Is The Office Obsolete? Why Your Office Is Still A Worthwhile Investment

in

In recent years, there has been a clear trend in the direction of more flexible working. Working remotely or from home is on the rise; shared offices, hot-desking and open offices . . . the workplace of the future is a far cry from office cubicles. However, have these changed rendered the traditional office obsolete?

Here at Quills, we don’t think so. Today’s post is exploring the roles of offices in the modern business world – and explaining to you why we feel that offices are still a worthwhile investment.

In a survey conducted by Management Today, 97% of respondents stated that they regard their workplace as a symbol of whether or not they are valued by their employer.

1. While working from home can be great, your employees need a base sometimes.

Although working from home may be popular with employees – and can help with employee productivity and loyalty – remote workers will want to come into the physical office sometimes. Having an office as a base is important for allowing your employees a chance to feel connected to the wider company.

Plus, working from home can be isolating; a lot of remote workers actually prefer to come in and work in the office a couple of days a week. Ensuring that these workers are coming into a good environment will both improve their productivity and encourage them to come in more often.

2. Office design affects employees’ mood and productivity.

A topic we’ve discussed many times in this blog is the fact that your office’s design has a direct impact on your employees and how they work. Things like the use of colour can affect your employees’ moods; the layout can affect their happiness and sense of privacy.

Your employees spend most of their day at work. Most of their time is spent in the workplace environment – an environment that you control. Your office can be inspiring, uplifting, motivational . . . or it can be bleak. Uninspiring, drab, lifeless. As you can guess, the results of people working in each of those offices would vary greatly.

Investing in improving your office is investing in improving your employee’s and their work. If your office is bleak and uninspiring, do you think your employees will be producing their most innovative work?

3. A way to build and display your office’s culture

Company culture is one of the most important facets of your business. If your company has a positive culture, it can be used to build employee happiness and loyalty. However, a cold company culture can lead to employees feeling distrusting and disconnected from your business.

An office is one of the best ways to build and display your company’s culture. Your employees have a chance to see your business’s branding and the atmosphere you’ve created, as well as how the workforce interacts.

As an example, take a look at these two offices; what can you tell about their company culture? What would you think each business values?

Office 1

Related image

Office 2

Related image

4. Extroverted employees work better in an environment with other people

Extroverts are people that enjoy social stimulation and like to be around people; they tend to be outgoing and talkative.

It’s estimated that extroverts account for 50-74% of the population – which means they’re likely a large part of your workforce. While extroverts can enjoy and succeed with remote work, a lot of them perform better in a social environment with other people. Having an office is essential for these personality types to have the opportunity to interact if they need to.

5. Innovation is born in close quarters

In 2013, Yahoo’s CEO famously banned telecommuting, stating that while people may be more productive at home, they’re more collaborative and innovative at the office.

We’ve spoken about the benefits of collaboration in our post about the benefits of open offices, but many business leaders (in particular, Steve Jobs) feel that collaboration is one of the most important things for your business. Innovation, skill development, new ideas . . . these can all come from collaboration.

However, collaboration needs a place to happen. When all your employees work remotely, it becomes much harder for them to interact and share ideas. Investing in an office where people feel comfortable and are happy to come in means investing in a space for collaboration.

6. Employees need a place to build connections with each other

Following on from our previous point, investing in your office gives your employees the best chance to develop connections with each other. Having a friendly, well-connected workforce can help with the flow of information and efficient working, as well as employee satisfaction and better teamwork.

While employees can virtually work together, it’s far harder to build a rapport with someone you email as opposed to someone you physically work next to. Offices are the best place for employees to develop personal relationships with each other.

7. Attract new talent

Did you know that 76 percent of millennials, ages 18-34, feel somewhat or very strongly that that office design and aesthetic influences their impression of a company?

When you’re trying to attract new talent to your business, it’s a two way street – you have to want people, but they also have to want to work for you. If over 70% of the workforce under the age of 34 care about your office design, not investing could be costing you a lot of talented employees.

While the office landscape may be changing, we don’t think the office is by any means obsolete. Here are just seven of many reasons that your office is still a worthwhile investment. If you’re interested in upgrading your office and would like some assistance, feel free to take a look at our Quills Interiors case studies and see if we can give you a hand.

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

Colour In Office Design – Why It’s Important & How To Use It

in

Your office design is just as important as the people that are sitting in it – and it’s especially important to those people. In recent years, office design has taken a more people-driven approach and there is now a large emphasis on how your workspace makes your employees feel. One of the best ways to achieve this? Use of colour in office design.

The psychological effects of colour have been studied and stood by for years; the results are rather clear: colours directly affect our psychology. They have the ability to affect moods and create atmosphere – colours can even be used to convey meaning.

According to multisensory design, everything around us is a stimuli – so make sure that your office is stimulating your employees in the right way.

Why You Should Utilise Colour In Office Design

There are a lot of reasons that you should utilise colour in your office design, but here are a few of our favourites.

As you can see, with so many benefits to correctly optimising your office’s colour scheme, there’s no reason not to.

Commonly Used Colours And Their Meanings

Note: A lot of our associations with colour are personal and relevant to your culture. An example of this being the colour white. In Western culture, white can be used to represent purity (for example, “wearing the white hat”, weddings, angels), but in many Eastern countries white is associated with mourning.

Image result for colour connotations

Image Source

Warm Colours vs. Cool Colours

When deciding what colours to use in your office design, another factor to consider is whether you’re going to go with warm or cool tones.

Image result for warm colours and cool colours

Source

If you’re unsure of what is considered a cool or a warm colour, this colour wheel is a useful guide.

Warm colours

Image result for warm colour palette

Warm colours are colours made with orange, red, yellow and combinations of these with other colours; they’re associated with heat and sunlight. Warm colours cause stimulation – they’re attributed with increased emotional response and passion.

However, due to warm colours being emotionally stimulating, they can also cause volatile emotions such as anger.

A prime example of this would be the colour red; red is an emotional colour. It can represent love and romance, but also anger.

