How Workplace Design Can Make a Happier Workforce
by HEATHER MCCULLIGH | Aug 19th, 2010 | Leadership & Management | 
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When I was in university, I used to absolutely love studying and writing papers. Wait! Before you throw me into the nerd dumpster, hear me out. Okay, the actual work involved with cramming mind-numbing textbook information into my head, or making sure every sentence I typed was properly referenced, quoted, footnoted and endnoted was extremely tedious. But, as endless as some of those homework nights seemed to be, I was genuinely happy to be there. The reason? I had inadvertently constructed a workplace so comfortable, so conducive to both concentration and creativity, that I thoroughly enjoyed hibernating there for hours on end. I say inadvertently, because back then I was relatively clueless when it came to workplace mood-enhancement techniques, and it was only years later that I discovered the value in the things I did.
The following is a tour of my favorite workspace (I wish I had pictures!), as well as a guide on how to increase the overall happiness of your employees, and in turn their productivity, simply by making the office a better place to be.
The Lounge
I shared the apartment I lived in during my five year university run (I took my time!) with three other roommates. It occupied the upper levels of a duplex, and had two floors of its own: four decently-sized bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor, with a kitchen, dining room, living room, powder room, and a spare room, which we called “The Lounge”, on the first floor. The lounge is where I spent most of my time.
The lounge was a square room with high ceilings and a giant window looking out into the city. It had one low hanging lamp in the center, and we added an extra standing lamp for the corner; both lamps were on dimmer switches. I placed a round hardwood table in the center of the room, and we still had enough space for a book shelf, a comfortable couch and an extra full-sized, old- fashioned fridge. We affectionately named the couch “the drain” because as soon as you sat in it, it drained you of your will to remain conscious.
Three of the walls were painted sky blue, the fourth was a gorgeous wall of exposed brick. The room received lots of sunlight during the day, and you could adjust the lighting to your liking at night. I would also light scented candles provided by one of the two girls living there, and sometimes I would burn incense. A large colorful painting hung on the brick wall, and a huge picture frame containing multiple fun pictures of our various adventures hung on the opposing blue wall. A small stereo rested on the bookshelf, but due to roommates watching TV in the living room, I would often plug my headphones in my laptop or iPod.
Can you picture it? How do you think you’d feel working in a room like this, even if the work itself was less than thrilling? This might sound crazy, but I miss doing homework in the lounge; I was never more productive, focused, and generally happy to create.
Let’s examine the elements that made the lounge so special, and see if we can transform your office into a place where people are happy to work.
Lighting
Arguably the most important aspect of filmmaking is lighting. Aside from being responsible for exposing the film itself, aside from allowing us to see anything in the first place, the mood for each scene is largely determined by how the set is lit. If someone’s mood can be altered by the lighting from a movie, imagine the effect on that person from being submersed in unfiltered, linear fluorescent office lights from 9-5, Monday to Friday, year after year. Performance review software results would surely reveal a great many things.
The lounge was easy to light. We had a direct source above the table, providing the right amount of task lighting, and an ambient source from the corner lamp, both of which were controllable from the dimmer switches. I would often keep things bright when I needed to study, slightly dimmed when I was typing. But that’s just me.
When the office is too harshly lit it can lead to a lack in creativity or concentration, and can also cause headaches, fatigue, stress, and irritability. People are already staring at bright computer screens all day, and don’t require as much direct lighting as their paper pushing counterparts. If you can’t completely transform the office lighting system, at least try to filter those fluorescent bulbs, or place reflectors underneath them to bounce the light off the ceiling. Indirect ambient light is easier on the eyes, as there is less contrast when looking up from your computer screen. Sunlight is also very important, but it should also be filtered with blinds to a certain degree, otherwise computer screens will be impossible to see.
These are very basic tips, when honestly you could write an entire book about lighting. The best advice I’ve read on lighting is to walk into the room, and really think about how the lights makes you feel. Nervous? Stressed? Happy? Calm? Angry? And with a little research on office lighting, you can make the appropriate adjustments.
