With the new year almost upon us, it’s that time of year when business owners take stock of the past year and set goals for the following year.
“Housekeeping” is an essential task for businesses and there are many areas to take stock of. Earnings vs. expenditure, processes, services, marketing, online presence, customer satisfaction and, of course, employee satisfaction and retention.
It’s not always easy to gauge employee satisfaction, but neglecting to find out can have serious consequences for your company. The cost of finding and training new people can be a significant financial drain.
Savvy companies keep not only customers and clients, but also employees happy. How do you do that? There are many things one could do, but being in the business of office furniture we’ll focus on what we know best: interior office spaces.
When trying to decide if it’s time to do that office refresh, you can consider the following questions:
1. Has your company grown significantly? If so, you might be running out of space. Moving is one solution; updating and reconfiguring furniture might be another way.
2. Have you hired younger workers? Younger workers expect a more pleasant work environment and are more apt to leave if the physical space is utilitarian and uninspiring. Younger people care about comfort, emotion, and color. You may disagree that these things are important, but that won’t help when they leave for greener pastures.
3. Has it been a while since you’ve updated your office furniture? We get used to the way things look and don’t notice them after a while anymore. Ask someone who is not an employee or a client to give you their honest opinion about the office. Would they like to work there? If not, why not?
4. Are you aware of the impact of appearances on your brand image? Appearances shouldn’t matter, but they do, and when you make a poor first impression your brand suffers.
As you reflect on the things your business accomplished in 2018, consider what all can be added or further improved to ensure that 2019 is an even greater venture. Refreshing the office itself is a great way to start.
