5 Office Design Mistakes You Should Avoid

The layout and design of your office can impact your business in a big way, affecting the creativity and productivity of your employees. Unfortunately, many business owners are unaware of this, which means that most invest far too little time or money into the design of their office space. Unfortunately, this can foster a negative work atmosphere, leading to stress and fatigue which inevitably impacts the success of your company. To prevent this, here are a few office design mistakes that you should avoid.

1. Forgetting The Reception Area

When you spend most of your days at the office, you tend to walk past the reception area without really thinking. However, the customers, clients, and business people who visit your workspace don’t do the same. For this reason, you need to take a step back and look at your reception area from their perspective. This is the first area of your company that visitors are going to see, so it’s crucial that you give it plenty of thought and offer a great first impression.

2. Plain And Boring Decor

Boring is a word no entrepreneur wants associated with their business. Because of this, you need to really consider the decor and furniture in your space and make sure that they’re appealing. Instead of sticking with off-white floor tiles, look around for some unique commercial carpet. Rather than leaving huge blank walls, add a pop of color with artwork and murals. This will help your company to appear more young and friendly.

3. Neglecting Your Storage Space

Carefully considered and effectively designed storage space is often the difference between a cluttered and chaotic working environment or a tidy and efficient one. With that in mind, you need to ensure that everything in your office has a space to call it’s own, from the pens on your employees’ desks to the contracts on yours. Instead of just adding a few filing cabinets, consider walk-in closets, floating shelving, and desk organizers.

4. Providing Only One Format

Open plan office designs may be growing in popularity, but lots of employees have expressed their negative opinions towards them, sometimes going as far as to say that they are worse than cubicles. Instead of forcing your employees to work in one format or the other, you should offer both, and create private and communal spaces for your staff to work. This way, they can decide where to sit depending on the tasks they have to do and how they feel at the time.

5. Sticking To Poor Lighting

The wrong use of lighting in an office can massively hurt the productivity of those working there. While bright lights can trigger migraines and other issues, dim lights make it hard to see, which can lead to eye strain and damage. For this reason, you should layer different types of lighting throughout your office, including a lamp on each of your employees’ desks. You should also take advantage of the sun, by opening your blinds and letting the light shine in.

If you want a productive and attractive office, make sure you avoid making the design mistakes listed above.

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