Decluttering your working space could improve staff wellbeing and productivity

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 workersbelieved their office surroundingsneeded 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.