Laboratory design to improve your employee experience

Your workplace and laboratory are more than just a physical space. These are social environments that draw people together, create a culture, build relationships and become space where workers want to spend time. Ultimately your team spend a lot of time there, making it a huge factor in employee experience. How their laboratory looks and feels plays a key part in the overall performance of the organisation.

Workspace trends have shifted post pandemic. The environment you set your staff up in now needs to go way beyond just functionality. There is an increased pressure and expectation to create the ultimate laboratory workspace that promotes collaboration, boosts productivity, and encourages socialisation, as well as being environmentally conscious.

We’ve set out a few ways to improve the employee experience in your organisation through laboratory design.

Workplace branding

Incorporating your branding into your workplace creates a sense of unity and belonging for your team. Small touches of company values and beliefs act as reminders as to why your team enjoy working at your organisation.

Branding and company culture are interlinked and each one affects the other. Your company culture can drive your brand growth and likewise your brand can reinforce your culture. Your brand wont develop if your team aren’t invested in its culture.

Branding can be delivered in various ways. Whether it’s colour schemes, graphics, artwork or subtle nods to your brand, these are great ways to reinforce your brand. While laboratories often face restrictions in terms of decor due to sanitary, health and safety there are many cost-effective ways you can design the space in line with your brand. Allowing you to ultimately embed how you want employees and guests to connect to your brand when in the workplace.

Investing in your branding means investing in your culture. Inspiring and boosting the morale of your team reminds them of why your organisation is a great place to work.

Designated space to work collaboratively

Providing space to share ideas and work in collaboration allows your team to share ideas and advance scientific work outside of the laboratory. More laboratories are now considering automative devices. This increased demand for collaborative space outside the laboratory to discuss findings and processing of data is increasingly sought after.

Open plan spaces and large meeting rooms are a great way to create space for your team to work together. Work cafes are also a great way of providing multifunctional, space-efficient areas for both work and socialising. These often include tables to take calls or have meetings as well a tea points and breakfast bars to break out.

Physically connecting departments who may not often work together is another great way to create a sense of social connectivity. You may want to consider your design to ensure your layout allows you to see between the laboratory and an open plan space, for example by using glass separations. This builds a sense of familiarity and team building as well as allowing workers to stay focused.

More labs are now prioritising flexibility in their designs. For example, opting for flexible bench designs, plug and play pods, rolling cabinets etc to provide a space that suits a range of tasks, individuals and teams.

Social space in laboratories

Working in a lab at times can be stressful and high pressure. Therefore ensuring the environment is welcoming, calming and healthy can help to balance out these high intensity roles.

A hub in the office provides a space for your team to step away from the lab or their desks and socialise. This also helps to bring people together who wouldn’t usually work together. Whether it’s having multiple tea points around the office or one large café style space, these areas are really important to break out during the day to boost moods and enhance your team culture and attitude.

Inspiring colour schemes

The use of colours, textures and materials has a big impact on setting the mood of your workplace. Your choice of colours is an important factor in the branding of your space.

However, you must assess whether your brand colours are a good choice for a lab. Bold colours that may impress clients and visitors might be distracting for staff.

Neutral colours often create a more productive environment. However, it’s important to ensure that whilst remaining neutral the colours are uplifting. Combining neutral tones with muted versions of your brand colours often come together to make an effective workplace colours scheme.

While previously in the laboratory sphere surfaces and finishes were limited to mostly clinical whites and stainless steel, these days more options are available. We work with a wide range of laboratory and workplace furniture suppliers, providing solutions for industrial, medical, tech and pharmaceutical science sectors and can help you access a range of lab products in assorted finishes to assist in creating a bespoke workspace that embodies your company brand and ethos.

Laboratory accessibility

An accessible workplace allows everyone to feel comfortable employee experience when in your space.

Standing desks and lab benches, controlled lighting, faith rooms, meditation rooms, wide doorways, and corridors, lift or ramp access to all areas within the space etc, are just some examples of how you can ensure your space works for everyone. These fixtures and amendments are often very simple to implement. It’s often more effective to do this during your refurbishment rather than waiting for someone to join your team with a specific need. This will also help to attract new talent.

Your company culture and the experience of your employees can quickly change if you’re not reminding your team of your organisational values. Your workplace and lab is a huge part of your business. And the design of it has a big part to play in the experience that your employees have at work. Feedback from your team can help to understand what they want from a workplace. This will lead to the creation of a space that’s a unique fit for your team which will help to retain and attract new talent.

Get in touch with a member of our team to find out how we can improve your employee experience through the design of your workplace.