Does your business have a battery-farm conformity? Invest in office furniture that lifts the mood and inspires individuality to get the best out of your staff.

Ban the battery farms

With the help of the right office furniture the conventional office is transforming. Business expert Charles Handy has written numerous books on succeeding in business, he believes that a large office block with battery-farm style office furniture dulls the human spirit.

Conventional office furniture

Handy even thinks conventional office furniture that dictates that employees are assigned a particular desk and chair could evolve with the help of wireless technology. That the office furniture will consist of more free-flowing, democratic spaces where employees can desk-hop, meet and converse rather than sit at one particular desk. This, Handy believes, will help inspire creativity in staff.

Appropriate office furniture

It is important of course to have an office with appropriate office furniture so that staff can practically achieve their workloads. But sometimes thinking outside the box when it comes to how you lay out your office furniture can have benefits. The fact that the majority of us spend the bulk of our working lives in an office means that office furniture and design should make offices better places to work than the grey, beige stereotype.

Office furniture and staff potential

Although offices who want to promote creativity and collaboration have been tarred by the dotcom brush where pool tables took precedent over office furniture, there is still room to improve offices and staff potential with the right office furniture and design.

Wireless revolution

Laptops and wireless technology mean that companies can move away from fixed office furniture to having more open desks and work surfaces where groups can form and reform depending on the project they are working on. It means the workplace is more flexible to the style and nature of work than the work being dictated by the constraints of the workplace. Office furniture can now be used in a creative and imaginative way to get the most out of staff and help improve the overall environment of the office work place from 'battery farm' to 'inspiring'.

The future of office furniture

If you are setting up a business from scratch, it's worth putting some thought into your office furniture and asking what you want to achieve and what you want your employees to achieve. If collaboration is important, you should factor in office furniture that encourages interactivity. If the work is solitary, it might suit the employee to work from home. Some business analysts predict that in the future offices will give employees who want to work from home an 'office budget' which they can spend on home office furniture if they wish, or upgrade the family computer.