Beware of Fancy Mesh Back Ergonomic Conference Room Chairs
By Celeste McLaughlin, Ergonomics Manager
The chair which started the mesh trend- Herman Miller Aeron
If you are going to update your conference room and are looking for ergonomic mesh back chairs, proceed with caution. At first glance, it is difficult to see any problem with this scenario. Who doesn’t like stylish things, right?
That is exactly the problem. People do like stylish things. They like them a lot. If your employees have upholstered chairs and you put mesh back chairs in the conference room, you will face some unexpected difficulties.
You will notice there are fewer and fewer mesh back chairs in your conference room as the days go by. You will wonder where your new chairs have rolled off to. There may even be an influx of old chairs which mysteriously appear in the conference room over time. It is all very strange. It’s like the chairs have a migratory pattern all of their own. At the same time, employee requests for mesh back chairs will start coming in. Reasons given will be medical, seniority, someone else in the department has one, etc.
If employees perceive that the conference room chairs are fancier than their own, your new conference chairs will migrate to other areas of the building. I’ve even seen employees go so far as to put conference room chairs under blankets in their offices to disguise them.
There are ways to avoid all this drama. You could give employees a way to obtain their own mesh back chairs before or at the same time you obtain the mesh back conference room chairs. If you want to stick with upholstered chairs for your employees, then I would strongly recommend you buy upholstered chairs for your conference room as well.
Ergonomic chair consultation is something we specialize in. We can recommend chair options for employees and for conference rooms. We can work with your preferred vendors and/or find new vendors. We can work with interior designers to identify ergonomic options which fit into design plans. We can even do all of this remotely if you are not located near us. Contact SolutionsNW.com and we’ll be happy to help.