We can often forget just how important the framework in which our business is developed can influence even the smaller processes which operate there. A great office space is one of these frameworks. Without it, your staff would be disjointed, less-than-secure, away from the vital materials they need for their job. While one office might seem similar to another, what makes your office stand out matters, alongside how it helps or hinders your staff from performing their duties.

Even something as too little parking space opportunities outside of the building can cause chaos in the morning, and can make your staff start their day off in a lamentable mood. For this reason, keeping your office space up to its gold standard each and every week is crucial to getting the most out of your team. Remember, you’re not only providing a simple and organized space for your staff to reside. They also need to work, and on top of that, want to work, meaning you are squeezing their best effective performance out of them. An office can help you do that efficiently, provided you care for it well.

Let us consider what that might look like:

Keep The Carpet Clean

What’s the one area of a room that informs its interior design the most profoundly? You might consider it to be the way your office desks are laid out, providing the functional navigability of the room. You might suggest the natural lighting, and that’s a strong contender. But no, it would be the flooring. Your carpet will likely cover most if not all of the room, and the shade which it carries can inform the lighting, hygiene, and generally utility of your office to a degree higher than you think.

This is why it’s essential to use a competent service, such as Carpet Cleaner Marketing Blueprint, to ensure the carpet is well taken care of and everything is clean from the get go. Without this, you might be quite surprised to realise just how much a stain that lasts for some time, office chair wheel marks and scuffs can denigrate the feel and aesthetic of your office space. To that end, having this cleaned as regularly as is reasonable can always bring a new lease of life to your office.

Ground Rules

Your staff are of course individuals, but when in the office, they are working as part of a collective whole. That means in order to keep the space as neutral and pleasant as possible, each staff member must abide by the ground rules you set. Set well, these rules can ensure the place is clean, organized, tidy, and smells neutral throughout the day.

For example, keeping hot food out of the office could be a good pointer, provided you have adequate space for staff to eat. Asking staff to keep their desks in good condition is also an essential part of keeping the space neat and organized. Having them report any spills or damage to computing equipment should be next. And of course, a confidential complains opening should be available to anyone who wishes to report a matter that’s preventing them from working, such as Jerry’s whistling habit as he goes through the accounts, or how Pamela doesn’t understand how her office headphones blast dance music through the earbuds so others can hear. A few ground rules can ensure a basic level of common decency and respect. Moreover, they will have you keep up with the aforementioned gold standard.

Formulating Common Decency

Of course, you have likely intelligent, composed and empathetic people on your team. But even then, human nature can sometimes cause issues to flare up that might not have otherwise. For example, take your office cloakroom or locker space. This might be an area in which your staff can place their personal belongings under lock and key or combination lock during the day. This might be personal valuables, shopping, perhaps a gym kit for after work. What’s stored there doesn’t matter, but how it’s interacted with does. For example, consider how twenty lockers for thirty people might be received, particularly if they’re unnamed. Those first in the office will claim theirs. They might even write their name on one. But then the next day comes, and those in earlier this time will take a locker someone had already ‘claimed’ with no authority. This stifles creative and friendly spirits in your team, for something so simple. When really, ensuring everyone had a locker and that they were named so no one had to fight or question where theirs was to be located could have a major difference. You see this in schools. Why not in your office?

Formulating common decency can simply be a great idea, be that a designated smoking area far from the front doors of your office so no one needs to walk through a cloud of smoke, bicycle racks outside of your building, a designated line for the copier or fax machine, or prioritizing the training of your staff in a visible and noted list. When you formulate common decency, most are able to follow that well.

Maintenance Repair

Your office is a functional space yes, but it’s also part of your firm. Even though customers aren’t paying you to use that space in particular, nor will they even likely see it, it’s an extension of your brand. That means leaving maintenance repairs until absolutely necessary can show your staff that you only care about the front-facing problems. Your office should ideally be a perfect representation of the ethos you wish your staff to embody. Clean, organized, professional, perhaps achievements or strong branding hung from, painted to or displayed from the walls, a sense of achievement and pride running through the halls.

When you invest in your office, you’re also indirectly investing in your people. And that is always worthwhile.

With these tips, we hope you’re better able to keep your office up to its gold standard.