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The latest office interior design trends

The focus on employee wellbeing has undergone a significant shift in recent years. It’s a shift that’s increased the lens of that focus toward ways in which a business may place employee wellbeing as priority. This simply because data has revealed that a workforce catered to and made comfortable, is one that is increasingly collaborative and happy – and thus, productive.

With environment playing such a major part in wellbeing, one aspect of a business’s human element is to promote comfort and harmony through office design. 

But how would you as a businessperson wanting to achieve said harmony, go about doing so via the aesthetic of your office interior? 

Top-level, there are some very easily implemented interior tweaks, that, based on office design trends, promote a shift to that culture of happiness so heavily influenced by the environment in which one works.

What are the latest office interior design trends?

Office interior trends

Natural light

Many employers are beginning to realise the role natural sunlight plays in workplace productivity. Without enough natural light, employees can often feel depressed and upset by their dim working environment. This can hinder productivity, as staff can feel less motivated to work in an unpleasant environment. 

Natural light can also help to make employees feel more awake, and therefore boost energy levels and enhance their productivity. By incorporating a lot of sunlight into an office’s design, employers can therefore help to promote the aesthetics of their office, and subsequently their employees’ energy and wellbeing. 

Open spaces

Working in closed-off areas can make employees feel claustrophobic and stressed, affecting their mood at work and potentially hindering productivity. Many offices have begun to adopt a more open-plan office design, giving their employees space to think and socialise with other members of staff.  

Creating open spaces in an office can help employees to feel more relaxed, whilst designated open areas for breaks can encourage them to socialise and further strengthen bonds as a team. 

Overall, an open plan can therefore help to increase productivity throughout an office, boosting employee morale whilst also encouraging team bonding. 

Minimalism in office design

Another major trend that many offices have implemented is a minimalist interior design. Similar to an open plan, having a minimalist design can help to give an office more space, making employees feel less claustrophobic and more relaxed in their working environment. 

Having a minimalist design can also increase efficiency throughout a workspace, eliminating unnecessary items that clutter up space – space that can be further utilised for workstations and meeting rooms. 

What about office interior design trends in the ‘new normal’?

As the shift to the modern workspace (one that promotes comfort, collaboration and employee accord at all times) continues to grow in concept, a new facet of consideration has now sprung into existence – what about the question of the pandemic, and how it’s fundamentally affected our working lives?

As the world embraces social distancing, it’s become the ‘new normal’ for a business to have entire factions of its workforce working remotely. 

The change was sudden, and unexpected, but most industries now see that it can be done, purely because of the fact that our hyperconnected society has, in effect, made this world of ours very much smaller.

It may stand to reason, then, that we would have no need for knowledge of the latest office design trends. But we do, because even though we now have the option to work from home, the concept of the office will certainly not cease to exist any time soon – collaboration is needed, face-to-face interaction, too, and the option to separate home from graft.

It’s the office design trends then, that may change. And this change will come not as an aesthetic one, but as one that will move to promote employee safety and health, in the time of COVID-19.

The new office interior design trends

Apart from the obvious safety infrastructure, like partitioned workspaces, the availability of sanitisation options through the office, and perhaps even a move toward bringing nature into the building – indoor plants can promote cleaner, healthier air circulation – the new trend will be very much so embedded in ambient tech.

What is ambient technology? It’s the infrastructure that allows a business’s ecosystem to operate in ‘touchless’ sterility. 

This means that points of contact, like interleading doors, pay-points at canteens and any other bio-metric requirements will now be entirely touch-free, even voice-activated – it’s artificial intelligence that’s promotes automation and makes the need for surface touch effectively redundant. 

“Artificial intelligence and ambient technology offer solutions for making workspaces healthier and people more productive.” – Kay Sargent, Senior Principal – Director of Workplace, HOK

It’s measures like these that a business now must consider when looking to upgrade or redesign its office interiors.   

At Giant Leap, our award-winning team can advise on how to better prepare yourself for modern office design revolution, in the time of the pandemic, and beyond.

Find out more about our suite of office interior design capabilities, ideas and options.

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