Your office is going to be frequented by your employees for upward of eight hours every day Monday to Friday. The kitchen for your office is more than just a place to store a lunch bag or grab a snack. It’s often the place in the office where employees mingle, take a break, and recharge in between their meetings or in between their work day.
Upgrading your office kitchen can make a big impact on team morale, productivity, and the satisfaction overall of your workplace. So, we have 5 improvements that you could make that elevate your office kitchen in a big way.
- Upgrade your coffee machines. Offering quality refreshments is so important if you want to keep your employees comfortable. If they’re taking 8 hours of their day to come and work for your business and keep the cogs turning and turn you a profit, then investing in bean to cup coffee machines is not a bad idea, is it? These machines allow employees to grind fresh coffee beans on demand, and that results in a better cup of coffee to keep them productive and awake for the rest of their work day. This is such a simple upgrade but it transforms the kitchen into much more of an inviting space and encourages a positive atmosphere.
- Create a lounge area. A functional kitchen space is also important, but it’s not just about the appliances or the ability to warm up food or make a coffee. Adding a small lounge area with comfortable seating can really give employees space to feel that they can unwind. Having a lounge space with no seating is like those cone shaped water cups that people give their employees. They’re useless!
- Upgrade the refrigerator. As your business grows, your need for employees will also grow. You want to keep your office kitchen equipped, so you should have one for the shared refreshments such as milk for coffee and tea, different cold drinks that people can help themselves to, and you have another refrigerator with departments labelled on each shelf so that people could organise their lunch. You can also upgrade to energy efficient refrigerators so that your business is more sustainable.
- Offer free snacks. Having a water machine and a coffee machine is not the only place to offer free refreshments. Incorporating good snack options into the office kitchen is a meaningful improvement that benefits your employees health and their productivity. Baskets of nutritious snacks such as fresh fruit, granola bars, and mixed nuts are great. Offering these alternatives to the traditional chips and candy bars can provide a much needed energy boost. Don’t forget, you can still offer sandwich carts to come round every day, though these may not necessarily be free.
- Upgrade your office kitchen lighting. A well lit kitchen has a positive impact on the overall atmosphere of the space. Even with all of the new upgrades, dreary lighting can have a drab appearance on your kitchen. There should be task and overhead lighting and it should be somewhere people want to flock to, not somewhere they want to run from.
These are just a few improvements that you could use to update your office kitchen and make it more enjoyable, but you should be thinking about what your employees want. That’s how you keep people interested in their work.
