Over the tumult of last year, professionals across the globe were prompted to develop their own home offices.
We discovered together that ‘working from home’ wasn’t as easy as it sounded!
It can be deceptively tricky creating a workspace that inspires productivity alongside being comfortable enough to spend around eight hours a day in.
Even so, a lot of professionals were able to curate a space that worked for them, and have gone so far as to transfer elements from these home offices into their professional workspaces too.
We’ve outlined some of these elements below, so be sure to read on if you’re a business owner who’s looking to put together a winning office space.
Stock your cabinets
One of the major obstacles to productivity in our workspaces is simply not feeling equipped to achieve the tasks in front of us.
This is why any self-sufficient workspace absolutely requires well-stocked and well-organized office storage.
We can’t afford to allocate any time to hunting down supplies as it may come at the cost of focus and productivity. Keep your HP Deskjet 3720 cartridges by your HP Deskjet 3720, just as you would keep your pins on your corkboard.
So long as your space stays harmonious, you should have little to no issue with maintaining your flow during the workday.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that you should aim to replenish your office storage on a regular basis to ensure that you never run out of any specific supplies.
Develop a supply replenishment schedule by keeping track of roughly how long it takes you to go through any specific supplies.
If your suppliers allow you to make scheduled orders, it’s highly recommended that you take advantage of that offer.
Scheduled orders can greatly simplify this pesky process, allowing you and your workforce to focus your energies on more important things!
Create beautiful, tailored work zones
The best offices are designed with human behavior in mind.
We are curious creatures and are far less like machines than we often believe ourselves to be.
Sometimes, we can be sitting in a perfectly put-together space, have everything we need for a good day’s work, and still feel completely awkward or limited in our environment.
In times like these, it’s good to change it up a bit and find your flow elsewhere.
This can be tricky in a home office where space is naturally limited, but you can absolutely create inventive work zones within your organization’s office space.
Consider incorporating lounge-like spaces with armchairs, bean bags, and small tablespaces for coffees and lunches so that your workforce can feel inclined to work in a cozier, open space if they ever feel they may need it.
Be sure to incorporate a selection of alternatives in your office’s design, such as standing desks for those trying to fight static positions at work, and enclosed spaces or ‘capsule’ office spaces that are available to those who seek an environment with minimal distractions.
Encourage collaboration
Another mark of a self-sufficient office is an environment that not only encourages but also inspires collaboration between co-workers.
Your workplace can foster collaboration both through its layout and design, but also through providing your workforce with the correct tools for collaborating, such as free-standing whiteboards or other surfaces for collaborative brainstorming and open meetings.
A particularly helpful little ‘office hack’ to keep in mind when designing your space is that when people who are seated next to each other are given a similar goal.
They’re more likely to inherently work collaboratively and with efficiency to meet that shared objective.
In essence, a close-knit team composed of people with different skill sets has the ability to be a multidisciplinary powerhouse, and that is a resource your organization can greatly benefit from.
Finally, it’s important to note that despite collaboration being a fixture in any self-sufficient workplace, it’s still vital that your workforce feels they have their own space within any professional office.
Open office spaces can be fantastic for fostering a culture of collaboration within your organization.
But people work in different ways on different days, and if any space is to be deemed ‘self-sufficient’, it has to be so for every member of your workforce.
No matter what your office layout comes to be, be sure to maintain your office’s sense of both liberty and variety.