Author Archives: Bellia Office Furniture

One of the most popular trends in office furniture is height adjustable furniture, and its popularity continues to increase.  Experts have predicted that within the next few years, 90 percent of companies will have moved to a sit-to-stand model.

In recent years, evidence suggests that sitting all day long at a desk is detrimental to your health.  So in a move to combat the negative health benefits of sitting, for a time standing desks became a popular alternative.  But many who changed to standing desks found that standing all day cause undue stress on their backs, legs and feet. Having a desk that is easily adjustable to accommodate sitting and standing provides the flexibility and comfort that employees need.

Health experts recommend that employees should spend two hours a day away standing or moving. Ideally, this timeframe should increase to spending four hours or half of your day. By using a sit-to-stand desk, your health will benefit.

What are the health benefits of height adjustable furniture?

• Decrease in Blood Pressure
• Decrease in Cholesterol levels
• Reduced Obesity Risk
• Improved Posture

Aside from the health benefits, height adjustable furniture create a more dynamic, collaborative work environment because it increases the amount people move, makes people more approachable and increases the positive energy of the workplace. Also, when top recruits walk through your doors and see an active, positive culture and an organization that cares about the health of its employees, it is an added selling point.

Are you ready to make a change?  Let the experts at Bellia help. Give us a call today.

Technology continues to change quickly, so it is important to make sure that your conference rooms are keeping up. By updating your meeting space, you can generate positive outcomes like maximizing productivity, eliminating unnecessary costs, supporting collaboration and increasing efficiency.  If you are thinking about updating your space, here are three ways to make your space modern.

1. Height Adjustable Conference Tables:  Height adjustable tables have become the newest trend in office design. There are many health benefits that are associated with standing throughout the course of a work day. You will also cut down the time spent in long meetings by incorporating standing conference tables into your meeting space.  Studies have shown that standing conference tables decrease meeting times by 34%.
2. Wireless Display Technology: In the past, the only way to share documents was to email them after meetings were over.  Now with wireless display technology, sharing content is easy. Wireless capabilities allows presenters to have freedom and flexibility of movement.  Adding wireless technology to your conference rooms will also decrease meeting times and increase productivity because the time wasted searching for the correct cables to connect is eliminated.  Furthermore, there is no longer lengthy set up or clean up times, meetings can move seamlessly from one meeting to the next.
3. Remote Technology:  If you don’t already have remote technology available in your conference rooms, it is time to incorporate it.  In order to allow collaboration between onsite and remote staff, have meeting with clients to eliminate needless travel, collaboration tools are important to not only decrease cost, but to create an environment that is ripe for sharing.  Involve collaboration between onsite and remote team members. Investing in collaboration technology and software will increase innovation, eliminate travel costs and save time.

If you want to impress your customers, save time, and decrease travel expenses, updating your conference room is a great place to start.  

Before you get started,  it is important to contact an experienced and established office furniture dealer and designer, like Bellia, to help you take a preliminary assessment of your space.  Bellia has designed many meeting and conference spaces in the area. Take a look at the modern spaces we created at:

Anapol Weiss:

Pipeline Philly

You can use your space to Engage With Employees. Recent research about employee engagement has found that only 30% of employees are engaged in their work. Drivers of engagement include feeling like your part of the team and being treated fairly by management and feeling overall trust and pride in the organization.

While many aspects of a job can improved engagement, one of the best ways to engage your employees is through your workspace.  Let’s look at a few ways you can use your space as a catalyst for engagement.

Creating Pride in Your Brand

By using your workspace to inspire pride in your brand, your employees will feel a deeper connection with your organization’s message and values. Using the entirety of your space as a consistent and constant visual reminder for your employees will lead to more engaged employees.  Additionally, with increased engagement comes increased productivity.  

Support Creativity and Innovation

The physical environment can have a significant impact on creativity and innovation. Spaces such as breakout areas, kitchens, and comfortable seating areas, are great gathering spots that often lead to spur of the moment creative discussions. It is also important to remember to have a combination of spaces, so after the ideas have been generated, employees can move to quiet and private space to work if needed.  By including a combination of spaces, your workspace will be functional increasing efficiency and making your employees feel more engaged.