Cool colours

cool color

On the other hand, cool colours are much more calming. Made of blues, greens and purples, the connotations of cool colours are things like water and ice. Cool colours make you feel calm, relaxed and refreshed.

However, while cool colours may be calming, they can also result in feelings of sadness and isolation or detachment.

An good example of the use of cool colours is the popularity of the colour blue. A lot of offices utilise blue to work in and a lot of corporate businesses have blue branding. This shows professionalism – but no emotion.

How To Introduce Colours To Your Office

Now that you want to utilise colours in office design, how do you go about it? Firstly, there are two things to consider.

Accent colour or main feature?

Painting your office walls a new colour or installing a bright carpet is going to be a dramatic difference – and one that might not be beneficial. Depending on the colour and the atmosphere you’re trying to create in your office, you may want to add an accent colour instead of it being the main focus.

Accent Colours

Accent colours are a way of adding colours in office design in a more subtle way.

For example, this office breakout area has added orange in as an accent colour; it’s not too overpowering, but it still allows the colour to be clearly visible. (This breakout area furniture is available at Quills Interios service and is called “Skyline” email: interiors@quillsuk.co.uk for further details.)

When dealing with colours that are emotive, featuring them as accents is preferable. As previously mentioned, especially with warmer colours, you can have too much of a good thing.

Reminder example: yellow can be good for creativity, but too much of it can over-stimulate and rile tempers.

Main Colours

Adding colours in office design as a main feature can make a bold statement and really draw the eye.

Image result for fabricks

Image result for fabricks

Fabricks walls are a great way to achieve this bold statement – and they also have the additional benefit of helping your office’s acoustics. Available in a range of colours to suit any business and a brilliant way to separate your office space, Fabricks are a great way to inject some colour into your office!

If you’re interested in Fabricks, don’t hesitate to send through an enquiry – we’d be happy to help.

Send Enquiry

A blend of the two . . .

While on the topic of accent colours or main features, we thought we’d share one of our favourite examples – one that has the best of both worlds.

Our O’Zone range is a perfect solution. In areas where people need to work, accent colours can be utilised in the form of colour-co-ordinated seating in a minimal (and not distracting) space. However, in breakout zones, you can feel the full effects of the colour.

Not only do you reap all the benefits of utilising colours in office design – while avoiding all the drawbacks – our O’Zone range is also an incredibly efficient and fun use of space. Plus, it offers both privacy and collaborative working opportunities, both of which are essential for a productive working environment.

Send Enquiry

We hope we convinced you to try adding colour into your office design – and showed you some inspiring ways of how to do this. If you are interested in redesigning your office, but you don’t have the time or experience to do it yourself, feel free to contact us or check out our Quills Interiors website.

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

How To Manage A Multi-Generational Workforce – Understanding Generations In The Workforce

in ,

With Generation Z just starting to breach the workforce, our offices are now hosting four generations. The baby boomers (1946 – 1964), Generation X (1961 – 1981), the millennials (1981-1996) and Gen Z (late 90’s to early 2000’s). Each generation has different values, different interests and different strengths – especially in the workplace. However, this can present a unique challenge:

How do you manage multiple generations in one office?

Generational Stereotypes.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines stereotype as “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” When talking about different generations in this post, we have used a lot of stereotypes. Use them as inspiration, but don’t take them as law.

The Issue: Generational Tension

One of the largest problems your office is going to face when hosting four or five generations under the same roof is generational tension. Generational tension is loosely defined as a lack of respect for someone who’s of a different generation from you. Typical examples of this may be:

“These millennials have no work ethic!”

“Baby boomers are stubborn and outdated!”

Tension can come from conflicting values and experience. Each generation will have different perspectives and so can interpret each other negatively. If you’re from a generation that highly values a strong work ethic, the generation that refuses to work any longer than their contracted hours and wants loads of vacation time seem lazy. However, if you’re from a generation that cares about having a healthy work/life balance, the generation that thinks you should stay late and be willing to work weekends seems stodgy and demanding.

Needless to say, this friction is not something you want appearing in your office.

The Difference Between Age Gap and Generation Gap and Why It’s Important

It’s important to distinguish between age differences and generation differences.

Generations, as they are commonly understood nowadays, are social generations. Social generations are defined as cohorts of people born in the same date range and who share similar cultural experiences.

The importance in this definition is the shared cultural experiences. Each generation lives through different periods of history and develops their values from said events.

For example:

“Generation X” were born in a time where they were seeing their parents being laid off and jobs being cut, as well as being the first generation to be told they wouldn’t do as financially well as their parents. These experiences are said to have made them self-reliant and disloyal to organisations.

Each generations’ experiences are different to those that came before and after them. This results in different values and outlooks on life, which is where the different generations can then clash.

How to manage multiple generations in the office

Disregard Stereotypes

There is a wealth of information available online about different generations and their various traits. The first thing you should do when managing multiple generations in the workplace is disregard those stereotypes. Half of them are likely wrong anyway.

Don’t assume all your older workers are technologically illiterate. Don’t assume all your younger ones are lazy.

Treat all of your employees like individuals

Painting your employees with the same brush is a quick way to make that age gap more pronounced – and to upset your employees.

There may be some truth in certain generational traits. However, it’s important to remember that stereotypes are never entirely accurate. It’s perfectly reasonable to take generational needs into account when making decisions, but make sure that you aren’t treating people differently based off of them.

Besides, if you start to stereotype generations in the workplace – what stops employees from stereotyping each other?

Understand what each generation wants and needs

Due to growing up in different times, with different events and concerns, each generation tends to have different values.  They also have different working requirements and expectations. This isn’t to say that an individual employee may not go against what their generation is touted to value, but that it can definitely help you when accommodating different age groups.

Understanding where your employees’ wants and needs stem from can help you form a more complete and tolerant understanding of them. As an example, a word often used to describe millennials are “entitled”, “self-obsessed” and “lazy”. An alternative interpretation, however, is that millennials are really more focused on having the work/life balance their parents didn’t have.

