From dull, congested, cubicle-oriented office design to open workspaces, office design has come a long way. Back in the day, employers saw their employees as someone they were paying for work, but that has changed today. Now, employers know their employees are humans and susceptible to burnout. Above all, employers know that if their employees experience burnout, their businesses will suffer.
Today, employee well-being has become the top priority for employers, making them more open to accepting changes to traditional office design.
Outdoor offices were a foreign concept a few years ago, but today, an increasing number of offices feature outdoor workspaces where employees can work in the open air.
If the idea of working in the open air sounds foreign and odd to you, read this blog post to learn the many benefits outdoor offices offer and how you can create the perfect outdoor office for your employees.
Many Benefits of Outdoor Offices
You'll be surprised to know that working in outdoor offices offers tremendous benefits for the employees. The benefits range from a better mood to better productivity and efficiency.
Let's walk you through the benefits of outdoor offices in detail below:
Improves Mood
Have you ever told someone you feel anxious and stressed and had them tell you to go on walks regularly? Well, nature can improve your mood big time!
One of the first and biggest benefits of an outdoor office is its positive impact on the mood. Working outdoors in the fresh air can make employees feel active, fresh, and, most importantly, happier. Working outdoors is known to reduce stress and anxiety.
Boosts Energy
Working outdoors can significantly boost the energy levels of employees. Fresh air serves as a fuel that energizes you and makes you feel more active. The stressful environment inside the office can make you feel suffocated and anxious, but as soon as you move outdoors, you'll feel as if you can breathe better. Breathing in fresh oxygen and natural light will instantly make you feel better.
Reduces Stress
Working outdoors can also reduce stress. When you're sitting in the fresh air, the abundance of oxygen reduces the release of stress-inducing hormones. When that happens, you'll notice your stress dissipate. You'll feel less overwhelmed and more positive when the stress level is reduced.
If the task at hand is stressing you out, take your laptop and walk to the outdoor working space. It'll help you relax, get a hold of your nerves, and feel fresh!
Gives Break to Your Eyes and Brain
When you're working inside your office, the only thing that you get to see is your computer screen and other people working around you. That's enough to make you feel gloomy and suffocated. However, working outdoors gives a break to your eyes and brain.
You can enjoy looking around. Looking at nature will make you feel relaxed. Your brain can enjoy a break from work too. Unlike working indoors, where your brain is focused on work only, you can give your brain a rest by working outdoors and enjoying the view of birds and plants or watching cars and people walk by your office building. This reduces the eye strain and mental fatigue that working indoors can cause.
Improves Memory
Working outdoors helps release stress, makes you feel energetic, and boosts your productivity, but this isn't all. Working outdoors also improves your memory. If you've got to give a presentation, you should try going through the important pointers out on the terrace. You'll be amazed at how well you'll be able to remember it all during the presentation!
How to Create the Perfect Outdoor Office
Considering the numerous benefits of outdoor working spaces for employees and the business, you should work towards creating the perfect outdoor office.
Creating the perfect outdoor office might feel like an overwhelming task, and maybe it is too, but once you get it right, the benefits will only make the effort worth it!
Set Up Comfortable Seating and Work Desks
Don't just install benches on the terrace or patio and call it outdoor office space. Providing employees comfort in the outdoor office space is as important as comfort in the indoor offices. Even though the employees don't spend as much time outdoors as they do indoors, comfort still matters.
Make sure the seats that you set in your outdoor office space are comfortable. The primary purpose an employee would want to work in an outdoor office is to relax for a bit, and if the seats aren't comfortable, it will kill the purpose.
Secondly, make sure there are desks of a suitable height available. If there are no desks, the employees will have to keep their laptops on their laps, which promotes a wrong sitting posture. You certainly wouldn't want to do that to your employees.
The employees will be able to work in absolute comfort if they've got comfortable seats and work desks in outdoor offices so that they can work comfortably and efficiently.
Provide Power Sockets
Another way to ensure that you create the perfect outdoor office is to provide various power sockets. Ideally, there should be a power socket near every desk. It'll be quite inconvenient for employees to rush indoors between an important task or meeting if their laptop's battery is almost dead. You should install GFI-protected power outlets for your employees in the outdoor working space to ensure the employees don't have to go through this sort of inconvenience.
Provide Shade
Setting up an outdoor office without any shade arrangements will ensure the absolute failure of your outdoor office. Nobody would want to get baked under the sun while they work. So, if you're setting up an outdoor office, make sure you provide a lot of shade under which the employees can sit and work.
Another factor that many employees fail to consider is the glare of the sun. You just can't see the laptop screen when the sunlight is falling directly on it. The glare from the computer screen causes serious eye strain. Sunlight is various times stronger than computer glare, so you can only imagine what it can do to the eyes.
You can install patio covers or build pergolas outdoors that not only provide the employees with a cool and comfortable place to work but also enhance the aesthetics of your outdoor office.
Make Arrangements for a Breezy Day
Working out in fresh air sure sounds dreamy, but only till the wind doesn't blow your important documents away. One way to create the perfect outdoor office is to make arrangements for the wind. You can build glass walls to serve as windbreakers, or you can arrange tall plants around the boundary of your outdoor office so that there's some barrier to the wind. Think of the ways in which you can stop the wind from blowing away important documents while retaining the aesthetics of your outdoor office.
Install Sufficient Lights
If you've got employees working the night shift, you've got to install sufficient lights in the outdoor office area so that employees working the night shift can also enjoy the outdoor working space. Install larger lights to illuminate the outdoor office sufficiently. You'll also need to place study lamps on each table or floor lamp around the entire office that the employees can turn on if they need extra lights. A poorly lit outdoor office will do more harm to the employees than good.
Work on Aesthetics
The aesthetics of an outdoor office are as important as an indoor office. The better your office looks, the better it'll make the employees feel. In fact, if you've got a lot of young employees working at your office, you'll have to give more thought to the aesthetics of your outdoor office. Who doesn't want to work in an office that looks good? Everyone does! If your office has excellent aesthetics, your employees will enjoy working, and the more they enjoy work, the better results they'll give.
Add Lots of Plants
Plants are known to make people feel good. Plants can spruce up the aura of any place. Adding lots of plants to your outdoor office will not only make the employees feel fresh and good, but it'll also deliver feelings of coolness. The plants can provide shade during the day. If you add flowers to your outdoor space, the pop of color will automatically make your outdoor office look like a sight where employees would willingly want to work!
Include Activity Corner
You can design an outdoor fitness area or a gaming section where employees can have some good time between work. Including an activity corner in your outdoor office will take employee satisfaction and morale to an all-new level. When employees know that there's an outdoor place in the office where they can relax and unwind for a while, they'll work with more dedication and stick to the company for longer.
Bottom Line
Creating the perfect outdoor office isn't very difficult. You just need to consider various technical aspects to ensure that your employees have got everything they need in the office. The perfect outdoor office is one that provides employees with comfortable working conditions and creates the perfect ambiance that makes the employees feel great at work!
