Key considerations in office design: Furniture

With physical distancing being central to office design, the shift from classic open plan zones towards less dense, flexible workspaces is accelerating. It is also driving the need for the office to support activity based working and to provide a variety of high performing, collaborative areas for the employees mixing office and remote working.

The pillar of a multifunctional, flexible workspace is furniture. Thoughtfully incorporated into office design, furniture can help aid social distancing and contribute towards creating a workplace that brings people together and sparks creativity and innovation.

We spoke to Mark Johnson at Elite Office Furniture, our long standing partners, about the benefits of careful office furniture selection, with a focus on key considerations relating to Covid-19.

Q1: How can we create a sense of safety in shared spaces, while supporting the core features of today’s office design – flexibility and adaptability, particularly with today’s requirements for Covid secure workplaces?

Elite Office Furniture has always had a strong relationship with its partners to create spaces that not only look good, but also help the clients feel comfortable and safe in their work environment. As more businesses are seeing the benefits of their staff working from home, we have noticed that the emphasis from our clients is to reduce the amount of desks within their offices and using that additional space to create break away zones that encourage the staff to interact differently. These break away zones can be set up to promote social distancing by using the furniture to control how the staff moves around the office and to ensure they do it safely.

Q2: How can the workplace be optimised for performance where focused, individual work is required?

All companies want their staff to be productive, therefore it is essential that the key decision makers within organisations do everything within their means to enable this to happen. This can easily be achieved by giving their staff the equipment that enables them to carry out their jobs as efficiently as possible, whilst at the same time using that equipment to keep staff healthy at their workstation.

At Elite, we have been advocating good working practices by promoting the benefits of using Sit/Stand desks and the use of Ergonomic Seating. It has often been said that sitting for up to 8 hours a day is the new smoking. Extensive research has shown that our bodies are not engineered to sit in a static position for long periods of time. By introducing standing desks and ergonomic chairs within your workplace, staff will feel more energized, focused and productive. And of course it helps to reduce staff absenteeism through such causes as bad back, neck, shoulder and wrist pain.

We have highlighted this within our Sit/Stand desking range Progress Plus, brochure which you can find here: Progress Plus Brochure.

Q3: What are the products you have seen to be the most popular choices in workspaces where social distancing may be difficult and require implementation of physical barriers?

At Elite, as soon as Covid-19 started to impact the way we work, we invested in the use of Health Protection Screens to divide up the workstations, and we have seen the sales in our screen department quadrupole due to the demand for these HPS screens. We were fortunate to be in a situation where we have a brand-new manufacturing facility with new machines and ample storage capacity to enable us to react quickly to the demand of our clients.

We have also seen the rise in interest for our single booth’s where users can touch down with their laptops and work in peace and quiet. Single booths also provide a sense of safety, enabling the staff to move away from their desk to where there is not too much chance of interaction with others.

Another product we are seeing to grow in popularity is our new storage range called Cubeform. Cubeform has been designed with modularity and flexibility as the core features. Its modular design is ideal for dividing open plan offices into reconfigurable and flexible work zones without the need for fixed partitions.

Q4: Using biophilia in office design is a great way of creating buffer zones while supporting employee wellbeing. What are the clever ways of incorporating greenery into office furniture?

We all have an instinctive desire to connect with nature and it is important that this desire is represented within the areas we live and work in. There is also a growing body of research that shows the spaces we inhabit have distinct physiological and psychological impacts on us. Biophilic experiences can reduce stress, improve cognitive function, and enhance creativity. These and other outcomes can increase health and wellbeing, as well as productivity.

So with this in mind, we at Elite, have embraced the use of biophilia within our Cubeform modular system, our locker systems and storage cabinets. Meaning there is a wide offering within our portfolio for us to achieve a client’s ambitions to introduce greenery to the office space.

Q5: What emerging trends are you seeing in office furniture at the moment?

Our view is that the workplace is good for one’s mental health and general wellbeing. We believe that the workplace will become a space to escape the everyday stresses of working from home and being able to communicate face to face is becoming more desirable the longer people are away from the office. Human instincts are designed in such way that we need to communicate and socialize with one another. Interaction is important for us in order to be successful.

We see the trend in office design is to have more fun, flexible and inspiring workspaces for the staff to come back to. That means the focus is not on how many desks you can squeeze into a space but rather what can we do to boost creativity and collaboration. This is can be achieved in the use of break away zones, quiet zones, fun zones and work zones. All this contributes to an office environment that will make people happy when they come to work.

As office fit out and refurbishment specialists with an extensive experience in furnishing many types of workspaces, we understand how critical it is to adapt the workplace to suit the evolving employee needs, while prioritising their safety and wellbeing.

If you need help optimising your workplace or if you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you.