Columnists

Take good care of our working spaces

office

Leave your office space full of operational equipment and operational people. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Where are you reading this? There’s a fair chance you’re at work, where you spend more than 40 hours a week, in one chair. Yet how much attention do you pay to the comfort, aesthetics or utility of that home-from-home chair?

Do you still have a sticky patch on your desk from some past shopping label or coffee spill? Does your chair have a fabric rip or a slight tilt?

So many of our offices just drift into neglect, slowly emerging as zones that make us actually ill. Yet, stop for a moment and do some fixing and life can become so very much better. For research has shown that being in a beautiful environment makes people happier. And happier people perform better and do a better job.

That makes it worth every extra pot plant, work of art, deep cleaning and stylish table.

Yet, instead, we very often let our business zones deteriorate, never taking that step back and seeing that even half a day of effort and a few thousand shillings could make our own environment lovelier permanently.

And the results can be horrible. To wit, last week, just hours after discovering that one of my staff had been working from a broken chair that was causing an inevitable slight twist to his spine, he morning-messaged to say he had severe back ache and was heading to a specialist. He didn’t know I’d spotted the bad chair. But the back ache was inevitable.

But there was more. I had been away a little. I came back to find the desks all higgledy-piggledy. Open working areas had got shifted and mangled together. Solid chairs had been removed and set up in corners to hold handbags. Everything was grubby, with that greyness of being used 1,000 times without being washed, and thin layers of redness hovered everywhere, over light switches, on the top of skirting boards, borne of Nairobi earth dust.

The light covers had dead flies in them, the air was one of neglect and even some squalor.

So we went at it, time to refresh. It didn’t take long and the results were amazing. Out went the broken chairs, straight to the bin, in came eight new ones, cleaned tables, cleaned and rethought desk layouts. The rooms simply felt different afterwards, and the whole work took no more than a few hours.

Yet, as a consultant, I often work in other people’s offices too, enough to know just how prevalent it is for once lovely offices to have turned messy and broken. I have trained in supposed boardrooms that have become home to broken notice boards and remnants of chairs, pieces of dead equipment often piled up so long no one can see it any more - because they have forgotten what the room looked like without three broken desks upside down next to the board table.

But pride, morale, professionalism, all of them get shaded by mess. I remember sitting long ago with a consultant who specialised in rescuing ailing businesses, a turnaround expert.

I had asked him at what point he knew whether a business was rescuable or not. From the moment he arrived in reception, he said. If the receptionist was disinterested, painting her nails, on the phone with her boyfriend, the chairs were broken, the area dirty, then management didn’t care, and would be doing no better in the quality of its bookkeeping, production, sales or general delivery.

He was right, of course. Self-love, care, confidence, health and energy – all of these things manifest themselves comprehensively. They don’t just show in a man’s suit. They show everywhere and across the board.

Only tired and distracted MDs leave their boardroom piled high with broken equipment. So let’s regard ourselves, respect our businesses and honour our clients. If it's not mendable, get it collected for recycling. It’s a few phone calls, a task for an assistant.

Mend it, or bin it, and leave your office space full of operational equipment and operational people, sitting in chairs that are clean even underneath, rather than bearing the grime of years on their pedestals.

For care prevents twisted spines and lifts the hearts of everyone.