Help Your Employees Feel Valued

Because the hard work of your employees is critical in the profitability and success of your company, it is important to make them feel valued.  The more valued they feel will not only increase your employees’ engagement in the work that they do, but make them more committed, loyal and invested in your company.  When designing your space, think about the message that the environment communicates to the employees.  A flexible, functional, updated space will convey to your employees that they are valued and important members of your company.  

If you want to explore ways to update your space to increase employee engagement, let Bellia help.

In education, there is a movement towards using influences from outside the industry to help shape the way that classrooms are designed.  It is an interesting time in education, as the educational world has slowly begun to adapt and change the way they address the needs of learners. Lecture halls and college classrooms used to be stark rows of desks that were teacher-centered. But the emergence of technology and wireless capabilities has transformed the way we think of higher education.

Expanding the Boundaries

In the past, before the Internet and online learning, traditional brick and mortar building were where all learning happened.  While the boundaries of education have changed, spaces for learning are still needed. But, they will look different than the traditional idea of a college classroom.

Because a great deal of a student’s learning is increasingly happening online and through digital platforms, students will need a wide variety of spaces to meet and collaborate.  Two types of spaces will be prevalent in the future: interactive space and project space.

Interactive Space

Interactive spaces are places where people talk and share ideas.  These spaces can include comfortable lounge areas, cafes or student centers. Furniture and design that is comfortable, flexible and fully integrated with technology will benefit both students and faculty as they meet one-on-one or in small groups.  

Project Space

Just like it sounds, these spaces where the work happens.  These spaces need to be functional and in a place of higher learning, functional can mean many different things.  The design that creates functionality could vary depending on the program content.

Bellia has experience creating state-of-the-art higher education facilities throughout the Tri-State area.  Here a just a few of our projects:

Ocean County College–Bellia designed the Jon and Judith Larson Student Center, an energy efficient, innovative and collaborative environment that enhances student achievement.

Rowan College at Gloucester County–When RCGC wanted to renovate to attract top students and faculty to its Gloucester County campus, Bellia created a multi-functional design to encourage collaboration and provide a comfortable environment for students and staff.

Rutgers Camden Nursing and Science Building—Bellia worked with Rutgers on this large scale project to design spaces that are state-of-the-art and will serve over 1,000 nursing students.  

Business agility refers to the ability of a business to quickly adapt to changes in the internal and external environment in productive and cost-effective ways.  Two qualities that are critical in maintaining long-term business agility are adaptability and flexibility. One of aspect of maintaining business agility that is often overlooked is your workspace or physical environment. It is essential because the design of your space has an impact on creating positive business outcomes.

Because your workspace is a critical component to business agility, before you make changes to improve your space, consider the following things:

Number of employees.  How many people use your space? Do you workers have the proper amount of space to do their job? Do you have adequate space to support the functions of each department, space for common areas and conference rooms?

Floor plan.  It is important to evaluate your current floor plan to see if it is functional, practical and efficient.  Do certain departments need to be located near each other because they often collaborate? Are your maximizing the use of your space? Does the floor plan reflect the style of your business?

Design.  After evaluating the practicality and function of your floor plan, think the about the design.  Because the design can impact culture, productivity, innovation and collaboration, is the design of your space supporting the needs of your business?

Brand and Culture.  Your workspace is your most important brand messenger.  Is your workspace reflecting your brand?  Does your space convey the right message to employees and visitors?

By evaluating your current space, it will help you to assess whether or not your space is contributing to the success of your business.  In order to support your business agility, your workspace should be designed to strategically enhance the operational efficiency and functionality of your business.  When you invest in the design of your space, it will have a dramatic impact on your profitability, productivity and your overall success.

Pantone has named Ultra-Violet, a blue-based purple, the 2018 color of the year. Leatrice Eiseman, the Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute states, “that we are living in a time of that requires inventiveness and imagination. It is this type of creative, inspiration that is indigenous to Pantone 18-3838 Ultra-Violet that takes our awareness and potential to a higher level. From exploring new technologies and the greater galaxy, to artistic expression and spiritual reflection, intuitive Ultra-Violet lights the way to what is yet to come.” Office interiors will be sure to see accents of the color of the year in 2018.

