Encourage Higher Productivity – Here’s How

Office layout design is all about creating a work environment that facilitates creative productivity and purposeful work while allowing flexibility, customisation, and personalisation. It is essentially about inspiring everyone to bring out their best in your space. 

Design-led offices significantly outperform productivity-wise with an inspired set of employees. Therefore, it is essential that the design needs to be in tune with the needs of the employees and depict that the enterprise values its employees and helps them achieve results to their best capacity. 

Creating a workspace that is both useful and enjoyable for all types of businesses and employees is the key to achieving higher productivity within an organisation. Why do design-led spaces perform better? Why do organisations that concentrate on employee satisfaction lead the way? Let’s find out. 

The Idea of Design and Productivity

With the culture of work changing forever, the idea of office design is a forward-thinking goal. With work trends that keep evolving constantly, the topic of what office design should look like now and in the future is important. Employee output is impacted by seating arrangements, ergonomics, infrastructure, use of colours and artwork. The various stimulating factors within a workspace affect productivity in their own ingenious ways. Let’s read on to understand a few factors that affect office design. 

Collaboration In Flexible Workspaces

Every job profile comes with its own creative aspect. Spaces that lead to creative thinking and collaboration have spaces where teams or employees can get together to ideate, brainstorm or collaborate. These workspaces are designed to promote a comfortable work ethic without focusing on hierarchy so that employees can ease out of their hierarchical mindsets. When creative minds share ideas with each other, it brings out remarkable results for both company and client expectations. 

Separate Areas for Collaboration and Silent, Independent Work

Ideation booths and work corners are set up to encourage silent and independent work. These corners help employees work without interruptions and promote independent thinking. It is a common inspiration practice to leave around notepads, pencils, post-its, and idea walls placed in offices to encourage employees to be proactive about their ideas. The saying ‘you never know when inspiration strikes’ comes to light here. 

Stimulating Use Of colours In Workspaces

It is a given that colours do help the creative thinking process. Moods and brain activity are affected by the colours around us. Colours evoke both a physical and emotional response. 

From nurseries to schools to workplaces, colours are used for kindling happy thoughts and de-stress. Moreover, companies like Google, Yahoo, Apple etc., use colours in their office design to keep the workplace lively and fresh. Therefore, it is essential to choose the right colours for your workspaces to help employees achieve high productivity.

Striking a Balance of Indoors and Outdoors

As a species, we humans are inclined to the outdoors, which is why it is a great practice to fill up office spaces with plants in corners and nooks. It is a surprisingly easy way to enhance workspaces with nature. Plants reduce stress and purify the air, and some plants are proven to reduce noise levels. 

Lighting is one of the more important factors that influence workspaces and productivity. Natural lighting helps employees to concentrate and creates a sense of having the outdoors inside. Natural light reduces the strain caused by drowsiness and headaches. 

Breakout Zones To Unwind

The strategically placed coffee machines in offices serve the purpose of energising employees. These corners are often the places where employee interaction increases and workplace ideas are shared. Breakout rooms, indoor games, activity areas, and sports centres are areas that hugely contribute to employee wellness and health but also serve as areas of ideation and encourage competition. Increased employee mental wellness increases productivity. 

Ergonomics

Ergonomics is critical in offices today. Companies are moving from cubicles to more open, dynamic areas with ergonomic furniture. A poorly designed workstation can often lead to health issues and posture problems. Adopting furniture and design that suit your workstation and enhance employee health and mindset is vital in boosting workforce productivity. Gym balls to sit on at work help straighten the backbone and reside posture-related issues. This simple addition adds colour to the office too!

Organisations have started installing in-house gyms, sports centres, rock-climbing walls etc., to help employees have access at work. Additionally, these perks motivate them to spend more time at the office, thus leading to higher productivity. 

Office Designs That encourage Movement

Workplaces that give employees the option of movement stimulate ideation. Compared to sitting at a desk the whole day, as creatures of habit, it gets healthier when there are options to move around and work from different spaces. Therefore, it’s vital to have different kinds of spaces like conference rooms, one-on-one rooms, ideation rooms, open spaces etc. When employees get to choose their space of work, they tend to work better, thus increasing productivity. 

Transparency

Openness and transparency are prerequisites for any organisation. The age-old tradition of private rooms for senior management depicted hierarchy and unapproachability to junior level employees. Open-floor plans and rooms with glass enclosures depict transparency and a sense of welcoming, which keeps all employees on the same level. Top leaders in organisations choose to be a part of the open floor plan to be as approachable as possible to all their employees. 

Studies have shown that design-led organisations significantly outperform those not design-led over the long term. Discover how your agency can integrate Design Thinking principles to catapult creativity and innovation.

With organisational changes happening across the country, the demand for design-led offices is high. We at Mikro Grafeio set up workplace environments for teams and coworking spaces across India. Our process-ready workspace solutions help businesses to move into a design inspired, performance-ready office anywhere in India. 

Looking to set up your own office? Visit Mikro Grafeio to learn more about our workspace and value-added solutions.