If Cross Campus CEO Ronen Olshansky is to be believed then “every office space needs a space for active rejuvenation”. Why? The answer is quite simple: When your employees are working mentally and physically exhausting tasks, they need to replenish their lost energy levels. And, what’s better than rejuvenating the workspace/desk to maintain a positive and tranquil aura?
Cluttered desks ruin the positivity and often result in lowering productivity indirectly. If employees work under cluttered conditions, they kill time in looking for stationery and other stuff. In fact, misplaced items costs corporate America $177 billion annually. Messy desks don’t just cost monetary loss, but also result in employees losing 76 hours every year.
Almost one-third of office workers misplace receipts and fail to get reimbursed as a result. As a matter of fact, almost eight of 10 people think unorganized clutter can hamper productivity.
What one can conclude from the above statistics is that a clean desk is the key to productivity. Today, we are listing ways to make your workplace more tranquil, take a look.
Declutter
First of all, appreciate the habit of organizing and understand how it works to enhance the quality of your everyday life. Organizing saves time and gives you a simple understanding of utilizing space thoroughly. The principle works effectively in professional spaces too. It is great for cleansing the workspace and saving a lot of space. Decluttering and organizing you desk nurtures the environment and helps you lighten up the load. The space should follow intention and contain items that boost value while making the desk vibrant.
Clear your space and find the right space for all of your items. Decluttering is essential since a lot of items just keep getting piled up so making weekly efforts to purge the desk is a necessity.
Keep only those items that you directly use for working everyday and get rid of extra receipts, items and everything else that amounts to cluttering. Apart from decluttering, organizing routine tasks is also crucial. If you start off your day with a pile of tasks, you are most likely to be stressed and haywire most of your time. You can use simple project management software to organize your tasks. Once you learn what tasks are urgent and what can wait, you can achieve a greater sense of focus that translates into tranquility.
Lighten Up
While lightening the load of your workspace is a valid point, light can literally mean light too and not the weight one!
Inadequate lighting can overwhelm the environment of a quaint and productive space. If you are using bulbs, the light may feel too yellow and using colored lights is out of the question. While professional photographers often make their workspace and studio well lit through numerous lighting fixtures, those who aren’t very well acquainted with the basics of light usually face the problem of good lighting.
However, a good rule is to follow the while. LED lights are quite cost efficient and offer longevity proving to be a suitable choice for work environment. Floor lighting often focuses on lighting up vast spaces but depending on needs, you can also design individual desks with separate lights too to ensure employees get an individual source of light. Task lighting is a great choice for reading and working too.
The simple rule is to make it bright but not too bright that it hurts the eyes. While you may be a fan of dim, romantic lights, in case of workspace, it is best to go with bright, white lights.
Art
Invest in art and not just hang Paintings at your walls but improve the aura of your whole workplace by giving your walls a new colorful dynamic. Organizations around the world are following this trend of investing in installation art and getting conceptual murals or graffiti painted over one or more walls at their workplace.
Numerous designing studios offer thoughtful, motivational wall-art, murals and graffiti services for corporate to enhance productivity inside the workplace. Designers maintain that certain shapes, colors enhance the production of ideas and instill a sense of wellbeing among employees, leading to positive results. Besides, adding murals to your workplace brings a colorful perspective to it and makes the workplace a happening place for professionals.
Soothing colors will inspire employees while positive adjectives and sentences will help trigger positive thoughts among viewers. Colors, shapes, words, etc. influence a person psychologically to using these in combination may work as a great tactic at optimizing the tranquility of the workplace.
Go Green
Studies have shown that green offices are the best environments to work in. Employees working in green-certified offices noticed a 26% boost in cognition, and 30% fewer sickness related absences and a 6% rise in their sleep quality. Moreover, employees showed 15% more productivity when working in a ‘green’ office compared to their counterparts in more Spartan environs. A green office is indeed the best to work in as it not only enhances the visual factor of the office but also makes it a nature-friendly space for the employees to work at. Green spaces help in enhancing employee engagement, air quality, focus levels, etc. Furthermore, nature friendly, green offices may also support in long-term decision-making.
A green space doesn’t work for employees but also reflects the socially and environmentally responsible side of a company. An organization that favors green wall or spaces shows that it indeed cares about nature follows a special routine for plant/nature care and is invested in meeting long term commitments.
Relaxing Routines and Games
Organizations should focus on introducing team collaboration software for relaxed communication efforts and consistent relaxation routine or game to employees to help establish to quainter and creativity fuelling environment. Employees need some “me” and “we” time to enhance creative thinking. Organizations can play a simple game every couple of days or thrice a week or only on weekends to enhance employees’ overall well being. Moreover, this relaxation routine should focus on time that employees spend away from their workstations so they are not forced to eye their laptop/monitor screens 8-9 hours a day.
Inculcating an hour or two of Yoga in weekly work hours is also a great step. Programs like Yoga or Tai Chi can really help employees harness their internal powers and grow without succumbing to stress. Moreover, practicing such mentally and physically empowering activities can even combat fatigue and boost internal energy levels among employees.
Maintaining tranquility at workplace is a two-way decision. It concerns not only physical and tangible changes at the workplace but also encompass the overall culture followed by an organization. A company should focus on cultivating positive work culture that weighs mental and physical well being of the employees while ensuring a calm, positive, creativity fueling environment.
Author Bio: David Miller is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in Project management domain helps him offer latest and fresh perspective on improved efficiency in work flows across organizations. His informative works on similar lines can be reached out on ProProfs Project.
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