Office Furniture Adjacency and How To Design Your Work Space

Over the years I have designed many office furniture and filing systems configurations. One of the most important things I have learned is to maintain optimum work flow and employee adjacency to information. This is a tip well worth mentioning.
Most designers seem to focus on aesthetics rather than functionality and work flow. I personally believe this is where designers frequently miss the mark.

All of my office furniture layouts start with the collection of information and the analysis of this information. I ask targeted survey questions to get an idea of what employees do every day to identify efficiencies and inefficiencies. For instance, I need to know how many times per day employees are forced to retrieve and replace files and where those files are located in relation to their particular work station.

It is important to observe existing office rhythms to determine if personnel are moving more than necessary to accomplish common daily tasks.

I also like to query staff about their own personal storage needs as relating to hard copy files, computer automation, and personal effects storage. In addition I study their posture to determine possibilities for ergonomic enhancement via the implementation of multi-function task chairs, ergo keyboard platforms, flat panel monitor arms, glare guards etc. All of these factors need to be evaluated prior to establishing any effective office furniture configuration.

Office administrators and managers need know there are accessible resources available to help with these types of surveys. They need to know help is available to help them develop office furniture layouts that make sense based on the collection of this information.

Some companies may offer these types of services but most will not because this knowledge is generally obtained through comprehensive field training and personal industry experience. Most customer service representatives are inexperienced and usually they are not paid handsomely for their services. Therefore, they are given no initiative to obtain these skills to better their performance.

In my opinion, it is healthy for companies to maintain representative continuity and to teach trainees the importance of fostering lasting relationships with potential clients. That is how it should be done. This may sound old school, but it has certainly worked for my business and several other successful companies with whom we network.

Regardless of how beautiful a particular office furniture may appear in a brochure or on a website, it must be configured for optimum utilization. Optimum utilization is inherently linked to work flow and employee adjacencies. This is where the utilization of experienced office furniture representatives becomes crystal clear and imperative.

My opinion goes something like this, if you somehow managed to negotiate your entire office furniture purchase for one dollar and the configuration did not meet your needs, you overpaid.
Additionally, I feel it is important to mention that most office furniture representatives I have encountered know absolutely nothing about filing systems design, records management, or the importance of good IT flow. I am frequently called in to repair the damage caused by inexperienced representatives.

Sometimes knowing how to design a good information system is just as important as designing the furniture configuration itself. Often I find that filing systems can be consolidated into one cohesive, mutually accessible, conveniently located high density shelving arrangement. These consolidated filing systems can be centrally located along a wall or in the middle of a common work space.

The implementation of high density filing and storage systems can help companies recapture their own floor space and space is a premium. This is accomplished by reducing the number of aisles necessary to access traditional shelving arrangements. The space saved by these systems can be utilized to create more work stations and to accommodate additional vital personnel.

If a company's systems are completely computer automated, then wiring can be managed by using articulating CPU holders which keep wiring off the floor. This improves computer efficiency and reduces risk to hardware and staff.

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