With staff wellbeing high on the agenda, encouraging a decluttered and tidy working environment could be a way for employers to directly support their workforce, as new research reinforces the link between organisation and productivity.
As part of National Organisation Week, design and printing firm Avery UK polled 2,000 UK adults to find strong evidence linking organised and decluttered working spaces with productivity and mental wellbeing.
Whether its by filing important documents away, labelling files or decluttering their desk, eight in ten UK workers considered tidying and organising to be a powerful way to relieve stress at work.
Almost two-thirds of respondents said an organised lifestyle, both at home and at work, helped with general health and wellbeing.
Read more: The ten most irritating office habits causing workplace conflict
Despite the influence of mess and clutter on the nation’s productivity, and the negative impact of a disorganised workplace, two-thirds of workers believed their office surroundings needed to be tidier.
Explaining the benefits of organisation and decluttering to employers and staff, Katherine Katherine Blackler, president of the Association of Professional Declutterers & Organisers, said working together to target problem areas would help a team achieve its goals.
“In an office, you and your colleagues could be wasting valuable time looking for documents or important items, so it really is worth investing the time upfront to create better ways of working together efficiently,” she said.
“Make sure everything has its place and things don’t start to pile up. If you’re not a person who files as they go, give yourself a small tray or folder for collating documents into, but make sure you don’t go beyond that defined volume before you knuckle down and file it away where it belongs.”
Commenting on the findings, Stephanie Davies, CEO of training consultancy Laughology, said the stress factors contributing to poor wellbeing were “controllable and easy to fix.”
“Creating a working environment that works for you will increase productivity and how you engage with your work. This might mean you still have some of your quirky desk ornaments or papers around you, they’re just organised differently,” she explained.
Avery UK produced a league table of the top 30 everyday tasks Brits find most therapeutic
- Crossing stuff off a to-do list
- Putting together a to-do list
- Organising important personal documents
- Vacuuming
- Tidying my desk at work
- Organising your storage
- Making your bed
- Washing the dishes
- Cleaning the bathroom
- Dusting/polishing my home
- Mowing the lawn
- Wiping kitchen worktops
- Writing things on my calendar
- Filing away documents at work
- Ironing
- Putting ironing away
- Labelling files, folders or storage
- Tidying my desk at home
- Loading the washing machine
- Organising CDs/vinyl alphabetically
- Washing the car
- Cleaning the inside of the car
- Sorting through paperwork at work
- Arranging wardrobe by colour, size and/or clothing type
- Arranging pots and pans by shape and size
- Organising books by genre and/or alphabetically
- Creating a filing system
- Organising DVDs/blu-rays alphabetically
- Clearing the garage
- Emptying the dishwasher
For more information on supporting the health and wellbeing of your employees, visit AXA PPC Healthcare
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