When searching for a new office space, your first thoughts may be to look for a location in a popular city with easy transport connections, a thriving business scene and plenty of local amenities.
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It’s no secret that sitting at an office desk staring at a screen from 9am to 5pm, or even longer, can lead to a variety of health problems. With the risk of developing heart disease, back pain, poor eyesight and so on, more and more office workers are looking for ways to combat these health defects.
A positive working environment is a vital aspect of sustainable success. The ethos a company has is a key indicator of motivation in the workplace.
The better your work environment, the more rewards you can expect to reap. These benefits include things such as:
Want to take advantage of these benefits but not sure which steps to take to improve the environment in your office space? Follow our nine steps below.
In a perfect world, every office space would have glorious natural lighting. Unfortunately, the Great British weather doesn’t always provide it! You can make up for this by choosing an office that has good quality lighting installed. Make sure you avoid the two biggest workplace lighting complaints: that they are either too dim or too harsh.
Too much clutter in the office can be distracting. This goes for both items on the desks of individual employees and in common areas. To counteract this, take a good look around your office space and consider what is and isn’t being used. Unnecessary tech equipment, gratuitous paperwork and general knick knacks can all go.
An office based third space can be an excellent draw for employees. These are generally more laid back breakout-type spaces where employees can hold informal meetings, work independently or socialise with their colleagues. A good third space has been shown to improve productivity, employee engagement and general satisfaction levels.
If you’re looking for a low-effort way to reduce stress, increase creativity and even improve air quality in your working environment, add some plants to your office space. Scientists agree that workers perform better when plants are added to their workspace.
If you want to improve motivation in the workplace and reduce sick days, you’d be wise to increase the regularity of your cleaner. Studies have shown that keyboards can actually be home to more bacteria than the average toilet seat, which is an extremely sobering fact. At Carrwood Park we clean our serviced offices every day.
Healthy food and drink is an important part of keeping your employees wide awake and ready to work. Make things easy for them by ensuring food and drink facilities are easy to access, pleasant to be in and nice and clean.
Setting the temperature right in an office can be a delicate balance. Too hot and your employees will be uncomfortably warm, too cold and they’ll waste energy keeping warm at the expense of their productivity. Research suggests that between 21 and 22 degrees celsius is the ideal temperature.
Comfortable employees make effective employees. One great way to do this is to offer customisable options for their desk set up. Each employee will have different needs and comfort priorities: giving each one a budget to choose things such as desk chairs, keyboards, lamps and screens will enable them to meet these needs.
Exercise makes people more alert, which in turn helps them to be more productive. Harness this in the office by ensuring employees have plenty of opportunity to exercise during the day. Giving people the opportunity to use a standing desk can help, as can walking meetings and standing meetings.
Ready to make a big change to improve your working environment? A move to a thoughtfully designed open plan serviced office could have a very positive impact on your company’s ethos.
Why not come and see what we have to offer at WorkWell?
More and more companies are becoming aware of the vast importance of taking care of their employees. The stress and happiness levels of the people who work for you are key, not least because they dictate how productive they will be.
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With world-class office space often comes great business success. Therefore, it’s no understatement that finding the right office is one of the most important things you’ll do as a business leader or decision-maker.
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Leeds is home to over 536,000 individuals, making it the UK’s second largest city. The business-oriented city attracts many organisations to its trendy cosmopolitan streets, creating appeal around hiring quality, well-facilitated and flexible spaces to hold meetings, events and seminars.
Leeds is a practical city to run meetings out of, with fantastic transportation links for the whole of the North and even to the south, it makes it simpler for anybody across the UK to attend a meeting.
Whilst the transport links offer convenience, Leeds offers more practicalities, with a plethora of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars for food and drink to be gotten from. Being surrounded by so many options can reduce the time spent navigating to the nearest local shop.
Leeds is a developing city, with money being put into improving the city’s infrastructure and green spaces. This means that whilst you may want the convenience of a meeting room in an urban environment, you can still find green spaces to enjoy your lunch or a long walk.
Hiring a meeting room comes with a lot of considerations to be made, whether it is the budget, the capacity of a space, or the technological capabilities. Considering each aspect of your ideal meeting room will set you up for success.
Looking for ways to make the most of your meeting room budget? Accessing a high-quality environment for meetings helps increase your business’s credibility and can contribute towards the general success of your organisation. However, stretching your budget isn’t always a practical solution for just the one meeting, so we’ve come up with some ways you can stretch your budget:
For more tips on finding meeting space and overcoming the challenges involved in planning and running meetings, the WorkWell blog is a mine of useful information and advice – subscribe today for regular updates.
Did you know that global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record coming after 2001? Or that Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 3.5-4.1% every decade since 1979? With one of the strongest recorded hurricanes in history recently hitting the Atlantic, it’s unsurprising that climate change is one of the most important topics this century.
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We often hear about self-proclaimed business growth experts offering ‘secrets’ into their tactics. These tactics can be anything and everything from a basic marketing strategy to gaining financial investments.
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There’s a growing awareness of how important it is to promote wellbeing in the office. Business owners and employees alike are beginning to realise the importance of an office environment that encourages a healthy lifestyle and a good work-life balance.
As a business leader, you’ll often find that time can be your worst enemy. With the pressure of the day-to-day management of an organisation, retaining clients and winning new business, as well as trying to find time to see family and friends, it can be a very demanding job. As a result, many business leaders struggle to achieve a good work-life balance.
