Last updated on May 16th, 2023
If you run a business, your primary focus is providing your particular goods and services. So, it’s easy to overlook other seemingly innocuous yet vital aspects of your company. But every facet of your business is crucial to its success. One often missed the nuance for many company owners is office furniture.
Many see office furniture as an afterthought, going for the cheapest option possible. After all, it’s just a table and chairs. So, why even think about getting the best office furniture Sydney has to offer, right?
Wrong! Nothing could be further from the truth. Office furniture and even home office furniture should be a marriage of form and function. Not only will all your office furniture be what your employees use to accomplish their jobs each day, but the furniture’s aesthetics will also speak volumes about a company to both customer and workers.
First Impressions Count
Businesses want their workers to dress in a way that reflects the company’s values and professional capability. Appearance counts. No one would trust an investment manager who showed up to the office wearing thongs, cut off shorts, and a sweat-drenched tank top. So who would trust an investment firm that couldn’t afford to remodel a dated reception area or replace broken down office chairs?
A business only has 50 milliseconds to make a good impression. One of the first things people do when first visiting a company is taking note of the reception area furniture. They look to see if the area is clean and maintained, well lit, efficient, and inviting.
A clean and modern reception area and office will strike that great first impression, but it’s also essential for a business to maintain that impression. This is where quality comes into play. Discount furniture may look good at first, but it will show wear sooner and even break. If a client continually sits at wobbly tables in chairs with loose arms, that good first impression will eventually become a bad and permanent one.
Custom, high-quality office chairs and furniture can give a company a unique and modern style that is their own. The right office furniture will make a company stand out in a crowd of thousands or even millions of other offices all furnished by generic bargain chairs and tables sold at big office supply stores.
Matrix Reception Desk, Left Hand White Front Feature Panel (left hand when seated)
Setting the Tone
Workers are influenced by their environment. A haphazard and inefficient office layout will make even good people ineffective at their jobs. Unhappy and unmotivated workers cost the US economy between $450 to $550 billion in lost productivity each year. Modern workplaces should be vibrant, dynamic, and welcoming places. The ideal office furniture will do all this and more.
It isn’t about control. It’s about leading by example. The ideal office furniture should create a dynamic and inviting workspace that inspired employees and makes them feel valued. Designer furniture built with ergonomics in mind will tell workers that the company they work for literally has their backs.
Health & Safety
When most people think of injuries at the workplace, they imagine accidents at construction sites or some careless fellow in a machine shop. After all, these are physically demanding jobs where heavy machinery and a ton of moving parts mix with the chaotic bustle of individuals rushing to meet deadlines and quotas.
In reality, an office worker is 2 to 2.5 times as likely to suffer an injury due to falling. This is often due to reaching while sitting in an unbalanced or worn out office chair.
The average office worker spends 6.5 hours a day, or 1,700 per year, sitting at their desks. Picking the right office chair is often the deciding factor on whether or not a worker’s tenure at a job will be a good one, a bad one, or result in a costly injury.
Whether it’s a large collaborative and open workspace or a home office, all office furniture should provide lumbar support that promotes good posture, and only be used for the function they were designed for, i.e., an office chair is not a ladder.
Modern office chairs are adjustable to fit anyone of any height or body type. A comfortable chair means a worker is less distracted because of nagging pain caused by sitting or working in an awkward position. They should be able to move, roll, recline, and even rock as needed.
The ergonomics of a designer office chair provide long term payoffs to a company’s bottom line. 33% of all office injuries and illnesses are the direct results of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). A large number of these come from office equipment that doesn’t provide an ergonomic fit to the worker, forcing them to move in a way that often results in the long term and productivity-killing injuries.
Conclusion
One option for office desk furniture is the standing desk. Recent health studies have shown that sitting for prolonged periods, like in a typical office setting, can increase the risk of heart disease, obesity, colon cancer, poor circulation, early death, and several other serious health issues.
