Outdoor benches can be an excellent addition to the exterior space around your office building. They can be functional in their purpose, but they can also be decorative, too. Choose from various designs to find the best fit for your needs and corporate spaces. While doing so, remember five crucial reasons to add benches outside an office building.
1. Vitamin D
It’s up to your employees to ensure they get enough vitamin D. However, you can certainly benefit from giving them a chance. If they’re busy at home and outside work, a break at work might be their only chance to get 15 minutes of uninterrupted sunlight. Putting some benches around your office building invites them to feel better physically, and they’ll do it right before returning to work.
2. Reduce Stress
Even if you don’t think your office employees are doing work that is all that stressful, just being cooped up in an office building all day can still wear a person down. Artificial lighting, various background noise, crowded spaces, and a million interruptions can get a person’s blood pressure up throughout the day. When the weather is good, having benches around means they can unwind for a while. They can lower their stress levels by eating lunch or grabbing a quick break.
3. Casual Meeting Spaces
A significant advantage of outdoor furniture is that it’s a chance for the professionals working for you to deepen their relationships with each other. Two people who need or want to talk might not want to do it in the office or a formal conference room. Some room outside gives them more space, and they can work out any professional tensions or matters at hand that need to be resolved. Some office workers might even become friends with enough chances for conversation.
4. Inspire Creativity
Depending on their role and tasks, some of your officer personnel might rely on their creativity to get through their workday. Unfortunately, most office environments aren’t conducive to stoking the creative fire in most people. Spending some time outside in nature can do that if they have a place to sit and dream for a while.
5. Make a Statement
Some benches are made using partially or entirely recycled materials. Buying those can help your company promote its eco-friendly credibility. This should be popular with consumers, but it is also likely to align well with the personal values of many of your current employees.
The possibilities are endless with the right benches outside of your office building. For example, geometric benches fit around a sculpture or water feature. Go for backless metal benches to give pedestrians a brief respite, or add benches with more comfort, so people linger longer. Also, consider the costs in terms of maintenance over time so you can factor that into your yearly budgets.