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13 Maintenance and Design Tips To Create a Healthy and Productive Workspace

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Healthy Workspace|13 Maintenance and Design Tips To Create a Healthy and Productive WorkspaceAfter the pandemic hit, a staggering number of professionals around the country had to abandon the office and start working from home. While the first few weeks came with all the challenges of an unpredicted adaptation period, most workers then managed to find a new balance.

Today, almost 60% of Americans work from home for most of the week, and they are planning to keep things that way. Organizations around the world have also enjoyed the benefits of this new trend – especially because they can now cut down on office space, reduce expenses, and tap into a worldwide talent pool.

Nonetheless, there are also some reasons for which companies still want employees to come into the office for a few days each month. And, if you are also trying to make this new hybrid work model work for your company, you need to make the experience of coming into the office productive and energizing. Start with the tips below.

Let Nature In

Spending time in nature is linked to lower stress levels and cortisol, better mood and morale, and higher productivity levels. So, we know that if you want to feel calmer and more serene, you have to spend time in a park, forest, or coastal area.

But how can you reap the benefits of nature while working in the office? Bringing nature indoors! You can do so by decorating with plants and natural materials such as wood, metal, and natural fabrics. Try to leave out cheap, single-use items!

Leverage Natural Light and Fresh Air

Just as important as decorating with natural and sustainable elements is letting in some fresh air and natural light. Over the past years, a rising number of employees have started to suffer from Sick Building Syndrome (SBS). This condition is not immediately evident but, in the long term, it can cause respiratory problems, skin conditions, low morale, excessive tiredness, and mental health issues.

You can prevent all of this by opening curtains and windows and letting fresh air and sunshine into the office. Your teams will feel much happier and more energized!

Not only that but naturally lit and ventilated workspaces can improve productivity among your employees. They usually perform much better in a work environment with open windows allowing light and air to come in. 

Insulate the Building

Insulating the building is essential to create a comfortable and adequate working environment while making the whole building more sustainable. Insulation is especially important if the premises are in an area subjected to drastic temperature changes, and it allows you to save over 15% on heating and cooling costs. All this, while allowing your employees to feel comfortable when at their desks.

Maintain Gutters and Roof

The building’s gutters and roof are elements that are not often in sight and can be overlooked. However, it is important to inspect them at least once or twice a year. Gutters can get clogged and, with the first heavy downpours, they can cause rainwater to overflow or stagnate, which can lead to rotting of the fascia board.

Maintaining the roof is just as important! Through regular checks, you can ensure that the whole building is structurally sound and insulated. You should also carry out emergency inspections after a natural disaster or if you suspect that something is wrong with the roof.

Read more here about the maintenance, inspection, and replacement options you have!

Keep Up to Date With the Latest Regulations

Your employees are one of the company’s main assets, and it is your duty and responsibility to provide them with a safe and healthy workplace. Whether the commercial building your offices occupy has been recently built or not, make sure you are up to date with the latest regulations and safety requirements.

Invest in Technology

The pandemic initiated some important trends and sped up some that were already happening. But what it has made obvious is that we all rely more on technology than ever before. Make sure your office has all the technology needed to ensure it remains productive and competitive. Aside from industry-based technological solutions that you should have, you might consider investing in:

  • Cloud system that helps you with daily operations, waste management, remote collaboration, and compliance
  • High-speed internet connection
  • The latest cybersecurity features for you and your employees
  • Team collaboration software that allows you to switch from on-site to remote working seamlessly.

With these modern innovations in place, you can make the life of your employees much easier and less stressful.

Allow for Flexibility

As we have seen, over half of all employees in the US and abroad are working from home most of the week. While for some this has been a drastic and uncomfortable change, for many it was a happy change. Whatever your employees prefer, they might expect flexibility from your end. So, you should adapt the office space to welcome this hybrid workforce. If your team is too small for you to have – and pay for – office spaces, you should consider the coworking or shared office model.

Carve Out Green Spaces

Whether it is one of the walls, on the roof, or outside the premises, consider creating a green space where your employees can spend their lunch break and relax away from the four walls of the office. Green space does not have to necessarily be a perfectly designed garden – it could also be a small patch of land or an urban garden on the top of the building.

