Within just two short years – by the year 2020 – Millennials will comprise 46% of the U.S. workforce. Is your office environment designed to meet their preferred work style? As you update your workplace for 2018, keep in mind the top trends in Millennial-friendly office design.
These days, computers take up significantly less desk real estate than they used to, and loose papers are less prolific since most documents are electronic. Therefore, today's employees require less personal workspace. Millennial workers aren't looking for giant workstations to validate their sense of importance to the company. Keep desks to about 5 feet in width, and you'll free up valuable space for other purposes. To really use your space well, consider standing desks, which help your employees increase their strength and fitness even while doing desk work. For maximum versatility, invest in desks that quickly convert from sitting to standing.
One of the best things that you can do with the space that smaller desks afford is to create distinct areas of the office for different tasks. Collaboration is a major trend in workplace efficiency. Every office should have spaces where a handful of employees can meet to discuss ideas or work side by side. However, moving to entirely shared spaces can be detrimental to overall productivity. When it's time to focus on a task, 77% of workers want to have a quiet space. Therefore, the best office setups feature both open spaces for collaboration and private offices or cubicles for individual work.
The most modern office setups have more than just one large, open room for employees' collaborative times. Today's employers are learning the value of smaller meeting areas in which groups of just a few workers can get together for a quick conference or an idea-sharing session. Consider the common name for these spaces--"huddle rooms"--and you'll get a pretty good mental picture of how they are commonly used.
Modern technology makes it easy to open these little rooms up to the larger world. Huddle rooms equipped with video conferencing equipment are convenient for chatting with a team in another part of the building, a client on the other side of the world, or a fellow employee who is working from home.
A modern office setup helps today's businesses attract and retain top talent from the Millennial generation. Use your space well, and you'll find that both employee satisfaction and team productivity receive a boost.
