The appearance of your office influences how both clients and employees perceive your business. No one wants to work in a dingy, poorly-lit cubicle, and it makes you look less successful and responsible to clients. Here are five tips to keep your office modern and prosperous.
Dress To Impress
Your employees will be making the first impression on any client – make sure it’s a good one. A relaxed dress code will ensure that employees look professional. There’s no need to force anyone into a uniform – simple guidelines, such as requiring button-down shirts, slacks, and leather shoes, will keep your employees comfortable and looking sharp.
Light The Stage
Lighting is an often-overlooked but very important aspect of the office environment. Poor lighting can make an area look dingy or dirty, deepen shadows, and even make people look sick.
Studies suggest that natural lighting is best – it’s free, it’s brighter than direct lighting, and it can give your employees an energy boost. In places without windows, direct lighting beats out glaring overhead strips.
An Apple A Day
A central snack bar gives your office a communal area where employees can chat and relax on breaks. Use this area to provide fresh fruit and healthy drinks – not only does fruit improve the overall look of the bar, but it will help to improve your employee’s health and job satisfaction.
When Google cut out unhealthy candy from their snack bar and replaced it with snacks like dried fruit and nuts, they saw improvements in how employees chose to eat.
The Office You Want
There’s an old saying: “Dress for the job you want, not for the job you have.” Well, the same goes for your office. You need to dress your building for success – it will improve how clients perceive you, from your professionalism to the quality of your services.
Haven’t you ever wanted to work in an office with a mahogany desk or with beautiful stone accents? By making that vision a reality, you communicate your power as an entrepreneur and give your client the right impression.
Keep It Clean
The simplest tip, but a very important one – no one wants to work in a dirty office, and clients definitely don’t want to do business in a place with dirty carpets, messy bathrooms, or, worst of all, a pest problem.
By attending to the small details of keeping your office clean, you communicate several things: your own organization, your desire for perfection, and that you will bring those same skills to the client’s project, regardless of what that project is.
Modern and Powerful
By following these simple tips, you can revolutionize your office space, taking it from a generic “cubicle farm” to an attractive, pleasant place to work. Happy employees make for satisfied clients, and having a great environment for everyone to work in is the first step in creating a great workplace.