Thankfully, many companies or building owners offer workspaces to businesses. One of the good things about these spaces is that they’re well-designed, comfortable, and located in prime locations, making it more convenient for your workforce. With flexible workspaces, your employees can freely move around and work in an exciting and fresh environment where they can share their ideas and improve their creativity. 

Hence, if you’re looking for a flexible office space for your employees, you can search for some options online or seek recommendations from friends, colleagues, and other people in the business community.

Make It Easily Accessible

Thanks to the advent of remote working, many companies have opted to move their offices to locations that are less central and, often, more affordable. Since many employees don’t need to commute to the office anymore, this change makes sense for many organizations. However, some of your employees will still travel to and from the office. So, if you want to encourage them to come into the office at least a few days every week, you should make this option easy and accessible for them!

Consider the Benefits of Pet Therapy

Welcoming pets in the office could be a great way to keep your employees engaged and entertained, and this experience can help them develop a caring attitude towards the company itself! Studies have found that there are several benefits to bringing pets into the office premises, including reducing stress, increasing productivity, improving resiliency, and preventing aggressive reactions in situations of stress.

Include Areas for Relaxation and Socialization

The era of the rat race is over. Today, employees want to be valued and recognized for their hard work, personality, and unique touch. Of course, you need them to be in their best shape, energized, and motivated.

However, productivity does not always come from just sitting in front of a laptop for nine hours! New studies have seen that short breaks of ten minutes or less every hour allow the brain to recharge and can significantly increase productivity.

Introducing strategic stations for relaxation and socialization in the office can pay you back in productivity and better outcomes after all!

Create a Range of Workstations

In the past, the focus has always been on finding the best type of furniture, chair, and desks for employees to be comfortable and focus – all while also keeping an eye on the budget. However, today, we know that working in a fixed position does not help productivity, and can contribute to all the issues that a sedentary life can cause.

Instead, make sure to create a variety of seating options and workstations across the office space. These can include benches, conference rooms, quiet areas, standing desks, cafes, and standard seats.

Invest in Activities

Scheduling group activities such as yoga and meditation can help employees better manage stress, feel more energized, and optimize productivity. Whether you can organize weekly sessions or you just encourage your employees to take five to ten minutes out of their day to practice mindfulness, don’t underestimate the power of these activities on health, mood, emotional well-being, and productivity levels. Try it out today!

Conclusion

It’s important to know that having a healthy and productive work environment can play an integral role in the organization’s growth and success. If you have a beautiful and comfortable workplace, your employees will have the energy and motivation to accomplish their duties and responsibilities more efficiently and quickly. 

Hence, if you want your workplace to be as healthy and productive as possible, keep the tips mentioned above in mind, and you’ll be in the right direction. 

Tips that will Help you to Achieve Success in Your Career

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Success in your Career|Tips that will Help you to Achieve Success in Your CareerOne of the best ways that you can achieve career success is for you to try and keep assessing your performance. Don’t want for an annual review. Do it yourself! You also need to set quantifiable goals for yourself, while also setting a timeline to get certain things done. If you can do this, and follow the below tips then there’s no reason why you can’t achieve success in your career.

Be Ready to Learn

If you want to excel in your chosen career, then you have to be willing to learn. You need to be able to accept feedback as well. It doesn’t matter what college you went to or what grades you managed to achieve because professional life will absolutely be different to your normal life. You need to be able to answer a million questions that will probably pop up every day and you also need to show management that you are actually coachable. Paying attention to new things while having a willingness to learn will get you far. If you want to take things to that next level, why not think about getting into Yale Law.

Anticipate Needs

If you want to succeed in a new job and if you want to achieve career success then you need to be aware of what your team need and what managers you are going to be working with. Stay one step ahead of your boss by asking yourself, if you were in that position, what would you want done next? Show initiative and adopt a real go-getter attitude. If you can do this, then you will soon find that you can come out on top.

Communicate Well

Communication is key at the end of the day. If you know that your manager has to ask you for a report, or an update on your status then you may not be doing everything that you could be. The idea is for you to try and be as proactive as possible while also showing a good level of communication. Let people know when a task has been done and then actively move onto the next job. If you can do this, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to succeed.

