Company culture is a major contributing factor to the success of your business. But when you’re a small business leader, it can seem nearly impossible to keep up with the perks and benefits that larger businesses offer their employees.
According to a study by SHRM and Globoforce, 47% of HR leaders believe employee turnover and retention are their top challenges. Having a strong company culture can help you overcome those challenges, attract better talent, and generate 33% higher revenue than businesses with less engaged employees.
One way that businesses can create workplace experiences that increase retention is by embracing a modern office design – it can drive business results more than you might expect.
Expectations for the workplace have changed significantly over the last few years. It’s not enough to upgrade a cubicle farm to an open concept and expect employees to suddenly feel much more engaged in your office.
A modern office design should be tailored specifically to business functions within your given space and align closely with the visions, values, and culture of your company as a whole.
The following 7 benefits are why a modern office design isn’t just a luxury. Rather, it’s a necessity for moving your business forward.
When you’re implementing a modern office design, it’s not just about spending money with the hopes of improving workplace experiences. By taking a green approach to the new design, you can offset some of the investment with the cost savings of sustainability.
Even small changes to lighting, water usage, and heating/cooling can result in
significant savings for your business. These financial benefits will be clear in your energy bills as well as your returns from government programs like the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI).
So, while office culture is obviously important, there’s a bottom line benefit to implementing a modern office design.
It should go without saying that your modern office design should be tailored to the kind of work employees will be expected to carry out. For example, employees in creative roles may need more privacy for focused work whereas sales and marketing might need space that’s more suited for collaboration.
When office design aligns with employee needs, productivity will increase, and your bottom line will reap the benefits. One study found that the average unproductive worker costs UK businesses £4,500, resulting in £22 billion in losses across the UK annually.
There are other factors that impact employee productivity. However, investing in a contemporary workspace can curb some of the costs of lost productivity and free up some of your financial resources.
As the line between work and life becomes more blurred, employers must take a greater interest in the health and wellness of their employees. Having your workforce sitting for over 8 hours per day in a cubicle farm is far from beneficial to employee health.
The traditional office design conjures thoughts of poor lighting, below-average ventilation, fluorescent lighting, and other detriments to employee health. Creating a modern office design is a way to promote health and wellness and protect your ongoing investments in human resources.
Employers can often forget that your staff should be considered your most valuable business asset. If you don’t treat them as such and support their wellbeing, you’ll risk pushing them to your competitors. An office design that puts the wellbeing of your employees first can go a long way to counteracting this.
As a business leader, you can’t afford to be wasting resources on office space that you don’t truly need. However, if you aren’t making the most of the space available to you, it’s easy to start feeling like you need to invest in a larger office.
Rather than considering an office relocation first, take a step back and ask yourself if a modern office design can resolve the problems you have with your current space. In this case, working with an office design consultant can be of significant value because they’ll come up with a layout perfectly suited for your business needs.
By squeezing more value out of your existing space with a modern office design, you’ll avoid the high costs of rent and utilities in a new location, as well as the hassle of moving.
Modern office design isn’t all about productivity or cost savings, it’s an investment in your employees that can keep you from falling into a never-ending hiring cycle.
As a small business, you may not be able to offer the same workplace perks that your larger competitors can. However, incorporating spaces for relaxation and entertainment can help improve morale across the business.
A ping-pong table or fully-stocked kitchen can go a long way in reducing stress, which in turn increases productivity and curbs hiring costs. This might seem like a short-term trend to those more traditional thinkers but, believe me when I say, it’s more like a movement. Take note of the perks offered to employees in places like WeWork and Spaces. Employees today want more than a space to work, they want a working experience.
However, these kinds of decisions must be made with your overall company culture in mind. For example, if you’re striving for a more professional office space that clients often visit, you might not want to sacrifice the board table for a ping-pong table, a meeting room for a games room.
With this last point in mind, as more and more business is done digitally and globally, this will become more of a niche use case. However, if your business is one that frequently hosts clients, vendors, or even potential new hires, having a modern office design can be a valuable differentiator.
Your office design says a lot about the culture you promote and the kind of values you hold. Compared with a bleak, traditional office, a modern design can set you apart from competitors, helping you close new business, attract better talent, and forge stronger partnerships in the process.
Modern office designs don’t just make it easier for teams to collaborate internally. They also encourage employees to communicate and collaborate with colleagues in other departments.
One key example to think about is bridging the traditional gap between sales and marketing. While these departments have historically worked in silos, a modern office design can encourage alignment that will deliver better business results.
Abandoning traditional designs means increasing agile flexibility within your office and allowing employees to make more organic connections to all areas of your organisation.
Investing in a modern office design is no small decision. However, as your competitors (both large and small) try to improve workplace experiences, it will become increasingly difficult to attract the top talent.
You need to stand out amongst competitors while also optimising the costs of your office space. And that’s easier said than done when you’re busy running the business. Rather than trying to become an overnight professional in modern office design, partner with someone who has a 20+ year proven track record of success.
If you want to learn more about how we can help you balance employee experience and cost efficiency with a modern office design, contact us today for a free consultation. If you would like to find out more about the services we offer, please have a look at our other services using the links below:
Office Design
Office Fit Out
Office Refurbishment
Workplace Consultancy
Alternatively, you can give us a call on 0161 402 3340 or email us at: hello@opus-4.com