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Productivity is the name of the game in any business, but who can be productive when everyone in the office is feeling ill or out of sorts? Creating a positive and healthy work environment yields happy and healthy employees. Below are some tips to help you design your office for optimum health and productivity.

Lose the Old Cubes

Large, old office cubicles can be downright depressing. They are often dull in color and very clinical-feeling. They also exude an air of isolation and solitude. Most newly designed cubicles are built to be more functional rather than closed off cubes. If you’re opting for more of an open office layout, partitions can also help with privacy and come in a variety of fabric-covered walls and cheerful color options.

Let There Be Light

Nothing is more depressing that dim lighting in an office workspace. Shadows in the corners and flickering fluorescents belong in a horror film; not in an office environment. Trade out fluorescent lights for bright LEDs. Choose daylight bulbs for an even cheerier feel. Sunlight keeps us awake, and therefore more productive. As an added bonus, LEDs use less energy. Now you are increasing production and saving money at the same time.

Keep it Clean

Design your office space with two main themes in mind: Clean and Simple. Cluttered offices often lead to cluttered minds. Encourage employees to limit the number of personal items on their desks. Too many potted plants and boxes of tissues create a feeling of disorder and confusion.

Use colors that are bright and clean. These are typically the cooler colors on the color wheel. Warm tones of yellow, orange and brown are too earthy. If you choose a shade in this category, try to lean toward the very lightest shades available.

Dress office windows with a light and airy window treatment. Shy away from clunky blinds that collect dust and allergens. Instead, allow windows to provide maximum light by keeping the glass clean and bare.

Floors should be easy to clean and neutral in color. Opt for low-pile carpet to avoid the echo-effect of tile or laminate. Deep-pile carpet is hard to vacuum, and it tends to show wear and tear much quicker than commercial-grade carpet. A protective plastic chair guard at each desk will prolong the life of the floor and prevent spills from reaching the carpet.

Make Some Noise

Most people think of offices as quiet, noiseless chambers. The clickety-click of typing and the ringing of phones are the only sounds that break the silence. This heavy silence can actually be oppressing to the office workers. A random cough or sneeze may make employees feel self-conscious if the room is too quiet. Soft background music is helpful to encourage a healthy mood.

Make a Break for it

Don’t forget to include the break room in your healthy office design. Employees need a clean and friendly environment to rest and recharge.

A dusty coffee pot and dingy counter tops are not going to cut it. Keep the clean and simple approach in the foreground as you design this area.

Provide a refrigerator for employees to place healthy lunches from home, and make sure to include a microwave for reheating them. Keep surfaces smooth and easy to keep clean, and avoid carpet in this area. Opt instead for laminate, tile, or linoleum. Bring the lights down a bit to allow employees to rest and relax.

Cheerful fabrics and wall colors will encourage cheerful attitudes, but be careful not to go overboard with busy designs and loud colors.

Air and Water

Finally, remember the essential elements to good health as you design the perfect work space. Our bodies are comprised of over 50% water. That makes the water we consume essential to our health and well-being.

Air quality is another valid concern. Hire a cleaning service to schedule regular office cleanings to minimize dust, and install air purifiers around the office to improve air quality.

Having the air ducts professionally cleaned can also improve breathing conditions in the office. Large amounts of dust collect over time, reducing air quality and performance of central air and heating systems.

Health Equals Wealth

The golden rule when striving for a healthy work environment is that health equals wealth. All of these improvements in the office will come back ten-fold in the production and longevity of your employees. Make the investment and you will certainly reap the return.

Call us on 021 4277841 to discuss some of the products featured or leave a comment below.

Looking to upgrade to a standing desk, or have you recently purchased one? Either way, congrats! A standing height desk is a great alternative to a traditional desk and they have many desirable features, as well as plenty of options available to choose from.

When converting to a stand up desk, it’s easy to forget about or let the ergonomics part of it to fall to the wayside.

Below we’ve broken down some of the things to pay attention to when upgrading your workstation with a standing desk, so that you make sure you’re working in a healthy working environment.

