Importance of a Good Office Design
You cannot undermine the importance of a good office design in the success of any business. It is the place where you cater to the requirements of your clients and bring them quality services. A good office space helps you in creating that first impression required to attract talent and the last resort used by that talent to make ends meet.
Your work environment should be such that it makes your employees feel comfortable, brings the maximum efficiency out of them, and has an overall positive impact on your clients and customers.
Therefore, we have tried to cover everything related to the importance of a good office design. Stick around to know more about how to make your workplace a creative field for every employee of your company.
Office Design Considerations – What Makes a Good Office?
Every business should keep certain office design considerations in mind while designing an office fit-out. The main goal of your company should be to create a workplace that can increase the productivity of workers without taking a toll on their mental health. This goal can be achieved by incorporating certain design elements into your workplace, such as:
Use Natural Lightening
Scientific studies have established that direct sunlight helps reduce anxiety whereas indirect sunlight fights depressed mood. Hence, a workplace exposed to either direct or indirect sunlight experiences increased job satisfaction among the employees.
Therefore, try to incorporate daylight as much as possible into your office interior design. Not only is its free of cost but also allows you to achieve increased employee productivity for your business.
You can add natural light to your office environment in a number of ways such as by using bigger windows and glass walls, choosing white or cream color wall paint and furniture, and not covering windows with curtains.
Add Indoor Plants
Apart from natural light, the addition of indoor plants to interior office design. Various pieces of research have been conducted in this regard including a study by Larissa Larsen and team
Their research shows that the presence of indoor plants positively affects the mood, comfort, and ultimately the decision-making and cognitive processing capabilities of employees.
Another study pointed out that indoor plants improve the air quality of small spaces, which means a number of health benefits for your workers. Therefore, you should think of adding some low-maintenance plants to your offices. Cast Iron, Modern Bamboo, and Snake plants can be good options in this regard.
Incorporate Sit Stand Desks
Nowadays, more and more companies are onto incorporating sit-stand desks into their office interior design. It’s another way to make the most out of your workspace as these desks occupy less space and hence make flexible workspaces.
Apart from being space-friendly, standing desks offer a number of health benefits as well. These include better blood circulation, improved brain functionality, and increased productivity. All of this directly means happy employees, better work efficiency, and a boost to your business.
Use Acoustic Panels
Noise cancellation is another essential factor, but most offices ignore it. A well-designed office pays special attention to the cancellation of noise coming from both internal and external sources. Most companies have special quiet zones dedicated to ideas, creativity, and brainstorming.
To a large extent, you can reduce external noise by using double-glazed windows and internal noise propagation through acoustic panels. Also, try to look for furniture with good noise absorption capabilities, so that your office environment can be noise free for every employee of your company.
Types of Office Layout – What is the Well-Designed Office Space?
Two types of office layouts are the most common among different types of businesses. These include the open-plan and the closed-office setup.
Open-plan office layout
As evident from the name, an open-plan office design is one where no separate rooms are made for employees. Open-plan office designs are useful for offices with space and budget constraints.
Advantages of open office design
Open office design has a number of benefits, but here we are listing a few most prominent ones:
1. Less expensive
An open office interior design lets you occupy a smaller footprint, which directly means less expenditure. You don’t have to create separate spaces for each employee, get them furnished, and pay electricity bills for each room. Hence, it saves you a lot of money.
2. Offers improved collaboration
Improved collaboration is another advantage of open space office setup. Because all of your employees are sitting close, with no walls in between, they can communicate better on office tasks, and a sense of teamwork is strengthened.
3. Can be easily revamped
An open space can be easily revamped when required. Employee strength keeps on going up or down in most of the growing businesses, in which case a constant alteration to office setup is required. An open-space office setup lets you do changes easily. You can accommodate new employees by adding new cubicles, which in turn isn’t much expensive.
Disadvantages of open office design
Here are some disadvantages of open office setup:
1. Employees get distracted easily
Because all of your employees and clients are present in close proximity, there is a high chance that your employees will get distracted from their office work. This leads to distracting ideas and low-quality work, which isn’t a healthy thing for creative workspaces.
2. Not suitable in days of a pandemic
An open space layout is not a good option in the days of the pandemic. With the recent Covid-19 pandemic, we are well aware of the importance of social distancing. Viruses spread super fastly and open cubicles mean that every one of the employees catches the virus, which isn’t a good sign for your business.
Closed office layout
The second type of workplace design is the closed office setup. In a closed workplace setup, you have rooms allocated to all or majority of employees, which means a clear sense of hierarchy in the office.
Advantages of closed office design
1. Better focus
The biggest advantage of a closed layout is a better focus. Every employee has a separate room, which helps them focus on their work. No matter what the other employee is doing, you don’t get distracted. This isn’t the case in an open setting where one employee’s phone call can be a source of noise and distraction for the other one.
2. Improved productivity
When you have complete concentration on your work, your productivity will automatically increase. Closed workspaces compel the workers to perform better and inculcate a sense of healthy competition among workers.
Disadvantages of closed office design
1. Expensive setup
The biggest drawback of closed office spaces is the high cost. Unlike an open layout, you have to create a complete setup for each room from furniture to electricity. All of this gets very expensive and not every new business can afford to do that.
Open-Plan vs Closed Office Layout – Which One Should You Choose?
Now that you are very well aware of the importance of a good office design, it’s time to make a choice for your office setup. Your choice between an open-plan and closed office setup depends on a number of factors.
These include office space, budget, and the number of employees you have in your organization. Let’s have a closer look at how these things affect your workplace design decision.
Office Space
If you’ve no space limitations and can afford to allocate separate rooms to your employees, an open-plan workplace design is for you. On the other hand, offices with limited space are bound to utilize the available space they have in the most efficient manner. Hence, they go for closed office space.
Number of Employees
If your business is new and you need to expand it in the future, it means your employees will also increase. In that case, it’s recommended to make an open office setup because of its various benefits, the most prominent of which is cost-effectiveness.
But, if you have a business where the number of employees will most likely be constant, you can think to create a closed office setup.
Budget
Even if you have enough space to go with an open-space layout for your office, your budget will dictate the final decision. An open-space layout is very budget friendly as you have to make office cabins with minimal furniture. In a closed layout, you require a complete setup for each room, so things get expensive.
Conclusion – Last Thoughts!
Lastly, no one can deny the importance of a good office design. A good office design matters the most for the success of all types of businesses. It is the office environment that, to a large extent, decides the level of productivity of your workers, their well-being, and focus.
Hence, knowing the advantages and disadvantages of office layout setup is very crucial for setting up office spaces. Once you’ve decided on the layout setup of your workspace, work on setting it up.
Always invest time in the interior design of your office, design creative spaces, use ergonomic furniture, make private spaces for employees, and look for constant improvement if your work environment.