Think about how different those two perspectives are. As a manager, having a lazy, difficult employee is far different to having an employee who wants to be home to feed their children.

This works for all generations. With a little understanding, most negative stereotypes have no purchase.

Most employees you hire are not going to be intrinsically disagreeable. If you can understand their perspective and what drives them, you’ll be able to resolve conflict more efficiently.

Understand each generation’s strengths – and weaknesses

One of the biggest benefits to having such a diverse workforce is the variety of skills and life experience your office is home to. Certain generations will have skills that others don’t and other generations will have experience that others don’t. If you can understand each generation, you can utilise your entire workforce to create a complete solution.

A noteworthy idea that some businesses encourage is for employees with generational gaps to mentor and learn skills from one another. This helps to bridge skills, improve employee bonds and lessen generational tension.

Support each generation

Another way to ensure your office runs smoothly is to support employees while they work for you. This isn’t to say that you need to give employees special treatment. Sometimes simple acknowledgement is enough. Understanding that certain tasks may be easier or harder; working styles could differ; benefits for one person may not be the same for another.

These are just a few ways that you can ensure that your office is ready to be hosting five different generations as smoothly as possible.

*Image credit: https://careeremployer.com/

Benefits Of Open Offices – Open Offices: The REAL Drawbacks & Benefits

in

Today we’re going to be sharing the benefits of open offices with you, so you can decide if they’re the right fit for your business.

Open offices are the new workplace standard, accounting for 70% of our offices. However, in recent years, there has been rising backlash against the open office. In our two-part series, Open Offices: The REAL Drawbacks & Benefits, we’re investigating the truth behind all the hype surrounding open plan office to help you see the real benefits and drawbacks.

Benefits Of Open Offices

Benefits Of Open Offices; the real benefits and drawbacks, plus how you can optimise your open office.

Office Culture

One of the largest, most noticeable benefits of open offices is the improved office culture. In an office where employees are segregated and quiet, there is a much colder atmosphere than one where everyone is open and friendly. This can lead to employees feeling bored, disinterested and disconnected from their coworkers – and therefore the wider company culture.

While one of the largest drawbacks of an open office can be the noise, the opposite is just as harmful. In fact, a quiet office can be just as harmful to productivity as a loud one. The opportunity for silent working can help employees focus on certain tasks, but working in silence constantly is counterproductive.

The solution to this, as we mentioned in the first instalment of this post, is flexibility. Instead of introducing a segregated and quiet workplace, just giving employees the option to work quietly can massively help their productivity. One of the popular ways that offices are installing this solution is office pods and meeting booths.

One of the variety of meeting booths and office pods we have to offer.

Here at Quills Office Solutions, we provide a wide range of meeting booths and pods in a variety of sizes and designs perfect for any office.

Send Us An Enquiry!

Collaboration

Expanding on the first post, employees can collaborate more easily. Without doors and walls separating them, employees naturally have a lot more access to each other. This allows them to build relationships with one another and share ideas.

There are clear benefits of this – coworkers can ask for advice, assistance or feedback from fellow workers or senior employees without needing to set meetings or knock on doors. Employees can bounce ideas off each other and the increased collaboration can result in innovation within your business.

Removes workplace hierarchy and makes bosses more approachable

Another benefit of the open office is removing the traditional hierarchy in the workplace and making employees of all seniority levels accessible. Removing these barriers enables bosses to have a better feel of the office and employees to feel like they can approach and interact with their bosses more.

Improved inter-departmental relationships

In traditional offices, different departments are kept very much separate – sometimes to the degree of being on different levels of the office building. With open offices, employees from different departments have the opportunity to interact and familiarise themselves with each other.

Not only does this improve inter-departmental relationships, it also helps employees to familiarise themselves all aspects of the business and develop an wider understanding of how everything slots together.

Cheaper for businesses

One of the largest benefits of the open plan office is for the business; open offices are often far less expensive than their counterparts. When building and furnishing an open plan office, typically  businesses have less need for utilities and office equipment. This is largely in part to shared resources; in an open office, you’ll only need one printer, for example.

 

Easy to change the office layout

The open office is more flexible than its traditional counterpart. If an office layout isn’t working, it’s relatively easy to redesign it. In an office that’s segregated, however, re-designing the layout would mean knocking down walls and doors.

Allows bosses to monitor employees working habits better

As an employer, one of the benefits of the open office is the ability to see what your employees are doing. This allows you to ensure people aren’t slacking off or wasting working time. On top of this, the knowledge that employees are on display can encourage them to work harder and employees prone to slacking off are less likely to.

 

Negatives Of Open Offices

While there are a variety of benefits to open offices, there are also a significant amount of drawbacks. To ensure you can minimise any negatives and optimise your office’s effectiveness, we recommend you take a read of our post about The Negatives Of Open Offices.

The Solution

While there are definite drawbacks to the open office, they are still proven to be far superior to office cubicles. Plus, most offices cannot afford to build individual offices for all their employees.

So what’s the solution?

Most offices are moving towards a flexible workplace. This means that there’s a mix of the open office and dedicated spaces for working privately. Flexible offices allow you all the benefits of the open office, while allowing people to work privately. Employees needing privacy and freedom from distraction have space.

How can you make your office flexible? With the addition of private spaces. Office pods and meeting booths in particular are becoming more popular in the workplace.

One of the office pods we can install for your office.

Here at Quills Office Solutions, we provide a wide range of meeting booths and pods perfect for adding some privacy to your open office. If you would like to in learn more, feel free to take a look at our interior website or send us an enquiry.

Send Enquiry About Office Pods

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

The Negative Impacts Of The Open Office – Open Offices: The REAL Drawbacks & Benefits

in

The open office is the trend that changed the landscape of the workplace – the trend that became the new normal. A recent survey has shown that nearly 70% of office workers are now working in open space offices. However, there is one thing this trend doesn’t have?

