SLCLAWYERS.COM

The office environment and the furniture in that office play a vital function in the productivity of that office. It also exerts a huge influence on the well-being of the office workers which will also have a big effect on productivity.

People need to be given the right tools if they are to be expected to do a job properly and in an office environment, the various pieces of furniture are some of the tools.

So, you, the boss, might think that you are saving money by purchasing cheap or second-hand tables and chairs, but that decision could cost you in lost productivity for the next ten or fifteen years. However, it is not only productivity that you could be losing, your furniture choices could also be affecting the health of your employees causing them to suffer aches and pains and even take sick leave. In the worst cases, you may even be taken to court.

Yet all you did was try to save a few dollars on a couple of chairs.

If you work for yourself, say, at home, this is equally if not more important, because if you are the only one in your firm and if you get sick, your firm stops trading, which could affect your kids’ schooling, your mortgage, your car payments and your future credit worthiness, if you do not have sufficient insurance.

Yet all you did was try to save a few dollars on a couple of chairs.

It is crucial to establish the correct working environment right from the outset. If you were a carpenter, you would not buy a rusty, secondhand saw and you would not buy yourself an old 386 computer to work at, so why not apply the same principles to the office furniture? Office furniture costs less than a new computer and will last at least three times longer.

So, which items of furniture will you require to equip an efficient office? Well, it is best to start with the chairs and work up, assuming that the floor is even and not slippery or wet. For the sake of ease we will just talk about you as the one employee using the office.

Whilst you sit on the chair, you should be able to put your feet flat on the floor and there ought to be a back rest. You can go more deeply into it, but they are the minimum requirements. This is why many office chairs are adaptable, because they have to be able to suit a assortment of individuals.

Then the table: it should clear your knees by at least six inches, but not be so high that you can not place your elbows on it without slouching. This will encourage correct posture, which will minimize the risk of backache or wrist pain. The desk or table should be big enough to hold all the items that you need to work on or with.

Therefore, you should consider the footprints of your desktop’s keyboard and monitor. Perhaps add space for a laptop for file-sharing, a paper notebook, a reference book, pen holder, mobile or other telephone, a coffee mug and whatever else you use to do your job. The desk should not look permanently cluttered up, even if you are a disorganized person.

It is a good idea to have a desk with draws to hold things that you use regularly. Some desks come with a small filing cabinet at one end and a set of drawers at the other. This is handy and can save space in a small, home office. Even if you get one of these desks, you might want a full-sized filing cabinet anyway. That depends on how much paperwork your business generates. A full height cabinet means less bending and you can put the coffee percolator on it.

Then you will require shelving. make certain that the shelving is installed at a height that is comfortable for the person who will use it most often and that there is enough of for predicted future use. Once you have your lovely new office set up and full of nice new equipment, you do not want to have to start drilling holes in the brickwork.

Which brings me to power points. Make sure that you have plenty of them. Have them all around the room. I like to have a double socket just to the left and just to the right of my desk just above desktop height as well – very useful for plugging the laptop into or the phone, or a lamp or a camera, if you need one.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a range of topics, but is now involved with round glass dining tables. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Solid Oak Dining Tables.

|When people are thinking about procuring office furniture they fall into two groups. There are the inexperienced who think that they have to go for functionality and there are the ones that have been through that and opt for comfort and style.

It is not that these two ideas are mutually exclusive, but most buyers of office furniture instinctively think that they are. The fact is, that when a client walks into an office, first impressions matter. No matter which business you are in this is a fact. However, office furniture ought to be appropriate to the station of the firm using it.

It is just as ridiculous to go over the top as it is to be stoic. This is not only important to clients and visitors (potential clients), but it is also vital to the self esteem of the people who work for them – the office staff require to feel appreciated and the people working for the company but outside the office have a need to feel proud of the firm they work for as well.

Therefore, it is crucial to get the right office furniture in order to create the right image for your company and it is essential to get the right office furniture to create self-respect in your employees. But there is another aspect to why you ought to get the right office furniture and that is because the right office furniture will increase the efficiency of your office.

Everybody will instantly realize that efficiency is the objective of every office. Efficiency means that the office can either reduce charges to the clients, which will obviously please them or the office can keep prices up to the industry benchmark level and increase profits for the owners. This is an important managerial decision the role in which the correct office furniture ought not to be underestimated.

So, how do you go about achieving this ideal office environment? Well, astonishingly for most people, the starting point should be the office chair. It needs to be ergonomic, which is another topic that I and many others have written about before. It is too much to go into here, just do a search.

When you have the worker seated correctly, the table should be at a height that is at least six inches above the knees. Most office employees like to have a hardwood table for prestige and this can be accomplished fairly easily even on a budget with a veneered table.

A decent alternative is a glass table. However, the glass table should be ‘smoked’ or tinted and definitely manufactured from toughened glass. The tint is good for modesty and because it looks more stylish and toughened for safety.

The table ought to be as big as feasible both for reasons of prestige and because a cluttered desk is maddening to work at. It is important to allow an office worker enough space to do the job well that they are there to do, which also affects their self-esteem and job-satisfaction. Raising employees’ job satisfaction, which does not only include pay, is one of the best ways of raising office productivity.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a variety of topics, but is now involved with round glass dining tables. If you would like to know more, please go to our website at Solid Oak Dining Tables.