Set Goals

Remember that you are not getting paid to work hard. You are paid to fulfil the goals and missions of the company that you work for. This is the case in the short-term as well as the long-term. Therefore, you need to keep in mind that you have to meet clear and defined goals that the company have set. If you can adopt a goal-oriented mindset, then this will help you to achieve career success, regardless of where you are on the corporate ladder.

Show but Don’t Tell

The value of action is far bigger than words. You have to make sure that you use this as a principle for any dealings that you might have in the office. Don’t brag about all of the things that you can do, if you don’t ever end up doing them. Instead, you need to show management what you are capable of, and you also need to prove to everyone that you deserve to be there.

How to Have Fun with Your Teams

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Teams|How to Have Fun with Your TeamsWhen you are in a leadership role, one of your jobs is to make sure that the morale is good within your teams. All places of work will have periods where things will become stressful, and these days, job seekers are looking for more than just a good salary to help them choose which position to accept. This is why you need to be creative and make sure that your teams are kept happy at work and allow them to have a little fun in the office rather than it being all work and no play. So, if you’re looking for ways to boost the moods of your team members, here are a few fun things you can try.

Betting on Sporting Events

When there is a big sporting event such as the World Cup or the Grand National, it could be fun to get the team together to make some bets. Not everyone has to take part if they aren’t keen on gambling, but a lot of people do like to bet on the bigger events like this as a bit of fun. Just make sure that you keep the betting limit at a sensible budget so that no one is getting themselves into financial trouble if they lose.

Host an Online Casino Night

If your teams aren’t fans of sports, then why not get the same thrill that betting would have provided everyone by drumming up some competition when playing casino games. You can find reviews on websites like best online casinos USA has and organize a casino night to play live roulette or blackjack.

Host Competitions

Another thing you can do to inject a bit of fun into the workday is hold competitions for your team members. For example, the first person to hit their daily targets wins a shopping voucher or a box of chocolates. This will not only make their workday more fun but offer them another incentive to hit their targets. Alternatively, you could do things like the desk with the best Christmas decorations wins a food hamper for some festive fun.

Monthly Socials

This is not only a good way to let your teams blow off some steam, but it can help them to bond and form friendships at work with their colleagues. Once a month, book a table at a local bar or restaurant on a Friday night that you can all go to after work. Whether people only stay for one drink or a few hours, this is a good way for everyone to have fun with each other and is a nice little reward after working hard. Just make sure that the bar or restaurant is easy to get to, preferably within walking distance from the office.

Employee Awards

Hosting employee awards once a year can be another way to boost morale and have some fun in the office. A lot of places might choose to do this around Christmas time, but doing it during the summer months could be a good option if you already host Christmas parties, as then it gives your teams a little boost at another point in the year. You can take these awards more seriously or make them novelty ones if you want to make it a sillier event for some laughs.
If you want to help to boost the morale within your teams, consider the suggestions above to help make work more fun.

How To Find Employees for Your Franchise in The Wake of Covid-19

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StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Covid-19|How To Find Employees for Your Franchise in The Wake of Covid-19Beginning in early 2020, Covid-19 began having a massive effect on everything. Above all else, the demand for Covid-19 staffing went through the roof. Everyone was shaken up and no one knew what to do. How to find employees for your franchise in the wake of Covid-19 was the call.

With the advent of the coronavirus in the US, most everything changed for the worse and the demand for employees rose. People became scared and the shortage of qualified workers became overwhelming. The economy began to change and jobs, as well as entire businesses, were lost. Some people were even too afraid to come out of their houses.

As communities rallied together and families met to discuss the situation, things began to fall into place as they always do with American families. But this was something different, something not seen before in this generation. We all knew we had to do something but what?

As the pieces fell together:

Healthcare employment agencies were the hardest hit because they place more people in jobs than any other bureau. Staffing agencies do their work based on the industries they are working with. Everyone was looking at Covid-19 staffing. One area that struggled most was the healthcare industry and especially in hospitals. Many hospitals laid workers off adding to the exploding unemployment numbers.

