When you start a business and it begins to expand, you are likely to start taking on employees. This is where most business owners face a profound problem: whether to make their office space formal or casual. Here’s some information that can help you to make up your mind.
Ensure Your Staff are Fully Trained and Supported
You need to strike a balance when it comes to how your company treats its staff members. These people are the backbone of your business. They are the individuals who develop your ideas, deal with your finances, set up your marketing campaigns, maintain your online presence, and interact with the public on your brand’s behalf, alongside various other tasks and responsibilities. You need to treat them with the respect that they deserve. You also need to ensure that they are educated and trained to the best standard possible, not only before taking on their job role but during their employment too. How else will they be able to keep up to date with market trends and technological developments? But at the same time, you should aim to maintain a professional, working relationship with them. While being best pals with your employees may sound great in theory, friendship and over-familiarity encourages people to push boundaries and behave in a less formal manner. Achieving this balance will be difficult, but it is possible. Request that staff fill out monthly surveys (these can be anonymous to encourage honest answers), asking about their level of job satisfaction, potential areas that you as an employer can improve upon and rating their confidence within their position. These will give valuable information. Perhaps they note that they grow thirsty on shift. You can install a water dispenser or coffee machine, increasing their comfort and encouraging productivity. Perhaps an individual expresses doubt in regards to their role. Future Institute offers a range of corporate training programs to help businesses grow and enrolment onto one of these could help make them feel more comfortable and confident. This will help to ensure that all needs are met.
Focus on Office Design
The design of your office space really helps to set the tone of the workplace. Endless amounts of research have looked into the fundamentals. There are certain claims that you are likely to be familiar with (and if not, it’s definitely worth reading up on them): larger windows with more natural light lead to better overall employee health and mentality, ergonomically designed furniture and accessories reduce chances of chronic health problems, colour schemes can affect productivity… the list goes on and on. However, office design can also have a profound effect on interpersonal relations within the workplace. You can opt for a formal design with sterile colours, a traditional office and desk set up and separate offices for people in higher level positions. This is usually ideal for more logical and statistical work. However, if your company is part of a more creative industry, you can help ideas to thrive by implementing an alternative design. Think of Google: this multi-million dollar company is renowned for having wacky workspaces, including designs with jungle themes, expansive sofa seating, giant hammocks, and egg chairs looking out on beautiful cityscapes.
Hopefully this helps you to form a decision on what’s best for you and your business needs!
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