Open offices apparently have no scientific backing, in fact, most scientific studies into the open plan office have drawn negative conclusions. Open plan offices have been shown to be unhealthy, they lower employee satisfaction and actually decrease productivity. 

International studies from Ipsos and the Workspace Futures Team of Steelcase have shown that 85% of people are dissatisfied with their working environment and can’t concentrate.

**Part 2 of this series: The Benefits Of Open Offices is now live; make sure you read that post too**

That being said . . . a few years ago, open offices were all the rage. Open offices were claiming to increase productivity, employee happiness, creativity and collaboration. People were sold the idea that open offices would fix everything wrong with the traditional office.

As with all trends, a pinch of salt is always a good idea. The truth in all likelihood lies somewhere in between. Open offices may not be all good – but they probably aren’t all bad either.

In this two-part post series, we’re going to be investigating the open office, taking a look at all the statistics and identifying the real benefits and drawbacks, instead of the the hype. Our first post will identify the negative aspects to the open office and our second will highlight the benefits. We hope you find all the following information useful.

Negatives Of Open Plan Offices

Too much noise

One of the most immediate drawbacks of an open plan office is the noise. At any given time, an open plan office probably has music playing, employees talking and people on the phone – minimum. Not to mention background noise such as typing, the sound of printing, noise from the surrounding area, etc.

Studies have shown that employees lose as much as 86 minutes a day due to noise distractions.

While all noise is distracting to workers and harms productivity, the worst kind of noise for concentration is actually the most common type in an open space office – intermittent speech. 

Intermittent speech is when you hear bits and pieces of a conversation, a sentence here and there. It’s incredibly common in an office – when your coworkers have a conversation; when someone answers the phone and you only hear one side of the conversation; when people are talking outside the office door and you hear snippets of the conversation.

Studies show that when performing cognitive tasks (staying focused and attentive, reading and processing text, working with numbers) performance was worsened more by intermittent speech than any other type of noise.

Workers can be up to 66% less productive when exposed to just one nearby conversation.

Lack of privacy

Open plan offices have a complete lack of privacy that significantly impacts employees.

For one, working in an open office means that your screen is consistently able to be seen. This can result in feelings of paranoia and false productivity. Moreover, this can also add to a sense of distrust in the company culture, as many workers can feel like managers don’t trust them and want to micromanage.

Additionally, constantly feeling the pressure to look productive can have the complete opposite effect. A lot of people need a small break between tasks to recharge, such as spending ten minutes staring into space or playing a mindless round of Solitaire. With their boss and coworkers over their shoulder, however, employees feel pressure to not take these breaks and be busy . . . Meaning they aren’t taking the breaks they need to and are under-performing due to burn out.

In international surveys from Ipsos and the Workspace Futures Team of Steelcase, 95% said working privately was important to them. However, less than half (41%) said they could work privately. Worse still, 31% of employees have to leave the office to complete their work.

Stifling For Creativity

Leading on from the previous point, lack of privacy in an open office can actually stifle creativity.

A study conducted in 2011 showed that employees actually felt less creative after moving to an open office (as well as less productive). One of the biggest benefits of the open office is supposedly the increase in creativity . . . but what if they’re having the opposite effect.

(It’s worth noting that employees in that study did state that they felt their communicative skills had improved after moving to an open office.)

Unhealthy

Open offices are absolute breeding grounds for bacteria and have been shown to increase employee absences significantly.

The University of Arizona conducted a study that found out that when an employee came into work sick, about half of the commonly touched surfaces like telephones, desktops, tabletops, doorknobs, photocopier, lift buttons and the office fridge were infected with the virus by lunchtime. In flu season especially, this means sickness can travel throughout your whole office almost immediately.

In a Canada Life survey, employees working in an open office took over 70% more sick days than those working from home.

Hard for introverts to work

Researchers estimate that 16-50% of the population are introverts; this means that a large percentage of your workforce are likely to be as well. One of the largest problems with open plan offices, however, is how unsuitable they are for people with introverted qualities.

“Introverts and highly sensitive people (HSPs) tend to respond more intensely to sensory stimuli, and they typically need quiet, calm, distraction-free environments to be truly productive.” – Source

Open plan offices, with their lack of privacy and constant noise, are extremely difficult for introverts to work in.

If your office is designed in a way that puts a large percentage of your workforce at a strong disadvantage, overall productivity is going to take a large hit. On top of that, so is your employee satisfaction and happiness . . . which can in turn lead to higher turnover rates.

Decreases friendliness in the workplace

When thinking about the benefits to the open office, one of the first things that jumps to mind is collaboration. Being able to see, hear and interact with your coworkers on a daily basis helps you to develop stronger relationships with them; in turn, strengthening all of your work through free-flow of ideas and stronger inter-departmental relationships.

That’s what you’d think, but studies have shown that open plan offices actually make us more anti-social and less friendly towards our coworkers. In fact, both coworker friendships and the perception of supervisor support were negatively impacted by open offices.

There are a lot of possible explanations for this:

Stress

A combination of all of these negatives inevitably contributes to the fact that employees in open-plan offices are considerably more stressed. Due to this, employees in open offices are also more at risk of stress-related illnesses such as high-blood pressure.

In studies from Queensland University of Technology’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, head researcher Dr. Vinesh Oommen found “The outcome of working in an open-plan office was seen as negative, with offices causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure and a high staff turnover.”

The Solution

To conclude, there are certainly drawbacks to the open office plan. However, open offices are a trend that’s firmly situated in our workspaces . . . and they don’t seem to be going anywhere. So, without getting rid of your open plan office and returning to cubicles (which are even worse for employees), what can you do?

Most offices are moving towards a flexible workplace. This means that there’s a mix of the open office and dedicated spaces for working privately. Flexible offices allow you all the benefits of the open office, while allowing people to work privately. Employees needing privacy and freedom from distraction have space.

How can you make your office flexible? With the addition of private spaces. Office pods and meeting booths in particular are becoming more popular in the workplace.

