Is your office environment or office furniture making you sick? The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and, increasingly, manufacturers of office products and equipment, are taking steps to reduce the likelihood that’s the case.

Open offices are certainly not the answer for every type of office environment; however, there are many business that can benefit from making the switch from cubicles into an open office space. Some companies are able to forego cubicles and reconfigure their offices into open-concept workspaces that encourage collaboration, bolster creativity and increase workplace morale. If your employees are hidden away in cubicles and you’d like to embrace an open workspace, you’ll probably be relieved to hear that it may be possible to achieve that primarily by reusing what you already have on hand. 

While open concept offices, office benching, and office hoteling are up and coming office design choices for many companies, these types of layouts don’t work for all companies. If your employees are situated in cubicles and the arrangement works for you and your team, there is no need to bend to peer pressure! Cubicle office layouts have unique benefits that some other office layouts don’t – including a sense of privacy and having one’s own space, noise control, and the ability to be configured and reconfigured in various ways.

If you’re of a certain age, you remember a time when the only way to make a private call when away from home or the office was to step into a phone booth. Prolific on street corners and in businesses, phone booths allowed you to close the door and have conversations others couldn’t hear and conversations not muffled by ambient noises.

"Going deskless."

This may be an unfamiliar term to you, but it's actually a strategy that many teachers embrace -- for their students and for themselves. In the classroom, going deskless in favor of adopting flexible seating options provides coveted extra floor space -- and the freedom for students to position themselves in a way that is most conducive for them to learn (lying on their stomach on the floor, sitting against a wall, sitting on a balance ball, etc.)

What it means to “go to the office” has changed significantly in recent years. Office design may or may not include private offices, cubicles, or even workstations assigned to specific individuals. Two office design trends that are becoming increasingly popular are office hoteling and office benching. The esthetics of the each of these office design trends lend to wide-open visuals with the space appearing brighter and larger, instead of the dark and closed-off look of cubicle farms. 

Read on to learn what they are and whether one may be beneficial for your office.

Whether it’s an economical or a high-end office furniture brand like Herman Miller or Teknion, your office furniture is a significant investment that needs to last. It may not be in your budget to upgrade it simply to give your office space a new look. It may not even be in your budget to upgrade it when you’re relocating to a new space – even though it’s likely that your existing furniture will not fit in your new office space. An experienced office furniture installer can help you make the most of your existing furniture in your new space.

It’s always important to be careful who you trust to come into your place of business as a vendor or a service provider. When your business has access to customers’ sensitive personal information, such as financial records, medical records, and legal documents you’ve got to be especially careful.

If there’s one area of your office that takes more of a beating day in, day out than any other area, it’s your floors. They’re walked on, spilled on, and rolled on. Carpet floors become stained, frayed, and worn over time. Tile, concrete, or laminate become scratched and scuffed over time.

Regardless of what type of flooring you have, it may eventually become outdated and tired. In other words, at some point you’ll need to change your office floors. Before you do, there are some things you need to think about, some steps you’ll need to take, and some prep work you’ll need to do.

Designing an office is a lot like a jigsaw puzzle. There are many pieces that must come together to complete the puzzle. Some things are easy to complete, while others take a bit more time. If you’ve ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle, you probably know that it’s smart to fit the corners together first then pull out all of the straight-edged pieces and complete the frame, before tackling the interior pieces, which are trickier to get right.