You may have considered every factor that may affect your employee’s productivity, and you may have done your best to address them. However, did you also include your office’s lighting situation? Most people tend to overlook this critical factor which should not be the case. Yes, lighting is essential so you won’t ruin your eyes as you work, but did you know that it does more than serve as eye protection?
Studies have shown a significant increase in productivity when your workplace has a good lighting plan. So, what’s the common lighting issues that hinder a productive day at work? The usual answers you’ll hear are dim lights and harsh lights.
Drawbacks Of Dim Lights And Harsh Lights
Too much and too little light both yield an unproductive workplace. Why? Simple, dim lights cause your eyes to work harder to see, so as a result, you’ll experience headaches and eye strains. Aside from that, having a dim environment will cause sleepiness and lack of focus, depleting an employee’s motivation.
Alternatively, harsh lights also do an excellent job at draining an employee’s desire to work. They are much worse compared to dim lights. Strong lights can also cause eye stains, triggers headaches and migraines, and makes it difficult for the eyes to focus.
No doubt, working under a lighting condition like this will not produce any positive outcome. So, how can you address these kinds of situations? Two words, LED lighting!
Tips In Lighting Your Office
When making your lighting plan, it’s not just about getting the brightest lights or the cheapest lights that you can find. There are several facets that you need to consider to make your lighting effective and beneficial. This can be a daunting task, especially if you have zero ideas on this subject. Nevertheless, you don’t need to fret because here are some tips that you can follow to help with your decisions.
LEDs Not Fluorescents
As mentioned earlier, one way to revitalize your workplace to keep your employees healthy, inspired, creative and motivated is by improving your lighting plan by using LED lights. These lights are gaining favor from different sectors because of their energy efficiency. Compared to fluorescent lights, they do not need much power to run and create immense brightness.
Initially, you’ll notice that LEDs are more expensive than fluorescent lights. Still, you’ll see the return on your investment in the long run since you won’t have to replace your lights regularly and the power consumption is lower.
In addition, LED lights are suitable for your employee’s health and well-being. While there’s no concrete proof that fluorescent lights can cause migraines, they can, however, trigger its symptoms in people who get them frequently. Also, fluorescent lights can hinder the body’s melatonin production, resulting in interference with the sleeping pattern. With LED lighting, this does not happen because you can slowly dim the lights to match the time of the day to help the body adjust and keep its normal cycle.
Use More Natural Light
Having natural light in your office will evidently reduce eye strain, blurred vision, and headaches. Also, it helps to regulate hormones and stabilize the circadian rhythm. So, one key to unlocking a productive and healthy work environment has large windows around your office. But if that’s not possible, you can use an LED light panel or tube lights that produce a natural white light instead. This LED color can replicate the benefits of being exposed to sunlight, so you can use them as your second option if having windows is not possible.
Check The Colour Temperature
Depending on the color temperature of your lights, there may be some significant alterations to the mood of your employees. If you have warm white light, it can help them relax and unwind. On the other hand, cool white lights and natural white lights will keep them more alert and concentrated.
To get the best results, you can use warm white lights in the breakroom or the lounge room so your employees can pause and refresh before going back to work. For conference rooms and meeting places, you can use a cool white light so everyone will be alert when an important topic is being discussed. When it comes to natural white lights, they will be perfect in the main office area so your employees can work comfortably under a clamer bright light.
Other than that, you can use the color temperature to match the time of the day. For the morning, use cool white lights; in the afternoon, use natural white lights, and for the evening, use warm white light.
