Industry News
A selection of news stories about offices and office furniture that we thought you’d enjoy.
The Companies Bringing the Office to Remote Workers
by The Wall Street Journal
After employees moved away during the pandemic, some businesses are opening workspaces in their new cities,  Read more
Companies Are Finally Designing Offices for the New Work Reality
by Time Magazine
The new office needs to be a place where people can gather, socialize, and be inspired.  Read more
How Hybrid Work Is Changing Offices of the Future
by The Wall Street Journal
Today’s new hybrid work styles are reshaping the office buildings of tomorrow.  Read more
14 Examples Where In-Person Communication Is Better Than Virtual At Work
by Forbes Magazine
While embracing technology has myriad benefits, some aspects of doing business just won’t ever be the same without the human touch.  Read more
The Driving Force Behind Returning to (and Staying in) the Office.
by Workplace Design Magazine
Three of the primary long-term drivers of the usage of the office as a workplace will be connection, collaboration and career.  Read more
Why the Office Isn't Going Away
by The Wall Street Journal
The giant work-from-home experiment that no one wanted has been under way long enough to ask: What happens to the office now?  Read more
Generation Work-From-Home May Never Recover
by The Atlantic
The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices. The longer people spend editing spreadsheets or taking conference calls at the kitchen table, the more obvious it is that workers lose far more than physical space when they lose their office.  Read more
Netflix’s Reed Hastings Deems Remote Work ‘a Pure Negative’
by The Wall Street Journal
Co-CEO of streaming giant discusses company’s culture of candor and how working from home is harder.  Read more
Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn’t So Great After All
by The Wall Street Journal
Projects take longer. Collaboration is harder. And training new workers is a struggle. ‘This is not going to be sustainable.’  Read more
A Round Up Of Our Favorite Separation Solution Products
by WorkDesign Magazine
After almost three months of working from home, many organizations are looking forward to getting back to their offices.   Read more
Work From Home Survey 2020
Gensler’s U.S. Work from Home Survey 2020 was conducted to help provide greater insight into the work from home experience and how the workplace will be designed in the post-COVID world.  Read more
A common sense guide for returning to the workplace.
by WorkDesign Magazine
Every organization’s return to the office will be customized to their circumstances, but each will have a few commonalities.  Read more
Nowhere to meet? How Google and others are changing how workers collaborate.
by WorkDesign Magazine
Designers are tasked with creating spaces that are flexible but consistent, support open collaboration but deep focus, promote innovation but enable execution. Oh, and they should include all the cool technology today’s employees expect.  Read more
Ergonomically Designed Workspaces Can Break Employee’s Bad Posture Habits
by WorkDesign Magazine
Business leaders wrestle with a multitude of issues and trends that impact profitability and productivity, and employee wellbeing has risen in their hierarchy of priorities.  Read more
The Secret to Productivity and Success: Well-Designed Offices
by Inc.
Employees report performing better in flexible workspaces that offer natural light, but most say their current offices don't have those features.  Read more
Coworking Space Development Trends To Expect In 2020
by WorkDesign Magazine
As the coworking market continues to grow, what can we expect from the industry as we head into 2020?  Read more
Meet 'hot desking,' where workers have to find a new desk every day — and often don't like it.
by Business Insider
It sounds like fun, right? Well, to hear the internet tell, hot desking is the devil's work and must be avoided at all costs. But first, what the heck is hot desking anyway?  Read more
These simple hacks can help you fight a midafternoon slump
by Fast Company
When you feel tired, it could be the perfect time to get moving. Some of my coaching clients purposely plan to work out in the early afternoon when they know that their productivity won’t be naturally high. If you don’t want to get super sweaty, you can still get an energy boost from going on a short walk.  Read more
How to Design to Reduce Workplace Stress
By Interiors & Sources
Everyone is bound to feel workplace stress from time to time. In fact, nearly two-thirds (64%) of adults surveyed cited work as a stressor, tied with money as the top stressor, the 2018 Stress in America survey by the American Psychological Association found. Employers should take note: Excessive workplace stress causes 120,000 deaths and results in nearly $190 billion in health care costs each year.  Read more
Success Is On The Move: The Impact Of Personalized Workplace Design
By WorkDesign Magazine
Since the 1920s, when the first office designer, Frederick Taylor, introduced the ‘ideal’ office design, it consisted of an open-plan floor, with lots of staff sitting behind rows of desks, and doing so for long periods. One hundred years on and many of us are still doing precisely this, despite the known health risks and that it is slowly, but surely, killing us.  Read more
Is designing for Instagram hurting design?
