How to Choose the Right Office Dividers for Your Workplace.

Office dividers are a necessary evil in today's workplace - unnoticed and even uncomplimented when they're working as promised, and utterly confining at their worst. Nobody calls office dividers their "favorite bit of office furniture". And that won't change anytime soon!

So when you're looking for office dividers for your company, don't imagine a process similar to picking out a rug or a lamp; nobody's going to want partitions that set off their blue eyes, they'll just want something that doesn't get in the way!

Choosing the right office divider is still important, though - employee morale can still be affected by bad dividers, even if good dividers don't seem to have any effect.

Know your dividers. The dividers used for cubicles are called half-height office dividers, smaller compared to the full-height office dividers that stretch from floor to ceiling. The difference between the two is crucial - half-height dividers offer a greater sense of openness, while full-height dividers have a feeling of permanence and solidity.

For a divider that falls half-way in between the two, you might want accordion wall dividers, which reach from floor to wall but are easily set aside when you want to remove a barrier between two office spaces.

Mobile partition walls are the lightest type of divider - they can be moved from area to area, and are light enough to be assembled or disassembled when needed.

Choose the right supplier. Once you've decided what kind of divider you want to use in your office, it's time to look at the supplier who can get you what you want. Your facilities manager should be able to tell you what suppliers in the area can provide the kind of office dividers you've set your mind on. Google can also help turn up the right suppliers. (Or if you want good value and quality too, might we recommend you check out Cubicles.com's line of cubicles?)

Choosing the right office dividers is easier than it looks. With the advice listed above, choosing and using can be a breeze, with your colleagues enjoying their office and you smiling at the thought of money well spent.

The Numbers Behind Successful Green Offices.

Non-green offices and green offices alike share the same water mains, electric lines, phone cables, and roads - living off the grid is no alternative for most businesses, that's for sure!

But the line between green offices and their wasteful counterparts is a thin one - and it has to do with how much energy your office expends in any given day, and how much your office has done to conserve the energy it uses, or to minimize its use.

According to the US Department of Energy, total energy consumption in an average office breaks down by the numbers:

Thermostat/Air conditioner, 39% of energy consumption. Keeping cool (or warm) is a positive energy monster - but you can't freeze your employees to death, can you? Green offices do their part for their employees and the environment by changing roof coatings and insulation to protect against heat and cold, or by setting the thermostat a little closer to outside ambient temperatures - to a cooler setting in winter, or a warmer setting in summer.

Lighting, 30% of energy consumption. By opening the office windows to let natural light in, or by switching light bulbs to the compact fluorescent type, offices can save up to eighty percent of the lighting energy they use.

Office equipment, 16% of energy consumption. Real green offices make sure that office equipment use is conserved and minimized. This includes switching idle computers off and converting monitors to power-friendly LCD or LED monitors.

Water heating, 9% of energy consumption. Like thermostats, water heating can be conserved, too - reducing water temperature to 120 degrees, for example, saves up to 18% of total energy use. Low-flush toilets can help reduce energy consumption even more, as they save up to 50% over more old-fashioned commodes.

Going Green with Eco Friendly Office Furniture.

An eco friendly office is easy enough to commit to, if one just sticks to superficial environmental advice (save water! Print on both sides of the paper! Unplug that PC after use!). But it takes a real green warrior to meet environmental targets using eco friendly office furniture.

The government has been helpful enough, providing green furniture standards that provide a standard to live up to. The EPA in particular offers procurement guidelines to help you select eco friendly office furniture that lives up to the government's high standards.

New furniture, then, can be selected using the EPA's guidelines, which call for FSC-certified wood, water-based or bio-based glues for laminated surfaces, and recycled materials where possible.

New eco-friendly office furniture can also be bought based on their recyclability in the future - tables and chairs made of plywood, steel, chipboard, and plastics can be recycled easily at a processing plant, while compact laminates and MDF are more difficult to recycle in the future.

