4 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays at Work

‘Tis the season of holiday cheer, and what better way to celebrate than to bring some of that cheer to the office. Here are 4 easy ways to celebrate the holidays no matter where you work:

1. It is always nice to be able to wake up and have a little taste of the holiday at the start of your day. My personal favorite is a Winter Wake Up tea or some nice holiday creamer in your coffee. It’s a great way to spruce up your regular routine and get in the holiday spirit before you even get to the office.

2. Complementing number one, consider bringing your own festive water bottle or mug to keep at your desk for the season – you’ll be spreading cheer in all of your meetings throughout the office!

3. Thirdly, plan a holiday-themed lunch break with your team to celebrate each other and the season. Have some fun with it and encourage your colleagues to wear holiday-themed clothing that day! (TIP: Don’t forget to check the company dress code!)

4. Lastly, a nice holiday greeting card can go a long way, especially if you can double up and turn your season’s greeting card into a thank you note to your team or customers. And get creative! HON’s 2017 holiday card features a fun tree design using Flock®.

Happy holidays from HON! How do you celebrate the season in your office?

The Top 5 Things We’re Thankful For at HON

As we gather the fallen leaves, pick the ripening apples, and overstuff the quintessential bird, we occasionally tend to forget that it’s the season to be thankful. Alas, not this year! We’ve gathered a list of all the things that we’re thankful for here at The HON Company. So, grab a smoldering hot chocolate, kick up your flocked feet, and settle in!

1. Our Amazing Customers

First and foremost, we’re thankful for our amazing customers! Your dedication to selling the HON brand and promoting our products is without parallel; we appreciate your support! From east coast to west coast, and everywhere in between, we value the fact that our customers choose the HON brand. Thank you for your continuing partnership!

2. Our Dedicated Members

What makes The HON Company tick? Our members! Everyone from Supply Chain to Marketing, Customer Support to Sales, Training to Product and beyond has a hand in the daily upkeep of this amazing company. Whether we’re working on garnering the next shipment of lock assemblies or designing a new prototype, we all work together to make this a well-oiled machine.

3. Our Commitment to Being a Great Place to Work

Chili Contests, Jeans Days, volunteer and professional opportunities … who wouldn’t want to work for HON? As a member going on her seventh year of working for this fantastic company, I can’t imagine working elsewhere. We continually improve our members through leadership programs, HON University courses, and frequent training sessions. Now that’s something to sink your teeth into!

4. Our Evolving Products

On average, we launch about 10 new product lines a year! We stay ahead of this ever-changing industry by constantly evolving our product assortment, revolutionizing our materials and textiles, and introducing innovative new product lines. Check out our newly launched seating textile In Season (aptly named for a fall blog!), view our recently expanded Flock collection, or try out our Build Tool on hon.com today!

5. Our Community

Nestled in the heart of the Midwest, Muscatine, Iowa was the Pearl Button Capital of the World in 1905, accounting for nearly 37% of the world’s buttons. Since then, Muscatine has become home to The HON Company where we take a vested interest in upholding our strong community. Whether we’re fundraising for local or national charities with the HNI Charitable Foundation or helping the community in partnering with City of Hope, we strive to make a difference!

Though we’re not serving hot apple cider and green bean casserole just yet, there’s plenty to be thankful for here at The HON Company! Anything you’d like to add to the list? Tell us below!

Where Function Meets Fashion: Developing Ergonomic Workspaces That Look Great, Too

If you’ve ever had any training in ergonomics, you probably know that one advantage of having an ergonomically-designed workspace is employee retention. An ergonomic workspace designed to promote wellness can help employees feel valued by management, increase their sense of worth and improve productivity. With HON, you can create healthier workspaces without sacrificing design. Take a look at the environment ideas below to see how you can create an office that is both functional and fashionable:

1. Keep Ergonomics in Mind While Maximizing the Office Footprint

Commercial real estate square footage is valuable, but just because you’re trying to save space doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice ergonomics or looks—check out this great semi-private office setup that uses Voi® modular desks and the Ceres® task chair:

Without wasting any office footprint, this configuration empowers two individuals to choose between a sitting or standing height work position throughout the day. The Ceres task chair has been designed to reduce pressure on the backs of the legs and evenly distribute weight for proper support.

