The future of what an office looks like

For over 10 years, many office buildings went for the corporate branded look, white desks and generic pictures were the go-to design for many businesses. As we come out of the covid period, many companies are reinventing the office space to be a work hub rather then a work place. Like in a home, in the office you need to feel relaxed and comfortable to do your best work and many businesses are catching on to this. Here’s what to expect for the future of the office space!

Plants

Trendy workplaces and typically corporate businesses are opting for more plants. This is due to a rise in research regarding the health and psychological benefits of having plants around, this has lead to many workplaces introducing more plants into the work place. It all started due to connections being made with fresh oxygen generated by plants and their bonus to focusing at work. Even artificial plants help to bring in a natural touch that makes office spaces really feel lively and active. Tall spaces have seen plant trellis’s used to build astounding over-head canopies of live or artificial ivy. It’s easy to understand why something as robust and cheap like plant life is trending so much in a post covid work place.

Colours

In the same way that plants bring life to a space, colour does too! It’s been trending in workplaces and businesses alike to be incorporating welcoming, inviting colours into the workplace due to the added psychological benefits. The brain associates colour with certain feelings and actions, so by playing to this as an advantage, business have brightened up their work spaces using surprising colours, like mustard yellow, muted tones of blues pinks and greens. This allows a workplace to feel expressive without being distracting or overwhelming. The two most popular colours for businesses were blue-grey and white! This was due to their association with calmness and clarity respectively.

Desks

Trends have moved away from the standard white back to light wood colours, companies as a whole are trying to move away from the pristine plastic look of the early 2000’s and into an almost 70’s retrofit, taking modern approaches to favoured designs, it’s why reclaimed barn wood is in every gastro pub and a lot of start up offices, it’s robust, long lasting and ecological. Smaller desks have also seen a rise, as a result of covid, it prompted people to reconsider what is essential to their office space, leading to cleaner and more minimal approach to the office desk.

Lights

Trends towards LED lights have grown in recent years, many businesses are finding ways to use colour and lighting together to build dynamic office spaces that really do feel inviting and comfortable. This is also an energy related process due to LED’s being a somewhat cleaner alternative to typical lighting. We’ve also seen a resurgence in marquees and letterboard style lighting coming in to office spaces, which is giving businesses a unique feel and even an atmosphere, making each business stand out through their own use of lighting and signage.

Trend towards 1920s style large lights

Noise cancellation

As many offices look to tackling issues in the work place of all varieties. A fun one to observe has been how trends around noice cancellation in the office have gone. Some offices are creating quite zones, areas where employees and clients alike can confer or take business calls, free from disturbing distractions around the office. Some businesses even use booths to take calls, they’re wooden constructs with seating inside and sound proofing which make taking last minute calls a breeze.

Another trend that’s growing and tackling noise in the modern office is furnishings. Many know the annoyance of squeaky chairs and loud mechanical keyboards, many are also finding solutions to these problems, like updating to cushioned keyboards, switching to soft fabric furnishings and creating designated quiet zones has allowed businesses to build strategic solutions to this issue.

Clocks

This is one that’s going to depend on where you work, but there’s even been trends in how we furnish offices in regards to clocks, most work places are finding ways to better tie their environments design to themes of productivity and openness. One way businesses have been doing this is through clocks being more central to the design, There’s a few offices that turn their clocks into full wall art pieces, or even just having a wall clock that matches the current décor to show everything’s being paid attention to. People are moving away from modernised digital clocks and back into things like clockwork or analogue clocks.

Buildings

Many new businesses are about bringing life to old or forgotten locations, it’s why many new businesses favour the rustic, exposed brick and wrought iron look when they open up in a city. It’s becoming more popular and favourable to businesses to just buy a bit of a fixer upper and work from there, it’s what’s leading to such unique feeling and looking buildings being the workplace of those who favour that style. People appreciate the history of an area and wish to be a part of that legacy do so by upholding the one of the building, it’s why so many businesses are leaving the brick exposed and polishing the original wood floors instead, people like to embrace the tradition that a building has and do happily.

As companies look at create welcoming spaces that will help the team to feel at home and productive, many companies are starting to look at what the offices are like. Our teams work with Hotels, IT companies, Freight forwarders, Warehouses, Sales companies. We do see such a wide range of office space and it is very interesting how many companies are moving away from the corporate standard look to reinventing the work place. 

HtE Recruitment News & Insights

This news and insights page has been written by Josh our Recruitment & Marketing Coordinator. HtE Recruitment take no responsibility for this post.