Go refurbished/remanufactured, if that's an option for your office - not easy if you have a reputation to uphold, but getting easier due to the glut of furniture (you can thank the recession for bankrupting a significant number of businesses, freeing their relatively pristine furniture for use in the market).

Take the furniture our guys at Cubicles.com are ready to offer you - lower-cost, recycled workstations recreated from used cubicles - processed with eco-friendly procedures to replace and recycle the parts that can still be used.

Cubicles.com uses low-VOC coatings and recycled fabrics in its remanufactured cubicles. They look brand new, but come having already made most of its impact on the environment!

Buy local. Even if your furniture demands can't live up to the earlier two points, you can still go green with your office furniture, simply by buying from a supplier nearby. By buying local, you cut down on the carbon emissions created by transporting your new furniture from point A to point B.

How to Choose a Modern Executive Desk

Image © Global Upholstery Co.

No corner office is complete without a modern executive desk taking pride of place. The ideal executive desk does more than keep an executive's papers from falling to the floor: it provides much needed storage and defines an executive's workspace as well.

Once personalized properly, the modern executive desk also defines the personality and outlook of the executive who's using it.

If you're newly arrived to your corner office, and assuming you can choose the kind of desk you'll be spending the rest of your executive career on, how will you go about choosing your new command center?

The right one will come to you, once you ask yourself a few questions:

How flexible do you intend to be? Modern executive desks come in modular versions, which can be set up easily, then reconfigured once your needs change down the road. High quality modular desks are easy to assemble and configure, with European connectors that make disassembly and reconfiguration a breeze.

What kind of electronics will you be using? Likely the answer won't be "none" - you'll need at least one grommet hole to tame those pesky computer and telephone wires. Look for a hutch with a sweep that keeps those wires in place. And look for height/angle adjustable keyboard trays that can help you work while maintaining a comfortable, ergonomically-friendly position.

How many people will you be working with? The best desks allow for collaboration with colleagues, coming with island worksurfaces that allow teammates to "meet at your place" and still have enough leg room below.

A good example of modern executive desk that fits all the above: the Zira line of desks, a modular desk system that can be infinitely rearranged to ensure maximum work efficiency and organization.

Zira offers a multitude of storage components, allowing you to find a way to store everything in your corner office the way you like - putting them away (your boring old files) or putting them up for display (that glowing letter from the Chairman).

This video shows you how easy it is to get that corner office started with Zira - and this link takes you to Cubicles.com's desk page where you can look at Zira and many other modern executive desk options.

Workplace Tips to Help You Survive the Recession.

The recession isn't going away anytime soon (jobs bill notwithstanding), so we're offering a handful of workplace tips to tide you over till the economy improves/World War III arrives.

As an employee, you're not that powerless: sure, you've probably seen one or more of your colleagues getting laid off, but if you've gotten to this point and still hung on to your job (in which case, congratulations!), you still have the power to minimize the effect of the slowdown in your company, and yourself by extension.

What are you doing to contribute to cost cutting in your office? The company's already done most of the heavy lifting - cutting salaries and fringe benefits, reducing the budget for food and transportation, and slimming down the workforce.

Now the onus is on you - it's now your responsibility to help the office find places to cut costs. When you do this, you reduce your company's operating costs, and thus you ease your company's way through to the end of the recession.

If there's one thing you take away from this list of workplace tips, it's this: you're not a passenger anymore, you're a stakeholder. Take an oar and row.

Take printing paper: don't print stuff that can as easily be emailed. Reducing your printing quota not only saves your company a mint, it also helps the environment, too. Use as little paper as possible, for your company's sake.

Reduce your travel expenses, by relying more on the phone and Skype. If travel can't be avoided, try to exhaust all possible cheap deals on tickets, through Expedia and Kayak.com. Hot tip: book early for the lowest prices on tickets.

Save electricity - shut down your PC when you're done, and unplug all the appliances you use at work before you head off for home. Be careful with office resources - and remember that electricity and water are among the easiest office resources to waste.

Finally, avoid using the office phone to make personal calls. Use your personal cellphone, or use email or instant messaging. Try and get a texting package on your cellphone that allows unlimited texting.

