Category Archives: Space Planning

How to Promote Trust with your Office Design

Posted on by

According to the article by Kath Walters, the way that an office is designed can enhance or undermine trust between everyone in the workplace.  Trust in the workplace is extremely important- Not having it leads to low morale, lots of micromanagement, and other factors that discourage people from doing their jobs.

When employees see that their boss has a huge office that he’s rarely in, while they slave away in tiny spaces, their trust diminishes.  Would you perform your best work for a company that you feel doesn’t value you? To fix the issue, you must promote fairness.  Employees deserve to have the latest technology, comfortable seating, and an adequate space to work in.  Communication is key, so go for designs that will promote clear communication.

These days, everyone in the office wants the same thing; The article states that trust level drops when someone has better quality furniture than others. If you want to have a nice chair for everyone, you can do that affordably by buying used office furniture.   If you’re looking for a great place to buy from, Office Furniture Outlet has the largest office furniture inventory in Hampton Roads.  We provide affordable new and used furniture and offer a range of services including space planning and design installation.  Let us assist you in building up that office trust!

Read the full article here

www.OFOVA.com

Are You a Part of the Green Movement?

Posted on by

upcycled

There are many definitions of upcycling, but the one that I like best is:
“Taking an item that is no longer needed or wanted and giving it new life as something that is either useful or creative.”

The trend seems to be moving toward being environmentally friendly and everyone loves being “green”.  More people are starting to get into the idea of recycling and reusing old items for brand new purposes.  Instead of sending items to the dump, you get to show your creative side and repurpose them.  You like to recycle to reduce pollution, you thrift to save money, but have you ever thought about buying used office furniture?

When buying used office furniture, you are saving money all while saving the environment. Think Green!  By buying used there are fewer raw materials used, remanufacturing conserves energy and natural resources. Office furniture recycling extends the lives of resources already in circulation such as wood, aluminum, steel, plastics and fiber, using them over and over to the fullest extent possible.
(See why going green is good for your business here.)

Here at Office Furniture Outlet, we want your creativity to flourish.  We allow you to choose your own colors, fabrics, and finishes.  Not only are you saving up to 60% off of retail prices, but we offer an array of services that will be sure to benefit you.

If you’re in need of new office furniture and need installation, delivery, project management, space spanning, electrostatic painting, or are just looking to sell your old office furniture, give us a call today at 757-855-2800.

www.OFOVA.com

Reed Integration, Inc’s Capital Region Office

Posted on by

Office Furniture Outlet loves to see our customer’s grow! Check out Leading Engineering Services Company – Reed Integration, Inc’s new office in Alexandria. 

We were able to help pull together all of the office furniture for the new office and install them in a matter of weeks. We remember Reed Integration’s first pair of desks and file cabinets. Congratulation Reed Integration on your new capital office – www.reedintegration.com

http://youtu.be/4jbrGIIN69Q

via Reed Capital Region Office – YouTube.

Buying Office Furniture? Read The Startup Tips from Millionaire Entrepreneurs

Posted on by

Starting a new business can be costly. One way to save money is to buy used office furniture. In fact,  Entrepreneur.com’s recent article 7 Frugal Startup Tips from Millionaire Entrepreneurs stated Brett D. Reizen, CEO of Entertainment Benefits Group, didn’t purchase new office furniture for the first six years.

Office Furniture Outlet is Hampton Roads largest used office furniture retailer. Retailing regionally liquidated office furniture back into work environments. With warehouses full of quality-used office furniture, including case goods, file cabinets, desks, workstations, chairs, credenzas and much more.

Office Furniture Outlet is a full service office furniture retailer and offers the following commercial furniture services:

• Space Planning, Design & Installation
• Sales, Leasing & Rentals of Discounted Office Furniture
• Moving & Prompt Delivery Services
• Refinishing, Refurbishing & on site Repair and Maintenance
• The Purchase of Gently Used Office Furniture

With 20 years of experience Office Furniture Outlet takes pride in helping businesses select the right furniture within a given budget. We offer new and used products, purchase or leasing and consult with our clients to provide turn-key office furniture solutions.

Give us a call so we can help you with your next office furniture purchase. (757) 855-2800

7 Frugal Startup Tips from Millionaire Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur.com

You don’t win in business by wasting money. Even the most successful entrepreneurs pinched pennies in the early days–and many still do. Here, several multimillionaires share their best cost-cutting tips when you’re trying to get your startup off the ground.

