Furniture Suitable for Offices
16 September 2007 It is essential to have proper furniture in an office. Otherwise productivity of the employees will start going down steadily. You may be wondering when you have a proper remuneration plan in place and when you treat your employees very well, how furniture could cause a downslide of productivity.
Modern management gurus lay a great deal of emphasis on office ambience. If the general environment of the office is such that people feel dull and spiritless the moment they come in through the front door, you can be very sure that productivity will also head south! One of the most potent tools to improve the ambience in the office is office furniture. After all, an employee spends maximum time at his workplace surrounded by these, so if they are bright and useful the ambience will automatically become conducive to greater efficiency.
If you have decided to replace your office furniture, what should you replace first? It goes without saying that office chairs are the first piece of furniture which deserve a close and critical examination. There are several aspects of office chairs which should be looked into and if the existing ones do not pass that stringent scrutiny, they should be replaced forthwith. It is important that the office is decked up with ergonomically designed chairs that reduce fatigue and physical discomfort. Employees utilize a major part of their work hours sitting in them. So, if management is serious about getting quality output from its employees, it should ensure that they do not leave office with a nagging back pain or a stiff neck.
Office chairs come in various sizes, shapes, colors and designs. The chairs should be chosen in such a way that they best suit the type of work done in a particular department. For example the chairs in the reception should be bright, comfortable and durable. These chairs bear a lot of burden during the whole day and possibly come in for some rough and inconsiderate handling too. These chairs should unmistakably give the impression that your company means business and is very professional in its approach towards all aspects of commercial transactions.
The chairs in a BPO or a call centre should be designed in such a way that the employees don’t feel tired and fatigued while carrying out their monotonous and often abusive jobs. As it is they get tired doing night shifts. On top of that if they can not sit comfortably while handling overseas calls, it would be no surprise if the labor turnover rate touches new heights!
The conference rooms are meant for holding seminars, conferences and group discussions only. The chairs placed in that room should be different from the chairs placed in workstations throughout the office. Some companies prefer to have in their conference rooms those molded chairs which have foldable tables attached to armrests. This is a very novel idea. It motivates employees to take notes without having to constantly search for a suitable resting place for their laptops! Thus these seminars and workshops automatically start having a more productive impact on overall performance levels of employees.
The most important chair in the office is that of the CEO. The chair should automatically convey an impression of power, authority and confidence. A high backed well upholstered chair in soft leather can achieve all this without much of a problem. In fact, the power and authority wielded by a person can be gauged from the type of chair he sits on. No wonder the expression ’seat of authority’ carries so much significance!
For those who work from home the choice of home office furniture is a very crucial decision which goes a long way to determine productivity and efficiency in the long run. You don’t have the company to foot the bills for those fancy and ostentatious chairs where you had been seating when you were working for others. Now, every penny spent on furniture comes from your pocket. So, go for those moderately priced ones which guarantee comfort and durability. Prefer those which have multiple use and can be equally comfortable while using the computer or jotting down an important idea on paper.