Every little bit helps. With the recession still going strong, you now have a greater stake in your company's success… and a greater responsibility to your company.

Cubicle Decorating Building Blocks.

Going cubicle decorating? Good start. By flashing up the ol' workspace, you'll make your cubicle your own, create some conversation starters for colleagues, and improve overall office morale and productivity.

Cubicle decorating begins with some pretty simple building blocks. These items are easy to find and easy to personalize: Start with these items and you can put that personal stamp on your cubicle in no time!

Plants, real plants. While plastic plants are easy to place and easy to take care of, real plants have significant advantage over their artificial analogues. Real plants exude oxygen, which is good news for your productivity (your brain needs more of the stuff, and offices are notoriously low in this life-giving gas).

Plants are also guaranteed mood boosters, and the right ones add an invigorating dash of color to a drab workplace. Just don't get a plant that exudes pollen or a too-strong smell.

Just remember this when using plants for cubicle decorating: choose plants that won't grow too much. You want a plant that will help you interact with your colleagues - impossible when it blocks the hallway or your view of the rest of the office.

Family pictures. Adding a framed image of your loved ones tells your workmates that you have a life outside your office. Having images of family creates a positive impression of yourself in the workplace, too.

Postcards. A real, written-in postcard from a family member abroad is cubicle decorating gold - a personal touch that shows your sense of adventure and (depending on where it's from) a sense of belonging to a larger world.

Candy bowl. A dish of treats is more than just a cubicle decorating whim - it's a great conversation starter and a cool way to make new friends, especially when you're new and you need an excuse to socialize with your new cubicle neighbors.

Calendar. A personalized calendar that shows off your personality or interests can "brand" your cubicle as yours like nothing else can. Hey, you might also get to meet other colleagues who share your interests!

How to Choose the Best Ergonomic Keyboard for Your Office.

The best ergonomic keyboard for you will ease your carpal tunnel… but won't look like your regular keyboard.

The flat, clumped-together keyboards that come standard with most PCs don't offer any sort of ergonomic relief whatsoever - you'll have to turn to those odd, split and tented keyboards if the carpal tunnel is starting to get in the way of work.

Doing the Split

The split keyboard design, when it hit offices in the 1990s, looked odd to traditionalists - a gap was introduced down the center of the key array, and both key sets arranged around the gap in a V.

While this takes up more space and attracts odd looks from officemates, the arrangement is actually more natural - arms aren't placed in an awkward position while typing, and wrists are less stressed in the process.

If you're choosing an ergonomic keyboard, choose one whose "V" angle feels most natural to you. Or if you can't decide, spend the extra dosh and choose an adjustable ergonomic keyboard to get the flexibility you need from your input device.

If the price bothers you, tell yourself that an expensive keyboard now saves you the expense of surgery to heal stress injuries further down the road.

Test It Before You Buy It

Finding the best ergonomic keyboard for your office takes time, and continuous testing.

Throughout the testing process, make sure the environment is as close as possible to the one in your own workplace. Use the keyboard at a chair and desk with similar angles and height to your own. Use the keyboard with wrists straight and in line with your arms, elbows close to your body, and relaxed shoulders.

Ask yourself the following questions when you test your new keyboard:

Can I adjust the keyboard easily? An easily-adjustable keyboard helps users find their optimum settings in the smallest possible time. Inferior keyboards are harder to adjust, and as a result will not provide the optimum settings needed for the user's ergonomic comfort.

Does the keyboard "tent" to an angle I prefer? You don't have to set the tenting angle to the highest possible setting - just to one that your wrists can live with. The ideal tenting range seems to fit within ten to twenty degrees for a majority of users.

Does it come with palm supports? The best ergonomic keyboard models come with padded and removable palm support add-ons.

Can I live with the key rearrangements? Some ergonomic keyboards move some keys around to optimize ergonomic comfort. Users have to be aware of these switches beforehand, or else they risk reducing productivity while they're getting used to their new keyboard.