Improving Staff Productivity
Improving Staff Productivity
Do you need to improve your staff productivity? Are you aware that your people aren’t performing as well as they used to or need to, and are looking for ways to change that?
The connection between staff performance and their work environment is a lot more important than many business leaders realise. Research has shown that office design can improve staff productivity by up to 21%! But why does your office have such an impact on the performance of your people?
There are 4 pillars of productivity: training, wellbeing, goals, and environment. When improving staff productivity, many companies look at factors like training and goals. However, the environment your people work in also greatly impacts their performance. This can be both physical and psychological.
Today, we’ll go through the 4 major psychological reasons that your office design affects your staff productivity. We’ll also explain how you can apply these at your company to improve the productivity of your people. By the end of this article, you’ll understand why office design affects the productivity of your staff. You’ll know how to improve staff productivity at your company through office design.
Engagement
Employee engagement is the relationship between your company and your staff. An engaged employee is fully absorbed by and enthusiastic about their work. As a result, they take positive action to further the organization's reputation and interests. An engaged employee has a positive attitude towards the organization and its values.
The impact of engagement on their productivity is huge. According to research by the Harvard Business Review, an engaged employee is 45% more productive than a merely satisfied worker. However, Gallup studies have reported that as much as 87% of the world's workforce is not engaged.
How to Improve Engagement
So how can you improve your staff’s relationship with your company through office design? It is crucial that your office is tailored to your culture. The entire experience your people have whilst in the office – from the layout to the coffee – all reflect on and impact the culture. To learn more, read How to Create an Office Tailored to Your Culture.
It’s also important that your people have input into your office design. The most effective ways to do this are through online surveys that give all your staff input on what they like about their current space, what is holding them back, and what they would like to see in a new office. This will give you more insight into what your people need from your new space, and by creating a space based around the needs of your people, you will increase their sense of ownership and engagement in the space.
Wellbeing
Many company leaders think of wellbeing initiatives as harming productivity. However, the mental and physical health of your people is a crucial component of their long-term performance. Workplaces with poor wellbeing tend to have high absenteeism. Workers in the UK lose an average of 30.4 working days a year due to sickness, or illness-related underperformance, costing the economy £78bn.
Personal health and wellbeing have risen up on staff priority lists in recent years, and are now among the top concerns of office workers. However, only 21% of firms say their workspace is designed around wellbeing and the workforce experience.
How to Improve Wellbeing
To improve well-being in your office, biophilic design is crucial. Biophilic design maximises the use of natural resources and materials in your offices. This includes everything from natural light to wooden surfaces. Modern offices maximising biophilic design have reported a 30% decrease in sickness-related absences.
Another important part of productivity in your office is the use of ergonomic furniture. High-quality ergonomic design has significant health benefits for your people. This in turn leads to an average 25% improvement in productivity. Learn more by reading 9 Ways to Improve Workplace Wellbeing with Office Design
Creativity
Creativity is also often seen as conflicting with productivity. 80% of staff feel that their employer pressures them to be productive rather than creative. However, being inventive and original is crucial to long-term performance. Companies that invest in creativity are 78% more likely to increase productivity.
While there are many factors that impact staff creativity, one of the most important is their environment. If your people work in a drab and uninspiring office, their ability to be creative will be limited. Meanwhile, an inspiring, on-brand workspace will encourage them to be more innovative and to do it in a way that aligns with your company.
How to Improve Creativity
To improve creativity at your company, you need to cater to both team and individual creativity. At a team level, providing informal collaboration spaces is absolutely essential, and we’ll cover that in more detail shortly.
There are also several things you can do to encourage individual creativity in your office. Customisability is crucial. It is more than just providing a variety of environments. Customisability allows your people to adapt their environment to meet their needs. Modular or moveable partitions and furniture will allow your people to work in a space that perfectly suits their needs, improving creativity. Read Top 5 Ways to Boost Creativity in Your Workspace to learn more.
Focus
Concentration is the ability to maintain attention on a task without getting distracted. Unsurprisingly, it’s a huge component of staff productivity. What many business leaders don’t appreciate, however, is that their current office design is detrimental to staff focus.
Close-packed desks may be very space efficient, but the reduction in staff concentration lowers overall performance. The average is distracted 56 times each day. If your office design can help reduce this, you will create a huge improvement in their productivity.
How to Improve Focus
The most important thing you can do to improve focus through your office design is to create enough spaces in your office that allow staff to concentrate on their deep work. Even in the age of hybrid working, when staff complete most of their individual work at home, your office needs to enable your people to work alone effectively.
Reducing distraction in these spaces is crucial. There are 3 types of distractions – visual, auditory, and spatial, and effective focus spaces eliminate them all. This means desks are not good focus areas, as they are too prone to distraction., Good focus spaces include bookable private offices, work pods, and quiet lounges.
Collaboration
While personal performance is important, the productivity of your staff as a whole is far more important. To do this, you need to combine personal productivity with effective communication. Collaboration has never been such an important part of performance.
High-quality collaboration spaces that enable your team to work well together are an essential part of the modern office. Collaboration spaces are much more than just meeting rooms. Most collaboration happens informally in small teams, so your office needs to have informal spaces designed for small teams to work together easily.
How to Improve Collaboration
The first thing to improve collaboration in your office is to dedicate enough space to it. 3 years ago, most offices featured about 10% collaboration space. Today’s office designs feature between 30 and 45% collaboration space.
Your collaboration spaces also need to be adaptable. Collaboration happens in a wide variety of ways, with different numbers of people. There are a wide variety of movable and modular furniture solutions available from seats to presentation boards. To learn more about improving collaboration with office design, read this article.
Designing Your Office For Productivity
A well-designed office is much more than just an aesthetically pleasing space. It’s a strategic asset that can improve staff productivity, and as a result, company performance. By designing your office with these psychological factors in mind, you can create an environment that not only looks great, but also drives productivity and business success.
To take the next step toward improving the productivity of your people, download your Ultimate Guide to Office Design and Productivity. It’ll cover everything you need to know about office design and productivity at your company. Get your Productivity Design Guide here.
To learn more about productive office design, check out How to Maximise Staff Productivity with Office Design. There, you’ll learn about the 10 office design factors that you can use within your own office to improve the productivity of your staff. By the end, you'll know if they are falling short in your office, and most importantly, how you can improve them.
