Personalize your cubicle with these cubicle accessories, and not only will you come across as a more interesting person, those fabric walls won’t feel like they’re closing in much.

Image courtesy of Jailbreak Toys. All rights reserved.

App Magnets. Can’t afford an iPad? Use these magnetic cubicle wall accessories from Jailbreak Toys to transform your magnetic whiteboard into the next best thing. No, you won’t be able to use these to surf the web, find your location, look up movie schedules, or improve your sex life… but can a real iPad secure those notes and bills to the wall? We didn’t think so.

Each App Magnets cubicle accessories set comes with 18 individual epoxy magnets, each measuring 7/8″ x 7/8″, and retailing for $12.99 (less $486.01 compared to the real thing).

(Continue reading about these indispensable cubicle accessories)

Image courtesy of KlearGear. All rights reserved.

Can of Whoop Ass. Boss on your case? Cubicle neighbor talks too loud on the phone? Pushed to the wall? Then let ‘em know – “I am cubicle worker, hear me roar!” Literally open a Can of Whoop Ass, and be the cube warrior you were always meant to be!

Of course, we don’t really mean that you go postal on your colleagues – just open this 17-ounce metal can and show them you mean business. Got no Whoop-Ass to put in your can? No worries – in place of Whoop-Ass, this can also provides storage for jellybeans or paperclips, which sadly do nothing for your hallway cred. One Can of Whoop-Ass cubicle accessories retails for $12.45.

Image courtesy of Convenient Gadgets & Gifts. All rights reserved.

Cubicaller Cubicle Doorbell. Ain’t a lot of cubicle accessories out there that increase your privacy levels in the office – cube walls notwithstanding, the open door practically invites people to come in and chat with you. So what kind of barrier can you set up to let people know they oughta buzz before entering?

A Cubicaller, of course. Keep one of these handy cubicle accessories on the wall, and only the really rude and obtuse will barrel in on you without buzzing. The Cubicaller keeps it interesting, by providing 12 different sound effects, including bird chirps, old car horns, “ding-dong” doorbell, a “Sproing!”, fading laser, door knocking, fog horn, big band, “quack-Quack”, ring tone, cat meowing, and Chimes.

With respect to your cube neighbors, the Cubicaller’s volume can be adjusted to three different levels. The Cubicaller retails for $13.95 at Amazon.com.

Image © 2007 Dream Cheeky. All rights reserved.

USB Missile Launcher. When it’s “Def Con 2” in your office space, make sure you’re armed and ready for battle with Dream Cheeky’s USB Missile Launcher. These warlike cubicle accessories aren’t just for show – each launcher contains three foam missiles, and is connected to your PC by a four-foot cable and a USB 1.1 connection.

The Missile Launcher can be controlled on your PC, firing each foam missile up to 15 feet at a fast clip, accompanied by pre-recorded sound effects. You’ll need a PC with Intel Pentium 4 or compatible processor operating at 2.4GHz or faster, 128MB or more RAM, and 100MB of available hard drive space – plus one available USB port.

You’ve been warned – arm yourself with these cubicle accessories, cubicle war is hell. Of course, you’ll need something more substantial when the inevitable office zombie apocalypse rears its ugly head:

Refurbished office cubicles are not just cheaper than brand-new, they’re often not much different from brand-new.

It’s not a small benefit, as office managers seek to balance cost, function, and appearance. These days, refurbished office cubicles are the best way to reach that balance.

As used cubicles cost almost half of its new counterparts, it wins hands-down in the price department. As function goes, refurbished office furniture performs as well as brand-new, so office managers suffer no sacrifice in that area.

And as far as appearance is concerned, only the most eagle-eyed of office workers will be able to spot the difference between refurbished and brand-new.

More good news after the jump. (read more)

Refurbished Office Cubicles – Appearances Matter

The restoration process is essential here. While not as extensive as remanufacturing, refurbishing puts a lot of “new” back into the old, with newly-laminated worktops and fresh paint and fabric put in.

The finished product comes in a wide range of designs and configurations. With the glut of used furniture out there in the wild (thanks, sadly, to the recession that seems to be receding behind us), recyclers and remanufacturers have a lot of raw material to work with. And much of that raw material has hardly been used, too!

Used Cubicles = Earth-Friendly Cubicles

This ties back to the best reason to buy refurbished office cubicles – it’s a big green initiative. Buying used cubicles reuses core structural components and reduces the release of harmful pollutants into the environment; hardly a small gesture for the earth!

Buying refurbished furniture offers several key benefits to the environment:

Conserved resources. By sucking up much less raw materials from the environment, energy and natural resources are conserved. In place of new, raw material, refurbished office cubicles use materials already in circulation. The wood, steel, plastics, and aluminum that go into refurbished office cubicles have already made their impact on the environment in the past.

