What will offices look like when they reopen?

COVID 19 has completely disrupted our world….as we feel like we are cresting the curve and planning for what the next phase looks like, the layout of our workspaces is becoming paramount. We ask ourselves how must we adapt our workspaces immediately to accommodate social distancing, how can we make our offices easy to clean and disinfect…and also important how can I reshape workspaces to make my employees feel comfortable and safe.

While answers to these challenging questions are very difficult to come to rapidly, the attached article begins to address this issue…though time will only further the depth and innovation in workspace design to further Changing Design of Workspaces. We would love to hear from you as you consider these challenging questions and innovate together to create healthy and happy, high performing environments.

Are Standing Desks Worth It?

Everything You Need to Know

A standing desk is a desk that allows you to stand up at your workspace and continue to work comfortably. Some are adjustable so that you may go from sitting to standing and vice versa, while some remain at standing height. Here are some benefits of a standing desk. 

1. Help Reduce Back Pain 

Sitting for extended periods of time will increase the amount of pressure placed on your lower back and leads to compression of the discs in your spine. Eventually, you will start experiencing lower back pain from sitting in the same position too much.

It is recommended for every 30 minutes of sitting you get up and stand or walk for 5 minutes. This will help get your blood flowing and also will allow fluids to reach your lower spine and hydrate your discs, reducing inflammation. By using a standing desk, you can alternate between sitting and standing and it won't affect the progress of your work. 

2. Lower Risk of Gaining Weight

When you are sedentary for too long you will be at risk to gain weight. Most office workers sit all morning, eat lunch, and then sit all afternoon. This means that you are taking in more calories than you are able to burn off, leading to weight gain. 

A benefit of a standing desk is that you can stand up throughout the day and burn off some of those calories you are earning. It is especially important to stand for a period of time after eating lunch, this will help with your digestion and increase the metabolism of your food.  

3. Increase Productivity

Standing desks are known to increase productivity in those users who were able to alternate between sitting and standing versus those who just had a regular desk. 

If you can stand up and continue to utilize your workspace comfortably then you will not have to stop what you are doing to stretch your legs. If you get fidgety from sitting too long then having a standing desk will also help you focus on your work by releasing some of that tension in your body. 

4. Mood Improvement

Sitting all day can lead to an increased risk of developing depression and anxiety. As humans, we were not meant to sit all day and not getting up and moving also leads to feelings of lethargy, stress, and fatigue. 

With a standing desk, you get the chance to get up and move around which will increase the amount of energy and vigor you will feel. This will lead to an improvement in your mood because when you feel better physically it can help your mental well being as well. 

Are You Ready to Take a Stand?

Standing desks offer the opportunity for an overall reduction of sedentary time. This can help increase your physical and mental well being as well as increase the amount of quality work you can get done throughout the day. 

If you are ready to enhance your workspace, check out our most popular standing desk and start seeing the benefits of a more dynamic workspace for yourself. 



Top 5 Benefits of Good Posture for Great Performance in the Workplace

At any given time, between 15 and 20 percent of adults will report experiencing back pain and between 10 and 20 percent will report experiencing neck pain. There are a lot of reasons why people struggle with back and neck pain, but poor posture is one of the most common. When they improve their posture, folks dealing with back and neck pain often experience significant relief. Posture improvements come with a lot of other perks, too. For example, it can help to improve people's job performance. Read on to learn more about the benefits of good posture and how it can promote better results in the workplace.

1. Improved Mood

One of the most significant ways that posture affects performance is by helping to improve one's mood. People who sit and stand up straight tend to feel happier and more optimistic than those who slouch. It's amazing that the simple act of straightening one's spine, lifting their chest, and pulling their shoulders back can work wonders for their confidence and attitude.

2. Improved Digestion

People who sit and stand up straight also have better digestion. Digestive issues can have a serious impact on a person's productivity. After all, how are you supposed to get things done at work when you're stomach is upset or you're dealing with other problems? Sitting and standing up straight minimizes pressure placed on the digestive tract and helps all of the body's system to work in a more efficient way.

