During the pandemic Covid-19, people were forced to work from home office to keep businesses going. Back to normality, most companies have made employees return to the office, while others have a hybrid model, combining 1-2 days at the office with a home office.
The home office has a series of conveniences that are hard to reach in an office: avoiding time commuting to work, focusing on work with fewer disturbances, and the feeling of safety that cannot be found anywhere but at home.
However, an office is a space where collaboration, exploration, and innovation happen, which are difficult to achieve at the same level when working remotely. So when employers ask their workers to go to the office, they should think about creating a space that supports the company culture, collaboration, and innovation.
Space should allow one-to-one meetings with the manager, team meetings to work on a project, a quiet place for individual work and callings, and spaces where colleagues meet with others working remotely. The key here is finding the right mix of areas and sizes so that when people come into the office, they can find a variety of different spaces available, so they can pick the one that best suits them to work at any time.
Bringing part of the comfort of a home to the office would support wellness and increase productivity and engagement. Keeping the right temperature, quality air renovation, access to daylight, and a suitable artificial light that mimics natural light can make the days at the office more comfortable.
Smart buildings use control technology that allows more efficient use of resources while improving the users’ comfort by adjusting these environmental conditions automatically. In fact, smart lighting can go further, and help users balance their internal clock, getting better rest at night and more energy during the day when circadian lighting is implemented. This is the case of KUMUX lighting for offices, which simulates the changing rhythms of natural light indoors, in terms of brightness and hue, from warm to cool white light. And the best is that it is automated.
Employees that perceive their working environment as more attractive have a more positive mood, and better health and well-being. Recent studies have shown these effects, and also a rise of 17% in innovation cycles when environmental factors at the office are enhanced.
There is no doubt that employers have a role in evaluating their people’s work style and responding by allowing their staff to work in an optimized work environment that provides real value for them and supports them to function effectively. In the end, that will keep them coming back to stimulate more innovation, growth, and sharing in the future.