In real terms, estimates the Office Furniture Dealers Alliance, each pound of natural resources used in remanufacturing conserves the equivalent of up to nine pounds of original materials.

The refurbishing process also conserves energy, requiring up to 95% less energy to create furniture compared to building furniture from scratch.

Reducing pollution. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are an unavoidable byproduct of the manufacturing process. Refurbishing used office furniture reduces the amount of VOCs released in the atmosphere, reducing the risk of global warming, acid rain, and the other aftereffects of air pollution.

Reducing solid waste. The solid waste stream would be clogged with bits of furniture, if not for the valiant efforts of recycling and remanufacturing professionals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, approximately 3 million tons of office furniture are thrown out every year. Furniture refurbishing keeps this number low, saving on landfill space and returning still-usable refurbished office cubicles back to where they belong – in the workplace.

Refurbished Office Cubicles – A Growing Business

Since the 1980s, office furniture remanufacturing has grown by leaps and bounds to contribute up to $1.2 billion of the $13.6 billion commercial furniture industry. The demand is significant, and the benefits to both businesses and the environment are solid. There are a lot of good reasons to choose refurbished office cubicles, and the old objections to buying refurbished hardly apply anymore. The choice is clear!

Image © Tim Patterson / Creative Commons

If you’re a facility manager checking out cubicles for sale, count yourself lucky. At no other time in cubicle retail history, since Herman Miller’s Bob Propst invented the office cubicle in 1968, has stock been so high and price points so low. But how will you choose from the wide selection available in the market? Simple – consider the factors presented below.

Collaboration potential. According to a 2008 Steelcase Workplace Satisfaction Survey, making connections with coworkers represents a huge quality-of-work issue to a majority of respondents – 98% believe they require access to the right people, compared to 97% who believe they need access to the right technology and tools.

This affects your choices when checking out cubicles for sale – do your cubicles permit collaboration? Do individual cubicles have space for colleagues to come in and discuss? Do you have specialized cubicles specifically for group work, absent a readily available conference room? In a work environment where consultation is key to productivity, these may be make-or-break questions when considering cubicles for sale.

More criteria after the jump. (Read more)

Modularity. According to Today’s Facility Manager, modularity is becoming de rigueur in today’s modern office. “Modular interior construction is finally beginning to realize its potential,” says OM Workspace’s Mark Paul. “Many buildings use movable walls, raised floors, sound masking systems, and indirect lighting fixtures to [facilitate easily reconfigured space.]”

Modular office cubicles for sale these days offer three signal benefits: adaptability – allowing reconfiguration to serve a variety of job functions, or disassembly in times of downsizing; compatibility – allowing managers to mix and match existing office cubicles with new product from the same manufacturer; and customization – the ability to meet the needs of different professionals.

Quality Finish. The look and feel of most cubicles for sale may boil down to the finish it uses. Natural wood – even if it comes in the form of wood laminate- provides a warmer feel, while plastic laminates may look more modern (and come at a cheaper price point too!). Modular office cubicles with fabric panels offer mild noiseproofing ability. While cubicles’ low walls means that complete noiseproofing is impossible, acoustically enhanced panels are designed to reduce background noise to manageable levels.

Low Price. Low-priced refurbished cubicles for sale are easy to find, but you may be worried that buying “used” could mean compromising on quality. That may have been the case 10 years ago, but the present glut of used office furniture has fueled the stock of remanufactured office cubicles for sale – used office equipment that is put through a comprehensive remanufacturing process that involves the following steps:

• Panel fabrics are stripped and replaced, keeping the indestructible acoustically enhanced panel core, which are stripped and repainted;
• Overhead storage / binder bins are stripped and repainted;
• Old work surfaces are completely replaced with new laminate work surfaces;
• New below the surface pedestal files and electrical wiring componentry added to the ensemble.

The remanufacturing process creates office cubicles with all the functionality and durability of brand new office furniture, with prices that may be up to 80% cheaper than comparable brand new furniture!

Environmental Impact. Remanufactured cubicles for sale, mentioned above, offer a second key advantage – the remanufacturing process is very eco-friendly, using green procedures to replace and recycle parts. For example, low-VOC coatings are often used in the remanufacturing process, limiting the amount of toxic emissions released into the atmosphere.

For great examples of remanufactured office cubicles for sale that offer both low prices and reduced environmental impact, as well as great performance in the other factors mentioned above, look no further than Cubicles.com’s wide selection of office cubicles.

Armless office chairs are usually the last choice for many office workers. No surprise there – why give up the comfort and great optics of an office chair with arms?

