Tag: work environment

How to Ensure Your Office Building is a Healthy Place to Work

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For most people, their office is where they spend a large proportion of their time each day. Statistics show that the average working week for Americans is 34.9 hours, which means your team will spend a significant amount of time in your office building over a year. The amount of hours your employees spend indoors in your building makes it crucial to do all you can to ensure your office is a pleasant and healthy environment for your team to spend their time. 

The work environment has a major effect on your employees, and its importance should not be underestimated. The condition of your office building can cause ill health among your employees and cause an increase in sick days. Workplace conditions can also harm productivity and, if bad, could also lead to increased staff turnover. Taking the time and effort to create an office space that is a healthy place to work and somewhere your employees are happy to spend time is vital for your team’s wellbeing and the health of your business. Here are some of the issues you may want to address to ensure that your office building is a healthy place to work:

Deal With Dampness

Living or working in a damp building is unpleasant for everyone. Excessive moisture in your building can cause mold and mildew to form, creating unsightly dark patches of spores on your walls and surfaces. Damp can also make a musty smell, which can be off-putting for both your team and clients. 

If you suspect that your building may be damp, it is crucial to take action and identify the root cause of the issue. The dampness your building is experiencing could be the result of excessive moisture collecting in your crawl space. This may sound like an unavoidable issue, but it can be solved by getting it assessed and remedied by a specialist company such as Dry Tek Environmental. Getting the excess moisture removed from your crawl space should ensure the damp odor is eliminated and mold does not return. 

Improve Air Quality

Poor air quality in buildings can cause significant issues and potentially lead to health concerns for your employees. The term sick building syndrome describes an indoor space that causes its inhabitants to develop symptoms when they are in the building, but these symptoms usually reduce when they are away from the building. For example, if employees feel unwell at work and are free of symptoms during weekends and when on annual leave, sick building syndrome is a possible cause. Sick building syndrome can trigger a range of symptoms caused by poor air quality within the office space. These symptoms can include nausea, headaches, and breathing difficulties. 

Luckily, there are many ways that you can improve the indoor air quality in your office to protect the health of your employees. Getting your HVAC system maintained regularly and ensuring that air vents are not blocked will help to keep indoor air quality high and keep your employees healthy.

5 Ways To Keep Your Staff Content Throughout The Year

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In terms of running and business and leading the staff working under you, there needs to be high elements of contentment along with productivity. If they aren’t happy with coming into work every single day, then you’re not going to get the best out of them. In professional work, management is more than just getting the job done and making sure you bring in all the money you need. It’s a case of being aware of the staff’s well-being and overall condition. If they’re in a good place – then it’s going to be a much easier ride for all involved. 

Many business owners struggle to get the best out of their team, though, as they neglect the people skills required. They also struggle to keep everyone happy throughout their time in the job. It’s not too much of a difficult task, though. You’re not expected to be a wizard that puts spells on everyone. Here are some things you can do: 

Be Positive For As Long As You Can

When you have a lot of work to do and a lot of stress on your shoulders, it can be quite difficult to relax and be positive. It’s a habit, though, like most things are. Make sure you’re optimistic about most things and upbeat around the rest of the group. It’s a contagious way of behaving and everyone around you will bounce off it. If you have a positive and happy environment, then it’s going to make the working day so much easier. 

Have A Plan And A Setup For Everyone

If everyone knows what they’re doing, then they’re going to have a much easier job on their hands. Not everyone wakes up on a Monday morning with 100% certainty of how things are going to go. If you ensure that you have a plan for them, then they’ll be more content. You can use Crew scheduling software and other project management tools to help you out with this kind of thing nowadays. Don’t let them feel like a spare part.

Work With Individuals As Well As Groups

Narrowing down your leadership and focusing on each person can help out so much in terms of overall contentment. It’ll make them feel a little more special and it’ll allow them to know that they aren’t just an extra worker. If you focus on how they’re doing mentally as well as their performance at work, then they’ll be appreciative. 

Make Sure They’re Working In A Wonderful Environment

Keep the place nice and clean because you just never know how someone might feel about the environment in which they work. If you have to, then hire cleaners to come in a couple of times a week. If you have the capacity, then create a rota that involves every employee. If they know they’re working in a clean, tidy workplace that they’ve all helped to create, then they’ll feel a sense of pride and happiness in where they are. 

Hire The Right Kind Of Personalities

It’s all about personalities and chemistry sometimes. Sure, the qualifications and experience matter, but hiring the right people can take a business from good to great. If everyone gets along and the personalities all fit together, then you’re going to have a healthy group.