1. Cash in credit card rewards. Before the success of the George Forman grill super-charged sales at his direct-response television marketing firm, Rick Cesari became resourceful in using his credit card points to buy event tickets or thank high-performing employees by sending them on weekend getaways. Today, the founder of Seattle, Wash.-based Cesari Direct, charges between $125,000 to $200,000 on an Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card, and still uses the rewards to save several thousand dollars each year on employee perks at his $5 million company.

Related: Three Things to Know About Business Credit Cards

2. Skip the fancy furniture. “I didn’t buy new furniture for the first six years I was in business,” says Brett D. Reizen, CEO of Entertainment Benefits Group, LLC, Aventura, Florida, a $100 million provider of travel and entertainment services. Of course, you can start by checking out local used furniture shops or search on Craigslist. There are also furniture rental services like CORT, which can reduce the upfront cash you need to outfit your office. It also sells that rental furniture at deep discounts when clients are done with it. Find more online at CubeClerk, an office furniture marketplace.

3. Recycle and reuse shipping supplies. Even though his online garden supply retail business, Growers House, skyrocketed to $2 million in revenue in its first nine months, founder Nate Lipton only spent $300 on shipping supplies. Whenever the Tucson, Ariz.-based business receives its shipments it turns around and reuses all the boxes. If you’re shipping via Priority Mail, the U.S. Postal Service also offers free boxes and envelopes. Of course, there are discount cardboard box sellers, such as UsedCardboardBoxes.com, you can turn to as well.

Related: Five Tips for Saving Money on Shipping

4. Be creative about space. Instead of springing for a posh office to sell RetroFitness health club franchises, founder Eric Casaburi used an extra room in one of his health clubs. It wasn’t pretty, he says, but it saved him more than $10,000 in office rent and also fit with the company’s bare-bones brand image. Co-working spaces are another option to cut costs. Cambridge, Mass.-based HubSpot was headquartered in a Boston co-working space until it hit 100 employees, sharing conference rooms, coffee machines, and even a receptionist and phone system. LooseCubes and CityFeet are good directories of shared and co-working office spaces.

Related: How Small Shops Economize by Sharing Space

5. Check out deal sites. Liz Gaspari, co-founder of Gaspari Nutrition, an $8 million nutritional supplements company based in Lakewood, N.J., uses daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial to offer employee perks. Whether it’s through discounted meals and shows or gym memberships, the coupons have saved the company hundreds of dollars, she says. When it comes to business purchases, sites like RapidBuyr and Bizydeal can help you save on computers, office furniture and supplies, and even training courses.

6. Cross-train employees. Startups are no place for a “that’s not my job” attitude. After Jeff Platt began to train employees to fill multiple roles at his Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Parks, he saved more than 5 percent on payroll for the $15.7 million Los Angeles-based recreation company. Casaburi did the same thing at RetroFitness, attending his first International Franchise Association trade show with the manager of one of his gyms acting as a franchise sales representative. “Having employees move from hat to hat to hat saves you money and keeps your operations lean,” he says.

Related: 10 Free Online Resources for Business Tech

7. Do your own research. In his boot-strapping startup days, Casaburi also used to conduct his own market reach by sitting in parking lots of prospective locations and counting the car and foot traffic to see if there was enough activity to support a new gym. He analyzed every metric, such as population, vehicle and foot traffic, and other aspects of his most successful locations and tried to find locations that had similar activity and characteristics. Now that he’s staffed up, he no longer does this himself, but he estimates he’s saved more than $100,000 per year in salary or consulting fees before he hired help. Instead of hanging out in parking lots, you can take advantage of technology like ZoomProspector, a free service that lets you find communities by parameters like community size, education levels, and recent job growth.

via 7 Frugal Startup Tips from Millionaire Entrepreneurs | Entrepreneur.com.

Workspace Woes Are a Thing of the Past

Posted on by

Tips below from Avery on having a great office space and creating the right impressions.

Workspace Woes Are a Thing of the Past

Like it or not, we’re often judged on the state of our desk or office. Establishing and keeping your workspace organised and tidy helps you look good, find things more easily and work with less stress. Adding a personal touch with colour or something from home makes your work environment a better place to be.

Tips to Picking a Sought-after Office Location:

A window seat is a great seat! You’ll get the benefit of natural light and a view.

A workstation that is away from high traffic or noisy areas of the office minimises disruptions from the general office noise

Consider the air conditioning in your office. If you feel the cold, you don’t want to be stuck under a vent that blows cold air!

Create the Right Space

Organise your space functionally and effectively with adequate shelving, a sizable desk, and a comfortable and adjustable chair. You’ll work better with furniture and space that suits your requirements.

