The Benefits of Natural Lighting in the Workplace

Americans spend about 90,000 hours at work during their lifetime, which is around 12 years.

So it makes sense that letting a little sunlight shine in the office can be good for your employees — and for performance.

Here are a handful of the benefits of natural light in the work environment.

Your Employees Will Sleep Better

Natural sunlight plays a role in sleep regulation, as the body uses certain hormones when the sun is up (and thus activity is expected) and when the sun goes down (when activity ceases).

A study at Northwestern Medicine found that employees who worked at desks exposed to natural sunlight slept better and for longer as compared to people that didn’t.

Because sleep is essential for cognitive performance and thus productivity, your employees may actually do their work better because they’re getting more sleep.

Healthy Employees, Happy People

Several studies have shown that healthiness and happiness are related and that you’re more likely to be happy if your body’s systems are functioning to the best of their ability.

The skin makes vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, and this vitamin is necessary for human health. It keeps our skin healthy, our bones strong, and our energy levels up.

As a business owner, you’re always looking at your bottom line and ways to maximize employee output. But as it turns out, you can put a price tag on getting sunlight in the building—because it’ll probably wind up paying for itself!

(See the next section for another example.)

By the way: with inventions like these translucent wall panels, you might not have to revamp the entire office.

Natural Lighting Increases Property Value

If you’re still on the fence about the benefits of adding natural light to the workplace, maybe it’ll help to learn that you can actually profit from doing so.

That’s right. Whether you run a large warehouse or just a small office, you can increase the property value of your space by getting rid of fake lighting and letting the sun in.

You can probably get two to four dollars more per square foot, which depending on the size of your office, could be quite a substantial amount of money.

Add in the fact that your utilities will probably go down (artificial light is a drain on your utility bill, and sunlight can help moderate the temperature of the office), and you may end up making money in the long run from your decision.

The Benefits of Natural Light

As you can see, natural lighting offers benefits to everyone working in the office. Your employees will be happier and healthier, and the owner of the facility will save more money and get more productivity out of his or her team. Any productive office needs to be well set out and this will often require signage. Visit Simply Plastics to get all the materials you need to create your office signage.

And the investment doesn’t have to be a total overhaul, either.