A fully-stacked office with everything an employee would ever need, such as a comfortable chair, essential software and appliances, soothing color tones, and more, can increase employee satisfaction and productivity.
And boosting employee productivity can improve business efficiency, increase leads, and help you achieve goals in shorter times. Plus, when you get more done in less time, you can resolve queries and satisfy your customers easily.
But are these the only ways office fit-outs can impact employee productivity? Besides, what are office fit-outs anyway? Let’s find out.
What Are Office Fit-Outs?
An office fit-out happens when offices are renovated to make them more suitable for employees and business purposes. Fit-outs usually involve improving:
- Color schemes, such as using neutral tones or vibrant tones to improve mood.
- Mechanical equipment, such as printers, TVs, etc.
- Software implementations, such as using project management software.
- Furnishings, such as comfortable chairs and workstations.
- Decorations, such as design and brand detailing.
- Lighting, such as accent lighting for illuminating corners.
- Electrical support, such as rerouting air conditioning and power points.
Simply put, an office fit-out can tailor office spaces to cater to the needs of employees and ensure they work efficiently. It can increase employee productivity, help them perform their jobs better, and enable them to enhance the value of your business.
How Do Office Fit-Outs Increase Employee Productivity?
Office fit-outs can increase employee productivity in several ways, such as:
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They Provide Access to Key Software
An office fit-out can enable employees to access software solutions they didn’t have access to before.
For example, an accountant can access premium software like Xero or QuickBooks to manage the payroll. As a result, they’ll be able to automate day-to-day accounting functions, automatically generate pay stubs, focus on providing better advice to the upper management, and spot discrepancies easily.
Similarly, a content creator or editor can use Grammarly to weed out mistakes from their work, ensuring there’s no need for a constant back-and-forth between companies and clients.
Therefore, integrating software solutions during a fit-out can make the day-to-day process easier and allow employees to complete their work on time and on schedule. It can also make employees feel happier, less stressed, and less prone to procrastination, which can increase productivity and business goal achievement.
Moreover, having access to specialized software can simplify tasks, which can allow employees more time to be creative. That can enable businesses to do things their competitors never even thought about.
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They Encourage Rapid Communication
When you’re struggling with a problem but your manager is on the other side of the room, you probably won’t navigate a million cubicles and jump through several hoops to get a single question answered.
To be honest, most employees try to solve problems on their own instead of pestering their managers, especially when they’re far away. This can lead to communication problems, lack of task clarity, and delays in achieving business goals.
An office fit-out can solve this issue by positioning managers’ offices near their teams, allowing rapid communication and problem-solving. Increased communication can help employees solve the smallest of problems quickly. This can increase task completion and productivity.
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They Create a Comfortable Office Environment
Comfort is the best productivity enhancer. And there’s nothing better than making things easy for your employees during a fit-out to increase business performance.
For instance, when employees can access whatever they need in a single space, they won’t need to go anywhere to get things done. This will reduce time spent on tedious tasks, decrease procrastination and boredom, streamline the supply chain, and lead to more goal achievement.
Plus, when managers and team leaders are near, employees will be able to quickly get feedback on their work and determine how they can become more efficient, which will have a direct impact on employee productivity.
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They Lead to Fewer Distractions
An office fit-out can reduce the number of distractions employees encounter throughout the day.
For example, in a typical office layout, employees will often hear other employees chatting, working, or walking around the office. This can be reduced by assigning individual offices to each employee and making sure they’re soundproof, improving productivity.
Plus, giving employees working with print materials access to a printer and other essential equipment will help them reduce the time they spend going back and forth. It will also eliminate the distractions they would usually run into when going to print something, increasing their concentration and efficiency.
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They Can Enable Employees to Access Essential Manual Equipment
Walking across the whole office to access the only printer in the media room decreases efficiency, increases time-to-completion, and delays goal completion. Plus, distractions encountered on the way to these machines can increase procrastination and cause further delays.
As a result, giving employees access to essential manual equipment like microphones, headphones, printers, and scanners can help reduce the time taken to travel to media rooms, decrease time spent on tasks, and increase goal completion.
Moreover, access to essential manual equipment can help employees quickly communicate and get queries answered.
The Bottom Line
Office fit-outs can increase employee productivity in several ways, such as by lowering stress, increasing comfort, automating processes, increasing access to essential software and equipment, and making work simpler.
They can also improve time-to-completion, reduce churn, and increase goal completion, which can help businesses accomplish their objectives faster, make processes more efficient, and get a better return on investment (ROI).
