Building A New Office Geared Towards Creativity

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Creativity is the key to your businesses success. Not only is it what helps you to build ideas and see them through, it’s what will inspire your employees to work harder, work smarter and to come up with ideas that could seriously benefit your company. Building A creative space doesn’t mean having crazy architecture and bright colours everywhere, it’s about maximising the space to allow for communication and interdepartmental cooperation. It’s about offering employees space to work, space to relax, time to do those things. It’s about inspiring loyalty through the availability of difference throughout your office that they won’t be offered elsewhere. By offering your employees a place where they are able to reach their full potential, you automatically get their loyalty and happiness.

And that is what is the most important – your employees are literally what makes your business successful. If they all upped at left tomorrow, where would your business be? Their happiness is something that you should always be looking to boost. However, you can’t just build an office around your employees’ needs, it is a workplace after all. It needs structure, targets and above all, it needs to make sense.

And then there is also the aesthetic and overall look of the place. You want it to match your business and look professional. If you’re changing the colour scheme and design of your business within your office, then you need to make that change throughout your website, social media, advertisements and merchandise; it all needs to be cohesive. Or you might be building your office to match your existing designs, but merely give them a facelift. Either way, your office will look amazing. And here are some ideas to help build that creative space you want.

Layout

An open layout in your office promotes discussion and that interdepartmental cooperation that we mentioned. Having different departments able to communicate efficiently and quickly helps to build a great work ethic within your company; when working as a team people push each other to do more and to do better. However, if the building you are working with is old, that open layout might lean towards the cold side in the winter. But don’t let that stop you from building the office you want – just make sure you take the right precautions by modernising aspects of the building. An open layout also makes the space seem much bigger than it really is – so no more cramped offices or cubicles.

Colours

As mentioned before, your colour scheme needs to match whatever you set forward when you began designing your business. However, too many bright or dark colours can make the space seem noisy and chaotic, let alone make it smaller. Where having a navy blue or black wall can make the space seem bigger as it reflects the light back into the room, too much can do the exact opposite. Use a swatch of colours to keep things interesting, but maintain a light and airy overall feel. Maximise space by using colour to add depth and the illusion of size, while also making things fun and interesting.

Lighting

You should always be looking to have as much natural lighting as possible to boost creativity, but where that isn’t possible, make sure that you go for a natural feel rather than glaring supermarket lighting. Use established and well reviewed companies like http://caslec.com.au/ to ensure the lighting is distributed in a way that maximises the space and best benefits your new office.

Desks

Where a seated desk is often the go to option, standing desks are becoming much more popular in many offices. You can offer your existing employees the option, or simply buy adjustable desks so that your staff can choose. A standing desk is so much better for your back, and so will make people feel more comfortable spending time at their desks, but not everyone wants to spend all day standing up, so offer the choice, and perhaps some tall stools for those who prefer a standing desk but might want to take a break off their feet. Small considerations like this are what makes your employees feel so much more comfortable in the space.

Kitchen

Every office needs a kitchen. You don’t need to provide an oven, but a sink, fridge, microwave, toaster, and most importantly, a kettle, is an absolute must. Depending on the location of your office, there might not be many food places nearby and so your employees will need to bring in lunch rather than go out and get it. So make sure that they have time and space to make and eat their lunch. Your kitchen might see a lot of action during the day, so a separate eating area might be needed. Encourage healthy eating by keeping some healthy snack options available like fresh fruit and nuts.

Reception

You also need to consider your clients and guests when planning your office space – is the entrance attractive and inviting, is there space for people to wait comfortably before being seen? A decent reception space is extremely important to make that good first impression – follow the tips here https://dadimprovement.com/index.php to make the space more attractive to consumers. It might be an antechamber to the rest of the building, or perhaps it’s righting the bullpit where they can watch your efficient and hard working employees in action. After the reception, they will obviously be taken aside to your office or to a meeting room – so make sure those spaces live up to expectations too.

Meeting room

If you have space for multiple meeting rooms then take advantage of that. A more informal room might be great for long standing clients and friends, as well as informal interviews and staff meetings. This space will often be smaller and lean towards sofas and coffee tables more than chairs and a large table – which would be the layout for a second meeting room. This room would be more serious and formal, perfect for new clients, negotiations, contract signing and all other super serious meetings. You will also find that you can judge the space your client prefers after meeting them – it might be that formal is always the way to go, or they might be much more laid back and prefer the informal approach.