We all know that sustainability and environmental consciousness is important – in our places of work as well as in our homes. What’s rarely touched upon, however, is how environmental sustainability impacts our state of mind.

April 24th 2015 |  Read more

Although perhaps not the most obvious consideration when planning an office revamp, air quality is vitally important in terms of the health and wellbeing of your employees.  The World Health Organisation states that good air quality can enhance ‘the cardiovascular and respiratory health of the population… both long- and short-term’, and it isn’t just outdoor air pollution that can have a detrimental effect on one’s health.  Stuffy, poorly ventilated offices can have air quality issues of their own, so how can you ensure that your workplace is optimised for the health and wellbeing of your employees?  Take a look at your options when it comes to improving air quality.

April 23rd 2015 | Read more

Colour is a powerful thing. In nature, colours are used to communicate – some colours indicate that certain plants and animals are dangerous, while others can be used to attract mates or locate food. To us, certain colours have certain connotations and meanings – they can even affect our mood and motivation.

March 23rd 2015 | Read more

An office in Stockholm has invited members of staff to have RFID chips implanted into their hands. Volunteers will be able to use the chips to open doors, operate photocopiers and printers and send business cards electronically via a smartphone. While it may sound like something from science fiction, this technology is already viable – and its uses are just beginning to be explored.

March 16th 2015 | Read more

It’s been several years in the making, but now the tech predictions are coming true and wearable technology is taking hold in the workplace. Wearable technology is the newest wave of mobile devices, and includes products such as the Apple Watch, Google Glass and the Fitbit activity tracker.

March 11th 2015 | Read more

What better time than spring to refresh your office environment? Spring cleans needn’t be restricted to the home – offices can also benefit from a seasonal refresh. Taking the time to tidy desks, organise office clutter and deep clean office facilities is crucial – these are all important tasks that are often neglected by office managers and employees. 

March 11th 2015 | Read more

The festive season is a time for fun and relaxation – but while your staff members are away on holiday with their friends and family, is your office really safe? Here are some top tips to check off before you shut down the office at Christmas to make sure your office security is as good as it can be.

November 27th 2014 | Read more

Getting stuck into a 9-5 routine can be emotionally and mentally draining. A new formula could change that, however, as scientists have discovered that workers need to break for 17 minutes every 52 minutes they have worked.

October 28th 2014 | Read more

An academic study has found that office plants may improve office productivity by up to 15%. The research was carried out by academics from the University of Exeter, the University of Queensland and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

October 7th 2014 | Read more

A survey of over 2,000 business owners and senior managers has revealed that employers are increasingly appreciative of the benefits that flexible working provides to their business. 81% of the 2,200 respondents stated that flexible working has the potential to increase employee productivity – a significant increase on the 74% that gave this answer in the same survey last year.

September 9th 2014 | Read more

You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and in the world of business that impression is likely to be made the moment a client or business associate steps through the door into your office. Therefore, your office should reflect the quality of work you produce as well as the image your organisation projects, and it is important that you ensure you have the appropriate facility solutions in place to see that it does.

September 3rd 2014 | Read more

To most of us, it’s hardly revolutionary to claim that cycling or walking to work everyday is a sure way to greatly improve fitness and enhance health. But what about public transport? In an academic article for the British Medical Journal, a number of experts have drawn parallels between workers who regularly use alternative modes of transport to travel to work and their body mass index (BMI). 

August 29th 2014 | Read more

The recession may be over, but businesses still have many problems to contend with. The economic recovery has introduced problematic skills shortages across many sectors in the UK, and as the recovery continues the problem is only set to intensify. 64% of business leaders expect fast growth to cause skills shortages in their business, while 59% say that skills shortages caused by faster growth are already present in the UK economy.

August 22nd 2014 | Read more

A recent study has highlighted the importance of natural light in the office environment. Completed by experts from an American university of Medicine, the research aimed to examine the impact of daylight upon office workers in terms of their own perceived wellbeing, sleep duration and quality and exercise undertaken.

August 19th 2014 | Read more

The office environment is built for work. Everything from the layout of the desks to the comfort of the office furniture should be optimised for maximum productivity. That means that employees should be provided with the office technology required for their job, ergonomic furniture to improve their health and all the office facilities they need to relax fully during breaks.

August 14th 2014 | Read more

No matter what sector or industry you operate in, you will always come up against competition for your customers and clients – for this reason it is necessary to innovate and improve your products and services over time.

August 12th 2014 | Read more

The recent decision to extend flexible working rights to all employees who have carried out in excess of six months of service could ring significant changes to the office environment. The extension, which came into force at the end of June, means that the vast majority of UK employees are now entitled to request flexible working. Employees can put in a written request to work from home, work compressed hours, switch to flexi-time or start job sharing.

