First, an aside on the cubicle’s cultural importance is in order. The cubicle has served as a central piece of imagery in some of the most savage satire directed at the corporate world. In the nineties, as the tech boom brought dot-com companies massive financial success, the world was introduced to Dilbert and to Mike Judge’s cult classic film Office Space. Both of these comic creations jabbed plenty at the conformist nature of the cubicle office, but deeper down, especially in Dilbert, some affection for the cubicle is evident.

Indeed, many office veterans admit to a fondness for the cubicle office layout. National Air Warehouse business development manager Ramon Kahn reminisces fondly about the years he worked in a cubicle. “You always have someone to interact with,” Kahn said. “If you are stuck in a rut there is always someone there to help.”

And Kahn isn’t alone. Michael Dunne, a public information officer at Pacific Continental Bank, loves his cubicle working life. “An office is a great enabler of the chronically sloppy and disorganized,” Dunne said. “Having a cubicle means you have to clean your desk and work area every evening—lest you be labeled ‘pig pen.’”

Some would suggest that the cubicle is dying, and point to the office stylings of tech giants Google and Facebook as proof. Google and Facebook’s office spaces feature wide-open spaces, where people sit and work by one another’s side with no cubicles or partitions of any sort. In fact, these tech titans and other companies have experimented increasingly with “standing desks,” which aim to improve employees’ posture by preventing too many long periods of sitting.

However, even Ramon Kahn admits that all is not always rosy with the cubicle office layout. “You can get stuck next to someone who is annoying, smelly, rude, awkward, or dramatic,” Kahn said. “Things can go sour pretty fast.”

Cubicles have their supporters and their mortal enemies, and this goes to show the diversity of tastes regarding the layout and organization of office spaces. Whatever your office design and planning needs are, Office Space Planners is here and ready to help make your vision a reality. Come find out more today!

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-Robert Propst is credited with creating the cubicle. Interestingly, Propst conceived of what he called the “Action Office” as a workspace that would “liberate” the modern worker. Propst’s vision originally consisted of a large space which blocked out outside distractions, in which a worker could perform multiple tasks at once.

-However, as the “Action Office” proved spendy, unwieldy, and impractical, Propst went back to square one and designed a smaller office with three angled and moveable walls. He called it “Action Office II,” a much more exciting name for what we would now just call a cubicle!

-Currently, about 40 million people in North America work in cubicles on their workdays. The line of thinking that open-space offices are distracting has been influential for decades, and partly explains why lower-level office employees in particular are often relegated to cubicles.

-Cubicles have their fair share of supporters, even today. Some major corporate bigwigs have been so loyal to the cubicle workspace that they have remained in cubicles even after hitting it big! Former Intel CEO Andrew Grove and eBay head Meg Whitman both worked in cubicles while leading their companies, and even former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg used to preside over America’s largest city from a cubicle office!

-However, office design, like many other things, goes through cycles of fashion. The cubicle, though still widely used, is starting to lose some ground in the fashion department to newer, less confining office designs. Open offices are on the rise, though detractors point out that these lack privacy for employees.

-The choice is now and has always been a matter of taste. But cubicles have had a long and productive run in the American workplace, and seem likely to stay around for some time longer. Though cubicles’ supporters remain staunch, the voices of opposition have grown louder each year—as Office Space’s Peter Gibbons famously quipped of the cubicle office, “We don’t have a lot of time on this Earth. We weren’t meant to spend it this way.”

Whether your office planning and design needs involve cubicles or not, Office Space Planners is here and happy to lend a hand. Contact us today or visit our website to find out what we can do for you!

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Planning an office space is a difficult job, but there is plenty of good advice to be found. Here are some things to bear in mind when doing space planning for an office:

-Building codes and regulations. Specific cities, states, and buildings place constraints on how offices can be designed. It is good to be aware of these restrictions beforehand, as many are non-negotiable. Be sure that you are planning with respect to your space’s constraints for energy usage, other utilities, specific design requirements, or any other specific restrictions!

-Proximity of employees. You will want to bear in mind the specific demands of your company and its employees. Do your employees typically work in teams or in isolation? If they are placed close together, are they more likely to effectively communicate or to distract one another? Ideally, you will arrange employees’ work spaces such that those who often work together are place in close proximity to one another.

