When you think about it, a coffee table can be and is used in almost all of life. OK maybe that is is a little over exaggeration, but what I mean by this is that whether you are sitting in a coffee shop, waiting in a reception or waiting room, or even sitting in your front room, there is probably a coffee table somewhere in sight. Used for purely for convenience, they are not a necessity but still, why do people sometimes spend a small fortune on them? The main answer to this is that they can add subtle character to the room.

Coffee tables aren’t like home office desks, office desks, café tables etc… they can come in all shapes and sizes from basic tables to the more ellaborate and there are some extraordinary designs that can be thought provoking or just aesthetically pleasing. The reason that office desks and dining tables differ is that you use them in a different way to a coffee table. You use a desk to work on, you use a dining table or café table to eat on, but with a coffee table you just put things on so therefore are not using it intensely which is why the design can take a more interesting shape. Below are some examples of coffee tables.

Designed by Kino Guerin, this table has taken its design from the sled and has been aptly named The Small Toboggan Table. Made entirely from wood, this table features Blood Wood and Amazaque veneers over laminated birch plywood to give the overall effect a stunning look.

This second table has been inspired by the atrocities that occurred from 2004 in the Abu Gharib prison. Designed by Mr Toledano, this coffee table has been made to shock an provoke your thoughts on the subject of the abuse that occurred in the prison.

A Isamu Noguchi designed coffee table that is simple in structure yet has a beautiful overall look. Topped in glass, this design has been replicated and looks great in all different commercial and domestic areas.

Noise is one of the biggest causes of work related stress, particularly in the office. There are a few different types of noises that occur, usually at the same time. Below are some examples of these:

• Steady noise – This type of sound is continuous and is background noise. This can be noise from an air conditioning unit or something similar, such as background chatter.
• Impact noise – These are short bursts of loud sounds. This can be from something such as a stapler or other forms of stationary to noises made by a computer.
• Intermittent – This type of sound is always irregular or sounds that come and go. Examples of these are phone rings, fax machines or printers.

Noise pollution in the office is on the increase. This trend is mainly due to the fact that more and more businesses are choosing to optimise space that they have available by having an open plan office. This is where instead of having individual offices with a few or individual office desks inside them, they are knocking down the partitions and making way for large bench systems or clusters of desks. Another reason why open plan offices seem like a more beneficial option is that it can increase productivity and communication among staff members. One way to help reduce noise pollution, apart from the traditional ways, is the introduction of active noise reduction.

You may have heard of this technology in head phones or otherwise called noise cancelling headphones, but now people are using this technology in the office. The idea is that the speakers replicate the sound of the office but invert it. The two waves (one being the original noise and the other being the inverted one) combine to form a new wave that is out of phase and there for you are not able to hear it. This technology is proving useful, particularly in board room or conference rooms when people who are seated around the boardroom table need to be heard and are free of distractions from outside the room. The speakers are placed in either the walls or the ceiling and can cover vast areas of the office and severely reduce the amount of noise that can be heard. As the rate of technology increases we may see this type of technology being used on a global scale.

When planning the layout for a new office or perhaps even refurbishing an old office, the last thing that people seem to think about are the office screens. Today offices tend to lean towards having an open plan office, where as some people feel that this is not the best solution for a productive office. In order to keep your staff productive and efficient, one of the most important things to do is to make sure that your staff are happy, so having said this, it is worth thinking about how you are going to separate your office and how you are going to make the best use of your office screens.

Desktop screens are a great way to divide your desks. They are low enough, that people can communicate if they wish or need to, but high enough that people’s privacy is maintained. As well as this you can use free standing screens to separate the office into sections. The reason for this is that you can place employees together to help them work as a team if they need to and also separate areas so there are fewer distractions.

You need to think about where your business is going to be in the next 5 years. Like most people, you are going to want your business to grow and change. Thinking about the type of office screen is important as you are, the same with office desks and workstations, likely to want to move them round to create different configurations. By buying freestanding screens instead of built in partitions, the cost of changing the office is reduced considerably.

