If you own a small business, you may not have given much thought to your environment beyond the practical considerations that impact your operating procedures. For instance, whether there’s enough office space or storage room, or whether your shop is located in a high traffic area. These factors are important of course, but the environment also has a significant impact on your staff welfare and productivity, and your customers’ experience. If you haven’t already done so, take a look around you and see how you could improve the space where you work to make it more inviting and comfortable.
Why should you add style to your business premises?
There are two main reasons you should think about the environment you’re working in:
- You’ll get far more out of your staff if they work in a light, bright environment where they are comfortable, well serviced, and have pleasant views to look at, whether that’s outside a window or wall decorations.
- Your customers need to feel at home in your shop or reception area because if they don’t, the chances are they won’t feel like coming back again, which will affect your profitability.
How can you add style to your business premises?
There are some basic ways to smarten up a dowdy or boring space, for example, a coat of paint can work wonders at freshening up the walls and ceilings. If your carpeting is worn or stained and isn’t worth cleaning, replace it with a new carpet or an alternative flooring material like laminate that’s easier to keep clean.
The importance of cleaning and tidying shouldn’t be underestimated either, and if you don’t have a cleaning rota or employ someone to clean for you, it’s time you did. All these steps will improve the appearance of your business premises enormously, but there’s more you can do.
Going further
If you understand the effect of environment on your staff and customers, you’ll realise that investing money into improving the environment could increase both productivity and sales. You could, for example, look at adding in artworks to decorate the walls, which you can rent if you prefer. You can also get services like indoor plant maintenance, where a company provides plants and looks after them for you for a monthly fee.
You should also look at the facilities you provide. Are there comfortable places for customers to sit? Do you have a well-equipped kitchen area for your staff? What about toilet facilities? There are specialist companies who deal with every aspect of equipping your business to improve the environment for staff and customers, such as Terry Commercial Lifts, who provide a range of small and large passenger and goods lifts.
If you’re not sure whether going to these lengths will definitely improve your staff wellbeing and customer retention, try implementing a couple of the ideas for a few months and assess the difference they make. You’ll probably be surprised at how effective they can be, but once you’ve seen it for yourself, you’ll understand the impact it can have and why you should embrace the change.