5 tweaks to boost productivity levels in your startup office

When was the last time you felt productive, engaged, or even happy at work? If you can’t recall those moments, don’t be alarmed – you’re in good company. According to a 142-country study done by Gallup, about 87 percent of employees around the world are not engaged at work. In particular, Asian countries perform rather poorly in this study. Southeast Asia has the largest proportion of employees who are not engaged, at 73 percent, while East Asia has the dubious honor of having the lowest number of engaged employees, at only six percent.

Engagement and productivity are especially important for startups, where each and every member of the team has to pull his or her own weight for things to happen. It is the founder’s job to create an office environment that helps employees to boost their productivity, and hence feel happier and more engaged.

Don’t worry – you won’t have to bust out a Google-sized budget to create a productive working environment. Simple design tweaks will do the trick just as well. Here are five fixes that will lead to a more productive and happier office environment.

1. Use the right colors

Colors are commonly associated with different states of mind. For example, red often denotes anger, aggression and even danger, giving credence to the idiom, “to see red”. As such, it makes sense to use their psychological influence to stimulate or calm your workers accordingly.

However, well-known color psychologist Angela Wright points out that, contrary to popular opinion, it is the intensity of the color that stimulates or soothes, and not so much the actual color.

“What defines whether a color is stimulating or soothing is not the color, it’s the intensity. A strong bright color will stimulate, and a color with low saturation will soothe,” she said.

The picture below illustrates this concept:

In an interview with A Year of Productivity, Angela breaks down exactly which colors you should go for according to the type of work done by your employees. To summarize:

• Blue with a spot of orange is good for mind-work
• Yellow is perfect for designers as it stimulates creativity
• Red would be best for any work that involves physical labor
• Green would work for accountants, or any line of work that involves the exchanging of money

2. Allow sufficient natural light in

3. If you want them to work hard, help them play hard too

4. Create alternatives to sitting at the desk

5. Make food and beverages readily available