Prioritise the items that you use frequently, storing them within easy reach. The items that you use less often can be stored in a cupboard or filing cabinet (where more effort is required to access them). It means you can access your information easily, and then also return them to their home easily. You’re more likely to retain the organisation and keep your desk tidy when it is less effort to do so.

Style Your Way

Select your desk accessories to tone down what you want to hide and contrast what you want to accentuate. This will help your workspace sit ‘comfortably’ within the existing interior and colour scheme while still having some colour that makes you feel good about your work environment. Then personalise your space with photographs or something that helps make the day to day desk time more fun. This way you can give your workspace a personality that you want to be around!

Label It!

Use a labelling system to mark folders and files to ensure they are always easy to grab when you’re rushing to a meeting, or need someone else to grab the file. Your colleagues will be super impressed with your desk if they can find what they need (and return it afterwards) when you’re not there.

Clutter-free From the Start

Ensure your paperwork doesn’t get lost in a pile by using letter trays, magazine file, binders and expanding files. Contain clutter with the help of desk drawers and pen holders. ‘Hide away’ the mess by managing frequently used working documents in manila files and document wallets.

If our desk is a good place to be, we feel better about our work. If our workspace is tidy and organised, it’s a better work environment for us, and for our colleagues. It’s time to make your workspace woes a thing of the past!

via Workspace Woes Are a Thing of the Past.

Design Inspiration: Montreal’s Coolest Office Space

Posted on by

Office Design must reflect the organizations process.  For example, in Amy Freezor’s article below, digital agency TP1 was recently voted Montreal’s coolest office space, the office design needed to have 5 distinct office areas for the five design teams that work there.  TP1 is a creative digital agency  and the office design incorporated glass wals that let the natural light in – natural light is good for everyone but especially great for enhancing creative processing. Thus the design lends to the end goals of the agency.

Office Furniture Outlet works with you to gain an understanding of your major goals and objectives with you work environment. We specialize in reconfiguring existing offices, organizing new offices, and then coordinate the entire office moving or reconfiguring process.

Give us a call for a space planning consultation at (757) 855-2800

By Herman Miller’s Amy Feezor

What do Shaolin racoons, Apaches, magic, Jedis, and our SAYL Chair have to do with TP1, the digital agency recently named “Montreal’s Coolest Office Space“? Read on to find out and to take a look inside the award-winning walls of this creative company specializing in online, print, and media campaigns for private and institutional organizations, as well as artistic associations like the Montreal FRINGE Festival.

What year was TP1 established? What led to that point? TP1 was founded in 2005. Up until then — and for most of his career — our founding partner Jan-Nicolas Vanderveken had been a freelancer. It has been suggested that he launched TP1 because he was tired of working alone in his basement.

Along with fellow founding partner Joseph Blauer, he assembled a team of 35 strategists, designers, and techies who combine their strengths to communicate in new ways — and inspire others to do the same. TP1 stands for “Tous pour un,” which is French for the Musketeers’ motto, “All for one!”

Tell us about TP1: what you’re passionate about, what inspires you, and where you’re going. We love great design, new ideas, and cowboys. We like vintage posters, architecture, retro video games, playing Rock Band, Lego, karaoke, drinking beer, and jamming with the TP1 band (we’re music lovers, as you probably guessed). We also really like fearless clients.

Last year, we organized the agency into teams. Instead of being grouped by specialty (strategy, user experience, design, project management, and technology), TP1 is now organized into five small, multi-disciplinary teams comprising a variety of talents to deliver great products. The teams even have names: Shaolin Racoons, Apaches, Right Clique, Magic, and The Jedis. This structure greatly influenced the way we designed the space.

Tell us about that space. What do you like or dislike? What would you change? We wanted a space as creative as we are. That is, a space that could feed — and accommodate — the creativity that fuels everything we do.

First, we selected the building. We wanted an older, but well-maintained location with a lot of natural light. We found everything we wanted in the Castle Building, located in the heart of downtown Montreal. The owner is great to work with, and we even got a rooftop patio.

Despite the very tight turnaround time, the design team at Moureau Hauspy (MHAD) proved up to the challenge. The proposed design concept was resolutely transparent, with well-lit open spaces. Apart from a few closed, but glassed-in offices, the rest of the workspace is entirely open, with five distinct areas for each of our five teams.

The walls are mainly white, although a few are black slate for functional reasons (to display various projects and activities, and for brainstorming). The concrete floor has been left untouched, other than a simple tarnish. This gives the space an urban, industrial look, which is complemented by touches of wood for a warmer atmosphere.

