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The Five Questions You Need to Ask Yourself to Choose the Right Furniture for Your Office

Choosing the right furniture for your office can be daunting, especially if you’ve got a budget to work within or you’re not sure what style is best for your space, and what items you need to buy in order to achieve maximum benefit from your office furniture investment. The following 5 questions will prepare you to make smart decisions when selecting your furniture.

Office Furniture Question One: What is your office style?

This is the main question that business managers get stuck on – how do you define the style your office aims for? An easy way is to research and compare the offices of your competitors, but if access isn’t available, another simple way to define your style is to consider the industry you work in and identify the key qualities that industry values. Do you want to communicate reliability, or excitement and creativity? Is your office conservative? Funky and creative? Sleek and streamlined? If you’re still stuck, have a look at your marketing material. What image is being conveyed there? Does your logo, font, and brochures use a lot of colour or are they quite austere? Once you’ve worked out what you want your office to say, you can more easily select the furniture that helps you communicate this message.

Office Furniture Question Two: What are the tasks your staff need to perform?

To get the best use and value out of your office furniture investment, it is important to consider what this furniture needs to enable. Buying quality furniture that doesn’t serve your needs is like buying a great fertilizer for a cactus garden, completely unnecessary and a waste of your money. So ask yourself, are all staff tasks computer based and or do they require space to work off paper files or large format plans? Do they require filing at hand or can files be stored in a common space away from individual workstations? After you’ve worked out what style you should aim for, this question focuses that style selection to the furniture you need to boost your staff’s productivity.

What behaviours are wasting your staff’s time?

You can tailor the office space to minimize the issues that your staff wastes their time fixing, making your workplace more productive. For example, if they’re constantly getting up to ask each other questions, go open plan and grouped desks. If they get distracted because of noise, organize your office to minimize this issue by utilizing separate desks, partitions and personal filing systems. Many employers forget this question too: Does your team have constantly adjust the furniture for group meetings? If they do, consider investing in a group work station that can be utilized by all groups without the time, noise and hassle that moving desks and squashing toes will cause.

How does your office look and feel throughout the whole day?

This question will save you from making a bad decision on your selected items. If you office is dark and cold during the morning, but bright and warm during the afternoon, invest in furniture that works in both settings. Also be aware of which season you are buying in, solid shapes and dark colours may seem like the perfect choice in winter, but would it look alright in the summer? This is especially important when you’re considering the colour scheme for the office.