2. Make the Workspace Employee-Friendly

Sometimes leaving your bed in the morning is hard, and having to go into an office that isn’t visually inviting doesn’t make that task any easier. Help alleviate some of that difficulty by using elements like HON’s recently expanded active storage line – Contain®.

As offices continue to shift away from archival storage there’s a greater need for active storage that employees can use for more personal items. Contain is a perfect fit for those needs. Pair it with Voi, the Ceres task chair and some Flock® modular lounge seating and you’ve got a work area that has enough privacy to allow work to be completed, but is also a warm and inviting space where employees will want to spend their time.

3. Create an Office that Adapts to New Work Styles

Long gone are the days of individuals working heads-down in a cubicle for 8 hours—with the rise of the millennial generation, the way that people get work done is changing just as quickly as the age bracket of employees. There is an increased focus on collaboration in today’s office design that can be addressed by using products that cater to impromptu meetings, are technologically powered, and also provide a place to get away from your desk for a change of pace and to refresh your mind. Accommodate™ and Arrange™, HON’s newest seating and table lines, support an active and collaborative work style.

While providing a coordinated design aesthetic that could be utilized in any part of an office, these complementary product lines are versatile in their functionality as well. Use them in a café space that could also become an impromptu conference room, a break room where employees can have a midday snack and charge their phones, or pair with Flock for more of a booth-style solution.

The number of ways to style a workspace are endless, but one thing is certain: there’s no reason why an office can’t be both efficient and enjoyable.

What are your favorite new trends in office furniture and workplace design?

6 Creative Ways to Use HON’s Flock® Collaborative Solutions

Wherever people migrate within a space, Flock is designed to support collaboration and bring people and ideas together. Beyond the traditional workspaces and the beautiful dual fabric options, not to mention comfort, here are 6 more reasons to “fall” for Flock this month:

Co-working Spaces | Because “working alone stinks”

NextSpace, a co-working company offering shared office spaces to young entrepreneurs, leveraged the versatility and mobility of Flock to pave the way for the next generation of workspaces. To learn more about the concept of co-working and to read the full NextSpace case study, click here.

From Santa Cruz to Berkeley, Flock solutions have been supporting NextSpace co-working locations in a variety of applications.

 

Lobby and Welcome Areas | One chance to make a first impression

Flock Collaborative Solutions makes the most of open spaces with a collection of comfortable lounge and guest seating, easier than ever to customize with a wide variety of colors and patterns to match any aesthetic.

Installation by Union Office Interiors and Dingo Capital Advisors in the reception of the Ballard Center in Augusta, Maine.

 

Office Nooks | Big Thinking for Small Spaces

Transform seemingly unusable areas in your office into comfortable and inviting spaces. When designed correctly, these are great change-of-pace spaces that invite interaction and provide a well deserved break from heads down concentration.

New touchdown spaces are always popping up at HON Headquarters in Muscatine, IA.

 

Learning Spaces | Collaborating comfortably and socializing in style

Whether you’re using Flock mini ottomans in a middle school library, or Flock seating and tables in a university commons, Flock’s ability to help people connect virtually anywhere makes it a great solution for all areas of the Education market.

Installed by Perry Office Plus, Two-tone fabric Flock mini ottomans at North Belton Middle School.

Shenandoah University installation by Pifer Office Supply.

 

Press Rooms | Beyond the Tradeshow Booth

Donating furniture for a media interview space is an important, and often overlooked, advertising opportunity while planning tradeshows and other events. Not only does it give you additional product signage and talking points when interacting with the media, but it also helps spread awareness of your brand to more than just the event attendees.

HON partnered with Tag Communications to create this inviting interview space at the 2015 Iowa Association of Business and Industry Conference.

 

Personal Living Spaces | Comfortable and customizable 

Flock’s focused family of products is designed to work together to turn any space into a social, collaborative area – even your home sports center! With unlimited fabric combinations and modular elements that fit together seamlessly, Flock is a great fit for the home, too.

