It’s that time of year again where staff are focused on planning the office Christmas party and ordering last minute online gifts in their lunch breaks.
With the excitement and planning involved for the festive season ahead, it can be difficult to keep office productivity upbeat during December. So why not take the opportunity to give staff a break from the norm, while getting some useful tasks ticked off the to-do list.
One job which will should help improve efficiency after the Christmas break is to declutter the office and have a good pre-Christmas clean and tidy up.
Our managing director, Tim Aspey, shares some top tips to make the office sort-out easier.
Simply telling staff to ‘tidy up’ can have little effect. Assign some time that you feel is typically less productive, maybe the last hour of each day of your last week before Christmas, or a full afternoon on a Friday, and make it clear that it’s officially tidying time.
Taking a break from day-to-day work to focus on decluttering the office can be a productive process.
There tends to be staff members who build up clutter and knick-knacks on their desks. Not only can a build-up of paperwork cause a potential fire hazard, it can reduce efficiency as staff may have to wade through clutter to find what they are working on.
Identify the worst culprits and ask them to oversee the office decluttering task for their team or area of the office, to ensure they focus on the job in hand.
You could even use the office tidy-up as a catalyst to go paperless in the New Year.
Invest in extra bin bags, recycling bins and some disinfectant wipes to ensure desks are clean as well as tidy.
You could also use the office decluttering event to support a charity. Ask a local charity shop for some collection bags and get staff to bring in their unwanted items from home to donate.
It can be a risky business to allow some types of ‘clutter’ to remain in the workplace. This could include archive files, backups of client data or vital business information. Consider whether, in the event of a fire or a break in, there are items that you could not afford to lose. If the answer is ‘yes’, consider putting those items into secure business storage.
Business storage solutions can also be handy for keeping unused office furniture or equipment that you do not want to sell, such as desks, chairs or banner stands for trade events.
Our crews carry out plenty of office moves and business relocations. Often businesses can find the initial tidy-up and sort-out a very labour intensive process. By scheduling regular office decluttering sessions you can keep on top of the accumulation of unnecessary items and ensure an environment that is pleasant to work in, as well as neat and tidy.
If you are interested in storing any of your office clutter, give our team a call on 0800 389 1222 for a quote.
Image credit: Ruth Hartnup
