9 Tips for Turning Your Office into a Workplace Haven.

Many of us spend 40 hours of our week in the office, so making our workspaces homely really helps to create a happy team and improve everyone’s motivation.

A decked-out office full of useful amenities makes coming to work a whole more joyful, so it is a well-worthy investment to improve it.

Here are a few tips to create a lovely working environment that your team will enjoy spending time in.

1. Create a Caffeine Buzz with an Office Coffee Machine

Wake up and smell the coffee – your workmates will adore you if you install a coffee machine for the office.

A cup full of good caffeine is just what’s needed for everyone to start the day alert and ready for work, and provide them with perks throughout the day. An Espresso or Flavia coffee maker will go down an absolute treat with staff.

2. Deck the Walls

Motivational slogans can be cheesy, but the right ones will add a creative flair to the walls of your office.

Check out the Etsy website for ready-made office motivational prints (think quotes from famous figures or philosophers you admire), often which you can customize with different fonts and finishes like gold foil. Got a company motto? Emblazon it on your walls!

Your office will look trendy and sophisticated, while providing the team with a pep talk at every glance.

3. Exercise Your Green Fingers and Plant a Mini Garden

Creating a natural environment for your workplace really softens the office space and makes things so much cozier and inviting. Cacti and succulents are perfect plants for offices as they require little maintenance and are fine to leave alone over the weekend!

Terrariums are a stylish choice for curating a mini garden in your office. They come in a range of sizes and shapes, so you can choose one for your desktop or choose one to be a standout feature in your room.

Besides these ideas, you could every so often bring fresh flowers into the office for a nice touch. If you want no-maintenance prettiness, choose fake plants!

4. Personalize Your Desk with Pictures from Home

Encourage your team to bring in family photos and personal pictures in frames for their desk – this creates a real homely tone in the space and will inspire conversations about everyone’s lives.

Personal items help to improve people’s fondness of spaces, especially photographs of happy memories and loved ones.

5. Let the Light In

Studies have shown that natural lighting is the best for offices. The key is to keep the room not too dark that everyone feels sleepy, and not too bright with harsh artificial lighting which induces eye-strain.

If your office suffers from shadows or has a lack of windows, you can get light fixtures that mimic sunlight.

6. Grab a Paintbrush and Get Arty

Wall color can have a huge effect on people’s moods. Chipped paintwork or dull grey walls aren’t the best backdrops for creativity to flow.

For a chic neutral space, white or sand walls with light-wood desks create an airy and clean feel, perfect for encouraging productivity. Avoid metallic surfaces which creates a clinical tone.

Blues and greens are supposedly good for productivity, efficiency and focus – everything you want in an office environment. For offices in the creative sector, yellow is reportedly the best color to be surrounded by to improve creativity.

Suggest painting the office together as a team-building opportunity: the work will be done faster with more people on-board, and everyone will have fun contributing to improving their own workspace

     7.  Build a Comfy Break Area

A relaxing spot where staff can relax during lunch or a mid-afternoon tea break will leave them refreshed and ready to tackle their tasks. Consider bringing in some sofas, armchairs or fun beanbags where your team can chill and swap ideas over the coffee table.

Have company-relevant coffee table books on show, paper and pens for mind-mapping, and plenty of cushions for a cool workspace maximizing on comfort.

8. Get Social and Hold Regular Staff Events

This isn’t so much of a decorative or facilities-related tip, but is sure to improve your office environment in the same way.

Implementing fun lunch socials like weekly takeout pizza lunches or ‘Taco Tuesday’ will have your workmates actively looking forward to coming into the office that day.

9. Switch Up Your Work Stations

Have you ever considered installing standing desks? Studies have concluded that they can increase worker productivity by up to 10%.

Too much sitting can run down office workers’ health and cause absenteeism, so adding some variety and choice to your office workspace could be a great idea. If it’s good enough for Facebook and Google, it’s good enough for us!