In today’s business world, flexibility is one of the biggest keys to success, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. A large company may have enough power and leverage to make it in a few basic services, but smaller companies almost always need to be able to diversify to survive. To allow the necessary level of flexibility for the company as a whole, you will need to reflect that flexibility in each separate area of your business, not only including the skills of your employees, but also the layout of your offices. .
This kind of total flexibility will allow your business to adapt in any kind of way your current situation may dictate. One of the best ways to achieve this degree of flexibility in your office space is through the use of modular office furniture. Of course, this may seem a bit strange to those who are not familiar with this type of furniture, but the truth is that modular office furniture is often the key to a flexible and productive office.
So what is so special about this particular type of furniture? Essentially, it is as advertised. Modular office furniture is, well, modular, which essentially means it’s made of pieces designed to fit back together in any number of different combinations. In the case of office furniture, modular essentially means that if you need to have an L-shaped desk, you wouldn’t have to go out and find an L-shaped desk, in the right measurements. Rather, you can ‘build’ the desk from two or more modular desk pieces, and perhaps one piece to better join them together.
This means you can completely reconfigure your office space, virtually at will. Perhaps an office design worked well at one point, perhaps at a time when you had fewer employees or somewhat different tasks to perform, but now you’re left with an outdated design. With the use of modular office furniture, you can quickly and easily take apart such an outdated design and rework it into a design that is more beneficial to the specific type of work you will be doing. Likewise, you can add pieces as needed, such as shelving and the like, as needed to make your tasks easier.
Another great feature of modular furniture is the ability to rearrange things just because you can. There have been studies suggesting that essentially any change in a previously static work environment can inspire an increase in productivity among workers. As such, if you regularly tweak your office layouts, you may be able to give your company’s productivity the boost it needs. The trick with this method is not to rearrange modular office furniture too often, to keep your staff from feeling lost or confused all the time, but to change it often enough to get a real sense of difference.
Copyright © Jared Winston, 2007. All rights reserved.