You may not think that the office furniture industry is very big, but with companies purchasing 16.5 million chairs and 3 million computer desks every year in the U.S., the industry may beg to differ. That’s not even counting furniture like cubicles and filing cabinets! There are even seasonal trends in office decor, and much like home decor, your choice in furniture can shape the mood of your space. So how can you use your office furniture to create a productive and positive environment for your employees?

Wait, office furniture can increase productivity?
That’s right! Increasing energy levels and productivity can be as simple as choosing the right work chairs for your employees. Research recently found that productivity in an office setting can be improved by up to 17.5% just by providing the proper chair and training to your employees. Comfort in any setting is key!

How else can furniture improve the office experience?
If someone is working 40 hours a week until retirement, they will have spent just over 90,000 hours in an office setting. Often times, all of those work hours will be spent in the same office environment, as well. Now, if someone has to spend that much time in one office building, it’s bound to get boring pretty quick. But if there’s contemporary office furniture that is updated from time to time, the office immediately becomes more interesting. Office furnishings can really make all the difference in an employee’s perspective and productivity.

What are some other ways to create a positive office environment?
Office cubicles are often the butt of jokes, but in reality, they allow employees to express creativity and craft a personalized space to work in. While cubicles are a more traditional office standard, contemporary office furniture has given them a nice update. Modern desks and cubicles offer the same kind of personalized space for employees, but are more open and encourage a more social work environment. Feeling isolated often stifles an employee’s energy and productivity, but a community building environment can offer a lot of help in that department.

If your office is stuck in 2005, it may be time for new furniture. But that’s not the only reason to update your decor, either. Ensuring that you provide a positive and productive environment for your employees can only lead to more positive things ahead!

One of the biggest challenges businesses of all sizes deal with is office furnishings. Each year, 16.5 million chairs, 4.5 million tables, 11 million filing cabinets, and 3 million desks are bought by businesses in the United States. While most people just think of office furniture as a basic necessity that doesn’t require much thought, studies have shown this is not the case. In fact, with the right chair and training, employee productivity can increase by up to 17.5%.

Considering these facts, it is no surprise why new businesses are starting the trend of using modern office desks and contemporary office furniture to create productive, visually appealing workstations. What are the benefits of modern office furnishings? Let us list the ways:

Aesthetics:
Not only is contemporary office furniture sleek, simple, and easy to clean, it is also durable. The right furniture can turn a basic, dull room into a warm, welcoming space. Many modern office desks feature light weight, slick designs with metal and various fabrics to create a chic look for any office. Some of the more popular designs feature bold graphics creating a more lively environment for both visitors and employees.

Appeal:
Seeing such visually captivating designs and clean lines add a strong sense of character to a work space. The days of the traditional office cubicles will soon come to an end as more businesses are steering away from the boring divides. Having the right eye for interior design, using the space to its full advantage, all while promoting productivity between employees will ensure any prospective client will be impressed. This results in increased confidence in the level of service a client expects.

Comfort:
If you are one of the vast amounts of people who will work over 90,000 hours in a lifetime sitting for long periods of time, your seat better be comfortable. This is a concern manufacturers of modern office desks and chairs understand. Consequently, they aim to create products that are both functional and comfortable, as the productivity of an employee is greatly effected by their level of comfort in their work environment. For visitors and prospective clients, comfortable seating establishes a positive first impression.

Finding the best furniture for a work space is more challenging than most would think. Modern office desks can be the difference between a business’s continued success and employee retention. Not only will employees and visitors enjoy being in the space, but they may even be inspired by the things around them, something most people are not able to do in basic, dull work spaces.

With the invention of digital storage, the ability to place untold amounts of information in a hard drive, a cloud, or even flash drives the size of your fingernail have made paper all but irrelevant. You’ve likely heard the many arguments, concerns, and benefits about this digital switch, and the debates rage on, but one fact is clear: digital is better. Not only does it save on space, but it’s faster and most cost-effective. This has motivated businesses of every kind and size to make the switch to digital, abandoning their paper. With this, filing cabinets have become obsolete.