Color
As I mentioned earlier, three of the lounge’s walls were painted blue, with the fourth wall made of red brick. Turns out, these were the perfect colors to accomplish the tasks I needed to get done. A study conducted at the University of British Columbia involving 600 people demonstrated whether or not cognitive performances were altered by their surrounding colors. The performance appraisal indicated that students sitting in a red room achieved higher results on tests involving memorization and attention to details. Students sitting in a blue room however, scored higher on tests involving creativity and the imagination. Luckily for me, the lounge had both! Whenever I needed to memorize info for exams, the red bricks helped in providing focus. Whenever I was writing, the blue walls helped tap into those creative juices.
Along with the office lighting scheme, the colors on the walls play a huge part in the overall mood and productivity of your employees. The psychology of color is fascinating, and the following is a list of colors to consider for your workspace, as well as some to avoid:
Pale Blue: A very calming color, soothing on the senses and inspiring for the mind. Goes well with dark blue or cream-colored décor.
Moss Green: Also a soothing, relaxing color, light greens mixed with some yellow or blue trims will keep people productive without making them sleepy.
Light Orange: Just thinking about this color perks up your mood and raises your energy levels. Better than any energy drink, light orange will greatly increase office pep.
Magenta: Containing shades of red, purple and pink, magenta is excellent for focus and creativity.
Nice, even colors are always a good idea, even certain grays and beiges can look good when some bright, colorful artwork is hung and some contrasting colored furniture brings the office to life.
Colors to Avoid
While the following colors can be fantastic for your home, enhancing the romance in the bedroom, waking up the family in the kitchen or warming up the living room, they are less than ideal for the office. People spend 8-10 hours a day in these spaces, and too much exposure to these intense colors can evoke feelings of stress, frustration, and even anger.
Sunshine Yellow
Turquoise
Bright Pink
Cherry Red
Dark Purple
Lime Green
Black
Scents
Scent is the most nostalgic of the senses. Certain scents can place you decades into the past, at the very spot where you experienced them for the first time. Depending on the scent this can trigger good feelings via happy memories. It can also bring joy by simply being a delicious scent. It’s very difficult to remain in a bad mood with the smell of fresh apple pie in the air.
My apartment was in the heart of the city, and after a while I very much craved nature and the smells of the forest, especially the smell of smoke from cottage fireplaces in the winter. So whenever I would read or write in the lounge, I would often light some pine-smelling incense, which kept my spirits up and my mind open during those long nights. Well, once again, I later discovered that aromatherapy yields incredible mood enhancement results, with pine in particular being linked to increased productivity. A study conducted in Japan revealed that employees worked better when pine scents were flowing through the ventilation system. Pine is great for keeping you alert, while other smells like pumpkin, cinnamon, and citrus can help to increase focus and creativity.
Of course you can’t go lighting scented candles or incense sticks in the office, as you’ll probably offend your neighboring workers, but you can add a few drops of scented oil to a cotton ball and place it in your desk drawer. You can also keep a small plant on your desk as well. Just be careful when sniffing a Ziplock bag full of pine needles, your co-workers might think you’re weird. Which brings us to our next office mood enhancer…
Plants
Better at talent management, I was never very good at remembering to water the plants, but fortunately my roommates were vigilant in their care for the row of window sill plants and herbs we had growing in the lounge.
People often use the term “tree-hugger” in a negative context, but to me there is almost no better image of the relationship humans should share with trees and with nature in general. The city can be an extremely cold and grey place made of concrete and metal, and consistently alienating yourself from nature over time leads to depression. It is no wonder that any greenspaces found in the city are usually jam packed with people on their lunches or office breaks. Just the feeling of grass in between your toes or the sounds of wind blowing through the leaves has a relaxing, revitalizing effect on the human psyche.
This doesn’t mean that it’s time to roll out some grass in the conference rooms, but adding plants to the workplace can do wonders for boosting morale. Plants and trees literally add life to the office, increasing health by generating fresh oxygen, removing toxins from the air, lowering the office temperature to reduce air conditioning usage, all while creating a comforting atmosphere and a happier environment.
