Improving your office environment?
Discussion
sealtt said:
Have a number of TVs with live news feeds from your industry and maybe some tuned to a financial news channel. The news flow is good, keeps your guys up to date, in the loop and makes work more involving.
If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
Sounds awful.If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
Working from home is great, I seem to get more done in a shorter time and conference calls for meetings are much better than being there in person as I can tune out the waffling that always goes on turning what could easily be a 15 minute meeting into an hour's snore-fest. The problem comes when the girlfriend is also home as she doesn't seem to understand the "working" part of working from home: can we just pop to the shops, put this shelf up, sort out her phone etc? Mind you, the occasional leg-over during work time is nice and tips the balance somewhat to the point where I'd like to get more days working from home 
DrDoofenshmirtz said:
sealtt said:
Have a number of TVs with live news feeds from your industry and maybe some tuned to a financial news channel. The news flow is good, keeps your guys up to date, in the loop and makes work more involving.
If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
Sounds awful.If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
"COME ON GUYS!! SELL SELL SELL!! HIT THOSE PHONES AND SMASH THOSE TARGETS! LETS GO!!"
Somebody kill me.
Now.
Tuna said:
One place I worked had 'Cake Club' - One person each week would volunteer to make cake for the rest of the team, and at 4:30 on Friday, we'd down tools and have half an hour in the kitchen to eat cake. It got quite competitive; a bunch of guys taking baking very seriously and some really very nice food. To be a member of cake club you had to volunteer at least once every few weeks - the guy that ran it kept a spreadsheet and would remind you if you weren't contributing.
The trouble with a lot of these things is if they feel forced, it's a complete wind up. Spontaneous 'lets go out for lunch' events feel much better (even if they happen every week on the same day) than some company dictat that 'On Fridays you must go and eat out'. For that matter food always seems contentious. There's always someone who doesn't like the cuisine, someone who doesn't want to pay, someone who's on a diet, or someone who makes a meal of splitting a bill.
We had 'team tea' at my last office - every Tuesday at 4pm we'd down tools for 20 minutes and meet in the kitchen area. At least 2 people would be on 'cake duty' each week, and given there were ~40 in the division, it meant you were only on duty once every couple of months. The trouble with a lot of these things is if they feel forced, it's a complete wind up. Spontaneous 'lets go out for lunch' events feel much better (even if they happen every week on the same day) than some company dictat that 'On Fridays you must go and eat out'. For that matter food always seems contentious. There's always someone who doesn't like the cuisine, someone who doesn't want to pay, someone who's on a diet, or someone who makes a meal of splitting a bill.
Some pulled out all the stops on the baking, but equally outsourcing to Mr Kipling was also fine.
Worked very well for connectivity, and was very well received.
NinjaPower said:
DrDoofenshmirtz said:
sealtt said:
Have a number of TVs with live news feeds from your industry and maybe some tuned to a financial news channel. The news flow is good, keeps your guys up to date, in the loop and makes work more involving.
If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
Sounds awful.If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
"COME ON GUYS!! SELL SELL SELL!! HIT THOSE PHONES AND SMASH THOSE TARGETS! LETS GO!!"
Somebody kill me.
Now.
The ONLY thing I miss about my old job is that I was allowed to listen to music all day (through headphones).
A trivial thing but made the world of difference. I didn't do it all day every day but when you needed to crack on with something and escape mindless chatter around you it was brilliant.
In general I'd say it's mostly little things that all add up:
Free tea/coffee/milk
A few plants
As much natural light as possible
A trivial thing but made the world of difference. I didn't do it all day every day but when you needed to crack on with something and escape mindless chatter around you it was brilliant.
In general I'd say it's mostly little things that all add up:
Free tea/coffee/milk
A few plants
As much natural light as possible
sealtt said:
NinjaPower said:
DrDoofenshmirtz said:
sealtt said:
Have a number of TVs with live news feeds from your industry and maybe some tuned to a financial news channel. The news flow is good, keeps your guys up to date, in the loop and makes work more involving.
If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
Sounds awful.If you have sales volumes, have live sales volumes feeds by salesperson / country / product line / etc, very nice effect to ensure competitiveness within the office.
Keep things intense, get things sold, pay everyone a nice big bonus to celebrate at the end of the year.
"COME ON GUYS!! SELL SELL SELL!! HIT THOSE PHONES AND SMASH THOSE TARGETS! LETS GO!!"
Somebody kill me.
Now.
I would never have considered exchanging my sanity for free fast food on a Friday, but here we are.
I like hotdogs.
Depends on the type of office but IME the clean tidy and minimal look is best.
Nice new desks and chairs. Good PC as above.
Hot and cold drinks all the time is a big bonus.
Decent AC and warm but not mad hot in the winter.
I used to work in an office where Friday lunch was pizza and beer. Good idea IMHO and given a lot of people were field engineers it was shocking how many needed to be in on a Friday once they started the free beer....
