You’ve got the business of your dreams. Perhaps you specialise in making tiny hats for goldfish, or maybe your Etsy account selling bespoke tea cosies has finally hit the big time. Maybe you simply enjoy a bog standard business, like flute repairperson or fishmonger. Either way, it’s the job that you’ve been building up to for your whole life – but it’s suffering one setback.
While your head is inhabiting the space of a high-flying entrepreneur – power lunches, power meetings, powerfully knitting tiny hats for goldfish, that sort of thing – the office you work from is falling into a state of disrepair.
A bomb hasn’t hit it exactly, but you’d be hard-pressed to think otherwise. The walls are more pockmarked than the face of Mickey Rourke, the desks are more rickety than a house of cards in a hurricane, and the entire space is dirtier than your trench coat-wearing uncle drunkenly wandering the streets of Soho.
No matter how much you enjoy your job, a poorly designed workplace will reduce your motivation and, in turn, your productivity. It’ll also repel potential customers. Just think about it – would enter an office that looks like the house in Steptoe and Son?
There are, however, plenty of quick fixes for the office in dire need of a makeover. All you need is a little bit of common sense and a few helping hands. So take a look at these tips and see what you think.
Waste it, don’t want it
Wander into an office filled with lazy bones and you’ll encounter more rubbish than your local wasteland. Not only is this aesthetically repulsive, it’s a hygiene nightmare. The simplest solution to the blight of rubbish is to invest in a few waste bins, as well as professionals who will come to collect your leavings at regular intervals.
This might seem like a simple enough tip, but the trick lies in placing the bins in the right place so that your employees will interact with them without too much effort. People are lazy, so don’t make disposing of waste a chore.
Find your personality
So many offices struggle to have a brand of their own, a personality that will intrigue visitors and boost the motivation of their staff. But the truth of the matter is that finding a personality for your office is easy. You just have to move beyond the clichés of most offices.
Avoid motivational posters and choose art that inspires you and brightens your mood. Buy something like a football or snooker table and let your employees retreat to it whenever they’re feeling stressed.
The end result? Happier employees, impressed clients and a cooler, cleaner environment.