Even though there is usually no acoustic treatment in office screens, they can still reduce noise in an office. Noise is one of the most distracting things in an office and can also lead to stress among some employees, which is worth thinking about. So to conclude next time you start planning your office, take the time to consider office screens and partitioning.

Time and time again I talk about ergonomics in these blogs and for good reason. The problem of back pain and chair related injuries is on the rise, but it may not be just the office world that needs to wake up and take note.

The average driver in America apparently spends 101 minutes driving a daily, with 50% of those claiming that they suffer from back pain. These startling figures have made Ford wake up and start thinking about how they can do their part in the fight for ergonomics and in particular ergonomic chairs. By basing the new design for their seats in the Ford Escape, on ergonomic office chairs, the team think that this is a positive step forward in the automotive industry.

“The office chair industry is one of the major industries we’re looking at in terms of construction, materials and durability,” spoke seat comfort engineer Mike Kolich. “If you look at the advancements in office chairs from the 1960s — when luxury meant big, puffy cushions — to where they are now, with thin, ergonomic chairs that still feel luxurious, it’s definitely a major change in the way seats are designed.”

Having said this, Ford hasn’t used the typical U shape that we most commonly use in office chairs, but have made the back support into a V shape. The reason for this is that Ford claim that this shape will help support a larger number of body sizes and with Ford’s new feature of “DNA seat” is tailored to conform to customers in multiple markets.

Mike Kolich also explained that it was once thought that Europeans preferred the ergonomics over comfort and the Americans preferred comfort. However recent research has discovered that actually the both groups of people are looking for the same characteristics and that is the reason for the new seat that claims that it is 10% lighter than its predecessor in the older Ford Escape models.

It is now surprise that this year the word on the street (the office furniture street) is space planning. Well maybe not just the office furniture world, but a lot of companies are looking in depth into space planning according to an Ethosource press release. The reason is obvious, that in this financial climate it’s time to start saving money and make the most of the space that they have.

It used to be that office space was driven by authority, with the higher powers having more space, the biggest executive desk and black leather chair, with executive storage to match, but now it’s all set to change with efficiency being the keyword, not authority.

Another reason for this change is that more and more people are finding that working from home in their home office is more beneficial, than working at a workstation in the office. They can save money on travel and can have the comfort of their own home. It is for this reason that careful planning must take place as the workstations that these “home-workers” may have had originally cannot just be taken away, as they may still need to return to the office from time to time.

Collaborating is essential to the modern office with more and more people not just needing to talk to each other, but to share screens and in some cases even desks from time to time. Modern office furniture has to change with this. More and more people are making use of bench systems, open plan offices and call centre configurations in their work place because they promote this.

It is for the reasons labelled above, that office design has become essential and more popular in the recent years. In order to maximise the space available office furniture dealers are required, more than ever, to create design plans that accommodate these needs. Office Reality and Online Reality are able to provide all of these services for free, so if you are looking to maximise space in your office and replace your large desks with aesthetically pleasing bench systems, then look no further.

It appears that everything in this world is turning digital. Even those with the largest CD or vinyl collections can scale it down into one little handheld device that you can access each individual song in less than a minute, perhaps even less than 10 seconds. Not only this, but the size of the space we can use ever increasing. I can remember only a few years ago whilst shopping for an MP3 player I found one that had 8GB of space for £139.99. I then looked across and the same brand of MP3 player had 80GB for £179.99. That is ten times the space for on £40.00, proving that digital space is not that expensive and the amount of information we can keep in one tiny space is incredible. This then got me thinking about how long it will be until we no longer used paper or if we will ever get to that stage.

