Wellbeing in the Workspace

In today’s office culture it’s not out of the ordinary to experience stress. Whether your employees are faced with an increase in workload, an urgency to meet deadlines or perhaps external circumstances are affecting daily routine, stress may appear here and there. It’s therefore of paramount importance that you provide the necessary conditions that will keep stress levels at a minimum.

Workplace stress and anxiety could result in an increase in absenteeism as well as other costly factors for your company.

When designing the layout of your office, there are a number of things to consider that will affect employee wellbeing.

In this guide we will look at wellbeing within the workplace and what you can do to make sure that your employees are happy and therefore, productive.

Why stress?

Long working hours, poor lighting and a lack of praise or recognition are to name a few of the instigators for workplace stress.

Communicating with your employees is a key way to find out what’s going on and to address any potential
issues that they may have in regards to workload or their surroundings.

Office Culture

Today, not only are offices the place where your employees spend the majority of their time, but where they work, learn, develop both professional and personal relationships as well as progress in terms of a career.
The culture of the organisation will have impact upon workplace wellbeing. Each company has its own distinctive sets of norms and behaviours, and as a result, each corporate culture will be individual to that organisation.

Ensuring that your employees are happy is extremely important. Research shows that if a company adopts good CSR practice as part of its culture, takes the time to engage with employees at all levels and provides them with good incentives, then not only will overall morale increase, but there will be greater staff retention as well as a greater output of work.

Management

Wellbeing within the workplace is also likely to increase if employees feel comfortable within their environment and with their management. This is also, in large part, down to office culture. A good manager is someone who communicates effectively what needs to be done in the office, but by also listening and taking the time to learn from his/her employees. What will facilitate this flatter structure, is the layout and design of the office.

An ideal workspace

Research has shown that the arrangement of your office can promote collaboration, creativity and concentration.

When designing the layout of your office it is important to take into consideration how to best utilise the space that you have that will suit individual roles within the organisation. Wellbeing is subjective and will depend on a number of external influences, such as personality and family, but a considerate office design and layout will have effect in promoting workplace wellbeing.

An open plan office, for example, will improve the happiness of employees as social interactions are made much easier. In some offices, management sits in the same office of their employees which promotes communication between the two. Frequent sharing of ideas is common, and utilising the benefits of teamwork, work may be done as productively as they are quickly. See our blog on the benefits of an open planned office for further information.

Providing your employees with designated break areas, such as kitchens, common rooms or perhaps a chic coffee room, is likely to promote wellbeing and elevate workplace mood. Cool colours, such as blues and greens, should be adopted within the colour scheme as will help your employees remain calm and relaxed throughout the day, while also stimulating productivity.

When initially designing your workspace, we recommend that you ask your employees what they want within office design and take these into consideration. This will ultimately encourage positivity in working behaviours since your employees will feel valued as well as having their desired workspace.

And you?

At Workspace Design and Build, we understand that your employees and their wellbeing is of the utmost importance and take this into consideration when helping you with your workspace design.

If you have any further information that you would like to share about workplace wellbeing and any recommendations to help minimise stress, then please leave a comment below or via Twitter and Facebook.