July 31st 2014 | Read more

Office supplies are unlikely to be the largest cost on your company’s accounts, but that doesn’t mean they’re exempt from management’s constant drive for improving efficiency.

July 29th 2014 | Read more

Flexible working has hit the headlines recently as new legislation has come into force which gives all employees the right to request flexible working. However, one of the UK’s leading doctors has suggested that this change doesn’t go nearly far enough, and instead the entire country should switch to a four-day working week.

July 25th 2014 | Read more

Most companies employ cleaning services to maintain levels of hygiene and ensure their office space is kept clean and presentable, while encouraging their employees to keep their desks and communal areas neat and tidy. But why is it so important to maintain a spotless office? Many companies actually underestimate just how necessary it is to maintain a clean and tidy office space, choosing only to pay for a cleaning service to keep carpets clean and dirt and grime to a minimum, but there's more to it than simply creating a space that's pleasing to the eye.

July 18th 2014 | Read more

Office interiors play a fundamental part in creating suitable and productive working, thinking and meeting spaces. Meeting spaces need to be able to impress clients, and yet provide a calm environment isolated from the rest of your office space. Staples Advantage has the experience and know-how required to understand what will not only work within your available space, but also be the most cost-effective and provide the biggest productivity boost. In this article we examine exactly how you can create a highly productive environment within your meeting room using interior design, furniture and office technology.

July 17th 2014 | Read more

A survey of over 1,000 of the UK’s managers has revealed that nearly half work a day’s overtime each week, while 13% work two days extra per week. 53% of managers said that a high workload was their main reason for working overtime. Over three-quarters of staff regularly stayed late at the office or worked late at home in order to finish work, while half frequently worked through their lunch break and 38% worked at weekends. Only 13% of respondents said that they were satisfied with their work-life balance.

July 17th 2014 | Read more

Inflation is a fact of life – and of business. We all expect costs to rise by a couple of percentage points every year, but that doesn’t stop managers from asking departments to find cashable savings each year. While it might seem easier to try to cut staff costs, the morale of your office will certainly be higher if you seek to make procurement savings instead. While your procurement spend might only be a small percentage of your overall running costs, any savings you find will soon add up across multiple departments, offices, and sites.

June 20th 2014 | Read more

A recent study of more than 900 employees found that a significant proportion would be tempted to call in sick to work in order to stay home and watch the World Cup, should their team reach the semi-final or final. The survey revealed that 60 per cent of both men and women would pull a sickie for the final and eight per cent – those who are slightly more daring – would be willing to pull a sickie at any point during the tournament, although men were twice as likely to do so than women.

June 20th 2014 | Read more

Research suggests that nearly six in ten office workers think about work as soon as they wake up in the morning, and over half of employees check their work emails within fifteen minutes of going to bed. These figures show that many employees are always connected to work. While this might lead to faster responses to important emails, there are likely to be some negative impacts, too.

June 11th 2014 | Read more

Everybody loves the idea of meeting up with friends for a long lunch during the week or enjoying a working lunch with colleagues, but it would seem that taking a significant break at lunch at all is becoming increasingly unrealistic for office workers. A recent poll by O2 has found that 15.8 million workers fail to take a full lunch break and that the majority enjoy just 15 minutes of respite, as they are either too busy or worried about being away from their desks.

June 11th 2014 | Read more

Over the past two decades, green issues have become increasingly prevalent on the global agenda. As our scientific knowledge has increased and the evidence in support of climate change and resource depletion has gradually accumulated, it has become increasingly apparent that we must make additional efforts to preserve our planet and its resources for future generations. Take a look at some of the ways in which we strive to stay green, and you can too...

May 29th 2014 | Read more

Office workers have greater job satisfaction if they’re able to integrate flexible working into their job, a study has found. Maintaining a good work-life balance is the goal for all of us, and while it may come as no surprise that flexible working plays an important role in this balance, the IBM study reports that flexible working may even assist in career progression.

May 29th 2014 | Read more

Designing a new office space comes with its own set of challenges. You probably want to get past choosing office furniture and concentrate on the more exciting areas of office interior design, but the office layout you choose will have a significant bearing on the productivity of your business.

May 28th 2014 | Read more

Dr Lynda Shaw, a psychologist and business improvement specialist, has argued that employees who are creating poor quality work, becoming increasingly unproductive and taking more and more sick days are simply lacking a good leader or employer.

May 28th 2014 | Read more

Office technology is in a state of flux. Despite all the constant changes to technology and how we use it in the office, there’s one clear trend – we’re using it more and more. Are you aware of these basic security tips?