3. Fewer Headaches

Poor posture — especially when it's coupled with staring at a computer screen — is a common cause of tension headaches. If you have employees who are often experiencing headaches at work, they're not going to be productive as employees who feel their best. Proper posture can help to keep the spine aligned and minimize tension headaches among employees who work at the computer all day.

4. Increased Energy

How do you feel when you sit in a slouched position for hours on end? Do you feel energized and eager to tackle the day? Or, do you want to slouch down even farther until you're in a good position for a nap? Promoting better posture in the workplace can help your employees to feel more energized. This, in turn, will help them to get more done.

5. Improved Concentration

Finally, better posture can promote better concentration. Individuals who sit and stand up straight tend to have an easier time focusing on the task at hand than those who have poor posture. If your employees are better able to concentrate while they're at work, they'll also have an easier time doing their work in a timely manner. Their accuracy and ability to collaborate will likely improve, too.

Enjoy These Benefits of Good Posture Today

As you can see, there are lots of benefits of good posture. By encouraging your employees to make their posture a priority, you can help them to feel better and be more productive. If you want to experience all the benefits of postural improvements in your office, it pays to invest in great office furniture. Check out our products today to find ergonomic desks and chairs that will help you to foster a culture of wellness in your workplace. 

Why a Caribou Zone?

The purpose of a Caribou Zone is simple: create an inspired, focused work environment for your staff. With the way you work changing every day, the office itself has to be just as flexible to encourage productivity. Our modular, pre-configured “Zones” allow your employees to find their natural habitat and thrive in it. We create office solutions that are just as beautiful as they are functional and future-proof.

Comfort

We are focused on creating a comfortable experience from the moment you start browsing our products to when you finally take a seat inside one of our Caribou Zones. For us, that means offering totally inclusive furniture packages at one price with no hidden costs. Your comfort will always come first, whether we’re talking about affordability or the chair you’re sitting on. Whether you need one of our pre-configured solutions or a totally customized option, our 50+ years of commercial office furniture industry experience is at your disposal.

Our products are made of the best commercial quality materials and components on the market, and they are built to last. Once you’ve installed a Caribou Zone, you can rest assured knowing that space is highly optimized for years to come.

Curated Solutions

Our inclusive furniture packages create high performance environments that maximize personal comfort and productivity while delivering cohesive aesthetics. The balance you have to strike between facilitating a relaxed office and one that encourages team members to work diligently is precise one, but it can be done with the right pieces. If you’ve ever been to a furniture warehouse store, you know that there’s no shortage of options to fill in the space in your office. But what’s best for your staff? What are successful companies using? How do you facilitate teamwork and energy with your office layout? At Caribou, we’ve done all the hard work for you by wading through the vast number of office furniture choices to create the best commercial quality solutions available.

Consistency

These ecosystems fit into various space optimizing configurations that lend to supportive, collaborative office spaces. Meeting rooms, break rooms, individual office spaces, they all need to contribute to the bigger picture of your company. A work environment should bring a consistent energy that moves people to be at their best from the moment they step in the door, and that’s the energy Caribou Zones carry with them.

Flexible and Collaborative

The work environment we create inspire performance and are optimized for employee health and well being. Caribou furniture is engineered to support the human body fostering healthy postures all day. Our one price, inclusive packages come with no hidden costs and create ergonomic performance environments which maximize personal comfort and productivity while cohesively delivering aesthetics desired by our customers. These ecosystems fit various space optimizing configurations and lend to collaborative office spaces that allow for collaboration and privacy as needed.

Accountability and Sustainability

Our products are made of the best commercial quality materials and components available, those designed to withstand daily, high volume use. We are grounded in sustainability and always strive to meet the most stringent international specifications and certifications including Greenguard, ANSI/BIFMA and LEVEL.

Build a Culture of Wellness: Encourage Movement

A nationwide survey done by the United Healthcare indicated that close to 75 percent of all employees in US companies had interests in wellness programs. They further noted that 59 percent of those who had access to such programs claimed that the programs impacted their health positively.

Every year, more companies commit to offering wellness services such as biometric screening and onsite flu clinics to their employees. This step helps in the establishment of a healthy workforce.

However, many employers fail to see the bigger goal in establishing workplace wellness programs. It takes more than a once in a year health screening to help your employees stay healthy.

