Working on your company’s return-to-office plan and trying to digest your staff’s furniture needs is no easy feat. Before welcoming back staff, companies must make decisions on how to socially distance, sanitize, and comply to workplace guidelines. They must also balance staff comfort with safety, costs, and manufacturing timelines for new furniture pieces or add-ons. Furniture manufacturers, like many other businesses, were impacted by COVID-19 shutdowns. This may affect how efficiently you are able to implement your company’s return-to-work plan.
There is a lot to consider as employees begin to return to offices that will be different from the ones they occupied before COVID-19. These few tips can serve as a guide to help as you start to navigate this process.
1. Select a furniture provider who will act as your advocate
The right furniture provider will offer more than just sales. They should help navigate the maze of products and information being pushed out daily, especially as these evolve to meet post-COVID-19 restrictions and regulations. Specifically, furniture providers should be solution-oriented and cater to the individual needs of your company, while helping you consider options and costs.
If the provider is new to you, site visits should be conducted in-person or virtually. You should expect tiered ranges of costs and products. For instance, when adding height to existing furniture panels, you will want to understand options. These may include permanently installed glass or fabric stackers versus temporary, locally produced screens. Making sure that your furniture provider understands what your individual company’s needs and restrictions are will allow for a better end-result.
Your furniture provider should offer strong visual packages to help you process the larger impact of the design on any office retrofit.
2. Support working from home
Juggling a wide range of opinions and concerns related to revised workplace structures and newly implemented safety measures are unavoidable. Creating options for staff and adapting as plans evolve is an ever-changing process.
We can expect that time spent in the office will continue to be balanced with time spent at home. Managing office capacities will mean staff is staggered with respect to both space and time, as recommended by the CDC.
Extended time working from home has highlighted the need for ergonomic and functional solutions at our home offices. Providing incentives for employees to address these issues can yield higher productivity and increase morale. Contract furniture manufacturers, like Haworth, have created “stores” where end-users are able to purchase products like task seating and height-adjustable desks directly at discounted rates.