Spring is the perfect time to reset. People feel natural motivation to tidy, organise and refresh at this time of year.
Decluttering office space with a spring clean has particular relevance in the business world, as it also helps to clear the mind and improves focus. Studies show a tidier workspace can reduce stress and enhance productivity, having a positive impact on your mood and creativity.
With the air feeling fresher and the sense of change that only spring brings, people feel inspired into taking action. Businesses looking to declutter and clean their premises may not think of it as being top of their list when juggling lots of other considerations. However, on the contrary, a decluttered workspace is a happy workspace, so spring cleaning your office setup can help everything else fall into place.
Assessing your office needs
Does your office space still suits you size-wise? You may find harbouring too much clutter is taking up space that you simply don’t have, or you could be wasting money on renting out offices for no other reason than to house junk!
Step one is to take inventory of your office setup and decide, honestly, what is and isn’t needed. If you’ve accumulated filing cabinets full of paperwork dating back a decade, the chances are much of it will now be surplus to requirements.
Knowing when and how to scale your business is a crucial part of your success. When you are based in traditional office space, spring cleaning your setup can be challenging, as you may be tied into a long contract that means you’re renting space you no longer need. Flexible office space in London offers significant scalability. Businesses can amend their space as their needs evolve, as there are no ties to the long-term commitment of traditional leases.
Supporting recycling
Freshening up your business needs can reduce the amount of floorspace you need to rent, but what happens to the years of clutter that you’ve accumulated? If you have plastic storage boxes that are surplus to requirements, they can either be recycled, or reused through charity shops, or by local schools and other organisations that may welcome the help.
If you’re throwing out years of old documents, shredding them and sending the waste to recycling plants can also help the environment. Paperwork can occupy a significant amount of floorspace, so consider what can be recycled in terms of redundant paper files, cardboard boxes, documents and any other relevant items. This can include paper folders, periodicals, magazines, newspapers, envelopes, junk mail, old packaging and almost anything else you find tucked away.
Separating all your paper and cardboard for recycling will help save trees from being cut down to create new paper. It will also save a considerable amount of energy and water, as recycling is a more cost-effective way of producing paper. Your business may also make financial savings by sending old paperwork to be recycled, rather than paying for it to be removed as general bulk waste.
How do you increase productivity?
After decluttering your office setup, you may find productivity increases naturally, as employees will start to feel rejuvenated. Studies show a clean and organised workspace can significantly improve productivity by promoting focus and reducing stress and distractions. Working in clutter can be a continual source of visual and mental distraction. Streamlining your environment means enabling greater focus and concentration on the tasks in hand, leading to increased efficiency.
Greater mental clarity makes it easier for our brain to focus on tasks and process information, with 78% of office workers agreeing that a tidy environment improves their focus and creativity. This also fosters a sense of calmness and reduces stress levels.
Go green with BE Offices
Decluttering doesn’t end with spring cleaning: the key is making sure you carry forward good practices into the future. Here at BE Offices, we operate a green policy that not only ensures we help protect the environment but also creates a pleasant and calming workspace. This is part of the fabric of our company, as client feedback shows people like working in an eco-friendly setting. What’s important to you is important to us.
We’re consistently working towards the decarbonisation of our business and first achieved zero waste to landfill through our waste partners in 2015, with non-recyclable waste producing electricity that’s sold back to the national grid. We’ve installed motion sensor lighting at our UK centres to reduce energy consumption when office space is empty. We’re also 98% of the way through a multi-million programme of installing LED lighting throughout our entire portfolio. We operate on carbon neutral server hosting and, where possible, we’ve removed single-use plastics, including water cups and plastics used in our catering services.
Spring cleaning your office setup can be a meaningful start to future good practices in terms of recycling, improving sustainability, keeping your workplace clean and tidy and creating a happier place to work for everyone. If you think you could benefit from a more flexible, scalable solution, BE Offices can help.
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