Even inspiring and essentially creative jobs can become dull if the workplace itself is dull and uninspired. Creativity flourishes in workplaces that are designed to make employees feel at ease, give them the opportunity to burn out stress in enjoyable activities, and interact and connect with their co-workers on a deeper level. Building a creative workplace, however, isn’t something that only giants like Google or Facebook can do. There are many creative workplace ideas even a small business can implement, at no great cost. Here are a couple of examples to inspire you.
- Create a low-light workplace, which has been proven by German researchers to boost creative thinking.
- Consider making your creative rooms blue, a color which has been proven by researchers from the University of British Columbia to help employers come up with more ideas and perform better at creative tasks.
- Add a fun factor to the workplace with a ping-pong table, a tiny meditation room, a treadmill, or some console games, like Google does, in order to help your employees chill out and refresh their energies before tackling new creative tasks.
- Communicate with your employees openly and on a more personal level and encourage them to share with you their creative ideas, like Tony Hsieh, the founder and CEO of the popular Zappos clothing store does by sending his employees personal emails.
- Keep your creative teams small, no more than seven members, like highly successful animation company DreamWorks does, as the level of trust and connection in small teams is far greater, and this in turn has a major impact on the creative output of the teams.
- Allow pets in the workplaces as almost 20% of US companies do, as this has been proven to create a relaxed workplace atmosphere conducive to creativity.
Last but not least, reward creative employees in creative ways, by offering them tickets to events they will enjoy, small paid holidays, and gifts to show your appreciation for them.