The demand for office storage has decreased in the last decade, mainly due to the invention and integration of online cloud storage. The idea of this is that you pay monthly to store you files or documents on the internet. On the face of it, it sounds like a great suggestion; however it does have its flaws and the first being the fact that you have to be connected to the internet to access your data. I understand that in this day and age you will be hard pushed to find an area where you can’t access the internet,  but as we all know computers, the internet and in fact quite a few computer driven electronics have a tendency to crash every once in a while. Not only this, but you not in complete control of your information. What I mean by this is that there is another party involved in securing the safety of your files and it would not be the first time that people’s online storage has “gone missing”.

Another form of digital storage for your office is an external hard drive. The advantage of this is that firstly for the space it uses up compared to the amount that it can hold means that it is hugely efficient in that respect. Another advantage of this is that, unlike cloud storage, you are in complete control and are the sole keeper of that information. That is unless you entrust someone else with it.

Obviously there are disadvantages to this. The first one being that if there did happen to be a fire or a particular emergency that caused damage to the environment where the hard drive or other storage device had been placed and consequently destroyed it, you would lose every piece of information as everything would be stored on there.

The second disadvantage is that hard drives have been known to (for seemingly unknown reasons) wipe themselves, clearing themselves of part or even all the information contained on it.

Looking at the above, we can now move onto physical storage, for example wall storage, filing cabinets, credenzas, tambour cupboards etc… We all know that they take up space but in the event of an emergency it is more likely that only part of the information contained in these office storage units will be affected.

Having said all of this, it is actually advised that we make use of all three of these storage options. It has been suggested that in order to truly secure your information it should be kept in at least 3 different places. The storage should also be kept at least 60m away from each other. Cloud storage is easy to make sure that it is at a safe distance as it can be accessed from anywhere.Hard drives are very portable so by keeping it out of the office will ensure (as long as you have physical copies of the information) that your data is secure.

It has been a common misconception that digital storage will actually kill off the need for filing cabinets, low cupboards, bookcases etc… in the office and we will live in a paperless world. This is not the case however that instead of becoming the enemy of paper and the humble filing cabinet, it is actually here to support it and keep the information that is so precious to us more secure than it has ever been.

There is never any call for traditional style office furniture any more. I am not saying that there is no longer a demand for it; I’m just saying that if you look in commercial offices these days, you are likely to find more modern office desking and more contemporary operator chairs or executive furniture. This is even the case in boardrooms, even though the idea of a boardroom is an old one, the boardroom tables that are around today tend to be modern and sleek.

It is not the look and feel of the furniture that has changed, but our shift towards ergonomic chairs and desks due to the increase rate of work related injuries. With this in mind, let me introduce a product that is both modern and ergonomic as well as being needed in the office. The product I am talking about is Flo.

Computer arms are often overlooked as all monitors are provided with a stand; however these stands are by no means ergonomic. The problem is that the monitor cannot be set at the right height for the user and are not height adjustable, so cannot be set for users at different heights. This is why monitor arms are so important, as they can be set at different heights and tilts depending on the user, which over time can prevent such problems as straining of the neck.

The Flo computer arm is unique in this way as not only can it provide an ergonomic solution for monitors, but it has the unrivalled capability to provide an ergonomic solution for tablet and touch screen technology.  Unlike other monitor arms, the Flo is easy to adjust using it’s unique Geometric Spring System (GSS). Another feature that is exclusive to the Flo is the installation performance meter. This handy little gauge records the weight setting after adjustment so that the exact weight tension can be replicated on all of the other arms for a quicker, better and more effective installation.

Below are some images of the Flo monitor arm:

When you think of office furniture, I am sure you’ll agree that one of the last materials you would think of to construct it from. There is a company however that has taken cardboard from its humble beginnings 150 years ago, when it was used for packaging and protection to its now ever increasing popularity in the world of furniture.  The company in question is Cardboard Future and not only have they made this concept a reality, but they actually have ranges.

Not only do the ranges contain office furniture, but they actually claim to be designer office furniture. This type of furniture is not only suitable for office and professional environments, but also for the domestic market as well.

