The Right Office Chair for Your Style and Space

Office Chair, Computer Chair, Side Chair, Stools… so many choices when it comes to office furniture!

It used to be that when you thought about seating for your office, you thought of a typical desk chair, one with arms and casters so you could scoot in and back from your desk. Today, there are a lot of different types and styles of chairs designed for the office. Allsteel, a furniture supplier for Workspace Solutions,  has designed and manufactured office chairs since 1912. They offer at several different categories of office chairs, and each of these come in several different designs providing a solution for every style, task, and person, and to compliment any space!

 

Work chairs

Conference chairs

 

Multi-Purpose office chairs

 

Side chair

 

Training & classroom chairs

 

Stools

 

Lounge chairs

 

No one is more aware of the growth in the types and styles of office chairs over the years than Workspace Solutions, your authorized Allsteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend, Warsaw, and Indianapolis. We spend almost our entire day at the office in our chairs, let Workspace Solutions fit you with the perfect chair for you, your style, and your space!

WaveWorks by National Captures Your Imagination in Metal

 

Remember metal desks?  Probably not in a good way if you do, but you had to admit, they lasted forever, and were very cost effective.  What if you could combine the durability of metal with a great modern style?  Too late, it’s been done.  Take a look at WaveWorks metal furniture from National Furniture.

National Wave Works from Workspace Solutions photo 1

Let your metal imagination run wild with the flexibility of WaveWorks Metal and the unlimited options of WaveWorks Laminate surfaces to create incredibly durable, beautiful configurations. The blending of woodgrain, solid or patterned laminates with the sleeknessof metal delivers an awesome, enduring aesthetic. Combine all this with National’s extensive seating line, and you now have a single source for sustainable solutions to oblige all your metal desk and storage applications and footprints.

National Wave Works from Workspace Solutions photo 2

Enjoy the long-lasting appeal and ease of ownership of WaveWorks from National. Contact us here at Workspace Solutions to learn more about Wave Works from National, just one of the many hard working, professional lines we carry, sell, and install all over Fort Wayne, Northern Indiana, Central Indiana, and Indianapolis.

Natinal WaveWorks at Workspace Solutons showroom in downtown Fort Wayne, IN

Natinal WaveWorks at Workspace Solutons showroom in downtown Fort Wayne, IN

 

 

The Seat(ing) of Power, Gunlocke at Workspace Solutions

Here at Workspace Solutions, we’re proud to handle many fine lines of office chairs. Some, like La-Z-Boy are very well known, while others, like Gunlocke may be more famous for who’s used them. Every U.S. President from Woodrow Wilson to Jimmy Carter chose a Gunlocke chair for the Oval Office.

Truly successful workspace solutions also deliver long-term satisfaction and ongoing performance. That means building for the customer’s needs, today as well as tomorrow.
Not just anyone can make good on this promise. Delivering it requires a company that demands excellence at every level. Why settle for anything less than a furniture manufacturer who’s continually setting a higher standard on your behalf?

Since the 1920’s, Gunlocke has stayed focused on everything an office client needs to succeed: design, functionality, delivery, quality and value.
Workspace Solutions is proud to be a Gunlocke Dealer for Northern Indiana. Come see Gunlocke Quality for yourself in our downtown showroom at the corner of Main and Webster in Fort Wayne, IN

Which type of Worker is most likely to Develop Chronic Back Pain from Work?

Which of these two people are most likely to develop chronic back pain later in life?

A. Lumberjack

B. A Secretary in a modern office

The answer, of course, is B.  An office secretary, or business executive, or anyone who spends most of his or her time at work sitting, is far more likely to develop back and neck pain than a physically active worker.

Here are three of the major workplace contributors to back pain:

  • Slouching forward in your chair
  • Holding your telephone between your ear and your shoulder
  • Lack of movement during the work day

So, why are you still just sitting there. Get active now!  Here are some ideas from San Francisco State University’s Dr. Erik Peper

1.)   Support the natural curve of your spine! Office chairs should have lumbar support, a natural forward curve at belly button level. You can also put a pillow or rolled up towel behind your back to achieve this effect.

2.)   Adjust the height of your chair so you can keep your feet flat on the floor and your knees at 90-degree angles. You can also rest your feet on a prop, like a footrest or even a phone book, for extra support. Crossing your legs tightly reduces circulation in your legs and causes varicose veins, which look dark blue on your skin!

3.)   Remove or lower the armrests so your arms are at 90-degree angles. This will encourage you to hold your shoulders low, which your good for your upper back.

4.)   Keep your monitor about an arms length away and at or slightly below eye level. This will encourage you to sit back, instead of lean forward and reduces neck strain.

Stand Up and move around

Sitting (or even standing) in one position for an 8 hour workday can be very hard on your body!

1.)   Take short breaks, once every hour to use the restroom, get a glass of water, walk down the hallway, or just stretch. Sitting for long periods of time will weaken the muscles in your back. Stretching for just 60 seconds will counter the bad effects of long periods of just sitting.

2.)   Research suggests that about half your hours at work should be spent standing up. If you have a sit-stand workstation, alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day.

3.)   Strengthening your core muscles with exercise, such as yoga, pilates or sit-ups works  your stomach as well your back, which naturally improves your posture and reduces pain.

Workspace Solutions in Fort Wayne, IN, has ergonomic chairs, workstations and office desks that can help keep office workers healthy and happy.  Contact us to discuss how we can help your employees avoid the long term health issues that come from sitting all day long at work.

What ideas do you have for keeping active and not just sitting at your desk eight hours every day?

