October sets the scene for National Work Life Week, an annual campaign that gets employers and employees talking about wellbeing at work.
This week is a great opportunity for many employers to show their employees – and potential new additions to the team – how their organisation works to be family friendly and flexible.
And we often find ourselves chatting with employers about the ways in which they can work towards this ever-growing culture.
The work/life balance has long been discussed and as technology moved forward, and we were able to complete our working tasks from laptops, tablets and mobile phones, flexible working policies were introduced in businesses across the country.
But often employers don’t realise how their office base can be impacted, and what can change, when it comes to flexible working.
If flexible working is brought in across the board companies can completely change their offices and layout – such as introducing a hot-desking room that allows for a large number of staff to use a reduced number of desks or having more comfortable surroundings with sofas and dens that people can use with their laptops rather than a more rigid setting.
Big companies like Facebook have laptop holders outside the toilets as their workers are often carrying their laptop around to wherever they are comfortable!
We have seen an increase in open plan furniture and more comfortable working areas over the past few years – and our office designs will more often than not now include a lot of breakout space (you can see ideas of the types of furniture available above).
The benefits of having happy and content and comfortable employees is well documented and as well as the impact on the general business, and the productivity, is also means a company can be more attractive to the types of candidates they are hoping for when they advertise new roles.
National Work Life Week is run by Working Families, the UK’s work life balance charity, which has been supporting family friendly workplaces for nearly 40 years.
We imagine that 40 years ago having a career and a family would have been very different from today – and we are looking forward to helping more and more businesses turn their offices into the best place it can be for their employees!