Most of the furniture was custom designed by the MHAD team. A few of the wooden tables, including one in the conference room, were made from recycled bowling alley wood. A “pixelier” — or a three-dimensional flipboard with multi-coloured sides — was installed in the entrance to the agency. It establishes a connection between the visitors’ waiting area and the rest of the workspace. Employees create original images by spinning the small cubes according to colour, making the “pixelier” a unique way to showcase our potential for innovation.

Special attention was given to lighting, both natural and artificial. Workstation lighting is avant-garde and flexible. We installed a system of pulleys, coloured cables, and sockets above each workstation, enabling each employee to adjust their own desired level of lighting.

via Lifework – Herman Miller.

Crazy Chair Design | Home Basics with Decoration and Furniture

Gallery

Posted on by

This gallery contains 1 photo.

How often do you find yourself a situation where you had nowhere to hang a coat or jacket? And as a result of an unfortunate jacket is hanging on the back of the chair. Designer Joey Zeledon solved the problem … Continue reading →

Design Inspiration: Clark Lara’s Studio

Posted on by

Below is an article on Clark Lara’s Studio. The Studio is a great showcase of design. The mix of old and new modern design is great. At Office Furniture Outlet we see both old and new office furniture liquidated from offices. Whether your style is contemporary or traditional there is nothing wrong with mixing a 1960′s desk with a 2012 file cabinet.

By Amy Feezor

Photographer Clark Lara expresses his art by taking pictures of weddings in Houston, Texas, and the surrounds. See his studio space — as well as what may be his most photogenic subject: his scene-stealing dog — in this tour filled with modern Herman Miller designs (we spy an Embody Chair at the desk) as well as an impressive collection of vintage Eames and Nelson pieces.

You started your photography studio in 2005. What led to that point? I started out photographing weddings in college. Several of my classmates did not see the “art” in shooting weddings, so they would turn those kind of projects down. I personally thought it was a great way to gain experience. I wound up contacting other photographers in the area and shadowing them as well. I talked with all types: a horse photographer (yes, that is a thing), studio portrait photographers, wedding photographers, press photographers with the Houston Chronicle, and even a crime scene photographer. Working with these different types of photographers helped me to find what I was good at.

I shot on the side for quite a few years. Soon, after getting tired of working outside sales for a mobile company, I decided to jump in feet first and see if I could run a successful studio.

Tell us what you’re passionate about, what inspires you, and where you’re going. Of course, I am passionate about photography; but deeper than that, I would say I am passionate about people. I want to give my clients not only great images but also a great experience. I always tell my friends that I want my clients to choose me because of me — my personality and my work, not because I fit their budget. Inspiration for me comes from everywhere. Other photographers in my area inspire me, as do graphic designers and movies. As for where I am going, I honestly just want to keep photographing weddings and hopefully do more destination weddings.

Tell us about your space. Were there any special considerations that influenced its set up? What would you change if you could? My current space was designed with Eames and Herman Miller furniture in mind. My previous studio was a 100-year-old farmhouse that was designed for my clients’ needs only. It was great and it had a lot of character, but I didn’t feel like it expressed me as a whole. So when it came time to move, I knew I wanted all new (and some vintage) furniture for the place. The new studio is located in a warehouse/business complex. There are several other creatives in the complex, which helps with inspiration. I love the concrete floors, but do not like that I am the second floor.

Why did you chose these particular Herman Miller pieces? My first Herman Miller pieces were the four vintage orange Eames molded fiberglass chairs. I knew I wanted them at my meeting table. I love how the orange pops and how it reminds a lot of people of their old school chairs. My favorite is the Eames Storage Unit (I will never let that one go). It is very versatile, has plenty of storage, and is a piece of art in itself. And I like that I can move my Nelson tables around easily and rearrange the seating areas.

I knew I wanted original Herman Miller pieces and not knock-offs. I scoured Craigslist, garage sales, storage auctions, and business furniture liquidators. I chose these pieces because they function as art; to me, they are not just chairs — there is a lot of nostalgia there.

via Lifework – Herman Miller.

Office Furniture Outlet strives to compliment your business identity, budget, and practical needs. We operate in Virginia, and the North Eastern Part of North Carolina — especially the Hampton Roads area, which includes Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Newport News, Portsmouth, Hampton and Suffolk.

Give us a call for a consultation at (757) 855-2800.

