Selecting furniture for an office environment can be quite tricky, but if you decide on custom office furniture, it enables you to design your office exactly as you require. Although there are many companies, manufacturing standard furniture items specifically for office use, they may not cater to individual specifications and measurements. Even if you find suitable items, from different manufacturers they may not match, and could spoil the overall décor of the office. Customization also provides a greater amount of flexibility in deciding the level of comfort, ergonomics, and style of the furniture.
Points to Consider While Planning Custom Office Furniture
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Once you have decided on customization, there are certain important points to consider before ordering your items. Here is a list of aspects that will help in your planning process.
- Style: All styles of furniture look great, but they should suit the nature of your office. For instance, café style furniture is not going to suit the formal atmosphere of a law firm. Changing styles between rooms is also not a good idea, as it will give a disjointed appearance to the décor. The choice of different materials like wood, leather, glass, and steel has a direct impact on the décor. While selecting the style you also need to consider the effect it will have on your clients, and whether it will remain in fashion after a few years from now.
- Size: Precise measurements have to be taken of the work area, and the size of the furniture should be planned accordingly. Fitting the furniture comfortably in each room is crucial, and make sure to leave enough room for opening drawers and cabinets. The easy movement of employees should also be considered, and the size of furniture items should not restrict foot traffic.
- Functionality: Custom office furniture should support all office processes, and provide the necessary structure for placing various office equipments. In each room, you need to plan the required amount of filing cabinets, stands for computers, fax machines and so on.
- Arrangement: While considering the size and purpose of each item, you also need to think about how you are likely to arrange the furniture. The arrangement should provide free movement of staff, and easy accessibility to various equipments.
- Ergonomics: Furniture ergonomics is quite an important point to consider if you want to get the highest working efficiency from your staff. Comfort and safety are paramount in any working environment, and you do not want your employees suffering from strained backs, or hurting themselves on sharp corners.
- Dividers: Employees love privacy while working, and setting the right dividers and partitions can provide the required private spaces for every employee. A large open space can be converted into efficient rows of cubicles, by setting up partitioning panels.
- Colors: Customization offers you great flexibility in the choice of color combinations amongst office furniture. Research has shown that colors have a dramatic effect on moods, and the choice of colors that are conducive, can create a lively and peaceful work environment.
- Future Considerations: Office equipments, procedures, and processes keep changing with time. Your choice of furniture should be adaptable to such changes, and provide you with the flexibility to expand the workspace, when there is need to increase the number of employees in future.
Office Chair Specifications
Seating is the most important element of custom office furniture, and chairs for employees must have the following specifications-
- Adjustable Height: The height of employees differs a lot, and it is critical for employees to adjust the height of their chairs to be comfortable. If cost is a factor, you can go for mechanical adjustments rather than pneumatic controls.
- Adjustable Back: Fixed back chairs may be good for guests, but employees need to adjust the angle of their chair’s backrest to be comfortable. If such chairs prove to be too costly, then you should at least provide a chair, which enables the employee to lean backwards.
- Swivel action and Casters: Employees need to access various material and equipments in their cubicles, and if they need to get up from their chairs every time, it will waste a lot of time. A swivel chair with casters provides a lot of mobility, quickly and comfortably.
Customization of Conference Tables
Major decisions are taken in conference rooms and it is important to have a fully functional conference table of the right size. The size should of course be adequate, and must leave enough room around it, to accommodate chairs and movement of employees. Make provisions in the table for hooking up various equipments like projectors, laptops and so on.
Get Help from the Professionals
The concept of modular office, has given rise to a completely new industry of customized office furniture. Many companies now specialize in providing custom solutions for all types of office furniture requirements. They can help in planning the layout of cubicles and show possible combinations of furniture items that are ideal for a given floor space. A flexible system of panels can maximize the usability of floor space, and work around common structural obstacles like columns and so on. Office floor space is quite expensive, and if the layout is not properly planned, you could be increasing your operating costs that will be eating into your profits. Well-designed custom office furniture will maximize employee efficiency, and use of floor space.