The Importance Of Safety Flooring

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Safety flooring is primarily used to prevent slips, trips and falls. These kinds of accidents are the number one cause of workplace injury, and often result in further injuries being sustained by the victim, such as scalds, whiplash or broken bones from falls from height. 

These types of accidents are not only distressing for the victim and the company responsible. They can also result in lost productivity; disruptive inspections from health and safety officers, fines and court cases; and damaging reputation issues. Many such accidents can be prevented by having professional flooring contractors install the correct type of safety flooring. 

Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that slips and trips comprise over a third of all workplace injuries. Anyone within the premises is equally at risk, from employees to visitors, members of the public and contractors working in the area. At a time when health and safety are of higher importance than ever, and companies require a building decontamination service to resume operations, the last thing you need is your business being the middle of a health and safety storm.

The typical workplace insurances an employer carries will cover only part of the costs of recompensing accident victims for their injuries, so the expense of legal action resulting from such an accident can be extensive. Then, there are the costs of lost production while individuals are off sick recovering from their injuries, not to mention the damage done to the company’s reputation if such matters are reported in the press, for instance. The importance of installing commercial safety flooring in areas identified as being at risk of slips and trips cannot, therefore, be underestimated. 

What Flooring Do You Need?

The first step in determining the type of flooring that should be installed into a workplace area is to assess the possible risk. Consider all possible hazards, from damaged or uneven floors to areas such as kitchens or washrooms that are likely to be subject to spillages. Next, think about who uses that area: are some groups more vulnerable than others? In a care home, for instance, the elderly might be more at risk than their carers. Assess the flooring currently in place and whether this sufficiently mitigates possible slips, trips or falls. You may need to consider installing specialist safety flooring in new areas, for instance; or replacing worn or damaged vinyl safety flooring in others.

An Overview Of How Commercial Safety Flooring Works

Regulations and standards are in place to specify the types of safety flooring that must be installed in areas used by staff and the public where risks include spillages and surface wetness. The term used to classify and measure the conformity of safety flooring to these standards is ‘slip resistance’. This refers to the surface’s ability to increase the level of friction between the floor and the foot, and is achieved by the inclusion of safety particles and aggregates within the floor’s composition. 

When water, for example, is spilled onto a floor, this creates a ‘squeeze film’ between the foot and floor. On a smooth, non-porous surface, this increases slip risks considerably. The inclusion of the particles, though, creates enough of an uneven surface between the two to break up the squeeze film and allows a firmer contact between foot and floor covering, therefore, helping to prevent slips. 

Safety flooring is a complex area and you need guidance from an expert supplier in choosing the right product for your environment.

A Strong Structure For A Strong Workforce: Building Your Perfect Office

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The working environment is vital to productivity and efficiency. When you are leading your company to greatness you can’t take credit for every effort. You must remember that it’s the combination of approaches from your workers and the environment in which they inhabit. When you start out, you may not necessarily give consideration to what impact the office environment can make on productivity and morale, but it’s something that you start to focus on as you gradually improve your business efforts. Building your perfect office can encourage productivity but also help your company to thrive in other ways. What does this entail?

A Flexible Space

It’s crucial to retain some sort of flexibility and plan for growth. There could be so many fixed components of an office that it will restrict your progress further down the line. You may have it in your head that there are perfect spaces for your employees to sit and thrive right now, but you also need to consider the importance of scaling the company further down the line. And when the business begins to improve in other ways you may want to incorporate this into the office environment. You may want a reminder of the brand identity which can reinforce the initiative in your employees but you must also think about the feelings it will evoke to visitors of the office, like the clients. A smart choice of fabrics and furnishings can easily reflect the personality of the company. And when you start to think about the little touches that make for minimal maintenance like epoxy coatings and rough and ready upholstery, this will communicate a very specific message to everyone, inside and out.

Focus On Collaboration And Privacy

Everybody needs the opportunity to work closely with others but at the same time if they need the chance to work by themselves you should provide this as well. Collaboration is one of the things that will build up a business, and this can be seen in numerous open-plan offices, but you must also think about incorporating small meeting rooms where people can go away to focus on their tasks in private. Not everybody likes the idea of a thriving and vibrant office. If you can put the components in that focus on collaboration and privacy at the same time, you will be covering all bases.

