10 Tips for Office Furniture Layout Ideas 2024

Not everyone gives an office furniture layout the kind of thought and planning that it deserves. It's just getting some items and laying them out around the room, isn't it? If only it were that simple. 

Properly knowing how to arrange office furniture makes for the best possible aesthetic. Additionally, when done efficiently, it contributes to a better workflow for whoever may be using the space. 

You can go into various traditional and home offices, and you may think no thought was put into where the standing desk or ergonomic chair you see are placed. However, you'd be surprised to know how things were meticulously plotted out in advance to lead to what you see. 

Of course, if you are an office worker that falls outside of the HR department, then your concerns may not go too far beyond the office furniture setup for your own space. However, if you are an HR employee or a business owner, then you may need to think about acquiring wholesale office furniture, office desk lighting for the entire office, and other bigger planning elements.

What can you expect to gain from reading the information here today? Well, regardless of which side of the spectrum you fall on, it may be useful to see some office furniture placement considerations that may come in handy when you are putting your space together. 

Additionally, you get introduced to a bulk office desk and wholesale office chair option in the form of the Autonomous employee purchase program. That may not sound so important for individual employees, but it very much is. 

The program allows employees to handpick their office fixtures while allowing HR and business owners to save while ensuring that the workforce has adequate facilities to get the designated job done. 

Complementing Positive Qualities

One of the best office furniture tips you can get is to ensure that your office furniture is complementary to your space. There may be countless lists out there telling you which chair and which desks are the best based on features and ratings from other people who have used them. 

However, you may find that the same pieces of furniture are not as effective in your office. At that point, you may wonder if you were duped by the existing reviews. Well, it's very much possible that the quality does not objectively match up to the image out there, but the problem may also be that the items chosen don't work so well in your space. 

So, if you have a lot of corner space, for example, then it may be a good idea to go with an L-shaped standing desk since it allows you to capitalize on that kind of position most effectively. 

The Furniture Selection

There should never be a reason why you settle on office furniture that you know is subpar in your office furniture layout. First, smart office furniture should always be at the top of your list. That way, you know that the elements chosen contain ergonomic features that are conducive to the health and well-being of the user. 

For a typical employee, this kind of choice benefits your body’s longevity. As a business owner or an HR person, you demonstrate that you're looking out for the interests of your workforce while contributing to greater productivity. 

It's also a good idea to think about the materials that make up these smart office fixtures. Do the chairs have a mesh backrest to allow breathability? Are the tabletops made of durable material, such as high-quality MDF wood? Ensure you're asking the right questions and that your choices answer them effectively. 

Lighting Matters

If the whole idea of an office furniture layout is typically thought of as inconsequential, then lighting gets even less thought. It's almost criminal to think that this is the case, especially if you know the positive effects that good lighting can have, and the comparatively negative ones that less than stellar lighting contributes to. 

Office desk lighting is a part of the ergonomic spectrum for a reason, and you want to pay attention to it for its visual and mental benefits. What you want is a setup that allows the artificial lighting atop your desk to complement whatever natural sources are present. 

So, your desk light should be positionally adjustable while also allowing you to modify the brightness and color temperature on demand. Of course, coverage should be adequate, so you can easily light up at least a respectable portion of your tabletop space if not the whole thing. 

Do Not Forego Relaxation

Relaxation is just as essential as hard work is, so the space must also be conducive to an unwinding area. If you oversee putting together a traditional office, then you want to plan a space that is dedicated to taking a break. 

To reinforce this mentally, there should be nothing in that space that reminds people of work. In fact, there is a nifty idea that some companies have adopted that reinforces that strategy. The idea is to somewhat penalize the introduction of work into these kinds of forbidden spaces. 

Of course, you don't want to go for harsh punishments. Instead, you can have a sign-up that indicates that work discussions or working is barred in these spaces. The penalty can see employees having to contribute a small amount of money to a jar that may be used to purchase snacks or something for the office. 

You can get as creative as you'd like to with deciding how you prevent people from bringing work to these places. 

If you are a remote worker, then you want to do your best to separate your workspace from your chill space. For some people, that's not possible, which is quite understandable. So, it may help to step outside for relaxation. 

Think of the People

This is important when planning your office furniture layout. Earlier, there was a point made to ensure that the smart office furniture selected complements the space in the best way possible. This point is not too far removed from that one, but it speaks to ensuring that the decisions taken compliment the people who are going to be using the furniture. 

