How to Create a Beautiful Workplace on a Budget

A good working environment can contribute massively to an employees’ mental and physical well-being. which has shot to the top of business’ agendas. With a high proportion of employees struggling to juggle life plus caring responsibilities for children and parents, there’s little time for self care. Which is leading to mounting stress levels. As a result, creating a beautiful working environment where employees can perform at their best provides respite and an opportunity to boost productivity. But when budget is a constraint, creating a beautifully beneficial workplace can be a challenge.
We’ve scoured the internet for a range of cost-effective options that will beautify your workplace and boost your bottom line.

What is a Beautiful Working Environment?

What’s right for your business will depend on your company culture. And the people in it.
Before asking your people for their views, set some office design parameters by referring to your business culture. Placing your company identity at the heart of your transformation will help you find ways to express your brand through physical space.
Whether that’s about enabling collaboration between specific teams or providing privacy for confidential conversations. By identifying your specific goals, you can more thoughtfully organise your office.
Once you have an overall direction of travel, canvas your employees for their ideas about what they’d like to update. Seek answers to specific elements like light, colours, materials, ventilation and sound. This will help you design changes that will work for your entire team.

Budget-Stretching Workplace Design

Modern offices that create a sense of well-being help employees feel more comfortable and relaxed which boosts creativity and a sense of well-being. Here are our tips to help you create a pleasant workplace.

Create Alternative Working Spaces

Consider creating break out areas for collaboration as well as areas where people can work quietly or privately. Concerned that a new meeting room might not be used regularly enough to make the investment worthwhile? Then use them to host yoga or meditation sessions at lunch time. This means you’ll get better use of the space as well as boosting employee well-being.
Can’t stretch to building individual work pods or offices? Then think about installing a white noise app for employees to tune in to or providing wireless noise cancelling headphones. This will give employees the option to tune out of office noise and focus.

Go Green

Exposing people to nature has been shown to reduce the stress hormone cortisol. And it has resulted in some firms integrating living walls to their workplaces. The good news is, that although this looks great, it doesn’t need to be expensive.
You can buy ready-made sets. Or do it yourself for a few hundred pounds by installing a shelving unit with plenty of green leafy pot plants to divide your office space with a natural barrier.
Harvard University found that air quality impacts productivity and decision making. So improving your office air quality with plants could also boost performance.

Go Clean

It’s amazing just how dirty some working environment can be. Research revealed that the average desk contains 400 times more germs than a toilet!
Insisting on something as simple as a clear desk policy will keep your workplace feeling less cluttered helping your people to focus. And investing in a cleaning company to ensure your workplace is spotless can reduce the risk of sickness too.

Lighting in the Working Environment

Employees’ performance, energy, focus and motivation is impacted by the amount of light they’re exposed to. Yet many offices have no natural light at all. If you can introduce more daylight to your workplace, then do so. Something as simply as removing items that are blocking windows will help.
If there’s no way to increase natural light, consider introducing blue-enriched light bulbs. They have been shown to boost energy and improve happiness and performance.

Think Beyond Appearance of the Working Environment

Although the physical working environment is important, it’s also critical that employees feel safe and comfortable. This goes well beyond four walls to workplace culture.
Some businesses might want to invest in pool tables, ping pong and slides. But if budget is tight, you could find it’s better to spend your money delivering one voice, one culture, one team, one dream.
Why not remove all the processes, behaviours and systems your people hate and replace them with things that will drive engagement? This could include enabling some of the most sought after working practices like flexible or home working.
Improving your workplace to meet everyone’s needs is a challenge. Particularly if you don’t have an enormous budget. But with this tactics to create a beautiful work-space, you’ll be well on your way to delivering design changes that are more than skin deep.
For more information please contact us, we can help with your employees, but probably not with your interior design.