Or have they?

We still live in the physical world, though in a digital culture, and there are many serious advantages to keeping your filing cabinets. Here are five reasons why businesses need to consider hanging on to their filing cabinets — or perhaps even buy more:

1. Not All Businesses Have Made the Digital Switch.

While an unprecedented number of businesses are making the switch to digital, there are still many businesses that are not. This can be for a variety of reasons. Some older businesses are very invested in their paper documents, making it costly to shred or recycle all the paper their bottom line has funded throughout the decades. More modern businesses may not have the budget to purchase the necessary scanners and equipment. So, while you may be going with the times, business-to-business dealings still require you to accommodate your associates’ situation. If your affiliate only sends invoices and other valuable information in paper form, you can’t exactly refuse, can you? You’ll need somewhere to store this information, and a filing cabinet offers the solution.

2. They’re Great for Other Types of Storage.

Filing cabinets are typically used for, well, files, but they also serve the purpose of being compact, stylish, and uniform storage containers for a variety of things. As interesting as it would be, science hasn’t found a way to digitize a stapler, restricting you to the physical, space-consuming original. Office supplies such as staplers, pens, or coffee mugs can all be stashed away into the cabinet to keep your office looking tidy, organized, and running efficiently. Studies have shown that having an organized office not only improves efficiency by eliminating the need to hunt down objects, but also boosts morale, as employees feel more comfortable with the cleanliness. So perhaps you have already moved to digital, but there’s no need to sell the cabinet, as it can store other important objects.

3. It’s Always Good to Have a Backup Plan.

Accidents do happen and acts of cyber terrorism happen even more regularly. Whether it’s the clumsy intern who dumps his coffee on the server or a Mission Impossible villain twirling his mustache as he deletes all your information, the result is the same – your data is lost. Digital storage is more compact — able to hold thousands if not millions of files in a small drive — but this is also a disadvantage. In paper format destroying millions of documents would take a building-wide fire and a great deal of time; in digital, it takes a few-second virus, a small moment of corruption, or a very-very-fired intern to bring it all down.

Having crucial information in paper format offers a backup plan to these situations, and a proper filing cabinet can protect your information when your other copies fail. A fireproof cabinet can withstand a natural disaster and is impervious to hackers. While you’re scrambling to recover your lost digital data, what does your business absolutely need to function? You can avoid going belly-up by having a physical backup of all your essentials, and filing cabinets will keep this all safe.

4. It’s Secure.

In the same way a computer hacker can damage your vital information by getting their hands on it, in this digital age, it has become more and more common for genius-level tech terrorists to steal vital information – whether it be for profit, “social justice,” or simple chaos. For businesses which have vital financial information such as bank numbers and passwords, or employee and customer information like social security numbers, or even private but important information like web passwords, losing this information to the wrong people can be detrimental to your business and to all associated with it. Having physical copies safe in a well-locked filing cabinet will allow you to avoid the risk of a hack altogether. While paper is more costly and slower to share, it boosts security, protects individuals, and creates a peace of mind.

5. It Does Indeed Save Money.

While moving to digital does improve productivity, efficiency, and saves money on purchasing additional paper, ink, and necessary physical storage, if your business was formed and managed before the digital boom, you still have quite a few paper files. Like many businesses, you can recycle these documents, shred them, or have an impromptu office bonfire, but doing so is a loss to your business, as this is money that was once invested and is now being wasted. For the above stated advantages, keeping physical copies can pose an advantage to your business for security reasons, and it also helps for financial reasons. Why call the previous investment a loss? Simply keep ahold of these papers and benefit from the security and the peace of mind, all while keeping that previous investment from being in vain. And once you have made this decision, a filing cabinet is ready to assist.

Conclusion:

The move to a digital world is a wise choice in this modern age for a variety of financial and productivity reasons, but that does not mean the paper format has been left behind – or that it should be left behind. We still live in a physical world, and there are many ways that a filing cabinet can benefit you, your business, and your clients, whether you’re embracing the modern age or simply keeping up with the times.