One of the office pods we can install for your office.

Here at Quills Office Solutions, we provide a wide range of meeting booths and pods perfect for adding some privacy to your open office. If you would like to in learn more, feel free to take a look at our interiors website or send us an enquiry.

Send Enquiry About Office Pods

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

The Pros And Cons Of Sit-Standing Desks – Should You Buy One?

in

Today, we’re going to be exploring the benefits of sit-stand desks and the drawbacks, so you can discover whether your office really needs one.

Sit-stand desks are an increasingly popular choice for workplaces worldwide – and for good reason! With claims of fixing back-pain, correcting posture problems, increasing productivity and more, it’s no hardship to see why the sit-stand desk is so popular.

However, how true are all these claims?

Explaining the sudden rise of sit-stand desks: the importance of standing

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the sit-stand desk is just another meaningless fad, but that could not be further from the truth.

With our lengthening life spans, taking care of our health is increasingly important. Shopping trends have started to reflect this; consumers are more conscious about their health than ever before.

While the importance of exercise for our health is well known, recent studies have uncovered that exercise isn’t enough. Furthermore, it’s not just that exercise is good – living a sedentary lifestyle is bad for us. Studies have shown that sitting down for long periods of time actively harms our health.

“The World Health Organization identified a sedentary lifestyle as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality.“

This translates directly into the workplace. The average British office worker spends 35-40 hours a week sitting at their desk, not including sitting down to commute and time spent sitting for leisure. All this time sitting down contributes to a number of harmful consequences such as:

Naturally, on the heels of this research, people grew increasingly concerned about their work habits – enter the sit-stand desk. The sit-stand desk is an adjustable desk that allows office workers to use it whilst standing or sitting, offering them the ability to stand up during their work day.

Health Concerns Around Standing

While there are a lot of health concerns around the sedentary lifestyle, this doesn’t mean that the answer is never sitting down again. On the contrary, there is research to suggest that too much standing can have a negative health impact too.

In fact, there has been a study showing that jobs requiring employees to stand up all day were associated with an approximately 2-fold risk of heart disease compared to those that were sitting. That being said, it’s worth keeping in mind the fact other factors of standing jobs (such as operating machinery, carrying heavy items, being in high-stress environments such as sales etc.).

One of the likely reasons for this is the fact that standing causes blood to pool in the legs and there is increased stress when pumping it back up to the heart. Excessive standing has also been linked to varicose veins, clogged arteries and night cramps.

The benefits of sit-stand desks are vast – but maybe the fact that they allow you to sit and stand is the biggest one. If you shouldn’t sit too much and you shouldn’t stand . . . what is the best thing for your health? As with many things, the solution seems to be a happy medium.

Enquire About Sit-Stand Desks For Your Office!

Benefits Of Sit-Stand Desks

Now that you have an overview of the science behind the concept, we’re going to identify and explain the benefits of sit-stand desks.

1. Allows you to break up hours of sitting

As we’ve explained in the previous section, sitting down for too long is harmful. However, it’s also inevitable if you work in an office.

The idea of getting up for breaks every hour may sound doable in principle, but in practice it may be less so. You may be working to tight deadlines and not have the time to spare; you might work in customer service and have to be present to answer the phones.

The first benefit of sit-stand desks is the ability to break that streak of sitting down, while still working. You can seamlessly switch between sitting and standing during the workday, so you don’t have to take constant breaks.

2. Standing is beneficial for your health (in moderation)

Not only does standing ensure you aren’t sitting still for too long, standing for part of the day is actively good for your health. Standing for three hours a day has the health benefits of running 10 marathons a year!

3. You have the option to sit and stand

We’ve touched on the fact that standing all day can be just as harmful as sitting, so having a standing desk may not be the solution. However, one of the biggest health benefits of sit-stand desks is the ability to adjust the settings to both sitting and standing height. This allows you and your employees to create a balance between the two throughout the day that fits you.

4. Good for productivity and focus

Amongst all the health benefits of sit-stand desks, there are workplace improvements too. Studies have shown that in some offices the introduction of sit-stand desks increased productivity by 46%! Not only do sit-stand desks improve your employee’s health, they improve their working ability – a solid investment, in our books.

6. Helps to maintain a healthy weight as you burn more calories

The last benefit of sit-stand desks that we’re sharing today is the fact they help employees to maintain a healthy weight and reduce obesity. When you think about it, it’s logical – sitting down expends far less energy than standing, so your body burns less calories sitting.

Studies have shown that employees utilising a standing desk burned 0.7 calories extra per minute; this adds up to around 50 calories an hour and, even better, over the course of a year, you would burn 30,000 calories. (Based off spending three hours a day standing, five days a week.)

These are just six of the many health benefits that sit-stand desks have to offer. If you are interested in providing your office with sit-stand desks, here at Quills we have a wide range of options. Feel free to send us an enquiry, or have a browse of our digital brochure.

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

8 Ways You Can Improve Health In The Office For Your Employees

in

Today, we will be sharing our top ways to improve health in the office – and some actionable ideas that you can start to implement immediately.

When you’re running an office, the most valuable asset is the people working in it. Your employees are the main factor affecting your business and its subsequent earnings.

One of the biggest things that will affect how efficient your office is? The health of your employees. An unhealthy office is unproductive. Employees aren’t working to their full capacity and there will be absences, costing you both time and money.

Fortunately, there are ways to avoid an unhealthy office – and we’re going to share 8 of those ways with you.

 1. Add a plant to the office

Plants are a quick and easy way to improve health in the office! Boasting multiple health benefits, plants are a triple threat: they make employees happier, healthier and more productive.

  • Neuropsychological symptoms were reduced by 23% when plants were present. Fatigue reduced the most – by 30%.
  • Mucous membrane symptoms were reduced by 24% overall when plants were present. Cough decreased by 37% and dry throat by 25%.
  • Dry or flushed skin was reduced by 23% with plants in the workspace. – Source

We’ve already written an entire post describing the benefits of adding plants to your office, so feel free to read that for further information.