-Room for offices of new hires as company expands. This is the trick—it is ideal to leave plenty of space vacant when planning an office, especially if expansion is in your plans. (And it should be!) Consider the maximum possible amount of new hires you can envision hiring in the next three to five years, and then determine whether or not work space for these hires could be comfortably added to your office space. If so, great—if not, you may have some thinking to do.

-Employment law. State and federal laws require certain accommodations to be made for disabled employees. Any office ought to be designed with these needs in mind—if you do not comply with them, you risk facing legal repercussions. Be sure that you are thinking of accessibility for employees from the outset when planning office space!

Whether you are concerned with the proper utilization of office space or any other design issue, Office Space Planners is ready to help. Find out more about what Office Space Planners can do for you today!

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However, it is easy for unscrupulous telecommuters to slip into bad work habits. One of the most common pieces of advice given to those working from home is to separate one’s home and office space—here are some pointers on why this is important:

-Separate home and office space is linked to increased productivity. A self-contained office space, including a desk that is separate from one’s living and entertainment space, allows a worker to set up a sort of work “cell” within which to operate. Adding personal touches to this space can be helpful—after all, it is close to home!

-Comfort. Office work can be taxing on a worker’s nerves and body over an eight-hour workday. An office setup within a home should feature a chair and lighting more ergonomically inclined than those found elsewhere in the home—you deserve the best safety and comfort while working! A good chair and a natural light lamp are good places to start.

-Instills discipline. The trappings of a home can be distracting to the work-from-home employee. Keeping an office environment distinct from the rest of the home can help promote a better work ethic. One of the largest challenges of working from home is staying on task and being one’s own taskmaster. Ask any work-from-home employee—such as the author of this blog! Discipline is mandatory, and an office territory helps eliminate temptation by defining a certain area as “work space.”

-Reduce the risk of stress and injury. This goes hand in hand with maintaining a comfortable environment, but there is a bit more to it. When sitting in the same space for a full work day, many comforts and safety measures are necessary to prevent the risk of repetitive stress injury. Natural light, ergonomic equipment, and proper air circulation are crucial!

One savvy taskmaster can design a home office, but commercial office design is a job best left to the professionals. Office Space Planners is ready to assist with your office design and planning needs—learn more today!

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If you are looking for maximum ergonomic benefit, you will want an office chair with high-quality attention to the following five things: adjustable seat height, adequate seat with and depth, lumbar support, a backrest, and seat material. Let’s take a closer look at the importance of each:

*Seat height: an adjustable chair will work wonders. Not only are these chairs adaptable to use by different employees, but individual employees often want to adjust their posture during the course of long work days. An adjustable seat height caters to this.

*Seat width and depth: make sure that the seat is at least seventeen inches long and wide—this is a sign of a well-designed chair. The backs of employees’ knees should be able to have two to four inches of breathing room from the edge of the chair seat.

*Lumbar support: your lower back is one of the areas of your body most prone to wear and tear while sitting. The lumbar spine curves inward, and if the lumbar is not support properly for long perioods of time, your lower spine may suffer for it. An ideal ergonomic chair will have adjustable lumbar support to properly suit the curve of its user’s back.

*Backrest: An ideal backrest is at least fifteen inches wide, and should come attached to the chair. The seat back should be adjustable both in forward and backward angles, and should have a locking mechanism when adjusting.

*Seat material. The seat cushion and back should both be comfortably padded. Remember, employees will sit on these chairs for several hours on end, so they must remain comfortable!

It is important to have a comfortable office that is conducive to productivity for its employees. Office Space Planners understands this, and is ready to help make your current or new office an ergonomic home for your company. Find out more today!

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-Flexible office space or flex space is characterized by office space which is normally converted from warehouse space. A flex space office typically is one story with fourteen-foot-high ceilings, and is located in a building with high capacity to meet power and air conditioning demands.

-This form of office has come into popularity both as a result of a high rate of vacant buildings in need of repurposing, and as a result of offices seeking more modern office arrangements.

–For the right type of company, the warehouse arrangement is an ideal fit. Grant Bryson, president of flex office space-based prison pharmaceutical supplier Secure Pharmacy Plus, is appreciative of his office space. “We have about 40,000 square feet,” Bryson explains. “Of that, 8,000 is front office and the balance is pharmacy and office space where pharmacists and data entry staff work. Security is a big issue for us. An area like this allows us to be anonymous while also accommodating our need for loading dock space.”