If you want to make a difference in the wellness of your employees, you should create a culture of wellness. By setting up a culture of wellness, health becomes a fundamental aspect of the company.

The employees, therefore, have no option but to enforce it and lead healthier and more productive lives.

What is a Culture of Wellness?

A culture of wellness makes a company to respect and work towards the well-being of all the employees. You need to identify ways that can help your employees maintain healthy habits while at home and at work.

The company needs to find ways that can motivate the employees to make their wellness a priority. A good culture of wellness ensures that every aspect of the company works towards the development of a healthy lifestyle.

Ways to Build A Culture of Wellness

There are several ways you can put in place to build a culture of wellness in your company.

Here are some ways to get started:

1. Encouraging Employees to Work While Standing

A whole day in the office consists of mainly sitting down. If you are working for 8 hours every day for six days a week, you barely get any time to stretch your muscles. Instead of trying to change the schedule of your employees, you can invest in standing desks that provide a healthier option.

2. Offering Regular Fitness and Yoga Classes in the Office

You can introduce an in-house fitness program that can allow employees to freshen up and get back to work. If you do not have a company gym facility, you can use a small or large conference room, depending on the number of people in attendance. It is even better if you have bathrooms in the same building.

3. Introducing Walking Meetings

It is advisable to allow your employees to walk and stretch their legs. One such way is by starting walking meetings. Incorporating walking meetings is a novel way to encourage the movement of your employees at your workplace.

4. Encourage Fitness Challenges

A little bit of competition may be what your workplace needs to set the tone of healthy living. You can introduce fitness challenges, from simple activities such as tracking the number of steps taken to the number of miles everyone runs in a week. You can then have a winner receive a healthy prize every week.

Getting In Tune With Your Workplace Wellness Programs

Your workplace wellness programs should not focus on health numbers only. They should focus on helping your employees lead better, happier, and more productive lives. Regardless of the strategy you use, you will not get significant results if the employees do not practice a healthy lifestyle as they work.

The best way to ensure sustainable results is by creating a culture of wellness. Please check out our Caribou Office Zones which are designed to help maximize productivity through healthy habits.

 

Collaborate Without Boundaries

Do you want to increase productivity and performance in your office? If so, then you need to make collaboration a priority.

Research shows that employees who work together stay focused and stick to their tasks 64 percent longer than those who work alone. They also experience higher levels of engagement, higher rates of success, and less fatigue. If you want to reap the benefits of collaboration in the workplace but aren't sure where to begin, keep reading. Listed below are some tips that will help you get started.

Identify Individual Strengths

Every employee has different strengths and weaknesses. Start by evaluating your employees and identifying the strengths each one brings to the table. Then build teams of individuals whose strengths complement each other. This will encourage collaboration and help your workers see that they're stronger together than they are on their own.

Set Clear, Realistic Goals

You'll find that your employees have a much easier time collaborating when you've set clear and realistic goals for them to accomplish. The clearer you are when communicating what you need from them, the more likely they are to actually get things done. Make sure that every individual team member understands what's expected of them, too. Don't just assume that they know what you want. 

Use the Right Tools

There are lots of tools you can use to make collaboration easier. For example, cloud-based software allows your employees to access information, share ideas, and work together on projects anywhere and at any time. Even when they're not all in the office together, they can still collaborate and get things done.

Encourage Outside Socialization

The more time your employees spend together outside of the office, the more comfortable they're likely to be working with each other on various projects. Outside socialization helps your employees to communicate better and learn more about each other. It also helps them develop a sense of trust among themselves. Be sure to encourage your employees to socialize outside of work. You might even want to arrange activities that allow them to do so without having to do a lot of planning.  

Rearrange Your Office

Changing the way the furniture is arranged in your office will make it easier for your employees to collaborate without boundaries. There are lots of different furniture arrangement options that promote collaboration. Don't be afraid to experiment and see what works best for your employees. Maybe they do their best when they're working in pods with desks pushed together. Or, maybe it's better for them to have a multi-environment office with areas dedicated to group work and more private areas for where they can work alone.   

