Artwork Improves Staff Productivity – Till the last decade, the artwork was viewed as a luxurious habit of rich people. But all businesses ranging from large to small are able to realize that artwork has a glaring effect on the people working in the company or clients who visit the office regularly. Yes, typically, it’s a new way of looking at productivity.
Though art covers a vast range of creations, here, artwork means paintings, drawings, and photographs created or captured by famous or ‘not-so-famous’ people. All you need to do is to find some places in the office where they can be hung (even in small offices) and where the lights are good.
Before going into detail about why you should hang artwork all over the walls in your office, we will give you an account of why you may think that artwork is a complete waste of time. First, we will talk about the myths and then bust them.
We can understand that if you’re just starting, you would try your best to reduce cost, even if it’s just a penny, but what can be more important than the mindset of those people who produce what you sell?
Let’s talk about why you probably would resist the idea of hanging artwork all over the walls in your office.
Artwork Resistance – Myths
- Cost:
As a small business owner, you may not like the idea of buying something which may not directly affect production. But the thing is, if you want to be a sustainable business, you need people who are productive, cheerful, and always motivated to do work. And for that, you need to pay a small price. No, the artwork is not costly. If you’re busy, check out the e-store you trust. You will find a lot of artwork at a minimal price. Yes, they may not be created or captured by famous people, but they’re good. To begin, simply buy 2-4 artworks and see how they affect your employees every day.
- Belief:
You believe strongly that artwork cannot affect employees’ motivation and productivity. You may think so. But here’s an example. Suppose you have to live in a room for a day with nothing but concrete walls, no paintings, decorations, or creative masterpieces. You need to spend the whole day there without even coming out of the room. How would you feel? Let’s change the scene. Now imagine, on the walls of that room, beautiful paintings are hung. You can roam around and watch and enjoy. How would you feel? Did you say – “Much better!” That’s the difference between having artwork in your office and not having artwork. Your employees and even you need to spend the entire day within the office premises (mostly, not always, maybe). And during those dull hours, only artwork can rejuvenate, make you wonder about the beauty of life, and your efficiency will drastically improve.
- Dislikes for artworks:
There are people who don’t like babies, flowers, and artwork. No, we don’t need to judge them. They don’t like these things because they are never curious to know why they don’t like or maybe they attach one or more emotional events of their lives to one or more. Even if you say that you don’t like an artwork when you do a meeting, talk to your client, collaborate with your peers, and negotiate with the tools and techniques; actually, you’re creating art. No matter what you do, your creative potential gets expressed and affects the world around you. So why do you think that artwork will not work? Try them and see whether there is any boost in the mood or motivation in you or your employees is seen or not. Without trying, you wouldn’t know the magic of artwork, so give it a try.
- Logic:
If you believe that logic is the basecamp of excellent business acumen, recent research proves that it’s not. You must simultaneously use both your right and left brains to create something extraordinary, even in your business. You need to use your left brain for logical reasoning, and you need to use your right brain for creativity and to give birth to new ideas. To be a great businessman/woman, you must use the right brain as much as your left. And when you look at the artwork in the breaks or while you walk to your cabin or come out of it, it subconsciously affects your intelligence.
Don’t trust me. Just do an experiment. Instead of buying artwork for your office, buy artwork for your bedroom and hang it on the wall. Give it seven days. You will feel exactly like the painting on the wall of your room. And on the basis of that, decide whether you need to hang the artwork on your office walls or not.
Busting myths – Why will artwork help you to be at your creative best?
Your creative potential is unlimited. So are your employees! Most people demean their own creative potential by believing people who don’t have a sense or idea of what art is. Thus, you should do all you can to let go of all the resistance you have for artwork and try them out to impact the organization’s overall productivity significantly.
In this section, we will bust the myths that may stop you from using artwork to improve productivity.
- Give birth to new ideas:
Ideas are everything. Yes, you need to execute them to get some value out of them. But without birthing them into being, you can’t implement them. And artworks help you get new ideas. They broaden your horizon of thinking and take you to a place where you are alone with your thoughts, and you can create magic. If you’ve never seen this, try a beautiful piece of artwork in your cabin (if you have one) or in your cubicle. Hang it in a way that you can directly look at it all the time. And then see what happens? This artwork will affect your subconscious mind and how you process information. Within a few days, you will feel good and come up with stunning ideas to improve anything you would like.
