Focus in the Darker Months: Light, Layout and Winter Office Productivity

The clocks go back on Sunday 25 October. From the Monday after, most offices will be lit by ceiling panels from about four in the afternoon, and by mid November it is dark at the start of the day as well. Winter office productivity is a real thing, and it is mostly a light problem with a furniture answer.

Nobody needs a wellbeing programme for this. They need a plan, and a plan for the darker months has three parts: where people sit, what lights them, and how they move.

Chase the daylight

Daylight is the one thing you cannot buy in more of, so the first job is to make sure it lands on people. Walk the office at ten in the morning and again at three, and note where the light actually falls. Desks that sit side-on to a window get the most usable light with the least glare. Desks facing the window put the screen in silhouette, and desks with their back to it put the window on the screen.

Then look at what is blocking it. Tall storage and high screens between the windows and the desks are the usual culprits. A desk divider does not have to be a wall. The Air 400mm acoustic desktop screen is 40cm tall, which is enough to take the edge off the noise and stop you staring at the person opposite, and low enough that the window still reaches the desk behind it. Our desk screens and office dividers range lists the height of every screen, so you can keep the tall ones for corridors and the short ones for the window side.

Pale surfaces help more than people expect. A white desk top bounces the light that reaches it back up into the room, and a run of them along a window turns one window into a lighter bay. If you are replacing desks this winter anyway, our white office desks page brings the whole catalogue in that finish together.

Light the task, not the room

Ceiling panels light the floor. They do not light the page or the keyboard, and in winter the gap between the two is what makes an office feel flat by three in the afternoon. A desk lamp with a warm bulb at each workstation costs less than a chair mat and does more for the mood of the room than repainting it. Point it at the work, keep it out of the eyeline of the person opposite, and switch it on when the window gives up rather than at the end of the day.

Glare is the other half. Screens facing a window need the blinds, and blinds get left down all day once they have been down once. Turning a desk ninety degrees is usually cheaper than fighting the blinds, and it is the kind of change that can be made on a Friday afternoon with two people and no tools.

The 3pm slump is not a character flaw. It is a room with no daylight and a chair nobody has moved from since lunch.

Build in the movement

The afternoon dip is partly light and partly stillness. The furniture answer is to make standing up part of the day rather than an act of will. An electric desk does this well if it is set up to nag you. The Oslo Air electric height adjustable desk runs from 66cm to 131cm, stores four heights, and has a sit-stand reminder timer on the handset. Set it to an hour, and when it beeps you press a preset and the desk moves. No decision required, which in November is the point.

If a whole team is on fixed desks, one or two shared standing desks by the window do a surprising amount. People drift to them after lunch, take the call standing, and come back. Our height adjustable standing desks range starts with single motor desks that suit that job and goes up to dual motor benches for a full team.

A plan you can do in a week

Walk the office at ten and three and mark the light. Turn the desks that face or back onto a window. Swap any tall screen on the window side for a 40cm one. Put a lamp on every desk. Set the reminder timer on every electric desk to an hour. None of it needs a budget meeting, and all of it will still be helping in February.

The darker months arrive whether the office is ready or not. A few desks turned and a few lamps bought is the difference between a team that gets to March fine and a team that spends the winter squinting.