How to attract employees in the middle of a pandemic:

  • Beef Up Your Job Descriptions: with increased applicants, key on quality over quantity. Creating a robust and highly descriptive job summary is the key
  • Skills Appraisals are more important than ever: to reduce unfairness when screening applicants and to find the best-qualified individuals, set up a system of skills testing
  • Find talent by utilizing a work scout or recruiter: with the Covid-19 situation, find qualified applicants and inform them about your company and then provide adequate job descriptions and information and do it by creating an additional post.
  • Key on help to obtain qualified applicants: sites like Monster and Indeed can connect you to large audiences
  • Offer Coronavirus temporary staffing: when you find a qualified applicant, a temporary position often works into a permanent one

Show a caring and loving attitude: we all know that love and gentle caring can often do more than words

Refit and Restructure:

The most effective way of attracting employees in the wake of Coronavirus is to offer remote work. You will need to change things and make some adjustments but it can easily be done. Offer bonuses or increase salaries, and perhaps even provide a computer or let them use the one they were on in the office.

Employers must now think outside the box

  • What is the workload
  • How many employees do we need
  • Where will we find them.

The answer to all of those questions and more can be found in technology. It was there the entire time. As it turns out, many of these remote jobs were better than the daily commute to the office and more productive for all involved.
Sometimes life provides the questions and the answers.

Show your prospects the benefits of working from home:

Even before the global pandemic, lots of folks were choosing to work from home. With the advent of new technologies such as Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Slack, and Google Hangouts, this was easy. It was no longer just an option but the chosen way for employers to obtain staff and for employees to stay home but still produce a living for their families and their loved ones.

Help all your staff in the setup process:

You value your staff and you must let them know it. Make the time to interview all potential work-from-home candidates and learn what they have at home and what they need. Offer to get them set up in any way possible. I wouldn’t think that offering them a stationary bicycle would be out of the question. Staff working from home could much more easily find the time to work out when their office and their home is the same place.

How offering remote jobs helps your franchise:

Companies that offer remote work programs can vastly improve employee productivity, reduce turnover, and actually lower costs. Telecommuting workers with highly complex jobs who do not need a lot of personal teamwork often perform better than their office-based correspondents.

Also, look on the bright side. If another natural or manmade disaster ever comes along, a distributed workforce is in a better position to keep operations running, even if some of the group goes offline. So as it turns out, there just may be good in everything because working from home is actually a very good plan

Why Is a Shared Office Space Best for Small Businesses?

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Shared Office Space|Why Is a Shared Office Space Best for Small Businesses?It’s nice to have a big office, but a smaller business may work more efficiently in a shared office. There’s room to grow because you have a better environment to collaborate with your team and clients. When you have this synergy, it can help you build a brand more efficiently. Here are some ways a shared office space works best for small businesses.

Better Flexibility

You might be in a position where you’re either downsizing or just starting up with your brand. You may consider a shared office space yoube works in your favor because you can choose a desk or an office for a project. You may have a short-term project for three months that require you to collaborate in a room.

Instead of going with a brick-and-mortar with overhead, maintenance, and electricity bills piling up, you have a choice to go to one place where they cover your amenities under your monthly plan. Also, you can adjust the plan as needed when your staff gets bigger.

You’ll save tons of money, and it’ll give you a chance to gauge how your business performs quarter to quarter.

More of a Community Atmosphere

One of the depressing things about working in an office or home is isolation. A shared office space allows you to work with different collaborators. Even though you could run into a competitor or two, it may be wise to reach out to others.

You can bounce ideas off each other as well as find each other’s strengths. For example, you may be looking for a graphic designer for a new project on your website. You can schedule meetings and private sessions just in case you want to hide ideas from the public.

You have access to conference and private rooms if you need to discuss things in a secluded area.

Great for Hosting Clients

Maybe there’s a full kitchen available. You can cook up a meal or create a potluck to have a luncheon with your clients. It gives them a sense of your personality and you can save money because you don’t need to go to a different facility.

Also, you can meet in a professional coworking space. You can utilize a private room with a conference table and any equipment to speak with staff members globally. A solid presentation can bring your prospective clients into your brand.

The right location, amenities, and atmosphere can make for the ideal shared office space.