Everyone who has ever worked in an office knows what stressful places they can be. It really doesn’t matter what the nature of the business is or who runs it. If the workspace itself is not given the attention it deserves, everything can easily become far too much for everyone involved. When it comes to running a successful business, it is necessary to think long and hard about the main hub of that business - the office. With the application of a few simple practices, you will find that running an office can be remarkably straightforward. And what follows from there is a business which operates smoothly and calmly.
The Fair Treatment Of All Colleagues
Getting the office to a place of calm is really all about treating people right. Most of us have worked in the kind of environment where no two people were treated the same. This is unfortunately extremely commonplace in business everywhere. Yet, it is incredibly disruptive to even the strongest of businesses. If you want your office to run smoothly, you need to spend a lot more time on the fair treatment of all your colleagues. First of all, make sure that there is a consistent reward system in place, and that you follow it to the letter. Beyond that, treat everyone equally and fairly. People really appreciate that, and it shows in their work.
A Focus On Clear Communication
No office can be run successfully without a good grounding in open and honest communication. This should be something that you champion above all else. Doing so is likely to encourage a forward-thinking working culture which will benefit both the people and the business. For clear communication to be taken seriously, you need to provide the basic ground for it to happen. This means talking about it with your colleagues honestly, sure. But it is also a simple matter of ensuring that it is physically possible. Invest in a good phone system and a great email client that everyone can trust. With these basic tools, your colleagues will likely communicate much better.
A Layout That Makes Sense
There is nothing quite so disruptive to the working day as an over-busy office. The truth is, over-business is not necessarily the sign of success. More often than not, it is a sign that something has gone wrong. Everybody should be working their hardest, of course, but that doesn’t mean running around like crazy. When an office loses its sense of calm and decorum, the business really does suffer as a result. To help fight that kind of culture, make sure the office has a layout that makes sense. Put together those teams that need to be together. Put the right tools in the right places. Maximise efficiency as much as possible, and don’t forget the power of forward-thinking when you are planning the office. If you plan it out properly, you will probably find that your people are much more relaxed at work. That is the real way to get the most productivity out of them.
Ashley Richardson is the Chief Marketing Officer and the latest addition to the Zenruption team. She studied at Boise State Unversity and changed her major 12 times before finding her true love in the study of Law. Her life goals include traveling the world, petting all the cats and burning the establishment to the ground.
Feature photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license