Chances are you don’t walk into the office and immediately think about its design. Chances are you’re walking into a drab gray cubicle farm full of an uninspired office space that lacks design, personality, general functionality, and an overall lack of humanity. The most appreciated and productive work environments are created by employers who listen to their employees needs and make the changes. As it turns out, employees don’t just want money or vacations or corporate accounts. People want to be happy at work. According to JLL’s Global Research Study, 69% of workers agree that a sense of happiness is an essential ingredient to a unique human experience within an organization and 87% of respondents want a Chief Happiness Officer. This speaks to the undeniable need for fulfillment within the workplace. What doesn’t make us happy? Charmless grey uninspired cube farms. Everyone enjoys being in a personalized space because we like things designed with us in mind. Employees positively respond when their environment focuses on our four core needs (mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional).
Incorporating human-centered design elements and ideas only adds value to the office environment! If you think you aren’t in a position to do a complete office overhaul, you can slowly start a refresh by asking employees what’s important to them and implementing the changes in phases. Here at Davies our professional team of project managers can help manage your project from start to finish, and our expert team of designers will help get you into an updated, inviting fully customized office space at a fraction of the cost of other manufacturers. Our design team believes in designing with the functionality of a space as the top priority while incorporating the personality of the brand.
Some of our top priorities when designing for the human are:
- Ergonomics: It’s no secret that sitting at a desk for 40+ hours a week can wreak havoc on your body. Adjustable height desks and chairs that were created with the human body in mind, are the tools our bodies need to stay healthy and comfortable on the job. Whether we are sitting down or standing up, doing it with biomechanical stability is a key to employee satisfaction.
- Privacy: is simply a necessity. Whether it’s time for concentration, meetings, private phone calls… Being able to get away from the ‘bull pen’ chaos is necessary to get work done sometimes. Creating nooks and flex-spaces for employees to move around is a huge trend that’s here to stay for the long haul.
- The Community: Collaboration furniture isn’t just a new age trend, it’s where we brainstorm, innovate, and learn about one another. A sense of community at work breeds trust in our employer and our colleagues.
- Noise Control: Acoustic furniture is extremely beneficial for the workplace. Not everyone works well with music or excessive talking, some of us need to be in relative silence in order to remain focused and productive.
- Personality! Each of us spend a significant amount of our time in our offices at our workstations and we want to feel like its ours. Allowing individuals to personalize their space with plants, a few photos, their favorite coffee mug from college… it all helps to livens up the space and will make the space more attractive overall. So let employees bring plants into the workplace! Did you know biophilia helps reduce stress?
Today’s office is built to accommodate the technology that is used, not the people who work there and to maximize profit, not job satisfaction. Human-centered design is about using people to improve the environment in which they spend 40 hours a week—a place that should be peaceful and productive rather than tense and joyless. However, studies show that when people are content at work, less stressed at work, and happy to be at work, more work gets done. Furthermore, if some plants and new furniture will start the path to a happy and healthy workforce…why not take the plunge? At Davies we are proud to say that our lead times have remained stable at 4-6 weeks(or better!), which is significantly better than the 12+ week lead times we’re seeing industry wide. On top of that, the prices on our remanufactured furniture have also continued to remain stable!
Interested in getting fully customized office furniture that isn’t going to cost an arm and a leg? Give us a call at 518.449.2040 or visit us at www.daviesoffice.com/contact to find out what we can do for you.