The Importance Of Breakout Areas

Nobody wants to be surrounded by reminders of work. If someone is on their break they want to be able to escape for an hour. And when the office location is away from the bustling city center it’s crucial to incorporate some form of escapism. Providing breakout areas that don’t just encourage relaxation but also provide that sense of escapism will ensure that your employees come back feeling refreshed. It’s a very difficult thing to be away from your work in your head if you are still in the environment. And this is why escapism through games consoles or a change of scenery can encourage an employee to feel distant from everything.

It’s crucial to be flexible but it’s also important to realize that an employee is only as good as the environment they inhabit. Make it a strong one.

Reasons To Use PVC Strip Curtains At Your Business

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There are many different businesses that could benefit from using PVC strip curtains. If you have rooms and openings at your business that require regular access by vehicles or pedestrians, plastic door curtains are ideal. They provide you with an efficient way of managing traffic while also providing protection from dust, wind, and noise. Below, we are going to take a look at the many benefits of using a PVC strip curtain in further depth.  

  •   Prevents interference from pests and weather – While humans can easily walk through PVC curtain strips, it is not so easy for smaller pests, and even the wind and heavy rain will struggle to break through as well. Plastic strip curtains are effective at creating a barrier that will provide exceptional protection. This is why a lot of food businesses use strip curtains, as it helps them to maintain high levels of hygiene in their kitchens. It also highlights why plastic curtain strips are popular in factories and warehouses, including temporary warehouse tents, where deliveries happen on a regular basis. PVC curtains will ensure that the interior of the factory or warehouse is separate from the outdoor elements.
  •   Suitable for demanding environments – PVC strip curtains are made to last. They are flexible yet strong and resilient and, therefore, they are suitable for many different businesses. They do not damage easily, and even if a tear or a split occurs, you shouldn’t notice a drop in performance. 
  •   Helps maintain temperature – Another benefit associated with PVC strip curtains is that they help to maintain temperature. Let’s say you have a walk-in chiller or freezer. If you had to open a heavy sliding door every time, it would be a great inconvenience. However, you can’t simply have an open passageway. PVC strip curtains provide the perfect solution. Plus, the material can create a barrier between cold and hot spaces effectively due to the insulating properties of PVC.
  •   Manage traffic – You will also be able to manage the flow of traffic more effectively with PVC strip doors. This is especially beneficial in warehouse and factory environments whereby they are hundreds of people moving boxes around and delivering parcels. Things can easily get hectic, and with plastic curtain strips, you have an effective way of managing them. 
  •   They are easy to use – Last but not least, another benefit to consider is the fact that plastic strip curtains are really easy to install, maintain, and replace. By opting for such a system, you don’t need to worry about there being any inconvenience to your business’ day-to-day running. Plus, PVC curtain strips require very little maintenance. All you need to do is give them a wipe down whenever you notice that they are dirty.

As you can see, there are many benefits that are associated with plastic strip curtains. No matter whether you are looking to regulate temperature, protect your business from the outside elements, or manage foot traffic, PVC strip curtains can help you to do the job.

Maintaining a Happy, Healthy Working Environment

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When you first start out in business, chances are you operate alone. You may work from home or you may have a small office that you work from. However, as you grow and expand, you may find that you need more pairs of helping hands and take on more staff to allow your business to flourish. This is great! However, when you become an employer, it is extremely important that you take your responsibilities seriously and that you provide your workers with a happy and healthy working environment. Here are just a few areas you can focus on to achieve this!

Prioritize Health and Safety

Health and safety rules and regulations are in place for a good reason – they keep work spaces safe for everyone operating within them. It’s absolutely essential that you are familiar with your responsibilities when it comes to providing your employees with a safe and hazard-free working environment! So, read up and make sure you stick to any rules and recommendations that are outlined. There should also be a reporting system in place that ensures your employees can inform you or another authority figure if they have any concerns about their health and safety in the workplace. This will allow you to address potential issues before they expand or worsen.

Keep Things Clean and Tidy

A clean and tidy environment is important for health and safety, but it’s also important for your employees’ productivity and work ethic too. Coming to work in a cluttered, messy, or dirty space isn’t good for morale. So, bring in professional cleaning services, such as the staff at SouthernCrossCleaning.com, who will be able to make sure the entire office is spic and span at all times. You should also hire window cleaners, who will be able to ensure that windows are dirt and speck free, allowing more natural light to infiltrate its way indoors. This is great for your employees’ health!

Have a HR Department

People are only human and no matter how professional your employees may be, it’s likely there will be times when disputes arise and have to be settled. Making sure that issues are resolved fairly and that action is taken when people act in an inappropriate manner, is extremely important for your workplace. So, implement a HR department. HR stands for human resources and the individuals working in this area of the business will have multiple responsibilities. But one will be helped to resolve issues and ensure everyone feels safe at work. Having a HR department ensures all staff have someone to reach out to with their concerns.

