What’s your workplace like? Are you at a desk for the bulk of your working day? How important is the design of your work space?

Over the years I’ve had numerous different arrangements of my work space, depending on my job at the time.

In all honesty I don’t think I’ve ever really had a work space that I really liked, but there was never normally a huge amount of choice.

I remember in one job being able to choose the chair I wanted, and in another job I was given a new desk. In one job I had my own office, but in the bulk of my jobs over the years I was at a desk ‘station’ in an open plan office.

When I started working freelance from home, I had a section of the children’s playroom cornered off for my desk and work related things. It wasn’t ideal but it was a work area at least. Since then it’s not been especially practical to have an office at home as I need to be able to move around more, so my ‘work space’ these days is wherever I happen to be stood or sat with my laptop.

Oh you work from home they say! What an easy life they say!

Anyone who works from home will know that’s not the case and if you have children then all working from home means is that you are trying to juggle multiple roles.

Its not easy.

Trying to get work done and look after children can be a major juggle. If you aren’t careful you can end up feeling like you aren’t doing anything very well.

Once all our children are in full time school, a home office will be possible, as I will be able to be in one location for a reasonable amount of time, with less backwards and forwards. I’m going to enjoy taking my time and planning myself a nice work space, as I do think that can have an impact on how you feel about work in general.

Southern Office Furniture have recently done a survey where they have found that workplace design positively correlates with work satisfaction and engagement. Take a look at their infographic below.

There has been lots of research into work satisfaction that suggests engaged employees are less likely to leave their current place of work, they’re more productive and take less time off work due to sickness. Do you agree?

This survey asked 350 employees based in the UK “How important do you think workplace design is in terms of work satisfaction and engagement?”

It’s interesting that there is not a huge difference between men and women with regards to the way they feel about their workplace design. Over 70% of the younger group of people who were asked believed that workplace design had an impact on them, and over 50% of the older group who were asked.

My view is that having somewhere nice to sit and work has a huge impact, without a doubt it can change the way you feel about working. However, I would say also that, given the fact that I’ve never had ideal working environments, it hasn’t stopped me from being productive and working hard.

I do look forward to the day I can fully design myself a nice working space though – how about you?