What if you designed furniture with the goal of keeping just the essential elements of function and form? You’d probably wind up with the Clarity seating series from AllSteel. Nothing extra, just what you need. The result is a chair that adapts to any space you put it into, and any type of work you are doing.

Workspace Solutions is proud to be an AllSteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis and most of Northern Indiana. AllSteel has been quality, innovative office furniture now for almost one hundred years.

 

When you sit on the Clarity chair, the mesh seat and back adjust immediately to you, providing instant comfort that actually anticipates your posture. Your comfortable at your desk, or anywhere you sit, and no matter which office task you are performing.

Contact us and learn more about the latest in seating, the Clarity Series Chairs from AllSteel and Workspace Solutions.

 

Ideas Flock together with new Flock line from Hon and Workspace Solutions

The current trend in office design encourages people to get up from their desks occasionally, to spend some time together collaborating and creating new concepts.  To make this work w need inviting spaces that welcome employees to work together away from their desks or workstations.  This fall, Hon Office Furniture and Workspace Solutions, your Hon dealer for Fort Wayne, and northern Indiana introduce Flock.  Flock supports collaboration and creates an environment of how people want to work and where they want to work.   Instead of making team members “make do” for group activities, Flock lets you dedicate zones where teamwork comes naturally.  As with all office furniture at Workspace Solutions, Flock from Hon is made for work.  It’s tough, hardworking, yet great loopking office furniture designed to last a long time and get the job done.    Flock by Hon becomes available this fall at Workspace Solutions in Fort Wayne, IN.

Google’s new London Office Offers us a Sneak Peak at the Future

Google has been  a trend setter in style and management over the past several years. So, when Google builds a new office (this time in London), the rest of us check it out to see if there’s any great new ideas we need to borrow, or at least to see what our office might look like in another ten years or so.  If Google’s London office is any clue, we’ll be seeing more padding on the walls, and a continuation of the trend to encourage employees to collaborate and work from many different parts of the office, technology freeing us from being tethered to our desks.

For fun, anyway, take a look at Google’s new London office in this web article by the website, digital trends.  Click here

What Google ideas would you like to see in your office?

 

National goes Green

It’s not enough today to simply buy office furniture that looks great, works hard, and comes in at a good price point.  Businesses today are also concerned about their carbon footprint, making sure they’re running green facilities as well as purchasing products that are gentle on the environment.

 

Workspace Solutions is proud to work with many suppliers who are leaders in green technology.  Their latest is an Indiana Company, National Office Furniture, a brand unit of Kimball International, Inc.  Their caseboods and tables manufacturing facility in Santa Claus, IN has just been awarded the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver) for Exisiting Buildings by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).  This makes National’s Santa Clause facility the first LEED-certified office furniture manufacturing facility in Inaiana, and only the 11th location in the state to earn a LEED certification in the industrial manufacturing category.  What all this means is that whenever National builds a piece of office furniture here in Indiana, it has used less energy, and recycled more leftover material than it used to before the LEED certification.

For you, it means that when you buy National Office furniture from Workspace Solution,you’ve minimized the environmental impact of that purchase, and that’s good for our planet.

“National Office Furniture has proved their leadership in the manufacturing sector through their LEED Silver certification,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “By targeting sustainability, National has raised the bar for manufacturing facilities everywhere. We commend them on this great achievement.”

“At National, we are never satisfied when it comes to safety, quality and sustainability. Our Santa Claus facility earned previous sustainable accolades, but we knew we could improve, and we did in achieving LEED Silver. We’re very proud to be a good corporate neighbor and operate a high-caliber, green certified facility in the community,” said Mendy Claridge, Director of Sustainability, LEED AP ID+C, National Office Furniture.

Is there such a thing as a “too quiet” office?

Hon Open Office furniture from Workspace Solutions

Sometimes, less is more.  It seems to be that way in today’s modern offices.  With ultra quiet heating and cooling system, no more clunking of electric typewriters, and emails replacing rining phones, the modern office is quieter than ever, and that seems to be the problem.  It is now easier than ever to be distracted by a conversation, evenone fifty or sixty feet away from your work station or desk. Being able to hear office conversations more easily has also had a chilling effect on having office conversations.  People know that everyone will hear every word.

Still, the advantages of an open office are many, with an increase in collaboration and idea sharing on the top of the list.

When Autodesk, a software company, moved into a an open-plan building in Massachusetts, three years ago, it installed what is known as a pink-noise system: a soft whooshing emitted over loudspeakers that sounds like a ventilation system but is specially formulated to match the frequencies of human voices.

Autodesk ran the system for three months without telling the employees — and then, to gauge its impact, turned it off one day.

“We were surprised at how many complaints we got,” said Charles Rechtsteiner, Autodesk’s facilities manager. “People weren’t sure what was different, but they knew something was wrong. When the system’s on, speech becomes unintelligible at a distance of about 20 feet.”

Others, like Anne-Laure Fayard  a professor of management at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University are studying the issue. According to Fayard, “Everyone is still experimenting with ways to balance the need for collaboration and the need for privacy.”

Sound proofing materials, and designing for privacy are a considerations taken into account by the office planners at Workspace Solutions.  Having a wide variety of office furniture options from the nations’ top providers, as Workspace does, helps as well.   Meantime, it’s nice to know that research continues into the creation of the perfect office.

More Affordable Seating from Lesro

Local hospitals have been excited about our new chair line from Lesro. This is a company that specializes in solid wood and metal reception area and conference room furniture. The best part, however, is the affordable price. Any time you can combine high quality with a lower price, you’ve got a winner.
You can learn more about them on their website by clicking here, or visit our showroom.