The impact of Office space on your Business

The décor and set up of your office not only impacts the view of your customers and suppliers but also impacts the productivity and output of your employees. Small changes made in the workplace may have an impact on the growth of your business to a certain extent.

Think as if you are an employee and not an owner. Try to identify and understand the hindrances to your productivity. These might be anything ranging from an uncomfortable chair, large number of co-workers in a small space, noise from outside or even a clumsy entrance. To put it more clearly, an office set up that gives more space to employees, helps them interact easily with their co-workers, explore creativity and use their talents to the fullest. At the same time, it must be kept in mind that there should not be many distractions for the employees at the workplace.

Following are a few things to consider in your office space design and how they impact your business:

Entrance & Foyer: A nice, clean and uncluttered entrance helps in creating the first impression on the clients & customers visiting your office. .  Employees at the same time would feel refreshed while entering the office in case the entrance itself is welcoming. Apart from a clean and smooth entrance an important aspect to creating the first impression on clients is the foyer. The entrance should have sufficient space for visitors to wait. You may look at using some indoor plants nicely placed at the entrance.

Inside Décor: Importance of décor may vary from business to business. For example, office of a builder or a construction related business should focus more on wall and floor design and try to keep it subtle whereas an interior designer’s office should be more creative and innovative. The décor of the office reflects the values and character of a company and its employees.

Lightning and temperature: We clubbed these two items because more subtle these two are more is the impact on customers and employees. Temperature and lightening in office should be such that it does not irritate the client or even the employees for that matter. Both these factors, if noticed, should only be appreciated. Extreme temperature and bright lights might result in draining the energy of employees. Whereas controlled temperature and natural lightening will make the employees more comfortable and productive. For sales offices that require long hours of discussion between staff and the customer, temperature and lightning might affect the timely closure of the deal.

Sitting arrangement: This is another aspect important from both client and employee perspective. Think through this deeply before finalizing. For client especially in a business that requires regular client visit & hours of meeting and discussions, the arrangement should be made keeping the clients privacy in mind. For example, in an investment broker’s office, a client might not be comfortable discussing his financials in public. He would need his space and comfort to discuss. Similarly for employees the desk arrangement should be such that without affecting their privacy encourages healthy departmental interactions as well. 

There is a sea change in the thinking of today’s entrepreneur. They look at a larger picture from their glass cabins. Entrepreneur these days prefer more and more innovation in design for their office such as to reflect their values and goals. Following are a few benefits that your workspace extends to your business:

1. Staff productivity:  Environment of the workplace has a huge impact on the worker’s productivity. It induces more professionalism and helps inject a sense of belongingness to the employees.  This is because people are associated with the brand they work with and they only feel connected if they can relate to and are aligned with the company’s overall goal. The workplace layout should not restrict the thinking capabilities of your workers. It should allow easy connectivity between the departments to ensure easy workflows. Productivity will also be affected by the location of your office. It should be well connected with the suppliers and consumers.
    
2. Employee retention and motivation: A good environment motivates employees to perform. Of course job satisfaction and salary is the highest motivator, but an open environment that encourages productivity and thinking acts as a motivator to perform. It is easier to retain the motivated employees. A good environment also helps in attracting the talent from the industry.In fact, a good workspace plays a key role in the retention of company’s key employees and thus their managerial expertise.
    
3. Enable company’s growth: The quality of workplace influences a company’s overall growth. Company’s future growth and expansion should be anticipated while selecting the office location. A company with a long-term vision should always adopt a pro-active approach. Todays’ entrepreneurs do understand the impact of a comfortable workplace that is aligned with their future vision.
    
4. Affect Company’s bottom-line: A smarter workplace that is well aligned with your and your company’s goals will result in better utilisation of resources. Better co-ordination between departments and related parties with reduced cost and wastages thus having a positive impact on company’s bottom-line. That is, a workspace that creates higher employee productivity ultimately leads to higher profits.
    
5. Adaptability: Today’s business environment is changing every minute. A modern office or workspace, gives the business flexibility to adapt to change. Such companies can easily adapt to any industry, business or technological change.

The way your office is decorated and run send strong messages to clients and customers and creates an image in the market.  Though, we see so many benefits of a workspace décor and design on a business, all these benefits are difficult to be measured and quantified. In other words, the impact of design and décor of your office on your business and profits cannot be measured in terms of numbers. It is almost impossible to define a formulae or process to calculate the impact of workplace environment on any particular vector of the company. Thus, one has to be observant and rely upon the qualitative effects to understand the effect (which for sure is significant).

Manish is founder of Business2sell Group of Websites. 

Business2Sell.com.au is one of the leading business and franchise for sale listing websites. We work with our business brokers, commercial agents, franchisors and private sellers to help them connect with the right buyers for their opportunities. 

With website now functional in Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. We have over 18,000 businesses for sale listed, with over 220 Business Broker and Commercial Agent. 

I have over 20 years of experience in Web Industry; I have been involved in websites industry since the early years of 1996-97. In my professional career I may have worked for over 10,000+ websites. My Specialty is to build portals or complex online applications.