Of course, you’re going to have to focus on plenty more areas to create the ideal workplace. But hopefully, the areas outlined above will help you to get off to the best start possible. Take these steps and implement them into your workplace as soon as possible for the best results!

Cobots: Meet Your New Work Colleague

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Have you heard about cobots? If you haven’t, get ready to hear a lot more about them in the near future, because cobots are likely to be something many of us are going to have to get accustomed to. Cobot stands for ‘collaborative robot’, and they’re set to revolutionize the workplace. 

We all know that robots have been doing much of the work once done by human hands, for some time now. But the next wave of the robotic takeover is upon us. So, if you’re wondering if your new work colleague may be a cobot, read on. 

Are cobots a new idea?

It’s no secret that robots have been used in assembly plants to do repetitive jobs for decades. However, the problem with robots is that they are not suitable to do tasks that change from one moment to the next, or that require a light touch.

Cobots are not a new idea. They have been around for over 20 years, mainly doing tasks related in the car industry. The problem so far has been that technology has only allowed them to do basic tasks such as heavy lifting. But that is now changing. 

Why are we hearing about them now?

A range of advances has allowed the concept of cobots to become more than glorified manual laborers. For a start, advances in AI have meant that robots can now learn from their human counterparts. Additionally, advances in robotics have enabled robots to handle more fragile materials.

One major step forward has been the development of new sensors. There was never going to be much collaboration while humans needed to be protected from robots, but now that robots are more ‘aware’ of their surroundings, they can work more safely around people.

Will cobots take jobs from humans?

This is a bit of a tricky question to answer, because taking jobs from people is not the idea behind the development of cobots. The keyword here is ‘collaborative’, which suggests that the point is that they enhance what people are already doing. However, there are some instances where they might end up replacing human workers.

For example, with advances in pressure points and sensors, cobots could learn how to do dangerous tasks. Once they have understood how to do a job safely, the question would be why have a human do that job? Having a cobot do it would surely be the right thing to do.

What will the future bring?

Experts think that it will all come down to trust, which pretty much boils down to how safe the software is. And in many ways, that will always be the problem. Is software 100% safe? Just think how often your computer operating system needs to be updated and you will have the answer to that.

As the Internet of Things grows, so does the risk of hacking. So, even if the software used in cobots is 100% safe at any given moment, there’s no guarantee it will continue to be so. Until the software can be relied on, any changes in the way robots interact with people will be relatively minor.

Summary

To summarize, the development of cobots will certainly bring many new challenges to the work environment. However, it is safe to say that if you go to work tomorrow and find you have a cobot as a new work colleague, you won’t have to start worrying about looking for a new job.

Using Lessons From Remote Working To Run A Better Office

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One of the hallmarks of a successful business is listening to your employees and ensuring you take on their feedback. But these days there are so many out there are scattered all over the place, that you can’t have them all under one roof. Remote working is so popular now, but for all of the veritable pros and cons, you may very well want to bring everybody back together. What can we learn from remote working to ensure that we run a better office?

Being sociable works wonders for positivity

If you’ve been working on your own for a long time, you might find that remote working means you lose that social aspect. By encouraging that old fashioned approach to the water cooler, and having a conversation about last night’s television, you start to solidify a bond between the employees that goes beyond the work. So take it upon yourself to install a water cooled chiller and encourage people to talk because this means collaboration becomes effortless.

Communication and collaboration works across many lands

In running a remote team, or if you work by yourself at home, you realize just how easy it can be to get in contact with others. There are so many different communication tools out there that it’s very easy to get to speak to someone, either via Skype or email. But when it comes to this office environment, we can very easily ping over an email to someone, but this could interrupt their work flow. Set about finding the right communication tools and collaboration so everybody still has that working flow. It is a very difficult thing to get right, but when you want to inspire collaboration and communication ensure that people get up off the chair and wander over to their colleagues, especially if they’re only on the other side of the office! Some businesses frown upon this because it takes people away from the desk but if you want to run an office driving, culturally sound, and where people communicate effortlessly, that human contact is also essential.

People can be disciplined when they want to be

When you run an office, that temptation can be to bark orders and everyone so that they follow the rules. But when you bring people in from a remote working environment they have to function under their own steam. As a result of self-discipline is a fantastic tool, not just because people figure out their own way to get a task done as quickly as possible, with great quality, but it also inspires trust. If you can entrust your employees to do the job that them to do without them feeling that you are watching their every move, they shall work better, are more relaxed, and everybody wins.

