How to Improve your Break Room

Often thought as a place to store your lunch or buy a snack from the vending machine, the break room can be a great common area in the office space for employee’s to decompress and socialize with their co-workers. In order to keep employee’s happy, companies need to offer more non-monetary incentives. A good break room can be one of these incentives.  Turn your break room into a temporary escape from the corporate pressures with these tips.

Free coffee and teaRolling in the office at 8 AM can be tough, and we don’t always have time to grab a coffee on the way in. A coffee at your desk makes catching up on emails much more bearable. Consider keeping a log where employees can mark when the coffee was last made, to make sure everyone can enjoy a fresh cup of Joe

Quiet times: Not everyone wants to get crazy on their breaks. To accommodate those who just want to catch their breath or read up on the news, consider setting dedicated “quiet hours” for the break room. These could be later in the afternoon, after everyone has had their lunch. Understanding that everyone deals with everyday stresses in different ways will help keep employees feeling appreciated.

Keep it clean: If you want your employee’s to see the break room as a relaxing environment, it needs to stay clean. Get everyone involved by creating a schedule delegating cleaning tasks to a different department, team or team member each week. Keep the cleaning supplies in the break room, so every team member can easily access them when they need to.

Bring the charge: Keep chargers for laptops, cell phones and other smart devices in the break room. Nothing is more frustrating than getting halfway through the day and realizing your phone is dying and you left your charger at home. Label all the chargers to make sure they stay in the office and aren’t brought home by accident.

A few break room changes can have a major, uplifting impact on productivity. You don’t need to break the bank to make these minor updates, and the return on investment in higher production, employee retention and better recruitment can be extremely profitable.

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