Create an Open Work Environment with Qi Benching

Want to improve communication when in the office? Consider adopting an open work environment for your office. 

This type of office setup is excellent for fostering an atmosphere of collaboration and communication. Unlike the segregation of a closed office, an open work environment (or open office system) removes barriers and puts your workers together to let them tackle and solve problems as a group.

An open work environment offers many benefits to an office, and to demonstrate how it accomplishes this, we’ll explain by using fluidconcepts’ Qi benching and desking units. Although its versatility allows it to be used in a private office setting, Qi really shines as a contemporary value-oriented benching system.

Here’s how an open work environment can benefit your office:

  1. Maximize your floor plan 
  2. Provide flexibility for workers 
  3. Emphasize aesthetics
  4. Remove barriers of communication 
  5. Demonstrate office transparency

1. Maximize your floor plan 

Open work environments have the great advantage of allowing businesses to fully use up all areas of their floor plan. By pooling together all available space, an open office can maximize its floor plan much better than a closed office

However, open work environments are completely dependent upon the spaces in which they’re housed. Since the resulting office space will be irregularly shaped, it can sometimes be very difficult to fill with furniture.

To make the most effective use of an open office area, you need an office furniture product like Qi that can adapt to any space. Qi can join together to create long benches or be assembled to stand independently, thereby allowing you to use a single product to fill up your office space. And, with several different furniture accessories available, Qi can be used to create just about any style of workstation to meet your employees’ needs.

2. Provide office flexibility

Many offices have adapted to a flexible office setup to accommodate workers that work from home. And, just as your office schedule needs to accommodate staggered work hours, your office layout must also oblige workers with no fixed seating arrangement – a task accomplished with hot-desking.

Hot-desking is a concept where office seating is assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead of the traditional closed office arrangement where each worker has a fixed and established seat, hot-desking is an arrangement where office seating changes every day.

Each worker brings everything they need to their new desk at the start of the day, and then takes them home at the end of day. After all work surfaces are cleaned and sanitized, the process begins anew the next day.

To make hot-desking possible, you need office furniture like Qi that can easily create uniform work spaces in your open environment. Qi units can be easily replicated as bench workstations that are equal in appearance and functionality. Built with durable materials using robust construction, Qi units can be reliably depended upon to provide the space your employees need to get their work done.

By having the same type of workstation, worker seating arrangements become mostly arbitrary in a hot-desking situation. And with Qi high levels of quality, your workers are sure to enjoy any Qi workstation they use.

3. Emphasize aesthetics

Emphasize the aesthetics of your office using uniform office furniture that promotes a harmonious work environment.

Use the chance to decorate your office as a way to express what your office values. Tell your brand story through your decorative choices; emphasize aesthetics by coordinating your office furniture. Instead of a patchwork of different tables and chairs, establish cohesiveness in your workplace with unified office furniture.

Given that Qi is such a versatile piece of office furniture, you can use it to create identical workstations. Conversely, you can use Qi product accessories to build workstations with wholly different looks and functions. And yet, given its holistic design concept, Qi remains completely unified in whichever configuration you wish to use it.

4. Remove barriers of communication 

Offices in which innovation is important require open communication between employees to spark inspiration. And while an open office plan will facilitate this need, the unfettered flow of information in your office also requires the right type of furniture.

To remove barriers of communication between your employees, plan for an open office where workers can freely talk and see each other at all times. Avoid having them stand up or peer around corners to connect with each other. Plan your office to be an open huddle, and keep them there so that they can continue to bounce ideas off each other to solve the bottleneck of your next office project.

Qi benching products excel at facilitating communication by offering workstations that can be as open as you want. Qi customizations include frosted central screens that allow for higher privacy, or shorter transparent screens that provide clear, unfettered line of sight for its workstation users.

Qi lets your team work like a team, communicate like a team, and win like a team. 

5. Demonstrate office transparency

Build trust with your employees and clients by demonstrating your openness and trustworthiness. To demonstrate this, consider showing your commitment to office transparency by adopting an open work environment.

Show how your office is above the clutter by using Qi storage units to store away unused files and material. Establish a fair and equal office with an open plan where workers sit at uniform Qi desks. Demonstrate the egalitarianism of your office culture with a consistent design aesthetic reinforced by Qi benching products.

Take the chance to build an office that your workers can trust, and you’ll have built a workplace that long-term workers can believe in. And with Qi office furniture from fluidconcepts, you can do just that.

Read more about Qi benching, or download the brochure. Find out more about fluidconcepts tables and desks here.

Are you looking to create an open work environment? fluidconcepts is dedicated to providing the best solutions for your workplace. We create practical solutions that are made to represent the best qualities of your brand. Contact us today to find out more!