Many people find that remote working is a heavy burden on a business, but others can’t help but go down this route due to the cost-effectiveness aspect. But there are things we can learn from remote working that we can apply to an office environment. That lack of sociability from remote working means that employees will make the most of developing relationships with employees, communication is better and more comprehensive and also, that idea of self-discipline is arguably the biggest asset of any business when you transfer remote workers to an office environment.

Office Space Planning Tips

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Office space planning is one of the most difficult things you will encounter related to your business premises. Nevertheless, it can also be one of the most rewarding processes if you get it right. After all, having the ideal layout and making the best utilization of space can reap mass results.

Not only are you being efficient, but your productivity levels will soar and your company will look great as well. As is the case for any type of planning, knowing where to start seems to be the most difficult part. However, once you have read this blog post, you should have a better understanding of office space planning, as well as the inspiration needed to begin thinking about your office’s layout.

One of the first things you need to think about when planning your office space is how your employees work with one and other. Is your business one that is very team orientated? Or do people tend to do most activities on their own? If your business is one whereby teamwork is imperative then having desks lined in a long parallel line won’t be very productive. You need to come up with a design that aids productivity. Nonetheless, if you do operate a business whereby people work solo, it is important that you don’t make people feel isolated. It’s good for all businesses to have a friendly and warm ambiance. It does wonders for productivity because it makes people feel more at ease.

When designing the layout of your offices you also need to consider how easy it is going to be for people to maneuver around. Nobody wants to have to encounter a maze every time they enter your building. There is nothing wrong with a winded or curved path – this can break away from the rigidness that is so often associated with offices and, therefore, can be a highly positive point. However, you don’t want people to have to wind around every single desk or they will end up feeling dizzy by the time they get to the place they were originally going to.

You also need to remember the fact that making the best use of your office space does not mean cramming in as much stuff as possible. There are too many people who make this rookie mistake, which is why enlisting experts like Vertical Interior Design is a good option. Planning your office space does not mean having no space left at all. When you are considering meeting rooms or your employees’ working areas you need to put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel sat at this desk for eight hours a day? If the answer is cramped, uncomfortable, and enclosed, then you know that you need to create some space. If your employees don’t feel at ease, they can easily begin to fluster and their productivity levels suffer dramatically.

If you consider the three main points touched upon in this blog post, then you should have a solid basis for effective office space planning. Just remember to contemplate creating a layout whereby everyone is included, there is enough space for people to feel comfortable, and the pathways are uncomplicated.

Is it Time To Nurture Your Employees? My Tips To Help You Do It

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Running a business is never going to be an easy thing to do is it? But one of the biggest factors you can face is having employees and subsequently making sure that you care for them and their welfare while they are under your responsibility. However, it can often be a forgotten aspect so it is important to understand some of the ways that you can nurture your employees. A happy employees means someone who will be productive, which is definitely what you want. So I thought I would share with you some of the things to think about to help you look after the staff you have.

Are their HR needs being met?

As an employer you now have the responsibility of HR and ensuring that you take this into account, not just when you employ people but for the duration of their employment. You may find that you may face HR challenges along the way, but this is something to think about to ensure that you do right by the staff you have. A great way to ensure people are aware of rules and policies is to have a staff handbook. This will cover everything from notice periods to what is expected of them in the workplace. It helps to cover all bases.

Have you created a pleasant environment for them to work?

One of the things you have complete control over is whether or not the environment that you have created is a nice and pleasant one to work in. This means thinking about things such as the room temperature, or even just offering drinking water or a places to store food and drink. It can be the little things that make the biggest of differences to how someone feels in the workplace.

Communicate with them often

You might want to think about how often you communicate with your employees. This can be a big one, and as a manager or owner of the business, you do need to ensure that you are approachable in terms of good communication. Employees want to feel like they can come to you, and you also need to feel like you can discuss things with them to. From performance levels and how well they are doing, to change in targets or directions of the company.

Is there room to enhance and develop their skills?

Taking time to ensure that can feel like their career matters is an important step to take, and you may want to look at ways that you can enhance or develop their skills. Extra courses, learning different aspects of your business, or even stepping up for added responsibility and promotion. This helps employees to feel like valued members of the team.

Keeping them motivated could be an essential move

Finally, motivation in any workplace is key, and so you may want to look at ways you can keep people motivated. That might mean extra incentives with bonuses or rewards, or even just being a positive influence yourself.

I hope that these tips help you to nurture your employees in the workplace.