March 25th, 2019 | Updated on March 27th, 2019
Sometimes when business owners or employers start to notice a drop in productivity amongst their staff they will usually look at typical factors such as a lack of pay or working hours.
However a huge cause of a lack of productivity, seen quite prevalently since the 2008 financial crisis revolves around the workplace.
Today we’re going to look at the four areas of concern with office designs and environments that can sometimes be the sole cause of the decrease in productivity and any efforts to resolve it can be beneficial company wide.
The Four Areas Of Concern
As we have spoken about already there are four main areas within office designs and environments that can sometimes lead to a decrease in motivation for staff and subsequently a drop in productivity. Now let’s look at each of these and why they are areas of concern:-
- Employees might not be happy with the state of their personal workspace. The main factor within this point is that if an employee isn’t happy with their workplace, whether it be the furnishings, the chaos or disorganisation, they won’t feel comfortable working there. Sometimes it can be good to get feedback from staff around improvements such as improving kitchen furniture with cheap kitchen cabinets. You can also organise paper documents and delete any unneeded paperwork.
- The ergonomics of the workplace – the definition of ergonomics revolves around the study of how efficient people are in their work environment. The areas that people study when it comes to ergonomics can be things such as ensuring that screens are reflective, providing footrests if employees require them and having standing desks if needed.
- The design of the actual workplace environment – this is probably one of the most important points and can have an impact not just on productivity but also on their health. Things you’ll want to look at when covering this area including how optimal the air conditioning systems are, whether the lighting is adequate, are the noise levels excessive and do you have facilities that encourage people to be more active such as parking for bikes and showers.
- Know about the different types of working spaces – you might want to opt for an open plan design to encourage the opening of channels of communication and include areas such as break rooms and games rooms for employees to congregate in during their downtime whether it be on break or at dinner. And as mentioned already showers can also be included for employees to wash in if they have travelled to work either by foot or by bike.
A Final Few Words
A decrease in productivity in your workplace might not necessarily be down to the office design or any of the four areas of concern that we have looked at today however when looking companywide for the reasons behind the drop it is worth checking.
The reason behind this is that typically employers as mentioned have scanned over these areas of concern being the cause as most will assume that it is something to do with either working hours or salary but that isn’t always the case.
The quickest way to narrow down what is causing the drop in productivity is to get feedback from all your staff through a survey, preferably an anonymous one so that they can feel comfortable giving their honest feedback without anything coming back to them if they feel they’re being too critical in their feedback. Once you have your feedback you can then go around making the improvements.
