SEPTEMBER 2020 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 21
RJV OFFICE CEO VARUN BANSAL
THE OFFICE, REIMAGINED
BY CLAUDE SOLNIK
Transparency with plexiglass partitions
is in and water coolers are
out as offices are being re-imagined
amid the coronavirus pandemic.
When workers return to offices,
they are sometimes finding the space
has been redesigned. Varun Bansal,
CEO of RJV Office and officefurnitureshop.
com in Farmingdale, talked
with the Press about new workplace
norms.
How is furniture being used to
make a healthier, safer workplace?
In order to create a safer and better
environment to go back to work, we
need to make sure the cubicles are tall
enough for the employees to work.
The industry used to be more focused
on an open environment. That trend
is going away. People are going back
to a safer area where benching is
being replaced by cubicles. What
happened in the ‘80s and ‘90s is coming
back in 2020 with a better, more
advanced-looking cubicle with more
glass and fabric.
What specific design
decisions can make the
office appealing? One
thing we’re doing to
make the office
more creative
and appealing
is not
having a wall partition from floor to
ceiling. A combination of fabric and
glass is a creative and fun way of
designing. Light can travel. We don’t
want to just provide a fabric-based
system. You still want creativity.
Are the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention guidelines
impacting office design? We created
some guidelines based on the CDC
such as 6-foot distances between people
in work stations and meetings.
More space, not people sitting on
top of each other. It’s a combination
of what the CDC has given. We used
that to integrate into the office furniture
industry.
Is density changing in the office as
well as in other businesses? If you
have 100 employees, only 30 percent
are coming back. Seventy percent
are working from home. It’s not a
regulation, but that’s what I am hearing
from companies. The work we’re
doing is in phasing. The employees
coming back get the priority. Once
we complete those, we work on other
phases.
What are people doing to make a
better home office? To make a safe
and healthy home office, people
are buying one or two desks, one
or two office chairs. The demand
for acrylic glass, plexiglass,
is coming into effect.
When they buy small
offices or desks
from us, they
secure their
space with
Plexiglass.
E v e n
w o r k i n g
from home,
the y are
securing the
home-based
o f f i c e s
with plexi
around them.
How is
technology
fueling home
office growth
and impacting
the
traditional
o f f i c e ?
Conventional
of f ices are
playing a big role in technology.
Demand for software like Zoom has
increased compared to three to four
months ago. The demand for band
width is increasing. As more people
work from home, you need more
bandwidth to support the work force.
Within cubicles, our clients are more
focused on having an effective power
system running across the cubicles,
so they can plug in laptops.
Can you retrofit cubicles? If the
existing height can’t be raised, we
have a way to put together the frames
with acrylic glass. That’s safer at the
offices. We manufacture frames
based on the height of the cubicles.
Those frames are being installed on
the low-height cubicles. It can give
more height to lower partitions.
What will offices look like in the
future? Sales are going to be comparatively
less, but the demand of redesigning
offices is going to be higher.
The demand for products like acrylic
glass or plexiglass will be higher, redesigning
work of existing offices where
employees sit in a tight space, getting
us 6 feet of space.
What about the future of the home
office? Home offices typically are
going to be a combination of a desk,
a chair, and a printer. It’s more like
a command center that is going
to be creatively occupied by the
employees.
What’s the fate of the water cooler?
The water cooler is history. We
have to wait and see the next few
months, to see industry trends.
When people come back to work,
they want to make sure they have
hand sanitizer on their desk instead
of a water cooler. Hand sanitization,
the cleaning of office work surfaces,
those are more imperative
now. The pantry area. The offices
that share microwaves and water
coolers, those areas are more
restricted.
CORNER OFFICE
Varun Bansal is CEO of RJV Office and officefurnitureshop.com in Farmingdale.
“The water cooler is history.”
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