-The large floor plans offered by flex spaces appeal to many forward-thinking companies who wish to personalize their work environments. Q2 Chief Technology officer Adam Anderson, based in Austin, Texas, wanted an office space that would allow several departments to communicate freely with one another. “You get a real sense of a company that’s in and about Austin that meets employees’ needs instead of the company’s,” Anderson explained.

-Many flex office spaces have “tenant-driven” layouts, whereby each suite of an office is designed and built with respect to its specific needs and uses. Architect Clay Little believes that flex space is emblematic of a shift in how co-workers communicate in many modern companies. “A lot of these newer companies are much more communicative to their employees than ever before,” Little said. “They constantly seem to be changing how they work; it’s very dynamic. Architecture has to respond to that.”

Whether you are seeking flex or any other type of efficient, affordable office space, Office Space Planners has the experience and the know-how to help you succeed! With successful office designs in all fifty U.S. states, a wide variety of office furniture to suit your needs, and a long history of excellent remodeling jobs, Office Space Planners is the office space company you can trust!

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While small business ventures have contributed much to American business life, they have also demonstrated why it’s critical to carefully plan before making the decision to go into business for yourself.

According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, 70,000 more small businesses packed up shop than kept going this year. Not every one of those is due to a business going under, as some small business owners simply retire or have their enterprise absorbed by a larger one.

Before you consider outfitting that newly rented office space with Modular Furniture Systems, take a few minutes to acquaint yourself with some key small-business facts, courtesy of CNBC:

According to the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, the main reason small businesses fail is pretty simple: They just run out of cash. And securing credit to keep going can also be a major hurdle. Think that’s a mistake that only greenhorn business owners make? Not so, says the report. More than one third of experienced business owners run the well dry. Something as basic as failing to generate an invoice in a timely manner can lead to strained cash flow. Bottom line: Secure capital and fine-tune office procedures before throwing open the doors.

Another quick deflator of the small business balloon is overconfidence. This one is tough, because any entrepreneur needs a fair amount of chutzpah in order to be successful. The key here, it seems, is to maintain an awareness of when big dreams and fancy talk start to cloud your perception of what’s actually working to generate a profit for you.

So, by now, you’re more than ready to work long hours, chase down every stray idea or policy and do whatever it takes to ensure success. Trouble is, you’re only human, and working yourself to the bone will eventually lead to burnout. No matter how positive your outlook. In fact, a recent Manta survey found that more than 8 in 10 business owners were optimistic about the second half of 2014. That’s all well and good, but without the business owner’s enthusiasm staying at those levels, things can quickly change for the worse. Stay positive, but also take care of yourself!

Check out the rest of CNBC’s article here.

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The break room also sends messages about your corporate culture. Are you all about industrial-style tables, chairs and a 20-year-old coffee machine? Or do you value your employees enough to create an office break room that becomes a home away from home, complete with furnishings that unquestionably speak volumes about your specific organization?

The good folks at Entrepreneur magazine recently profiled several corporate spaces, each of which represented a core break-room design concept. Here are three examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Encourage Spontaneous Unwinding – We’ve all snaked our way through an office maze, looking for that one place where we can take an informal meeting with a colleague. Or just spend a few minutes enjoying the healthy snack we brought from home – away from our cube or office closet. The Chicago office of Google encourages that sort of thing by allowing the employees to own the culture and to offer positive ideas to improve it. Rooms in the office have Chicago connotations; an elevated train makes its way through the office, bringing to mind one of the city’s main methods of transportation; and, the presence of massage and beanbag chairs sends a message that Google wants to invest in their people. Who, in turn, want to give more of themselves.

Maximize Your Space Potential – Rather than let that empty nook down the hall be cluttered with a file cabinet and a chair no one wants to use, consider filling it with a small café, which encourages interaction and group activity. That’s what the folks at Rightpoint did.

Make the Space Speak for You – Colorful beanbags and coffee bars are great, but if you’d like to take things a giant leap further, check out what Red Frog Events has done. There are tree houses, a zip line and a slide, plus a LEGO table, built by employees, where people can brainstorm how to put on better and better events. How better to spark creativity than within a highly creative space?

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