- Learning a new thing:
Learning a new thing or skill is never easy. But artworks help improve your mindset to do just that. If you’re struggling with something for a long time, hang artworks that convey possibility. You can also use photographs (also artworks) of a new morning or anything that expands your limitations. Then use good light. You would see that magically your grasping power will increase. You will begin to feel good about learning the thing or skill you used to condemn. It may seem like magic, but by this simple example, we can understand the power art has on our lives.
- One thing focus:
The greatest enemy of productivity is not your mind but distractions trying to catch your attention – your mobile, co-worker’s request, emails, notifications of social networking sites, and other things when you’re trying to concentrate. The best way to clear all these things robbing your focus is to hang beautiful artwork on the wall in front of you. On your desk, keep only what you need. If you need a laptop, just keep the laptop. Work for 25 minutes and take a break for 5 minutes. During those 5 minutes, relax and look at the artwork. Look at all the curves, colors, textures, and surfaces, then return to work. You will be able to focus on your one thing much better and create great results. If you have a small business, ask your employees to do the same, boosting the organization’s overall productivity.
- Increase bonding:
Imagine two scenes – in one, people are destroying other people, buildings, and infrastructures, and in another, people are united to create something exceptional. If you would like to increase the bonding of your employees, you need to use great artwork signifying the same. Hang a beautiful picture of people coming together and giggling in a group. Artwork is actually a symbol. A symbol affects much faster than words. So, according to your mission statement or as per your company’s vision, choose artwork. Talk to artists and create artwork in a similar fashion if you can afford it. Otherwise, you can visit art stores and purchase artworks that convey the same feeling, emotions, and life.
- Build culture:
Where do you like to work? Researchers say the best place to work is a minimalist workspace where you don’t only get physical space; but also visual space. To work well, it’s important to soothe your eyes and free your mind. Thus, no matter how small or big your office is, remove the furniture that is not required and hang beautiful artwork on the walls. If your office consists of beautiful artwork and conveys the same mission you and your organization want to convey to your employees, it will eventually build culture. If you don’t know how to do it, take the help of an interior designer and design the artwork you want to impact the employees. Most employers only pay heed to things that directly boost the productivity of their employees but ignore the subtle aspects. These subtle factors mostly affect the productivity of employees.
- Client perspective:
How would you feel visiting an office and seeing beautiful paintings and artworks on the walls? All you would be able to say – Wow! And you will immediately feel good in that office. So, don’t you want to offer the same experience to your clients? If you pick good artwork to adorn your office, you can create a similar experience for your clients. More clients will visit your office. More will be your business profits; better will be your profits; better would be the possibility of your future! And when more clients visit you, they will impact the psyche of your employees, and they will also work better and produce better output.
Fascinating research on the office environment
In the final analysis, let’s look at research on how the environment affects the overall productivity of the staff.
The research proves that the same people, if they work in a better environment, will produce much better than a less-than-perfect environment. Now the question is how would you create an environment which would be conducive to employee productivity? As we mentioned earlier that distraction is not a good thing to look to if you want to improve productivity. But if it’s a distraction created by artwork,, it will actually improve the mental state of your staff.
Here’s the research:
Knight and team evaluated four types of office environments and how they affect staff productivity.
- Lean: In this office space, they only kept the necessary things to do the work
- Enriched: In this space, the artworks and plants were already arranged beforehand
- Empowered: In this space, staff can alter the artworks and plants according to their own desires and comfort
- Disempowered: In this space, after the staff arranged the artworks and plants, the experimenter rearranged the artworks and plants as per the enriched office space.
It was found that people working in enriched space are 15% faster in producing output than those working in lean office space. And people who worked in the empowered office space produced things 30% faster than the lean office space. People who work in disempowered office space created the same results as in lean office space. And people who work in enriched and empowered office spaces don’t even complain about any health issues they did in the lean and disempowered office space.
From this fascinating study, you can understand what artwork can do to the environment of the office and how it can drastically change the productivity of the staff. Considering that putting up artwork won’t take very long, especially with the help of a Professional Picture Hanging, it may be a good time to think about doing so. If you buy artwork for your office, it would not be a waste of money; rather, it would be an investment to improve the productivity of your staff as T&D? Does this ring a bell?
