Guest post by Arthur Smith of LEDWatcher.com | September 22nd, 2017
The best way for any company or organization to improve their overall performance is to improve the work conditions for their employees. And, if employees have convenient and ergonomic workplace, they will do their work a lot more productively, which in return will ensure the growth of a company. One of the main factors of office ergonomics is correct lighting, so here are some tips on how to improve the lighting in your office.
Maximize Natural Lighting
One of the best ways how to illuminate the workplace is by using natural light, because studys shows that those, who work in windowless offices or who have offices with poor daylight exposure have more health as well as productivity problems as oppose to those who work in offices with windows. It can be done in a few different ways, for example, by installing bigger windows in the office to let more sunlight in or by choosing lighter colors and glanced surfaces in the interior of the office to reflect more daylight.
Using natural lighting is not only the cheapest way to provide proper lighting in your office, but it will also positively impacts the performance of you employees. First of all natural light exposure creates a contact with nature which positively impacts people’s mood and well-being. Secondly, daylight helps to regulate circadian rhythms, which lowers stress and increases performance. And lastly, daylight exposure also helps to improve people’s quality of life, which in return makes people more productive and more pleasant to work with.
Give Your Employees a Choice in Lighting
It is very important to give your employees some control over lighting, because each person has different lighting requirements. Different people want and need different levels of light exposure to perform their duties quickly and efficiently, so there should be multiple choices in lighting, even if your office has open floor plan.
On top of ambient lighting aka ceiling lamps, like the Cubi Pendant Light, there should be task lighting on all desks, so each person can control the light levels in their workstation. And you should also utilize different types of efficient lights from LED lamps indoors, to solar spot lights in the outdoors areas of the office, to make sure, that all of your different lighting options don’t make your energy bill skyrocket.
The More Light The Better
The more, the better is a saying that is completely true when it comes to lighting in a workplace, because higher levels of light will help your employees avoid tiredness, lack of concentration as well as stress.
The correct amount of light in a workplace can be determined by looking at the illuminance of the light, which is measured in one lumen per square metre aka lux. Of course, there are different light requirements for different tasks, but in an average workplace there should be light with luminous emittance of 500 lux as a minimum. Why? Because the higher the illuminance, the better will be the employees’ visual performance and their processing of visual information, which in return means higher productivity.
More Blue, More Productive
Many studys have shown that switching form yellow-white light to blue-white light helps workers to stay more focused and less sleepy during the work day. This fact is based on how we perceive light and how this light influences our biological processes.
Our eyes use three kinds of photo receptors to receive light – rods, cones and ganglion cells. But if rods and cones help us see, the ganglion cells on the other hand contribute to the regulation of our circadian rhythm. They use light to detect the presence of short-wavelength blue hues, which in return adjusts our biological clocks aka controls when we feel sleepy, when we are awake, etc. So because of this, blue- white light of 5,000 to 6,5000 Kelvin color temperature will help workers stay awake and focus on the work, instead of making them sleepy and unable to concentrate.
Limit The Glare
Finally, although there is no question that there should be sufficient amount of light in the workplace, there, however, shouldn’t be too much glare made by your lighting, either. Glare not only creates discomfort for peoples’ eyes and reduces the productivity, but it can even distract employees from the task at hand, making your workers inefficient and slow.
And since it isn’t easy to find the right balance between sufficient amount of light and no glare, here are couple of tips. Install lights, that can be dimmed, which will allow each employee to control their light and adjust it to a level that is comfortable to them. And don’t forget to place monitors in a way that neither the natural or artificial light create a glare on your screen and make it hard to work on your computer.
You can’t expect high productivity from employees, who have to work in a badly-lit or lighting-wise nonflexable office, because insufficient lighting causes lack of focus, tiredness and overall unproductive work. Which is why every company should take some time to ensure good lighting for their employees, that will help them work more efficiently and your business to grow faster.
Thank you for reading this week’s blog! For more office lighting suggestions, please contact us at info@louielighting.com. The Louie Lighting Team wishes you and yours a safe and happy Fall weekend!
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