Nice new desks and chairs. Good PC as above.
Hot and cold drinks all the time is a big bonus.
Decent AC and warm but not mad hot in the winter.
I used to work in an office where Friday lunch was pizza and beer. Good idea IMHO and given a lot of people were field engineers it was shocking how many needed to be in on a Friday once they started the free beer....
Tuna said:
One place I worked had 'Cake Club' - One person each week would volunteer to make cake for the rest of the team, and at 4:30 on Friday, we'd down tools and have half an hour in the kitchen to eat cake. It got quite competitive; a bunch of guys taking baking very seriously and some really very nice food. To be a member of cake club you had to volunteer at least once every few weeks - the guy that ran it kept a spreadsheet and would remind you if you weren't contributing.
The trouble with a lot of these things is if they feel forced, it's a complete wind up. Spontaneous 'lets go out for lunch' events feel much better (even if they happen every week on the same day) than some company dictat that 'On Fridays you must go and eat out'. For that matter food always seems contentious. There's always someone who doesn't like the cuisine, someone who doesn't want to pay, someone who's on a diet, or someone who makes a meal of splitting a bill.
You just broke the first rule of Cake Club...........The trouble with a lot of these things is if they feel forced, it's a complete wind up. Spontaneous 'lets go out for lunch' events feel much better (even if they happen every week on the same day) than some company dictat that 'On Fridays you must go and eat out'. For that matter food always seems contentious. There's always someone who doesn't like the cuisine, someone who doesn't want to pay, someone who's on a diet, or someone who makes a meal of splitting a bill.
andy-xr said:
devnull said:
I improved my office environment by working from home.
It might sound like a sarcastic comment, but it's true!
The coffee is good, no disturbance, quiet when it needs to be, I can crank music when I need it, NO OFFICE POLITICS and there's a lady here who seems to like me.
I've done this since about 2003, my patience is wearing thin on it now though. It's great to not have a commute, to be able to fall into my study / spare bedroom and do calls in my kecks n'all, but I've got a bit of cabin fever going on, and need to find ways to get out of the house and interact with people during the day. It doesnt help we moved out to the country and it's half an hour into town, so I'm looking at office space on one of the local business parks to see if there's any cheap units there I can get a desk in. It might sound like a sarcastic comment, but it's true!
The coffee is good, no disturbance, quiet when it needs to be, I can crank music when I need it, NO OFFICE POLITICS and there's a lady here who seems to like me.
Thankfully I manage to get out and about most weeks as I am customer facing, so anytime I do go out, i'm greeted with generally friendly amicable faces, free coffee and biscuits.
And as mentioned in previous posts - boring and pointless conference calls can be utilised to do other house tasks also.
doogz said:
On a Thursday we have "communist lunch"
Started as a bit of a joke a few months ago when a "Vote Communist" billboard went up outside the building, but now there's half a dozen of us, that instead of going to the canteen, bringing sandwiches, walking to Greggs/Subway, etc. all go to a shop the night before and bring something in to share.
Some nice cheese and oatcakes, fresh anchovies, antipasti of various descriptions, and all sorts of other things.
This is called a Fuddle in Leicestershire where I used to work.Started as a bit of a joke a few months ago when a "Vote Communist" billboard went up outside the building, but now there's half a dozen of us, that instead of going to the canteen, bringing sandwiches, walking to Greggs/Subway, etc. all go to a shop the night before and bring something in to share.
Some nice cheese and oatcakes, fresh anchovies, antipasti of various descriptions, and all sorts of other things.
Oddly though I now work in Nottingham and nobody in the office had heard of it when I mentioned doing one.
I like the idea of calling it a Communist Lunch though
944fan said:
I think you should get the basics right. Temperature / Noise / Equipment
Equipment is the easiest. Make sure everyone's computer equipment is relatively up to date. Get a desk assessment done by someone who knows what they are doing and the be the correct desks and chairs etc
Get the air con sorted and put diffuses on the outlets. Ours always gets turned off by the people in direct firing line of the arctic blast.
Noise is tricky, some people hate silence, some need it. Background music can be f
king annoying. In our office we let people put headphones in if they want. I use them all the time.
Once that is done you can worry about the fun items
Totally agree about the noise. Invest in some noise cancelling headphones such as the Bose ones. Invaluable in a noisy office.Equipment is the easiest. Make sure everyone's computer equipment is relatively up to date. Get a desk assessment done by someone who knows what they are doing and the be the correct desks and chairs etc
Get the air con sorted and put diffuses on the outlets. Ours always gets turned off by the people in direct firing line of the arctic blast.
Noise is tricky, some people hate silence, some need it. Background music can be f
king annoying. In our office we let people put headphones in if they want. I use them all the time.Once that is done you can worry about the fun items
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