The winner of FSI Office’s Ultimate Fan Cave content won this basement makeover.

Bring Flock home today – even your pets will love it!

 

Visit hon.com to learn more about our Flock collection.

Why do you love Flock? Share your installation success stories or creative application ideas with us!

5 Creative HON Furniture Solutions

It’s October!  That means the Iowa (and in my case, D.C.) humidity is disappearing, the leaves are changing and everyone is getting creative with carving pumpkins, designing Halloween costumes, and making crafts found on Pinterest.

Your office can also be a place to harness your creativity this season.  Here are a few great ideas!

1. Create a ‘table seat’ in call rooms or offices. It can be a soft seat one minute and a table the next.

How: Place the top from the Flock Personal Table on a Flock Mini Ottoman

2. Add inviting, modern, and light seating to a touch-down area (as seen in our newly renovated New York City Resource Center!)

How: Use the Flock Mini Ottoman as touch-down seating rather than a standard task chair for a more modern look

3. Integrate bright pops of colors so panels look like fun workstations rather than “cubicles”

How: Use the Appoint seating fabric on select HON panel systems and tackboards

4. Use mobile storage for your company’s merchandise, office supplies, etc.

How: Customize the number and height of shelves and bins in HON’s Smartlink Modular Storage cabinet

5. Make your storage serve a dual purpose: Storage and a Seat

How: Add a cushion to the Voi credenzas shown here

How have you used furniture creatively to address your needs?

The Best Things Come in Small Packages

As a seven year old who could not wait to see what gifts Santa brought, I would have disagreed with the statement “The Best Things Come in Small Packages”.  But now that I am older, I think differently.  The little things make a huge difference in the world of business, especially the office furniture industry.  In a mature industry, HON has to continually think of ways to differentiate ourselves.  Our attention to detail is a way to do just that.

Sure the big things, such as having a wide product offering that is backed by a Full Lifetime Warranty, is important, but it is the small things that can differentiate one company from another.

So what are some of these best things that come in small packages?  Showing strong attention to detail in the design of product; take the Flock® stool for example.  Through the VOC process, we determined that users of the stool may be perching on their chair and need a spot to rest their arms, hence the extra ledge on the back of the Flock stool. 

Two manufacturers can have a great stool backed by a strong warranty, but that attention to detail could be the deciding factor for the customer.

Another example of attention to detail, is to not only have a Customer Support Team, but to have a live person answering calls. Then, making sure a resolution was achieved by asking “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” at the end of every call. Through efforts like these, HON becomes more than just a manufacturer; we become your business partner.

Lastly, take the time to listen and create conversation with your business partners. The small task of listening can result in a larger understanding of the best furniture solution for a customer.

The big gifts around the holiday season are great, but so are the small unexpected gifts from a loved one.  Maybe it’s a little trinket in your stocking that was only $1, but the giver paid attention to the detail and its significance to you.  The big things in business are imperative and a requirement. The differentiation can come in the small things and attention to detail.

What is a small thing you are currently doing in your business that is making a big impact?

Add Holiday Cheer to Your Office!

Thanksgiving has come and gone which means the winter holidays are quickly approaching. You may have your home decorated in lights, wreaths and ornaments, but have you thought of adding a bit of holiday spirit to your workspace?

Here are some quick ideas that will add a bit of holiday pop to your workspace, without going overboard:

Winter themed tissue boxes – The cold weather has you sniffling anyway-may as well use it as a decoration.

Small decorations – Such as framed holiday sayings or small ornaments.

Winter photos of your family or pets – I personally prefer adding pictures of my pup, but put a family Christmas card to more use!

Holiday screensaver – When you are away, a boost of holiday spirit will be added to your space.

Holiday mugs – Those crazy holiday mugs in the back of your cupboard are finally in season! Make an appearance with your mug at a meeting and you’re bound to spread some holiday cheer!

Coasters – These add a little color and can be changed for the season. Plus, they are great displays for your holiday mugs.

Fun calendar – Works year round to add some pop to your workspace.

Here’s how HON members have added holiday spirit to their workspaces:

How do you decorate your office for the holidays?