The furniture itself is made completely from corrugated cardboard that is reinforced as well as being incredibly light and very durable at a low price. The range of furniture started with a simple paperweight desk and due to the popularity, the range was formed with the company investing time and money into creating such products as office storage, pedestals bookshelves, beds in various shapes and sizes.

Cardboard Future uses a special form of cardboard as basic reinforced cardboard just simply wouldn’t work and that is not even taking into account the European standards for sustainability and strength.

The cardboard used to make this sort of furniture is strong fibres from 74% recycled paperboard that makes the cardboard Grade A. The rest of the cardboard is taken from virgin wood fibres that have been certified by the UK and Europe as being a sustainable raw material. This means that the cardboard used is very eco-friendly.

After construction, the board is then die-cut (a process that shears the board using dies) using the factory’s innovative equipment and then varnished with water based glues. This last process is to provide even more strength to the cardboard. Once this has been done, the board is then cut into shape, slotted together and ready to use for its intended purpose.

Yes you are reading the title correctly; it does say £15 billion. This was a report released a few days ago by Eric Pickles the Local Government Secretary. The reason for this is that by increasing the number of public sector working from home would reduce the amount spent on office space, cut sickness levels as well as potentially increasing productivity by around 15% according to the study.

Working from home has become more and more favourable in recent years. This is mainly due to the increase in the availability of broadband and smartphones making it easier to access emails and other important digital information that is vital for those who work in the office.

As it stands at the moment, more than a quarter of the current workforce occasionally work from home with only 2.9% deciding to work from home full time. According to the report produced by Leaner and Greener, only a 5% increase in the amount of public sector workers opting to work from home would reach the savings projected in the study. It shouldn’t be too hard to persuade people to work from home, would you prefer to work at an office desk sitting on a regular operator chair crouched behind a screen in a busy office or be able to have the freedom and comfort of working in your own home? I know which one I would choose!

As well as working from home Mr Pickles suggested that perhaps it’s time that public services should share accommodation. This would save space and by designing a more space efficient area save money in the long run.

The suggestion of working from home would also help to increase morale among staff. Having the freedom to personalise your home office, pick out your desired workstation, be able to choose your office or executive chair, and not have to think about all the people behind the screens could in turn help increase staff productivity and help to also save money.

It is common knowledge that the amount of musculoskeletal disorders are on the increase and that this is a direct correlation to the increasing amount of time that we spend working in the office sitting on our office chairs. It is no surprise then that more and more chair manufacturers are spending more time and effort into trying to find the most effective ergonomic solution, by that I mean office chairs and desks to these ever increasing problems. It is not to say that these efforts are wasted, in fact quite the opposite, however for those that do suffer from an MSD; physiotherapy might be another option to ease your pain.

Two government departments in Northern Ireland have provided early access to physiotherapy for staff with MSDs (musculoskeletal disorders). The results were quite positive with 80% of those treated said that the treatment had prevented them from going absent with over 80% indicating that there absence had been shortened.

Based on the latest statistics released from the Health and Safety Executive 227,000 people have an MSD of the back, 215,000 of the upper limbs or neck and 96,000 of the lower limbs. These figures are staggering with the number one cause of long term absence at work being lower back pain amongst manual workers with 30% of primary care consultations with GPs being caused by MSDs.

To put this in monetary terms, West Suffolk hospital trust in Bury St Edmunds was commended in the Boorman report for having achieved savings of £170,000 through referring patients to physiotherapy. This not only saved money but also caused a 40% reduction in lost days through sickness absences.

In 2008/09 an estimated 538,000 people in Britain who worked in the last year, believed that they were suffering from an MSD that was made worse by work. This meant that an estimated 9.3 million working days were lost to MSD in Great Britain in 2008/09. This trend will only ever increase if we carry on the way that we are. Perhaps it is time that we introduce physiotherapy into the workplace to help prevent an augmentation in this number and perhaps see if we can reduce it.