How to create a workplace in the office

Recommendation points

• Office workplace
• What is it like – a modern office
• Office furniture
• Office Workplace – Lighting
• Fresh and clean office air – ventilation
• Office decoration
• Office workplace from the point of view of modern management
• Sorting
• Rational placement (set in order)
• Cleaning of documents (sweeping)
• Standardization
• Sustaining

In this Article: Planning a Modern Office selection of office furniture; lighting requirements; fresh air in the office; decoration of premises; modern management – 5S system.

Office workplace

How much time do we spend at work? The law establishes an 8-hour working day, 40 hour (five-day) and 48 hour (six-day) working weeks. In fact, you have to stay at your workplace for 9-10 hours – large volumes, urgent tasks, reports, summaries, etc. The workplace comes out on top on weekdays, at home you can only watch TV and sleep – the efficiency and productivity of each employee in any company depends on how correct the organization of the workplace is..

What is it like – a modern office

There are two main schemes for building an office: offices and corridors between them (classic scheme), open office space (American scheme). The classic office is a kind of heritage of the last century, it is divided into groups, bureaus and departments, the doors of the offices are equipped with signs indicating who is located in the room behind them. The classic office has one thing in common with the office of the American scheme – the company’s management, as a rule, occupies the highest floor of the building..

The American office layout has several advantages at once: significant space savings (no internal walls); democracy (workplaces are separated only by thin partitions in the complete absence of internal doors); ease of making any functional changes. This layout will greatly facilitate communication and linear coordination issues. Semi-transparent panels of partitions, dividing an open office into work areas, perform two tasks at the same time: create the illusion of an isolated space for employees and help diffuse light, practically creating no shadow zones.

Most Russian offices prefer a mixed layout with elements of open and classic offices in accordance with the vision of senior management – it is more true if the layout is calculated by specialists.

Office furniture

An office workplace is unthinkable without a minimal set of furniture – a table, bedside table, bookcase and a comfortable chair. The main thing in the selection of office furniture will be its ergonomics: the maximum possible comfort and minimum stress on the human body.

Take, for example, a classic office chair – you can sit on it without harm to the body for only 15 minutes a day. At the same time, a comfortable chair (armrests, headrest, adjustable seat height and backrest position) reduces stress on the muscles and spine, supporting the body throughout the contact area.

An ergonomic office table does not have to have the correct geometric shape – the curved lines of the table top allow it to be used wider, because human hands cannot cover an area exceeding 40 cm, i.e. you will have to reach for the desired document and strain your back muscles. And yet – the area of ​​a really good office desk is no less than 1m².

Additional convenience for work will be created by auxiliary devices: stands, trays and various superstructures. But it is important not to overload the surface of the desktop with them, to use movable bedside tables and hinged shelves. The first office rule – everything should be at hand, you just need to stretch it.

The computer keyboard – an indispensable office attribute – must be placed on the tabletop as far from the edge as possible, because “In a suspended” position of the hands are exposed to chronic sprains. Therefore, purchasing a table with a pull-out keyboard shelf is an extremely unfortunate decision that does not contribute to either the convenience or health of an office worker..

Office cabinets – these should be positioned as close to the worker’s desk as possible (saving time), but so that they do not block the main aisle. Dimensions and structural material of cabinet furniture matters: open cabinet niches, transparent shelves and tempered glass walls will visually expand the space, create more comfort for office workers and visitors.

Office Workplace – Lighting

Working in a dimly lit room is stressful for the eyes, which leads to rapid eye fatigue. Therefore, you need to treat the layout of the lamps, the type of lamps in them with no less attention than to the issues of planning and furnishing. It is required to achieve the most ideal lighting that allows a worker with any visual acuity to easily distinguish signs and symbols both on paper and on a computer monitor.

For example, you should not build lighting with fluorescent lamps – such light causes fatigue due to flickering (frequency 50 Hz), the best solution would be halogen lamps. Full-fledged lighting is calculated by specialists, the initial data will be the purpose of each room, the number of workplaces, the presence / absence of natural light sources. Sources of artificial lighting, if built correctly, will create the necessary psychological mood of employees and visitors.

Fresh and clean office air – ventilation

The need for fresh air in enclosed spaces is as urgent as effective climate control, especially if the same space contains the workplaces of several employees. School biology course: inhale oxygen-rich air – exhale a large amount of carbon dioxide. And the more carbon dioxide accumulates, the worse people feel – drowsiness, headache, a sharp decrease in working capacity.

Depending on the time of the year, the problem is solved with open windows, however, together with clean air, external noises, odors and city dust penetrate into the office. Split systems, for some unknown reason, are considered the solution to the problem, in reality they do not solve anything – they simply cannot do it. The internal hair dryer of the split system perfectly conditions and cleans the air from dust, but does not provide oxygen supply – the external unit of the split is designed to cool the refrigerant of the system, and not to take outside air. In addition, there will always be one or two workplaces in the room, blown out by the air flow from the split hair dryer – a chronic cold is guaranteed..

The optimal solution is a central air conditioning system that performs cleaning, cooling / heating, humidification / dehumidification of the supplied air. Thanks to this, the office will have an optimal microclimate and a constant supply of fresh, clean air at any time of the year..

Office decoration

As a rule, the interior design of the office is designed in the so-called “business” style, which can also be described as impersonal. Posters, paintings, reproductions and stained glass compositions will help to bring colors to the atmosphere of the office. With their help, you can clearly define the work areas – for example, the reception area (reception) must be decorated in the company’s image style to create bright positive impressions for visitors.

The piling up on the windowsills of awkward potted plants, so characteristic of Soviet institutions, in a modern office is absolutely impossible. But you should not completely abandon them, you just need to carefully approach the choice of plant species and their location. Palm trees are perfect for conference rooms and halls, one large plant for the management office, and several small plants for the reception. A decoration worthy of any office will be a winter garden, where you can relax or hold a business meeting in a more relaxed setting. It is better to entrust the decoration of the office with plants to a professional phytodesigner..

Office workplace from the point of view of modern management

It is based on the 5S system, developed and successfully used by the Japanese corporation Toyota for the past 50 years..

Sorting

It will allow you to completely solve the problem of chaos in the workplace, created by various unnecessary documents and items (equipment) stored for years “just in case.” It is necessary by joint efforts to identify and move to a certain place (red zone) such candidates “for elimination”, marking with red labels. If after a month there is no need for items from the red zone, they must be sold, recycled or disposed of.

Rational placement (set in order)

For each document in the office, you need to allocate a specific place where the document is returned after each checkout. Thus, the time for finding the necessary documents and forms is minimized..

Cleaning of documents (sweeping)

At the end of the working day, each document must be returned to its place. It is not permissible to clutter the desktop with piles of folders and documents – it will take working time paid by the employer to find the right one.

Standardization

Within the framework of a specific company, it is necessary to develop standards for all work processes, as well as vertical and horizontal communications between divisions of the company. As a result, a great variety of issues that arise every day will be resolved in the shortest possible time and without the involvement of the management team..

Sustaining

It is necessary to bring to automatism the implementation of all the previous rules among office employees. They should become a habit, a kind of behavioral norm in this office..

To identify the need for the introduction of the 5S system, it is enough to conduct a small test, instructing the employee to find a specific document (any report, form, contract) and record the time spent by him on searches. If the time interval is more than a minute – drastic changes in management are urgently needed.