Every single year, there are a ton of guides being launched to tell you about the new office planning trends in the furniture space.
The problem with these guides is that they are just too subjective and each one filled with the publisher’s biases.
So, what is different about the guide you are about to read?
Well, this one will be a quick dive into the major trends and how they can impact your business, if you choose to adopt with them.
Here are the top office planning trends for 2019:
Collaborative Furniture: Tops the list of Office Furniture Trends in 2019
- What is it: One of the most influencing office planning trends of 2019 has been the advent of collaborative furniture.
- The philosophy of this furniture trend is to ensure collaboration by bringing down any physical barriers, while still ensuring that productivity is not hampered.
A big office gets divided into team areas and each team sits around a collaborative space. - Benefits: If you are a product-oriented company, this will do wonders for you, especially if you are a growing company.
- This office planning trend forces you to bring down the unnecessary hierarchy and focus on a clear flow of information.
It also provides a great degree of engagement between employees, since the entire office looks like one unit. - Drawbacks: There are certain business and business functions where a high degree of privacy and individualistic productivity is essential.
This design is not ideal for those businesses.
Sit-Stand Desks
- What is it: For decades, the ‘normal’ stance in the offices has been to sit back and get the work done. That has changed with sit-stand desks.
Brought to fame by CEOs like Jack Dorsey from Square and Twitter, these desks give you the liberty to change your normal desk into a standing desk. - Benefits of sit-stand desks: Ideal for work cultures where long working hours are the norm.
Just by standing for a majority of the workday, employees can burn more calories and keep away from any possible lethargy.
In some way, since it keeps the body active, this may save the employee from fatigue as well. - Drawbacks: Employees who are not comfortable in working while standing may find these intimidating.
There might be a sense of peer pressure as well. But the same holds true for fitness centres within the workplace!
Booth Seating
- What is it: Have you ever been to one of those classic New York cafes or delis?
Even if you haven’t been to one, you must have seen it in some popular series or movies.
Booth seating is an evolved version of the same seating arrangement, except, for offices.
Here, teams can sit in their dedicated booths, which are divided by some form of partition. - Benefits: Each team gets to have its own dedicated working space, without compromising on the in-team collaboration.
Booths take relatively lesser space than traditional conference rooms and meeting rooms. - Drawbacks: Since they cut a team from others in the office, they may lead to group thinking. Cross-team collaborations get hindered.
High-Tech Conference Rooms and Large Screens for Remote Meeting
- What is it: Instead of having bunches of teams sit and debate it in one crowded conference room, teams can now communicate in larger conference rooms with large screens available to create a visually engaging medium.
- Benefits: Teams can now collaborate without having to travel thousands of miles. It also saves companies a lot of resources which would’ve otherwise gone down the drain in travelling.
- Drawbacks: Might not be the ideal way to conduct meetings for smaller teams. Since everything depends on technology here, a glitch in connectivity can make the entire meeting go for a toss.
In Conclusion
More and more companies are drifting towards an open-office plan. It saves costs and increases collaboration. Ideas like booth seating build upon this very recurring theme. Sit-Stand desks will work for offices with long working hours and high-tech conference rooms will pay for themselves if you have teams/clients in distant cities.
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