2. Make some improvements to the air quality.

One of the benefits of having plants in the workplace is the fact that plants help to improve air quality. That said, there’s much more to improving and maintaining air quality.

Unfortunately, it’s not only common but easy for offices to become victims of low-quality air. Ventilation may not be the best and the air can easily become stagnant . . . which makes it even easier for pollution to build.

Pollutants are everywhere – fumes released from cars; smoke from cigarettes your employees’ smoking breaks in the parking lot; energy used for heating and lighting. Pollutants are pretty inescapable, but it’s certainly possible to minimise their damage and ensure they aren’t sitting around, building up in the air.

Improving air quality within the workplace is a great way to improve health in the office. Fortunately, there is an easy way that you can improve your air quality!

Use an air purifier.

An air purifier is the easiest solution to problems with air quality. It’s also an incredibly cost-efficient option compared to having to install a new ventilation system for your office! Air purifiers do exactly what it says on the tin – they purify air and filter out pollutants.

Our partner company Rebel offer fantastic air purifiers that we highly recommend.

Designer Air Purifier with Permanent Filter

Air Purifier with Permanent Filter – £95.99

3. Utilise sit-stand desks for employees

Sit-stand desks are a relatively new introduction to the world of workplaces, but they’re massively popular – and for good reason. We all know how important exercise is for our us, but studies have shown that sitting down for long periods of time actively harms our health.

Sitting at a desk in the office is unavoidable, but using a sit-stand desk allows your employees the option to switch between sitting and standing during their workday. This not only improves their health long-term but also improves their mood and energy levels, in term making them even more productive!

Image result for sit stand desk

If such a simple change can so massively improve health in the office, why not invest in a few sit-stand desks? Here at Quills, we provide a variety of sit-stand desks, so feel free to send over an enquiry for your office.

Send Enquiry About Standing Desks!

4. Encourage healthy eating in the office

A healthy diet is the best weapon against illness, so encouraging employees to make healthier choices with their eating habits can significantly help to improve the overall health of your office.

There are many simple ways that you can do this, such as switching unhealthy snacks for fruit, providing fruit bowls, removing sugary drinks from the vending machines and more!

5. Make sure you have a water machine available for employees to use

Making drinking water readily available for your employees has a wide range of benefits. Hydrated workers will be healthier, able to perform their duties more effectively and for longer periods of time; the difficulty lies in convincing your employees to remain hydrated.

Tap water, while readily available, often does not taste as appealing – and having a vending machine full of sugary drinks can tempt your employees to go for unhealthier options. Providing free, easily accessible water for your office workers is a great way to encourage them to stay hydrated.

Having a water dispenser for your employees is an easy way to improve health in the office.

If you are interested in water dispensers and other water solutions for your office, Quills provide a vast range of options. Feel free to take a look in our digital catalogue (pages 692-693), or send us an enquiry.

6. Provide disinfectant for the office

Offices are a breeding pit for germs. The average office desk has 400 times more germs than a toilet seat! People are constantly touching their keyboards, mice, desks and stationery . . . but all this touching transfers germs. Not to mention, when employees move around the office, they share their germs – and the longer these bacteria are left, the more they multiply.

Providing disinfectant in the workplace can help improve health in the office by making sure that any germs they pick up from around the office are destroyed before your employees are harmed by them.

7. Enforce a smoke-free workplace

Smoking is an incredibly unhealthy habit – but did you know that second-hand smoke is just as bad for you? If your employees smoke, the smoke can actually affect the air in the office too.

Enforcing a smoke-free workplace is a great benefit for both employees who smoke and those that don’t; it helps to ensure neither are breathing in the harmful toxins in cigarette smoke. If your employees do smoke, a policy specifying no smoking near the office building is a good idea.

8. Install ergonomic chairs

Finally, our last suggestion is the use of ergonomic chairs.

Ergonomic chairs are special pieces of furniture designed to ensure that employees remain comfortable throughout the day. This is achieved by ensuring the user’s body is in the best possible position.

Office workers usually spend a majority of their days hunched over a computer screen, not at all focused on their posture. Sedentary activity can develop into a number of problems – carpal tunnel syndrome and back or neck pain to name a few – that are both short and long term damaging to your employees’ health and productivity.

Ergonomic chairs are an easy way to prevent this and improve health in the office. Plus, ensuring that your employees are feeling more comfortable means that they’ll be able to work for longer periods of time.

If Ergonomic chairs are an office solution you are interested in, Quills provide an extensive range. Send us an enquiry for more details!

Those are our 8 top tips for improving health within the office; hopefully, you’ll be able to use some of these to ensure your office is running as efficiently as possible.

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

5 Benefits Of Plants In The Office & 5 Ideas For How To Add Them

in

One of the many services Quills provide is interior design solutions; this means that we like to keep up to date on office design trends. For the past few years, we’ve seen people introducing new life to workplace design. Today, we’re going to be discussing the benefits of plants in the office – and why your office needs them!

Benefits Of Adding Plants To Your Office

Aside from aesthetic value, adding plants to your workplace has legitimate benefits for the office and your employees. There are a variety of positive changes introducing plants into the office studies have shown.

We’re going to share some of the key reasons we recommend introducing plants to your office space . . . and then some suggestions for how to work them in.

1. Increase Employee Productivity

Having plants in the office positively impacts employee’s productivity.

In 2014, Dr. Christ Knight, a psychologist from the University of Exeter, teamed up with academics from four universities in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands to conduct a series of studies in which employee productivity was tracked in offices before, during and after the introduction of plants.

The studies were conducted over two months and the findings were that employees’ productivity improved by an average of 15% in green offices.

Interestingly, being able to see plants didn’t just increase overall productivity – it also increased memory retention and attention span. In the study, there was one plant per square metre of the office; each employee had at least one plant in their eyeline.

In an office, productivity is one of the most important factors. If such a simple change can have such a big improvement on an office’s productivity, your office should definitely have plants.