Go With Flexible Work Spaces

We need to manage our connections to each other more than ever in today’s rapidly changing business environment. Mari Silipo contends “Technology continues to increase mobility and flexibility in the way we work. Our offices should be designed accordingly. By creating a flexible, fluid space that support our mobile workdays, you can better utilize each square foot in your office while actively facilitating employee productivity and well-being.” in her article “Flexible Workspaces: What they are and why you need them.”

Start Practicing Collaboration in the Workplace Today

Clearly, collaboration in the workplace is important, and following these guidelines can help you to make your office a more collaborative one. 

Do you need more help in creating a collaborative work environment? If so, we can help. Check out our products today to learn more about how our office furniture can help you design a comfortable, flexible, and collaborative office space that your employees will love. Or let us help you design and build the Ultimate Flexible Workspace.

Want Happy Employees? Build Personalized Workspaces

The Old Way - Cubicles as far as the eye can see. Not very inspiring.

We’ve all worked in at least one of those offices. Those drab, soulless aisles of cubicles that are uninspiring and even draining to the staff. They may be the norm but your business needs something exceptional.

Workspace design is rapidly climbing priority lists among today’s HR departments as workers are more empowered to choose and stay with employers based on the environment in which they work and its flexibility. It’s taken a few years, but businesses around the world are finding out that comfort at the office goes well beyond the concept of ergonomics.

Happiness and Productivity

Psychologists have recognized the empowerment of giving employees freedom to create personalized workspaces, and how incorporating a more human-centered environment can help your employees do their best work on a daily basis.

Craig Knight, a professor at the University of Exeter in the UK, is one of the leading psychologists in this field, utilizing science and studying human behavior to improve the performance of a business. Knight as found that by facilitating an office that allows employees to personalize their space, workers can be up to 25% more productive.

“When we can enrich our space we’re happier,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “And we work better when we’re happier.”

Personalize Space and a Sense of Pride

The benefits of a personalized workspace, according to Knight, is that when we are able to keep our personal items around us (photos of loved ones, artwork, trinkets, etc.) we feel more connected to the space, which often results in employees taking more pride in their work. So, while some companies have restricted their staff from creating this sense of identity in the office as a way of increasing productivity, this strategy often has the opposite result.

In a study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, three researchers wrote “Creating a place of one’s own in an otherwise public workspace environment should further contribute to individuals’ positive cognitive and affective states, resulting in enhanced mental resources, enabling better coping with the potentially debilitating interferences associated with low privacy.”

Importance of the Right Furniture in Open Office Layouts

With more and more studies coming out discussing the negative impact of the oh-so-trendy open office layout, it’s clear that office furnishing needs a more intuitive approach to maximize the performance of your staff. That’s why we’ve applied a simple, effective approach that garners positive results within a staff.

Whether you’re using a Solo Zone or one of our larger solutions, it is designed to seamlessly pivot between a focused, private environment, and one that fosters collaboration between co-workers. Flexibility, comfort, and functionality is at the forefront of all decisions we make and all designs we create.

Let your office furniture empower your team to perform at their very best with workplace designs from Caribou Office.

Stylish and Ergonomic Furniture at Affordable Prices

Does your furniture make your workplace appear professional and stylish, or stale and boring? Ergonomically, is the furniture comfortable for workers? What is the effect on your bottom line if your workers are not happy and productive? You may be wondering if it even possible to “check all the boxes” without breaking the bank. Well now there is.

A Trailblazer in a New Era of Office Furniture

Caribou Office provides practical and economical choices with products that are the highest quality, comfortable and stylish.

Our office furniture solutions align with workplace trends, like flexible workspaces to enable collaboration and improved productivity. In addition, we offer modular seating and storage which are great for companies who have flex staff, host a lot of group meetings or are short on space and want the ability to reconfigure work areas to suit their needs. We also have a variety of screens, booths, partitions and acoustic panels for better workstation privacy in open office environments.

A Cohesive and Complete Furniture Solution for your Office

Simple, honest and functional, Caribou prides itself on innovative furniture and user-friendly design. With an array of commercial grade furniture we can help you furnish your lobby, meeting rooms, open areas and of course your offices. As your company grows you'll want to ensure your office design leads to happier employees and improved efficiency overall. We can even help you envision and create a workspace that inspires your staff and provides a cohesive look. If you want an office with style that is also naturally functional, our featured products are a great place to start.