Does office flooring really make that much of a difference? What does it matter if your carpet is brown and beige or green and blue? Well, it matters a lot. The flooring is the one of the first features your clients see when stepping into your business. It also sets the tone for employees who need to feel refreshed and invigorated there every day.
Maybe the day of brown and beige has passed. As top commercial flooring contractors, we’ve seen businesses with the perfect office…from 1986. Is it time to infuse some more modern touches? Yes!
The Disadvantage of “Classic” Looking Office Flooring
Contemporary choices feel fresher; they communicate energy. At the same time, you don’t want to go overboard. You don’t want to look like an office from “Star Trek” – nobody has that many potted plants. Yet you do want to look like an office that will last the next 10 or 20 years. It’s all about balance.
The mistake of going with traditional and conventional flooring is that somewhere, in the back of clients’ and employees’ minds, they’re perceiving the office itself as something that belongs to the past. This can subtly influence how they perceive your brand in this fast-paced world.
An office with modern touches – both visually and practically – feels like it’s built for 20 years in the future. In the back of all their minds, people are thinking, “This business is still going to be around then. It will still be relevant.”
Be Bright
Depending on your industry, the days of the very serious office decked in neutral colors is long past. Things aren’t so button-up these days. An office that leans on neutral colors itself seems like it can’t make a choice. It feels stuck in the middle. People like decisions, and employees like feeling as if they’re following someone with vision.
Start by thinking beyond beige! Color influences psychology. Blues are calming and can help us order our thoughts. Greens are soothings. Yellows are energetic. The occasional red helps us stay alert.
How do you want to combine those into a look that makes your office seem streamlined yet unique?
Empower Employees
Do you want to use carpet tiles to adjust the look of a floor season by season? Or you could change them out progressively as goals are reached. The office can work to turn the floor a new color, a visual representation of all they’ve accomplished.
Or the employee of the month can be in charge of the floor pattern. These sound like ideas that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, yet the incoming workforce values accomplishments, signifiers.
Why is this? Think of it this way. When you can enter a job, stay there for 40 years, and retire early, you’re not worried as much about being recognized or celebrating accomplishments. That stability championed working every day because the length of time you were there meant you could change that business, you could have an influence on it that would last beyond your career.
Today, the workforce that’s entering can’t rely on that kind of stability. They’d like it, but that’s not the way the economy works anymore. They know the impacts they have are likely to be short-term. Where employees were once valued across the span of decades, employees today are valued across the span of months or years. When they can change something about the office around them, it makes them feel like they’re encouraged and valued.
Putting the office partly in the hands of the employees does a great deal for confidence in a whirlwind economy where new employees often don’t feel like they can make much impact.
Multiple Material Office Flooring
Be willing to use a variety of materials when creating the look of an office. This does a few different things.
- It can compartmentalize different sections. High-end lobbies are often marble, and acid-etched concrete flooring can emulate this look beautifully (and more durably).Yet this wouldn’t be appropriate for the employee workspace. Carpet is better here, or else all your employees will be distracted by the click-clack of each others’ heels and oxfords all day (and by their aching feet and backs at night!).
- By shifting floor material, you also give each space a mentality that can help define how you expect people to act in those spaces. Concrete patterned to look like marble or stone is something you stand on, which encourages people to pass through quickly – another reason it’s ideal for a lobby.A room with a wooden floor is comfortable. It helps people relax. This is good for a cafeteria or interview room.A carpet encourages focus because it absorbs sound. As mentioned above, this is why it’s ideal for office work spaces.
- Switching up materials and using them to define spaces makes the office feel bigger than it is. This can be incredibly comforting to your employees. Even though they’re only in a single space throughout the day, they can feel like each component of this space is different. This keeps them more stimulated.
If they’re working hard and going a little stir-crazy, going to the coffee machine in a room that looks and feels different feels like more of an escape than going to the coffee machine in a room that’s exactly the same. It’s a trick of the mind, but one that can encourage better energy and mental health in the office.
Consider other elements. Green flooring should be at the top of your list, as should flooring that can help you insulate and save money on air conditioning or replacement (a good way to make employees happy is to convert savings in one area into bonuses in another).
Talk to your young employees, too. Ask them what they’d like to see in the office, or what they’ve seen in other offices that they found appealing. Finally, ask top commercial flooring contractors what office flooring is trending and what will be considered modern for years to come – we’ve seen more floor designs than anybody around! Read more on our office flooring installation services.