The dramatic shift in office design in the last decade has seen many iterations—open offices, biophilic design, water features, dedicated task areas, and more. The purpose of all of it is to improve the working lives of employees who spend more than half their waking hours at the office. Smartly designed offices help with health and well-being of employees, employee retention, lower absenteeism, boosted productivity, job satisfaction, and improved creativity. The rise of beautiful breakout spaces are designed with this in mind, and they aren’t entirely there for functionality. State-of-the-art kitchens help workers feel at home and well fed, cafés resembling restaurants more than offices feel like entertainment rather than a working lunch, and homey alcoves where workers are encouraged to get comfortable and be sociable with their colleagues promotes workplace friendships, which are shown to improve employee retention and satisfaction.
Much of the reason offices cater to the comfort of employees is a mountain of data showing tired, mentally drained, and unhappy staff are not at their creative, productive best, are more likely to switch jobs, and generally have a negative impact on company culture. When mentally recharged and relaxed employees bring their A game, everybody benefits. So how do you keep your employees in the peak of their creativity and satisfaction?
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