So, you could design the workspace in a way that is conducive to accommodating black or white tabletops, for example. Employees can then be allowed to take part in selecting the office furniture colors from black or white. Since the office design supports this, whatever choice a person goes with should fit right into the office aesthetic.

Additionally, an office furniture set up with ergonomic capabilities is also important here. As stated before, making these considerations early on can lead to positive health benefits for the workforce, which it is going to be highly thankful for. 

On a more individual level, maybe thinking of the space requirements for office equipment is a good idea to ensure that you don't end up with items that are so large you have nowhere to put them. 

Technology Is a Staple

If your office somehow manages to smoothly operate without the use of technology, then you are an exception. Just about every office job needs technology from a moderate to an extreme extent. 

The idea here is to ensure that your office furniture layout is making allowances for accessing and using whatever technological elements may be needed. For example, network and electrical ports must be accessible, so workstations need to be near them. 

One of the best ways to ensure the best outcome here is to consider the full spectrum of technologies needed that are either already present or are going to become necessary in the future. 

Conceptualize the best layout that allows the best possible proximity to their sources. If they're going to be shared technologies, such as large office printers, it may be a good idea to have a centralized area for that sort of thing, so you don't have to plan workspaces too heavily around them. 

Don’t Go Over Budget

This one should be a no-brainer, but there may be value in putting it here. While you do want to ensure that your office furniture layout consists of high-quality items, staying within budget is almost non-negotiable. 

Therefore, this is a good time to say that before you even start any acquisitions, consider what the budget may be. 

Perhaps, the Autonomous employee purchase program can help you here. First, Autonomous already has reasonable pricing for high-quality office furniture. However, the EPP provides greater cost savings for bulk orders. 

When a company registers, there is a dedicated web page provided. Employees can log in, look around, and choose items that are most suited to them. Business owners or HR can approve or decline these selections and then make orders at reduced prices. 

Autonomous then handles delivery. Therefore, if a part of your entire workspace is remote, that makes no difference in ensuring that adequate furniture is present. 

The “Out with the old” Mindset May Be Necessary

There is nothing wrong with realizing and acknowledging that your current office furniture setup is simply no longer efficient enough, especially when you realize that there is a more productive way of doing things.

With that in mind, you may simply need to be ready to get rid of pieces of furniture that are no longer serving the cause effectively. You don't have to just throw them away. Consider reselling them at highly reduced costs or donating them to charitable causes. After all, corporate social responsibility is very important. 

Don’t Overburden the Space

It's good that you may want a workspace to do as much as it can. Theoretically, that's the best way to go about planning. You want to effectively capitalize on what you have to ensure the best possible output. 

However, it is highly probable to take this too far and end up trying to get too much out of the area. In these instances, you find that spaces become overburdened, and furniture or office accessories feel crammed into the area and the office furniture layout. 

Cramming tends to reduce efficiency, meaning that you end up doing the opposite of the very thing you were trying to achieve. Remember that moderation is never a bad thing. It’s better to undershoot and compensate later than to overshoot and have nowhere to adequately filter out the surplus. 

Think of the Future

The final of these office furniture tips is to think of the future in every decision you take. Persons are often way too obsessed with the now, which is not the best approach to take when planning this kind of thing. 

There is a reason why these kinds of office fixtures have multi-year warranties attached to them. They are expected to last for years. Therefore, the plan that takes place this year is supposed to benefit your cause for many years to come. 

While this may not significantly impact a single person, it's a different case entirely from the perspective of a business. This is especially true if expansion is a part of future progression. 

How does today's furniture fit into tomorrow's version of the business? Will you be needing more eventually? If so, should you buy everything now and put some in the storage? Can you build on your current layout if you're supposed to move into a bigger space? 

The point is to be strategic at every step of the way. 

Final Remarks

If you didn't realize how critical proper planning is for the relative positions of office fixtures, then you are now very much aware. Choosing the right items from the right suppliers is a part of the battle, and setting office furniture layout effectively is the next. 

Additionally, there are a host of different considerations to ensure that you are being strategic with your planning. A couple of these elements are future-proofing and ensuring that the items chosen complement the people who are going to be using them. 

Certainly, there is much to take away from the office furniture tips that you were given above. The Autonomous EPP goes a long way in helping employees and business owners meet in the middle where the acquisition portion is concerned. 

If nothing else, it saves the business some money while ensuring that the workers have furniture that is most suited to their needs.