Pantone also released their trend palettes for the new year and there is something for everyone.
Which color palette is right for your business?

VERDURE
With colors that are vegetable-inspired, Eiseman has described this palette as “symbolic of health.” This color group includes colors like Celery and Foliage, purples and eggshell blue.

PLAYFUL
With colors like Minion Yellow, Green Flash and Blue Skydiver, this palette has bold and fun colors that might make the perfect accent colors in your workspace.

DISCRETION
The color grouping that is understated and subtle, it is nostalgic and professional. Including colors like Elderberry, Burnished Lilac and Hawthorne Rose, it will provide your business with a discrete and refined amount of color to your office.

TECH-NIQUE
To stress the presence of technology in our lives, Pantone has included a color grouping that is a burst of lively and bold colors. Including colors like vibrant blue, green, fuchsia, purple, turquoise, and hot pink with colors like brilliant white and frosted almond to offset the pops of color.

FAR-FETCHED
A palette that embraces many different cultures, far-fetched features colors like iced coffee and ruby wine, these colors will represent the unique and diverse culture of your workplace.

RESOURCEFUL
If you have a lively brand, resourceful is the color grouping for you. Featuring bold shades of orange and blue, it will express your innovative and creative culture.

INTRICACY
This color grouping expresses the popularity of intricate designs. Metallics abound with colors like holly berry red and yellow sulfur. Many designers consider these metallic colors the new neutrals.

Because each color that Pantone includes in their trending palettes encompasses something about fashion, decorating or design, all of these colors including the color of the year will have a dramatic effect on office design. Are you ready to incorporate new colors into your space?

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: PANTONE
Top row: Verdure, Playful, Discretion, TECH-nique. Bottom row: Far-Fetched, Resourceful, Intricacy, Intensity

By the year 2020, 40% of the workforce will be comprised of millennials.  Since millennials have entered the workforce, the way companies do business has changed.  Gone are the days of staying at your office late, putting in long hours stationed at your cubicle, and working hard to try and get into the corner office.  Today, the office landscape has changed. With the influx of millennials into the business world, remote work and flexible work hours have replaced long hours at the office.

Not only has the way we work changed because of the millennials, the design of the workplace has changed as well.  Here are some of the office design trends in the modern office that are here to stay because of the millennial influence on the business environment.

Environmentally friendly design

Because the new workforce is aware and focused on sustainability of the environment, they want the design of the workplace to reflect this.  Companies have followed this trend and adopted green environments by using sustainable and energy-efficient materials.  Not only does this practice appeal to the new workforce, but in turn costs are reduced.

Biophilic Design

Incorporating elements of nature into the workplace is a hot new trend.  Using elements of nature like more plants in the workspace, access to natural light and the use of organic materials has a number of benefits including including increasing productivity, boosting creativity and decreasing employee absences. While millennials find this design aesthetically pleasing, they also believe in its power to promote a healthy workplace.

Ergonomic design

Millennials want to work in a healthy and comfortable environment, ergonomic furniture follows that thinking.  Including comfortable, ergonomically designed chairs, ergonomic keyboards, stability balls and sit-to-stand desks will create a flexible and positive work environment.

Design for work and fun

Creating an office environment that is comfortable and provides your employees with a place to relax, will increase productivity and help them stay motivated.  A flexible environment with comfortable seating areas, breakout spaces and even home-inspired elements will inspire your employees to work harder.

The most successful car dealerships are ones that feature an interior that complements the automobiles that they are selling.  Here are few design features that will help your dealership stand apart from the rest.

Open and Bright

When potential customers walk inside your dealership, it is important for the atmosphere to be open and bright.  One way to do this is by using natural lighting which will accentuate the openness of your showroom.  By creating an open, spacious area for customers and sales staff to easily move, you will enhance the saleability of your cars and will create a functional space that will support the relationship between the sales staff and its customers.