Suggestion for office design: Add a small plant to each employee desk

There’s a simple way to ensure that your employees always have a plant in sight – place a small one on their desk. Here at Quills, we have a variety of small plant pots perfect for perching on the edge of a desk.

Image

Biodegradable Plant Pots With Petunia Seeds – Maximum price £1.91 each.

Image

Mr. Ceramic Plant Pot – Maximum price £2.71 each.

Image

Desktop Garden In A Tube – Maximum price £4.38.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are just a few examples of the planters we have to offer.

2. Increased Health + Lower Absence

Having an office with plants has numerous links to increasing employees’ health, in turn lowering their absences from work. A Norwegian study showed that office workers with plants showed significant improvements in certain areas of health.

  • Neuropsychological symptoms were reduced by 23% when plants were present. Fatigue reduced the most – by 30%
  • Mucous membrane symptoms were reduced by 24% overall when plants were present. Cough decreased by 37% and dry throat by 25%
  • Dry or flushed skin was reduced by 23% with plants in the workspace – Source

Healthy employees are hard working employees. If one of the benefits of plants in the office is better health . . . why wouldn’t you want to introduce them?

Suggestion for office design: Have an indoor tree in your office

If you don’t want to add clutter to your employees’ desks, you could try having one indoor tree for the entire office. Not only is this an easy option, indoor trees are often very low maintenance!

3. Cleaner Breathing Air

Did you know that indoor air pollution has been ranked as one of the top five environmental risks to public health?

Pollutants originate from a variety of things – even indoor items such as furniture, clothing, cleaning products and more – and build up inside air. Most offices aren’t the most well-ventilated of buildings, which causes the air to become stagnant and so it’s even easier for pollution to build up.

Dirty air directly impacts your employee’s health – in fact, it can even cause sick building syndrome, which is something that can completely destroy your employees’ productivity.

There’s a relatively simple solution: plants.

Remember those high school science lessons? Plants absorb our dirty air and, through photosynthesis, effectively cleanse it, releasing clean oxygen.

Therefore, one of the benefits of plants in the office is that plants improve your workplace’s air quality – helping your office remain healthy and productive. Yet another fantastic reason your office should have plants!

Suggestion for office design: Living Logo

LIVING LOGO FROM EXAPRINT-1Some businesses take their branding to the next level by bringing their logo quite literally to life!

Living logos are a creative way of adding plants to your office that give you all the benefits of plants, whilst simultaneously allowing you to strengthen your brand presence and office environment at the same time.

Plant-logos are a wonderfully unique and creative addition to your office. If you are interested in creating a living logo for your office, we can help you.

Plus, our living logos require absolutely no aftercare – no water, no soil and no light. They’re quirky and convenient!

Feel free to contact us for information about pricing and installation.

Click To Enquire About Living Logos

4. Better Working Environment

Adding plants to an office just overall improves the office’s environment. Plants are visually appealing; studies have shown that office workers feel far more satisfied when they have a view that overlooks vegetation as opposed to another building or road.

While worrying about the aesthetic value of your office may seem pointless, marketing research has proven that up to 80% of how we perceive and experience situations is based on our visual environment. Logically, we can all agree that our mood is surroundings somewhat dictate our mood. Clutter can create feelings of disorganisation or stress; open spaces can feel calming.

Because of the strong impact design has on mood, spending a little time focusing on the environment your employees are working in makes sense.

Suggestion for office design: Terrariums

Terrariums are an easy and unobtrusive way to add plants to the office, but they’re a little more interesting than your typical plant pot.

Terrariums are contained in a small glass plant pot, holding multiple types of indoor plants. This creates a far more unique display than your average cactus on a desk.

5. Reduces Stress & Increase Employee Happiness

While having plants in the office is proven to improve employee health, one of the other benefits of plants in the office is just as important: employee contentment. Workplaces that make use of plants have been proven to not only improve employee’s happiness, but also to decrease stress.

A study conducted in 2010 by the New University of Technology Sydney found that office spaces featuring plants had significant decreases in negative emotions and stress levels.

  • Tension/Anxiety – 37% reduction
  • Depression/Dejection – 58% reduction
  • Anger/Hostility – 44% reduction
  • Fatigue – 38% reduction

Suggestion for office design: Living WallImage result for living wall

Another unique idea for incorporating plants into your office’s decor is the living wall. This is essentially a vertical garden where flowers grow out of the wall instead of the ground.

These come in a variety of sizes – from the size of an actual wall to the size of a small canvas, so you can seamlessly insert it into your office’s existing decoration scheme.  Related image

If an entire vertical garden isn’t feasible for your office, you could take a more minimalist approach to the living wall. We personally love how understated this shelving unit acting as a living wall looks; it’s not too overpowering, but has the same effect of adding life to the space.

Here at Quills, we offer a multitude of storage options – some of which would be perfect for creating your own minimal living wall.

Hopefully, this post inspired you to try adding some plants to your office.

If you are trying to improve your office or incorporate some of the suggestions we’ve mentioned above, don’t hesitate to contact us and send through an enquiry.

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk

 

GDPR – How To Keep Your Office Compliant

in ,

What you need to know about the GDPR

What is the GDPR ?

The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a new data protection regulation that came to pass on 14th April 2016. The legislation has been undergoing a 2 year transition and implementation period throughout Europe.

It is coming firmly into force on 25th May 2018, replacing the current Data Protection Directive. After this time, any businesses found non-compliant with the new regulations may be subject to fines.

One of the largest things to change is how you collect data.

Under Article 6 of the European Union’s GDPR, you must ensure that you have lawful grounds to process personal data.

The regulations define the six legal grounds for processing personal data as:

  1. Consent given freely and unambiguously by the data subject
  2. Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is a party
  3. Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation of the data controller
  4. Processing is necessary to protect the vital interests of the data subject
  5. Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest
  6. Processing is necessary for the purpose of legitimate interests pursued by the data controller or third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or rights and freedoms of the data subjects

Organisations need to know on what ground(s) they are processing personal data and they need to maintain relevant documentation on processing activities.

