• PRODUCTIVITY

How the right flooring can increase employee productivity

July, 2018

In this blog post, we’ll discuss the reasons why selecting the right commercial flooring can greatly benefit business performance. In short, these include improved employee health, morale, and comfort, which ultimately leads to increased employee productivity.

In the modern economy, where there is more competition than ever before, every company is looking for ways to increase their competitive advantage. Businesses now looking at everything, from implementing new technology to creating unprecedented levels of leisure spaces to improve their employees’ wellbeing.

We think one of the most overlooked ways that a company can increase their workers’ productivity and their competitive advantage, is by choosing the right style of commercial flooring. to prove this point, here are just a few reasons why selecting the right type of flooring can be beneficial to company performance.

1. Tackle excessive noise

Noise has been shown repeatedly to negatively impact worker productivity and performance. Moreover, high levels of noise can lead to health and wellness issues for employees. This can result in lost productivity through increased sick days. Impact noises, such as the sound of footsteps and the noise created by moving chairs, can be highly disruptive and compared to laminate flooring carpet is a clear winner here (for example: carpet without underlay, versus a wood or laminate floor, reduces impact noise by as much as 26dB, when concrete is the base floor).

Carpets have been shown to absorb sound up to 10 times greater than equivalent hard flooring (Source: The Building Performance Centre, Napier University, Edinburgh – 2004). And compared to hard flooring, the generated sounds in a carpeted room are lower. In addition, the duration of the reflected sounds is shorter, so there’s no irritating distortion. This enables people to talk more softly (Source: GUT, Gemeinschaft umweltfreundlicher Teppichboden e.V.).

2. Allow for different working practices

As the importance of health and wellness is becoming more and more recognised, companies across a variety of industries and sectors are now taking steps to ensure that they maximise their employees’ wellbeing, and thus increase productivity and performance. One aspect of this has been the rise of sit-to-stand working practices, which aim to limit the amount of time that employees spend immobile. Using appropriate flooring, such as carpet tiles is also an important consideration when implementing a sit-to-stand working environment, which reportedly can boost productivity by up more than 46%.

The rise of activity-based working (ABW), where employees do not have a set workstation but move around according to their task, has also seen companies experience greater productivity through keeping employees engaged and motivated. However, this means that more people are moving around the office more frequently, so matching design with the appropriate flooring to reduces the impact of noise, as well as considering how the flooring helps with zoning are very important factors. In the same way, finding the best flooring for the use of the space also needs to be a key design consideration at the start of any project.

3. Create the right environment

Choosing the right commercial flooring can help to maximise worker wellbeing by providing an aesthetically-pleasing environment to work in. This can have dramatic effects on company morale. Selecting commercial flooring which is blue in colour, for example, has been shown to boost productivity by creating a calming feeling, whilst green has a tendency to enhance the creativity and innovation of employees.

The ability of different colour scheme to differentiate between different spaces is naturally becoming more important with the rise of ABW in modern office spaces. As such, using creative colour schemes in your lighting and walling, while employing texture and colour in floor designs can help to clearly demarcate different areas of your office and facilitate much more natural movement within an ABW set-up.

4. Approaching office comfort from all angles

It will not be very surprising to learn that employees who are stuck in an office that is either too hot or too cold have dramatically reduced productivity levels. Whilst most people would think immediately think of air conditioning and heating as the remedy for an office space with inappropriate temperatures, selecting the right lighting, flooring, and wall designs can have dramatic effects on temperature within an office environment.

Selecting colours such as red can help to boost the warmth of the design scheme within an office, enhancing employees’ perception of the temperature. The use of carpet tiles, which act as very effective insulators, can ensure that the office environment remains a comfortable temperature all year round, thus maintaining high levels of productivity whatever the weather. Furthermore, combining the use of carpets with an appropriate colour scheme can help to dramatically improve the level of comfort that employees experience within the office.

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