By Fast Company
When we begin a design project at O+A, I tell my designers not to start with a Pinterest page. Then they each scurry away and start one privately anyway. There is no question that Pinterest is a useful tool. It’s great to have access to all those images. But I wonder how Pinterest and Instagram and the other image-oriented sites are changing the design process—and if they’re actually changing it for the better.  Read more
Tips And Tricks For Losing Your Office
By WorkDesign Magazine
So, your office is moving to an open plan. It can be a challenging transition, especially if you’ve worked in an office for a long time. There’s some inevitable anxiety and uncertainty that accompanies a shift from a closed to an open office environment. How do you handle confidential conversations? How do you lead calls and host meetings if you’re competing with noise or distractions? Most importantly, how can you be productive and effective in this new environment?  Read more
Do Open Offices Really Increase Collaboration?
by Quartz at Work
Many people wonder why their offices are designed in a certain way. Surely executives must have carefully considered how each option would impact work patterns, and then logically chosen the best option, right?  Read more
How to Make Sure People Won’t Hate Your New Open Office Plan
by Harvard Business Review
When place identity is high, employees report more engagement in their work and a stronger connection to the company.  Read more
A standing desk isn’t going to help you lose a lot of weight
by The Washington Post
Contrary to popular belief, standing desks won’t help you lose weight. They will, however, prevent weight gain and decrease the risk of conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.   Read more
In the U.S. workplace, a standing desk has become an important benefit
by StarTribune
In helping people lead a less sedentary life, standing desks have emerged as the fastest growing employee benefit in U.S. workplaces.   Read more
Don’t Get Too Comfortable at That Desk
by The New York Times
Out with open floor plans, in with activity-based workplaces. The New York Times chronicles the fight to bring more people into the office and increase productivity by offering new work environments.  Read more
Moving Beyond Open Plan Spaces
by Work Design Magazine
Office design is not “one size fits all.” As explained in Work Design, designers must take into consideration the workers’ needs before implementing co-working solutions.  Read more
Unemployment is at a 16-year Low, so Why is the Office Furniture Industry Soft?
by DeskMakers CEO, Phil Polishook
While unemployment is shrinking, publicly traded office furniture manufacturers are reporting uniformly poor sales. Our CEO Phil Polishook weighs in.  Read more
Moving Beyond Productivity: IBM’s Remote Work Reversal
by Work Design Magazine
IBM recently called their remote employees back into the office to put an end to their declining revenue. While working in a shared workspace drives creativity, it requires a flexible environment with chance encounters to enhance innovation.   Read more
CEOs Want Their Offices Back
by The Wall Street Journal
With nearly 70% of U.S. offices designed as an open space concept, CEOs are moving towards old-fashioned private offices. However, the open-office revolt is less about reclaiming the corner office and more about needing a quiet place to think.  Read more
7 Effective and Affordable Ways to Get Your Workout in at Your Desk
by Business Insider
Get fit without leaving your desk! The Insider team compiled 7 ways to work out from your desk: from chairs to foot massage balls. This is desking done right.  Read more
How One Firm Lowered Its Open-Office Noise
by The Wall Street Journal
Open offices are often critiqued because they are primed for distracting employees. Segment.io Inc. launched an anti-distraction campaign, moving teams to different parts of the open-office and cutting back on public channels like Slack to reduce the number of notifications employees received. The result: a decrease in office noise and an increase in employee concentration. Open offices are great for collaboration and when designed correctly, foster steady concentration.  Read more
A look inside $23 billion LinkedIn's New York office, where employees enjoy perks like free gourmet meals and a speakeasy hidden in the Empire State Building
by Business Insider
LinkedIn's Manhattan office is located in the Empire State Building - fitting for such an iconic company. Yet that's far from the only interesting thing about this space– from an office theater to pop up cookie decorating stations to secret doors, LinkedIn's office is retrofitted with all the latest (and coolest) office design and tech gadgets.  Read more
No Laptop, No Phone, No Desk: UBS Reinvents the Work Space
by The New York Times
The term "hot desking" has been circulating lately - eliminating fixed desks and giving employees the flexibility to choose any desk that suits their needs that day. The mobile desk. UBS Bank implemented the concept and it resulted in better economic efficiency and more employee collaboration and agility. Mobile desks are quickly changing the office landscape.  Read more
The Office Experiment: Can Science Build the Perfect Workspace?
Office design is so often considered aesthetically focused – now, Scientific American researches the science behind office design. Employees were subjected to nine different office environments to identify which is the best of the bunch.  Read more
Why the Paperless Office Is Finally on Its Way
We’ve long heard whispers that digital will completely replace paper. Now, even office design is affected by the change – with less paper, the need for storage is declining. What would a completely paperless office look like?  Read more