What fine will businesses face if they breach the GDPR?

The penalties for breaching the GDPR are fines; at present, the highest fine is €20 million, or up to 4% of the company’s annual turnover, whichever is highest. However, these fines are only applicable for extreme cases and serious breaches.

The fine system works in a tiered format, so smaller breaches will not be subject to the same penalties. Even so, the fines are still far steeper in the new GDPR than they have been previously.

What’s the difference between the GDPR and the previous legislation?

Both the GDPR and Data Protection Directive are applicable to Europe as a whole, not just within the UK. The main difference between the General Data Protection Regulation and the previous Data Protection Directive is mainly in the nature of legislation.

A directive is an act of legislation aimed at designating a goal to work towards, wherein each country subject to the directive has to work towards this aim, but is free to do so how they decide.

A regulation, however, is an act of legislation that is binding across all of Europe and must be followed fully by all countries within its domain. If your company collects personal information from within the EU, even if it operates outside the EU, all devices that access said data need to comply and be secure. 

What NEW things does a business need to do to be compliant with the new GDPR?

  1. You must document your compliance – the more detail the better. The new regulations have increased importance placed on maintaining improved documentation about compliance. Businesses must now conduct audits, risk assessments, report breaches and, every time a new device connects to your network, it’s your responsibility to make sure it’s operating in line with all of your policies.
  2. Businesses must report any breaches within 72 hours.
  3. Be aware of what now defines personal data. As the scope of what is considered personal data has been widened so significantly, your business needs to get up to date on what data is considered personal as it may not have been treating it as such previously.

What is now considered personal data?

One of the largest differences the GDPR is introducing is the increase of what is considered personal data. This makes a lot of sense in the context of our ever-increasingly connected world; identifying people on the internet has never been so easy.

Here are a few of the new inclusions for what you should now consider personal data:

  • Economic information
  • Cultural details
  • Mental health information
  • ‘Pseudonymised’ data (such as social media usernames or other online personas) – providing it’s easily identifiable

Most businesses will be processing personal data . . . so being up to date on the GDPR requirements and compliancy is essential.

How can we help you prepare for the GDPR?

Whilst GDPR remains the organisations responsibility, there are some things that we can do to help you ensure you’re on track to be compliant by May 25th. While you may think of your PC and virtual files when you consider data, there is a lot contained in the office too. Let’s talk about a few ways to keep that data compliant.

MPS (Managed Print Services)

You may not have previously considered printers to be a potential area of risk for a data leak, but they’re vulnerable for multiple reasons:

  • They contain physical data. Printed documents often contain data – how is this being protected? Who has access to it? Is it compliant?
  • The new GDPR requires you to demonstrate how you are compliant; a good example of this being documentation. Most employees don’t necessarily think about what they’re printing, if it’s personal data – and whether it’s a breach of the GDPR – let alone document how their printing habits are safe.
  • Printers can be a weak spot for hackers to exploit.

Moving forwards, your print services need a secure strategy and set up; our Managed Print Services can help by offering a audit and recommendations to be GDPR compliant.

Quills Secure Software

Quills offer a Managed Print Service specially developed for security – Quills Secure Software. The software provides a variety of features that will not only ensure your printers are secure, but entirely GDPR compliant. We highly recommend that customers of ours utilise this new service we are able to provide.

Some of the features include:

  • Digital Signatures and Watermarking
  • Simple tool reporting all information about a user
  • Secure print release
  • Erasing past users
  • And more!

If you would like further information about our Quills Secure Software, read here.

Shredding and Archiving

Another crucial aspect of your office’s approach to data is how to safely store and destroy it. At Quills, we offer both destruction and archiving solutions, so feel free to contact us to help ensure your office is being compliant with data from collection to destruction.

Shredding

Although a somewhat old-fashioned approach, shredding is still an incredibly effective way to securely dispose of data and remain GDPR compliant.

Non-shredded documents are readable by anyone that finds it. Such easily accessible data poses a security threat in many ways – employees can easily see documents they aren’t meant to and, if that isn’t worrying enough, so could visitors to your office.  Print documents can be easily accessible by the wrong people.

Through destroying the physical data, shredding ensures that data is incomprehensible and not seen by a third party.  However, there’s more to it than just running your documents through a shredder.

How We Can Help Your Data Destruction Keep GDPR Compliant
  • Cross-cut shredding. There are multiple types of shredding – some more secure than others. At Quills, we offer highly secure cross-cut shredders instead of the standard strip-cut. We ensure we shred your paper between 15mm to 4mm cross cut in accordance to BSIA standards.
  • Certificate of destruction. A large part of being GDPR compliant is documenting the steps you’re taking to protect data so ensure you receive your certificate of destruction for your records.
  • Reputable and trustworthy.  ISO9001 accredited and a member of the BSIA (British Security Industry Association) and NAID Europe (National Association for Information Destruction).
  • We dispose of the paper at recycling plants. As well as making sure we’re destroying your data securely, Quills can help your business stay environmentally friendly by recycling your waste.
  • Option for on-site shredding. If your business prefers to see their data shredded on-site, but doesn’t have the resources, we can accommodate you. We provide mobile shredding trucks that can securely destroy data on site.
  • Of course, this is all completely confidential. Needless to say, we operate with the utmost professionalism and adhere to European standard EN15713.

Archiving

Data destruction is not always necessary, so the next issue to consider is keeping data you’re storing GDPR compliant.

Quills are partners with the largest privately owned Records Management company in the UK, so we can provide an extensive list of services and a complete solution for any data you need archiving. For more information about our archiving solutions, feel free to take a look at our archiving service list.

If your office is preparing the upcoming GDPR policy changes and would like some assistance within the areas of shredding, archiving or your print fleet, feel free to contact us:

Call: 0845 078 0324   Email: sales@quillsuk.co.uk   Live chat: www.quillsuk.co.uk