Posture

There is a lot to be said about how to sit properly in your office chair, but not so much about standing. Some tips on proper posture include placing your legs at shoulder width without locking your knees and slightly staggering your stance with one foot in front of the other.

Desk Height

The height of your sit stand desk should be adjusted according to your height. Set the height of your desk( slightly below elbow) so that you’re able to comfortably type on your keyboard without straining your neck or any other muscles.

Monitor

Make sure that your monitor is eye level. You shouldn’t be straining your neck or your eyes to read what’s on the screen. That means that your neck shouldn’t be forced in an uncomfortable position and your eyes should at least be an arms length away from your computer screen.

Keyboard

Once you have your monitor properly adjusted, the setup of your keyboard shouldn’t be far off. Make sure that your wrists are straight. Possibly use a wrist rest if you can.

Lighting

Having multiple sources of light is also a good idea to keep you from straining your eyes. We recommend to let in some natural light if you can, as well as having a task light on hand in addition to office lighting, that way, if the office lighting is too dim, you can always use your task light as an additional light source.

Accessories

Some standing desk accessories to consider include an anti-fatigue chair mat or a foot rest to take some of the pressure off of your feet, especially if you’re standing all day.

In summary, while standing desks can be a great alternative to sitting, its equally important to pay attention to the ergonomics and health of it as well.

Call us on 021 4277841 to discuss some of the products featured or leave a comment below.

Information security is now more vital to the survival and success of businesses than it’s ever been before.  There are various factors contributing to this new urgency:

Cyber security is the biggest threat to the survival and success of modern businesses. Companies of all sizes are at risk of falling victim to disruptive attacks such as phishing, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) or ransomware – the costs of which run into the millions.

Government regulations such as the GDPR are increasingly looking to punish businesses with potentially crippling fines for failing to secure their systems and data appropriately.

The expansion and digitisation of the modern workplace compounds cyber challenges further: as workflows spread across devices, networks and geographies, information must be protected as it moves around a business.

The capabilities of office printers and multifunction devices have increased ten-fold in recent years. They are now responsible for a huge proportion of business data input, output, transfer and storage. This potentially makes them one of the most dangerous, yet often overlooked, threat vectors in the workplace today.

Faced with these challenges, modern businesses can no longer function without fundamentally secure document and data management systems.

Now more than ever, businesses need a partner they can trust to help them secure and protect their information management.

                  Four things to think about to secure your business

This combination of security threats and legislative requirements means the potential for reputational and fiscal damage from cyber risk has never been greater.

Now is the time to invest in the security of your digital workplace with a partner you can trust.

The good news is, Ricoh has already thought about security for you. We are expert in understanding these risks because we’ve spent decades developing ways to mitigate
them, through state-of-the-art security measures embedded into every product and solution across our entire portfolio.

Our printers, for example, have featured secure hard disk overwrite capabilities for over 20 years. Security is in the DNA of our entire digital workplace portfolio. Ricoh provides a consistent worldwide service and support structure for customers that ensures threat intelligence is efficiently shared and acted upon.

Not only is IEEE 2600 certification implemented as standard across our printout put devices, Ricoh is a leading member and key author for the IEEE Standards Association.

Ricoh is also ISO 27001 certified, and committed to continuing to comply with this information security management system. To meet the demanding requirements of effective,
demonstrable cyber security best practices, security is included in every product and service in Ricoh’s portfolio by design – never as an afterthought. We believe this holistic view of vulnerabilities is essential for survival in modern business. Every aspect of our security approach is underpinned by our ‘CIA’ principles of privacy and security: confidentiality, integrity and availability

How Ricoh, partners of Ronnie Moore, secures the digital workplace

We understand the importance of securing your digital workplace across the entire – and complex – lifecycle of business data.

We achieve this by only supplying you with machines that implement security measures across four crucial stages: Control, Preservation,Destruction and Support.

The modern digital workplace must be as dynamic as the cyber threats it faces and as flexible as the working practices within it. That’s why we believe that cyber security should operate seamlessly across the technology our customers choose to enable their workplace.