May 28th 2014 | Read more

The final set of economic growth figures for 2014 suggested that the domestic service sector was undergoing a decrease in growth, despite the increased growth rates experienced throughout the wider economy. How has your business fared so far in 2014?

April 25th 2014 | Read more

It’s all well and good adopting a green policy in the workplace, and encouragingly, more and more offices are finally coming round to the idea of a greener workplace. However, here at Staples Advantage we always strive to take it one step further, so how about going greener AND cleaner at the same time? Sustainability is a buzzword right now and most offices are understandably trying to be more environmentally friendly. What does that mean to your business?

Environmental sustainability now goes much further than just recycling and in order to maintain the cleanest, greenest office possible, you’ll need more than just a separate paper bin. Have you thought about cleaning a greener way?

April 25th 2014 | Read more

Today, businesses both large and small have a responsibility to minimise resource depletion, energy wastage and pollution whilst operating in an environmentally responsible fashion. Whether you look to achieve your green targets by purchasing environmentally friendly office supplies or through benefitting from alternative energies such as wind or solar power, it’s all a step in the right direction.

London Mayor Boris Johnson claims to appreciate the importance of green business, and this year’s Low Carbon Entrepreneur of 2014 competition has hoped to unearth the environmental innovators of tomorrow.

April 24th 2014 | Read more

The days when every working shift must start and finish behind a desk are at an end. In the modern world, it is no longer necessary for your employees to work from the office, and there are many advantages to either working remotely or working on the go. However, your staff will only work productively and to the best of their ability if you provide them with the technologies they need to do a good job. Technology has enabled the mobile workforce to work remotely and do an excellent job without micromanagement, but what do your employees actually need to thrive away from the office? Take a look at just some of the products that may well be on the remote working agenda.

April 9th 2014 | Read more

RSI, backache, stress and weight gain – we’re all aware of the potential health problems associated with spending too much time in the office. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, hundreds of companies have been showing off new products for the workplace and beyond, from curvy TVs and cutting edge smartphones to 4K TVs. Here at Staples Advantage, one of the products that most interested us most was Garmin’s workplace fitness tracker.

April 4th 2014 | Read more

It should come as no surprise that the relationship between comfort, satisfaction and productivity in the workplace has been researched in detail over the past half century. For anyone willing to search, statistical data is available that considers how everything from office furniture to ambient temperature can have an impact upon the day to day efficiency of a workplace. However, many of the results have linked overall workplace satisfaction to the following six ‘satisfaction’ parameters, each of which can be exploited to improve employee engagement and role fulfilment.

April 2nd 2014 | Read more

In a recent interview with Computer Weekly, Costas Markides, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School, revealed that he believes technology solutions will soon change the way organisations manage their employees, and ultimately run their business. He believes that we are now using technology like brains, rather than machines, to run our businesses and are moving from a ‘rules-based world to a purpose-based world’. Markides emphasised that technology should be embraced so that employers can focus on developing a sense of corporate purpose for their employees.

March 31st 2014 | Read more

In today’s digital world we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to selecting equipment to help us run a successful business, as new technology solutions are constantly being developed, adapted and improved upon. With such a wide variety of technology devices at our disposal, it can be difficult to know which to choose and which our businesses are likely to benefit from the most – do we really need that interactive whiteboard that is also a phone and a fax, or would we be better off with something simpler? It would seem that one of the biggest decisions companies have to make at the moment is which computer format to opt for. Whereas before we might have had difficulty choosing between a desktop and a laptop, we now also have the option of tablet computers to consider. In an attempt to help you make a more informed decision, we examine the pros and cons of each device in turn…

March 25th 2014 | Read more

Over the past few decades, the average workplace has changed a great deal. Today, more and more people work in sedentary, office-based jobs, usually sitting behind a computer for hour after hour each day. Office workers don’t face the physical demands and dangers of manual workers, but those cumulative hours behind the desk hold their own risks. What dangers could your employees be facing from a life in the office, and could our range of ergonomic office furniture help?

March 14th 2014 | Read more

Weekends are meant to rejuvenate us ready for the new working week, but a recent survey suggests that some staff still feel tired, stressed, anxious or depressed on Monday morning. The survey also revealed the factors that most affect employee motivation and productivity.

March 13th 2014 | Read more

Every morning in workplaces across the UK, millions of employees will step away from their workstations in order to make themselves a hot beverage. Your company’s coffee machines are arguably some of your most important facility solutions. However, have you ever considered how the different varieties of coffee may impact upon concentration and productivity levels? Here’s a closer look at three popular ways of serving coffee, and what they might mean for your company on a global scale.

March 13th 2014 | Read more