Take a Stand at Work. You’ve Got Nothing to Lose but a few Pounds

Well, it was good enough for Ernest Hemingway, but you still need more convincing.

We’re talking about standing up while your work, at least standing up for a few hours every day.  The evidence seems to keep mounting for how bad sitting all day is for your health, but now there is a little evidence that shows the benefits as well.

According to a British exercise scientist, Dr. John Buckley, as quoted in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, staying on your feet an extra three hours daily would burn off eight pounds of fat each year.

Standing for three hours, Dr. Buckley notes, will burn 144 calories.  It’s also good for your circulation.  Sitting for long periods slows down your metabolic rate as well.

New adjustable desks and counter tops are being designed every day that allow you or your employees to spend part of the day standing while working.  Workspace Solutions works with dozens of the best office furniture companies in the world, and can help you design a work space that can help workers gain health and productivity, while losing weight at the same time.

Creating an Office Space for Collaboration with Hon’s new Flock Collaborative Solutions

Everyone today is talking about collaboration, bringing employees together to share and discuss their ideas.  It improves communications, cuts down on paperwork, and helps spark new ideas.  Collaboration is likely to happen anywhere, or not at all, depending on the layout of your work place.  It is more likely to happen if you encourage it with proper office design and layout.  Since collaboration is still a new concept for many, the nations’s top office furniture companies are just starting to offer specific products that they have designed and tested to increase the collaboration process in your office space.

The Hon Company, sold inFort  Wayne and Northern Indiana by Workspace Solutions,  has a new line entirely dedicated to collaboration.  It’s called Flock Collaborative Solutions because the idea is that workers will flock to these areas to share their best ideas.  In the same way as cubicles naturally keep people apart, collaborative areas must lure people into their spaces.  They must also facilitate the needs of the collaborators, or the desired collaboration won’t take place.  Companies like Hon, and office designers like Workspace Solutions, have been carefully studying what type of furnishings and designs not only bring people together, but help them work together to create the desired results.  At the same time, they are aware that such spaces must still fit the décor and decorum of your office.  Many companies have learned that their collaboration area is useful as a recruitment tool, since perspective employees are excited about the prospect of a strong collaborative environment, and are even already experienced these in college.

So the bottom line is, it must function properly, and it must look great, or it just won’t work at all.

With the incredible rate of change driven by technology, it shouldn’t’ be surprising to find our workspaces are changing as well.   Hon’s new Flock Collaborative Solutions, from Workspace Solutions shows how we continue to innovate to keep your work space up to date and running at maximum efficiency.

Treadmill Desk the next big thing in Office Furniture?

(Salo LLC/NPR)

First, there was the standing desk, where instead of sitting all day, you worked standing up, a much healthier alternative.  So, it didn’t take long to make the next leap of faith to create the treadmill desk, where you not only stand, but work out while your working.

The creators of the treadmill desks claim that this process actually increases productivity.  It certainly helps you find the time to get in your daily walk, and that should make you a healthier, happier worker for the long run, anyway.

According to NPR, the idea belongs to a Mayo clinic doctor, who believes it’s not only healthy, but also a great way to lose weight, while working.  The Doctor warns people not to jump on and walk eight hours a day to start.  He suggests a half hour on, then a half hour off for three or four days a week to get started.

What would you think if you came to work and found your desk was now a treadmill?

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.

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.

Thousands of people in the office furniture business are in Chicago today at the final day of the 44th annual NeoCon — the National Exposition of Contract Furnishings show at the Merchandise Mart.

This is where we find all of the new innovations in office furniture and design that we will be including in our office plans for the coming year. In the weeks ahead, we’ll be sharing some of the new products introduced at the show that we will be carrying very soon.

In general, what’s happening this year? Well, Byron S. Morton, vice president of leasing for Merchandise Mart Properties, described the changes in the market as a move toward the collaboration of “live and work.” One of this year’s office trends is making the office feel more like home.
“What does the iPad generation need — or not need? They need connectivity and don’t need big bulky furniture,” Morton said.
We’ve seen a huge interest in hospital and medical furniture over the past years, and expect new things in this area as well. Re-visit our site in a couple of weeks, and we’ll show you what new things are heading to our showroom.

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.

How Cloud Computing will affect Office Furniture Design

The cloud is simply a digital file storage system you access through the internet rather than through your network.  Your documents and spread sheets are stored in buildings thousands of miles away from the office and are accessible to you, and other employees, no matter where you are.  So, if you don’t need company servers anymore, maybe it’s time to think about converting the server room to another conference room.  With wireless cloud technology, you can plop down on any computer anywhere in the office, or on the road for that matter, so why do you need your own cubicle?  Work more comfortabley from a large work table, or sit and collaborate with fellow employees and still easily work on or share documents from your laptop to theirs through the cloud.  You don’t need as many non-assigned desks as you do private workstations.  Half you staff may be on the road at any given time anyway, especially your sales staff.  This means using limited space in a more efficient manner, even reducing square footage and high rents with come with that.  This cloud may not bring rain, but it does bring new ways to designe and utilize work space, and Workspace Solutions designers all over it.

If you’re still a bit cloudy on what cloud computing is, here’s a video that can shed some light on the subject.

Oh Boy! Here Comes Voi, Laminate Desking from Hon

We used to design every work station the same way, and each worker just had to adapt. Today, we design work stations for the task that person will actually be performing, thereby increasing their efficiency and productivity. The downside to doing this in the past was having to mix and match furniture from different manufacturers or style lines. With the new Voi line from Hon, we can now make all of your office furniture look the same from the boardroom to the reception area. Voi gives us the ability to create incredibly flexible offices with a common look. Every desk and work station can be different, yet colors and surfaces all match.

Check out the Voi Video, or contact Workspace Solutions to learn more about Voi from Hon.

Collaborate with Allsteel’s new Involve

Cubicles divide office space into private spaces all with the same function.  That’s great as long as everyone performs the same tasks and you never have the need for collaboration.

Involve, from Allsteel, was developed to support collaboration spontaneously at each individual workstation.  This makes work areas far more productive and efficient.   The collection incorporates soft seating to encourage spontaneous interaction, laminate storage options that support active work, and screens that define space and create varied separation. One unique solution supports all the ways work happens.

You can download the brochure by clicking here.

Workspace Solutions is your AllSteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend and Indianapolis, providing you with 21st Century ideas for designing your office for maximum efficiency.  To find out how you can use new ideas in office design, contact us today at Workspace Solutions.