With our commitment to ISO 27001 throughout our organisation, and IEEE 2600 certification across our products, you can rest assured that with Ricoh you’ll have best-of-breed security controls in place – no matter how you choose to structure and grow your business.

To discover how Ricoh can help you secure and empower your business, visit them at ricoh-europe.com
or contact us on 021-4277841 for more information on the Ricoh machines we distribute.

Organization. That twelve letter word you either love or hate. The good news is, you’re here to make changes, so kudos to you! Now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what that means with your filing cabinet. Below are four ways to get your filing cabinets in working order.

Color code

If you haven’t started using a color coding system to help organize your filing cabinet, you need to hop on it! If you have started, but need to step up your game, now is the time! Colored labels and colored folders are extremely helpful in organizing your documents and making them easy to find.

Add labels

Labels sound like a no-brainer, but I’m sure some of you out there don’t use them! Something to also consider if you have a habit of re-labeling folders, is to write in pencil versus pen or marker

Shred old, unnecessary files

Old files can pile up quickly and cause you to have a lot of extra junk you don’t need that takes up space. Consider going through your drawers and auditing your existing files to see what you should keep and get rid of. Its also a good idea to schedule some time to do this regularly throughout the year, so that you can keep on top of it rather than sitting for hours on end cleaning it out.

File new documents or papers right away

Getting into a rhythm to file your documents right away can be hard. Its easier to let it pile on the desk next to you, or throw it in a folder labeled “organize”. But, with a little extra effort, you can make that a thing of the past saving you hours in the long run. Whenever you have something new you need to file, make a quick b-line to your filing cabinet and get that thing filed away pronto!

That wraps up our tips on keeping your filing cabinets organized. Now that it’s spring time, it’s the perfect opportunity to add this to your office spring cleaning list! If you have any questions about organizing your files, drop a comment below!

Paper jams are the most common frustration when it comes to shredding. When a jam occurs, it is usually due to overfeeding, mis-feeding or fast feeding paper into the shredder. By being aware of these common shredding mistakes, along with having a shredder with the right jam prevention technology, you can keep your shredding experience hassle-free.

Overfeeds

When too much paper is fed into a shredder at one time, this can cause a paper jam. Knowing the sheet capacity (or how many sheets your machine can handle) can help prevent jamming. Also, you can help eliminate overfeeds by having a shredder equipped with a jam prevention system that can electronically sense when too much paper has been inserted into the machine.

Mis-feeds

Inserting paper that is folded, creased or wrinkled can also cause a misfeed paper jam. A shredder with advanced jam prevention can power through mis-feeds or cleanly reverse out the paper so that it can be removed – both eliminating this cause of a paper jam.

Fast Feeds

Fast feeds are caused when a stack of paper is fed into the machine before the shredder has finished shredding the previous stack. Shredders equipped with an advanced jam prevention technology that can detect fast feeds will pause the shredder, allowing you to remove the excess paper before it turns into a paper jam.

How To Oil Your Paper Shredder For Consistent Performance

Like your car, your paper shredder needs to be oiled regularly to maintain optimal performance. To oil your shredder, simply hold down the reverse button. Squeeze oil across the entire paper entry while holding down the button. Hold down the reverse button for another 10 se

conds to ensure the lubrication has spread through the cutters. It only takes seconds to keep your shredder running well, as regular oiling prevents cutters from locking up over time.

What Oil Should You Use For Your Shredder?

Do not use aerosol oils to lubricate your shredder. Such lubricants are petroleum-based and can be a serious fire hazard. Use only vegetable-based oils like Fellowes Shredded Oil for all cross-cut paper shredders. Also use High Security Shredder Oil for large capacity paper shredders and Fellowes commercial shredders with the Auto-Oil feature.

How Often Should You Oil Your Shredder?

When you notice the shredder is experiencing difficulty shredding, or gets jammed easily, then it’s probably time to oil. If you use your shredder occasionally, then oiling your shredder may only be necessary every two months to maintain good performance. If you use your shredder a lot, however, then your best practices are to oil your cross cut shredder every time you empty the waste bin.