Ayse Birsel: “Your life is your most important project” – YouTube

Posted on by

Below is a video from the Why Design series Herman Miller is doing.  Ayse Birsel discusses   life as being your most important project.

About Why Design

At Herman Miller design is the language we use to ask questions and seek answers to the problems our customers face. The design process is a journey into the unknown—or as George Nelson once quipped, “I have never met a designer who was retained to keep things the same as they were.” Before we decide what we do and how we do it, we like to begin by asking the question “Why?” In Why Design, a new video series, we explore the world through the eyes of our designers, and share something of why we value their point of view.

Ayse Birsel

Ayse Birsel has been designing her life since moving from Turkey in 1989 to study design at Pratt in New York. Ayse believes that design thinking can lead to the “life you love.” She designed the Resolve System for Herman Miller in 2000. Ayse and her husband Bibi Seck are currently at work on new products for The Herman Miller Collection.

via Ayse Birsel: “Your life is your most important project” – YouTube.

Office Furniture Outlet’s design professionals know office space planning, have extensive experience with all types of workstations, and systems furniture, and have years of experience with office moves and reconfigurations.

We help our customers find the right product, generate layouts, manage production scheduling, coordinate deliveries and oversee installations.

Give us a call to see how we can help your office design project (757) 855-2800

Steelcase CEO on How Office Layout Impacts Corporate Culture – Forbes

Posted on by

Steelcase CEO on How Office Layout Impacts Corporate Culture

If culture is an organization’s only truly sustainable competitive advantage (which it is), and a winning BRAVE culture is comprised of behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values and the environment (which it is), then you need to think about how your work environment is communicating and informing your corporate culture (which it is whether you’re thinking about it or not).

From “I” Space to “I” and “We” Space

layout of a social/learning space (Photo credit: University of Michigan MSIS)

Steelcase is in the business of creating work environments, offering workplace products, furnishings and services. As CEO Jim Hackett explained to me in a recent interview, workspace design historically mirrored the organizational chart, with people jockeying to be as close as possible to the seat of all power – the CEO. But now that information revolution has made information the new seat of power, there is much more flexibility in workspace design. Thus, as Hackett explained, the workspace of the future needs to:

Celebrate the shift of what we call the ‘I’ space to the ‘we’ space… Space has to enable and empower information in ways we only imagine… (across) a continuum of I and we work… people need a range of settings to accommodate focused, collaborative and social work in both open and enclosed environments – in other words, a palette of place.

This manifests itself in Google’s corridors set up for impromptu information sharing, in Microsoft’s celebrating the power of programming in its team settings as people “conquer the code,” and in conference rooms where information has a seat at the table.

Workspace as Leading Indicator of Cultural Evolution

Darwin made it clear that survival of the fittest is not survival of the smartest, strongest or fastest, but survival of those best able to adapt. As organizations adapt to the changing macro environment, their internal environment must change as well. Hackett has seen some examples of this done well in offices including Deloitte University’s in Plano, Texas. As Hackett put it:

Learning represents the strategy of the company.

Deloitte celebrates its expertise across the university facility from the “story wall” in the lobby to the “associate finder” that enables anyone to find anyone else in the massive facility. In many ways, the whole university is one large “we” space.

Allocate Workspace to Issues Instead of to People

Steelcase’s own offices have evolved as the company has changed, and serves as another example of how to use workspaces to communicate and enable corporate culture. When Hackett became CEO in 1994, one of the first things he did was to move all the executives off of the same floor and into a leadership “we” space.

Now, instead of designing traditional offices, Steelcase creates “we” spaces around the three-four most important meta issues. According to Hackett, executives don’t need homes, “command-level projects” do. So there might be a project room for a team working on a merger, product launch or a recall. Instead of people bringing information into meetings with executives, the information stays in the project rooms and executives travel to it. As Hackett explains, they made this shift because:

Innovation requires collective ‘we’ work. To this end, it’s critical to design spaces that not only support collaboration, but augment it (with) spaces that promote eye-to-eye contact, provide everyone with equal access to information, and allow people to move around and participate freely.

Manage Your Environment in Context

Your office environment is not just the context for what you do, it’s an important choice itself. There is no one best environment for all organizations. Instead, plan and put together your office environment as a core component of the BRAVE culture you choose to create. Create an environment that:

Supports behaviors which lead to business productivity.

Enables people to relate to each other and to information the way you want them to relate.

Reinforces your attitude, more severe and hierarchical or more relaxed and fluid as appropriate.

via Steelcase CEO on How Office Layout Impacts Corporate Culture – Forbes.