Brand and Logo

While this may seem obvious, it is important for your dealership to display your brand and logo prominently throughout.  When your customers walk through your showroom doors, your brand should be displayed and evident all around the space.  By making sure to feature your brand, logo and signature colors in each part of your space, it will convey the strength of your business and reflect the image of the cars you are selling to your customers.

Bellia has had extensive experience designing and renovating car dealerships.  Contact us to discuss your dealership.

As businesses head into 2018, the office space continues to transform.  The conventional office space is slowly disappearing as companies look for ways to create connected spaces that support collaboration and innovation.

Here are 3 design trends to look forward to in the next year.

Going Green

In 2017, biophilic design was a popular trend.  Businesses realized that by bringing the outdoors in through gardens and water features, it created a healthy, positive and calm atmosphere for its employees.  This year, companies are going to take the next step and apply this idea to all of their processes including finding renewable energy sources for power, renovating air quality by incorporating air purification systems, and green web hosting.  To add to the wellness of employees, business will be looking to include bike and electric car rental benefits for employees, workout areas, and locally sourced healthy food and beverages in cafeterias and lounges.  Another new design trend to look forward to in 2018 is indoor “parks” that really bring the feeling of the outdoors in.  

Collaborative Space

While collaborative space is not a new trend, in 2018, you will begin to see businesses take that further.  Continuing to design space that helps to build relationships between people and between teams will continue to be important.  Companies are moving to eliminating fixed desks and individual offices, including eliminating office space for leadership teams. This concept helps to reduce the idea of a hierarchy within the company and helps to create connections and relationships between all staff.  As a result, innovation, creativity and productivity will increase.

Homestyle Design

Businesses want their employees to enjoy and feel comfortable in their workspace and figure out creative ways to get them to stay at the office longer.  Homestyle Design is creating spaces with the comforts of home.  Businesses will begin to include fireplaces, showers, game rooms and some are even putting bars and beer fridges in the workspace.  This design trend is just another trend that can be attributed to the influx of millennials in the workplace who are drawn to comfortable and unconventional design.

Are you thinking about making some changes to your workspace in 2018?  Let Bellia help you create an innovative and productive space in the new year.

The way your office space is designed can have a dramatic impact on employee productivity.  Studies indicate that the most important factor in an employee’s ability to focus and be productive at work is their physical environment.  Because office design can increase workplace productivity by 20 percent, focusing on ways you can support productivity through your workspace design is an investment worth taking.  Here are a few ways to increase productivity through office design so that you can position yourself to reach your business goals.

Variety of Spaces to Work

It was once believed that your employees needed to be sitting at their desk in order to get work done, but times have changed. Because technology has allowed for people to work anywhere, designing your space to offer employees the ability to choose where they will work best is a more ideal environment for productivity. Employees will have a number of spaces to choose where they will be able to get the most work completed, but as they move throughout the office during the day, they will connect with others, often having chance encounters with colleagues that can lead to innovation amongst the staff.

By including desk space, conference rooms, lobbies, breakout areas, lounge areas and kitchens, employees can vary their routines.  By giving employees choice, and the power and control to move, it will allow them to get up and move when they feel that they are distracted or not working to their full capacity.   When they are moving around throughout the course of a work day, will not only promote collaboration and creativity, it will increase their productivity as well.  

Adjustable Workstations

While having a variety of areas where employees can do work will help them stay focused and engaged in their job, employees will also need workstations to get their work done. Why not provide workstations for your employees that are adjustable to increase their comfort which will help employees feel alert and energized during the day. Providing employees with sit-to-stand adjustable desks and even adjustable conference tables where a standing meeting can take place will maximize productivity and increase employee outcomes.

Natural Lighting

If you want to increase productivity, your office space should have as much natural light as possible.  One way to maximize the amount of light coming into your space is by adding glass walls. The transparency of the glass walls ensures that any natural light coming into the space, will not be blocked.  Studies indicate that the more natural light employees are exposed to, the more productive and happier employees become.  If you don’t have a lot of natural light coming into your workspace, there are many smart lighting systems on the market that are available that will mimic outdoor lighting for your employees.

How do you plan on increasing the productivity in your office in 2018?