Still, armless office chairs have a role to play in the office. A supporting role, true, but an important one nonetheless.

Armless office chairs are ideal for offices with little space to spare and only a tiny budget to work with. Sometimes the two go together; tenants of small office spaces generally don’t have much overhead to splurge on the latest Herman Miller office chairs for the whole crew. So armless office chairs can, and do, fill the slack.

Because of the lack of arms, armless office chairs can be slid under the desk with little trouble. And the lack of arms doesn’t get in the way of most armless office chairs’ appearance: they come in a wide variety of designs and colors, one of which is bound to suit your office needs.

Even with armless office chairs, you still need to do your due diligence with regard to comfort and adjustability. Your armless office chair should be adjustable, and work well with your body frame.

If you’re in the market for armless office chairs, you should test more than one before settling on your final choice. (In our opinion, Cubicles.com’s seating department is a great place to begin choosing.)

This is crucial – there’s a high correlation between comfort and productivity, and you don’t want your armless office chair to get in the way of working effectively!

Al Harris at RichmondBizSense.com reports how landlords have used old tenants’ furniture as an incentive for new prospective tenants who don’t mind taking over old furniture as long as it saves money.

“It was an enormous factor,” said Andrew Rose of Elephant Insurance. The UK-based auto insurance company opened their first U.S. division last year at Innsbrook in a former Capital One building that came decked out desks and chairs, filing cabinets, refrigerators, cafeteria equipment and trashcans.

“At the time the cost and complexity of taking a space that needed to be fully outfitted versus a turnkey solution was fantastic and the economics were phenomenal,” Rose said.

“If you look at the value of the furniture and accommodations we got here, conservatively a half million to $800,000,” Rose said. He couldn’t say how much they pay, but said it was “a stones throw away from free.”

The packages vary – some companies will throw in the furniture for free, others will need to pay a little extra. That extra is, of course, a fraction of the cost of buying brand-new furniture for the whole office.

Getting office furniture in the package is hard to beat (though we should say Cubicles.com’s refurbished office furniture comes close), and having that as an option may be a Godsend to new offices trying to grow in today’s uncertain business environment.

So when you’re looking for office dividers for your company, don’t imagine a process similar to picking out a rug or a lamp; nobody’s going to want partitions that set off their blue eyes, they’ll just want something that doesn’t get in the way!

Choosing the right office divider is still important, though – employee morale can still be affected by bad dividers, even if good dividers don’t seem to have any effect.

Know your dividers. The dividers used for cubicles are called half-height office dividers, smaller compared to the full-height office dividers that stretch from floor to ceiling. The difference between the two is crucial – half-height dividers offer a greater sense of openness, while full-height dividers have a feeling of permanence and solidity.

For a divider that falls half-way in between the two, you might want accordion wall dividers, which reach from floor to wall but are easily set aside when you want to remove a barrier between two office spaces.

Mobile partition walls are the lightest type of divider – they can be moved from area to area, and are light enough to be assembled or disassembled when needed.

Choose the right supplier. Once you’ve decided what kind of divider you want to use in your office, it’s time to look at the supplier who can get you what you want. Your facilities manager should be able to tell you what suppliers in the area can provide the kind of office dividers you’ve set your mind on. Google can also help turn up the right suppliers. (Or if you want good value and quality too, might we recommend you check out Cubicles.com’s line of cubicles?)

Choosing the right office dividers is easier than it looks. With the advice listed above, choosing and using can be a breeze, with your colleagues enjoying their office and you smiling at the thought of money well spent.

But the line between green offices and their wasteful counterparts is a thin one – and it has to do with how much energy your office expends in any given day, and how much your office has done to conserve the energy it uses, or to minimize its use.

According to the US Department of Energy, total energy consumption in an average office breaks down by the numbers:

Thermostat/Air conditioner, 39% of energy consumption. Keeping cool (or warm) is a positive energy monster – but you can’t freeze your employees to death, can you? Green offices do their part for their employees and the environment by changing roof coatings and insulation to protect against heat and cold, or by setting the thermostat a little closer to outside ambient temperatures – to a cooler setting in winter, or a warmer setting in summer.

Lighting, 30% of energy consumption. By opening the office windows to let natural light in, or by switching light bulbs to the compact fluorescent type, offices can save up to eighty percent of the lighting energy they use.

Office equipment, 16% of energy consumption. Real green offices make sure that office equipment use is conserved and minimized. This includes switching idle computers off and converting monitors to power-friendly LCD or LED monitors.

Water heating, 9% of energy consumption. Like thermostats, water heating can be conserved, too – reducing water temperature to 120 degrees, for example, saves up to 18% of total energy use. Low-flush toilets can help reduce energy consumption even more, as they save up to 50% over more old-fashioned commodes.

