Mobility in the office is mainly associated with mobile devices – laptops, smartphones or tablets as well as the possibility of choosing a workplace by employees, e.g. in a favorite cafe or at home. The trend of mobility also concerns arrangement of office space. What actually does it mean in practice?
At present, special attention is paid to issues related to e.g. needs of employees, especially their mental and psychical comfort. In effect, offices are more and more frequently created in accordance with a recently popular concept of active-based working, which consists in the assumption that office space is divided into different zones, e.g. zone for quiet work as well as formal and informal meetings or relaxation (chill out zones). Such flexibly designed space allows employees to choose their work place for realization of a concrete task. For instance, rooms for informal meetings are a good solution in case of "brain storm" on a particular problem, whereas quiet work zone enables performance of tasks requiring concentration or attention and chill out zone helps to forget about every-day duties. Thus, division of the office into different zones has a positive impact on comfort of employees and their efficiency.
Mobility of furniture
Creation of an office in accordance with the concept of active-based working is enabled by a rich offer of furniture companies with a wide range of mobile furniture in their portfolio. The offered models include e.g. furniture equipped with circles which may be easily removed from place to place as well as furniture with possibility of disposing and connecting. In case of office designed in accordance with the concept of active-based working, furniture with wheels and folding furniture will be especially needed. For instance, MDD – a company operating on the furniture market – has tables with folding tops and wheels in its offer as well as stacked conference chairs, which may be successfully used in both rooms for formal and informal meetings and working places in quiet work zones. Additionally, such furniture may be easily removed to another room if necessary, e.g. in case of organization of an important meeting with a great number of participants or usual training course for employees. These solutions are perfect in hot desking, that is a system of work where employees do not have their permanent working posts in the office, because they spend most of their time outside the headquarters, for instance, on business trips. Temporary work places for such people allow to e.g. decrease exploitation costs of office space.
It is also worth applying mobile partition walls to arrange space in accordance with the concept of active-based working. They enable division into zones for different tasks in open-space as well as partial reduction of noise, which is a menace of open office space.
Next to mobile table and chairs, the list of solutions offered by furniture companies includes e.g. desks with regulation of height or pitch. They encourage employees to change of position from sitting to standing as well as adjust work station to individual needs.
The above mobile office furniture is one of many products of such type available on the market. While choosing equipment to your office, it is worth deciding on such solutions because of their multifunctionality and comfort of employees. Mobile offices is a trend that conquers the world of designers of office space and mobile furniture is an integral part of that change.