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As a company grows, the more it must adapt to a multi-generational office. It also depends on the industry you’re in, of course, and the makeup of its workforce.

To design your office to bring out the best in everyone, first take a look at what layout suits your company best. From there, you can tweak the design to suit each generation’s needs in your office:

Baby boomers

After the end of World War II began a new age of optimism. From 1946 to 1964, the babies born then grew up to lead the charge on the expansion of capitalism. Many have led a successful career and expect the recognition for their decades of hard work.

Having their own private office is important to them as is its size. The higher their position, the larger their office should be. Their desk and work chair should also be ergonomic. To support their working style, a desktop computer and a work landline phone should be provided.

Generation X

Born between 1965 and 1980, this is a highly independent generation with a penchant for entrepreneurship. They’re go-getters who require very little supervision. They believe that promotions should be earned by competent people and not handed out based on years put in.

Office size may not be as important to Generation X, but they definitely prefer private offices as well – complete with ergonomic furniture, desktop computer, and a work landline phone. They’re also open to the idea of telecommuting.

Millennials

They’re the first generation to grow up with digital technology as a part of their normal everyday lives. With birth years from 1981 to 1996, their affinity with tech means that it’s their preference for both collaboration and communication. They’re also more likely to seek out the next company that will reward them for their skills.

Most often prefer working from home, but they also thrive in open-concept office environments with spaces for breaks. They’re comfortable working with both desktop computers and laptops, though their workstations should be at stand-up desks.

Generation Z

Their lives began after 1997 and the dot-com crash. Although they’re just starting to enter the workforce now, they will be a generation to be reckoned with. Even more at home with tech than Millennials, recognition is not only valued from their leaders, but also among their peers. They will lead the way in the gamification of the workplace.

Open-concept offices are again preferred, but the idea of a workstation will be much looser. Laptops, smart phones, and tablets will reign supreme with most company applications and records accessed through the cloud.

Designing with your employees in mind means you value their contribution to the company. This all may seem like a lot of work, but remember that it’s always worth it to invest in renovating your office.

Already have the ultimate party backyard? Now let’s turn to the front. Although we’ve talked about making a grand entrance before, we haven’t covered how to draw people in through elegant front yard landscaping that’s also low-maintenance.

Here are some great ideas:

Get rid of the grass lawn

Or at least make it a small part of your front yard. Grass lawns are notoriously high-maintenance with all the mowing that’s needed. Plus, their constant watering and fertilizing schedule wastes a ridiculous amount of resources.

The smaller your lawn, the more space it’ll open up for more creative landscaping ideas in your front yard.

Hardscape the yard

Hardscaping sculpts the land with non-plant-based elements. This includes a combination of paved stones, rocks, gravel, landscape fabric, wood boxes, and even brick borders or walls.

This is where you can use your imagination to plan the layout of your front yard and how you want guests to travel through it. The walkway doesn’t always have to be in a straight line towards the front door! It’ll also make you think outside the box beyond the typical giant postage-stamp grass lawn. Hardscaping is what allows you to strike the balance between a sculpted look and a natural feel to your front yard.

Go native

One of the easiest ways to guarantee low maintenance is to get native plants that are well-suited to the climate you’re in. After all, they’ve already adapted to your home’s environment so you don’t have to do much to keep them healthy.

Plant with purpose

Rather than planting something just for looks, choose plants that are useful to both you and the environment.

For example, consider adding clover to your now smaller lawn. Clover helps maintain the greenness of lawns and even regulates the nitrogen in the soil. As a bonus, clover encourages enough biodiversity on your lawn to naturally control insect populations. Their flowers also serve as a much-needed nectar source for bees so that we can help them flourish again.

Another fantastic way to add easy-to-maintain function is through edible plants and herbs that are perennial. Rhubarb, asparagus, thyme, and sage will come every year even after our Canadian winters. The same goes for wild strawberries, some berry bushes as well as apple or hazelnut trees. Do your research and make sure that the plants are compatible with one another. It’s also nice if you plan it out so that their harvest seasons don’t arrive all at once.

We’ll leave you with a final note about tree-planting in particular. Whatever tree you decide to go with, make sure it doesn’t block direct view of the front door. That’s for both practical and feng shui purposes!

Office productivity is a major factor that drives your company’s success. After creating an inviting office space and determining the best office layout, turn to these four technologies to tweak office productivity even more:

Electronic database

A paperless filing system is one of the many green initiatives in the office you can implement. You’ll save paper and file space when there aren’t multiple copies of agendas and minutes floating around.

More importantly, your employees can do their jobs more effectively when they have easy digital access to client files and your company’s knowledge management system. Your employees can also rest assured that they’re always opening the most up-to-date documents when everything is stored and updated on your company’s electronic database.

Remote access

This takes the electronic database idea one step further by allowing your employees access to it off-site 24/7. You can do this either by having the database and applications made available on the cloud or setting up VPNs for all employees.

The advantage of remote access is especially apparent if you have many employees who work out in the field. That way, they’re backed by full company resources no matter where they are or what time zone they’re in.

Workflow automation opportunities

There’s always a way you can improve company operations as long as you keep looking. The first thing you should do is to pinpoint where your operational bottlenecks are that take up more staff time than necessary. Then, implement a software or app that will streamline that process and make things easier on your staff.

Also, are there certain procedures your office carries out on a daily basis? See if a software or app can help make following through each step smoother.

Don’t underestimate the power of shaving off even a couple minutes on one step. It’ll all add up to huge cost savings and productivity boosts in the long run.

Project communication tools

Emails are not the most efficient method for the rapid-fire communication that often goes back and forth on projects. There’s a huge risk of important emails getting buried in the middle of never-ending email chains, which only results in unnecessary meetings just to clarify what the chain is all about in the first place.

The best solution for efficient project communication is chat-based systems like Slack. Even a built-in chatting platform on your company’s project management system would be better than email. What you want is a system that employees can reply informally and quickly with their ideas, which would all be located in a single thread that’s searchable.

You’ll notice a significant reduction in meeting times because the bulk of communications and clarifications of miscommunications would already be worked out in real-time on the chat thread.

By embracing technology to maximize office productivity, you’ll give your company an edge over the competition.