The government has been helpful enough, providing green furniture standards that provide a standard to live up to. The EPA in particular offers procurement guidelines to help you select eco friendly office furniture that lives up to the government’s high standards.

New furniture, then, can be selected using the EPA’s guidelines, which call for FSC-certified wood, water-based or bio-based glues for laminated surfaces, and recycled materials where possible.

New eco-friendly office furniture can also be bought based on their recyclability in the future – tables and chairs made of plywood, steel, chipboard, and plastics can be recycled easily at a processing plant, while compact laminates and MDF are more difficult to recycle in the future.

Go refurbished/remanufactured, if that’s an option for your office – not easy if you have a reputation to uphold, but getting easier due to the glut of furniture (you can thank the recession for bankrupting a significant number of businesses, freeing their relatively pristine furniture for use in the market).

Take the furniture our guys at Cubicles.com are ready to offer you – lower-cost, recycled workstations recreated from used cubicles – processed with eco-friendly procedures to replace and recycle the parts that can still be used.

Cubicles.com uses low-VOC coatings and recycled fabrics in its remanufactured cubicles. They look brand new, but come having already made most of its impact on the environment!

Buy local. Even if your furniture demands can’t live up to the earlier two points, you can still go green with your office furniture, simply by buying from a supplier nearby. By buying local, you cut down on the carbon emissions created by transporting your new furniture from point A to point B.

No corner office is complete without a modern executive desk taking pride of place. The ideal executive desk does more than keep an executive’s papers from falling to the floor: it provides much needed storage and defines an executive’s workspace as well.

Once personalized properly, the modern executive desk also defines the personality and outlook of the executive who’s using it.

If you’re newly arrived to your corner office, and assuming you can choose the kind of desk you’ll be spending the rest of your executive career on, how will you go about choosing your new command center?

The right one will come to you, once you ask yourself a few questions:

How flexible do you intend to be? Modern executive desks come in modular versions, which can be set up easily, then reconfigured once your needs change down the road. High quality modular desks are easy to assemble and configure, with European connectors that make disassembly and reconfiguration a breeze.

What kind of electronics will you be using? Likely the answer won’t be “none” – you’ll need at least one grommet hole to tame those pesky computer and telephone wires. Look for a hutch with a sweep that keeps those wires in place. And look for height/angle adjustable keyboard trays that can help you work while maintaining a comfortable, ergonomically-friendly position.

How many people will you be working with? The best desks allow for collaboration with colleagues, coming with island worksurfaces that allow teammates to “meet at your place” and still have enough leg room below.

A good example of modern executive desk that fits all the above: the Zira line of desks, a modular desk system that can be infinitely rearranged to ensure maximum work efficiency and organization.

Zira offers a multitude of storage components, allowing you to find a way to store everything in your corner office the way you like – putting them away (your boring old files) or putting them up for display (that glowing letter from the Chairman).

This video shows you how easy it is to get that corner office started with Zira – and this link takes you to Cubicles.com’s desk page where you can look at Zira and many other modern executive desk options.

As an employee, you’re not that powerless: sure, you’ve probably seen one or more of your colleagues getting laid off, but if you’ve gotten to this point and still hung on to your job (in which case, congratulations!), you still have the power to minimize the effect of the slowdown in your company, and yourself by extension.

What are you doing to contribute to cost cutting in your office? The company’s already done most of the heavy lifting – cutting salaries and fringe benefits, reducing the budget for food and transportation, and slimming down the workforce.

Now the onus is on you – it’s now your responsibility to help the office find places to cut costs. When you do this, you reduce your company’s operating costs, and thus you ease your company’s way through to the end of the recession.

If there’s one thing you take away from this list of workplace tips, it’s this: you’re not a passenger anymore, you’re a stakeholder. Take an oar and row.

Take printing paper: don’t print stuff that can as easily be emailed. Reducing your printing quota not only saves your company a mint, it also helps the environment, too. Use as little paper as possible, for your company’s sake.

Reduce your travel expenses, by relying more on the phone and Skype. If travel can’t be avoided, try to exhaust all possible cheap deals on tickets, through Expedia and Kayak.com. Hot tip: book early for the lowest prices on tickets.

Save electricity – shut down your PC when you’re done, and unplug all the appliances you use at work before you head off for home. Be careful with office resources – and remember that electricity and water are among the easiest office resources to waste.

Finally, avoid using the office phone to make personal calls. Use your personal cellphone, or use email or instant messaging. Try and get a texting package on your cellphone that allows unlimited texting.

Every little bit helps. With the recession still going strong, you now have a greater stake in your company’s success… and a greater responsibility to your company.