Take a seat and read about the latest in the fight against Britain’s throwaway culture.
I drive my girlfriend around the bend, pausing just about every film and TV series to try listing off what I’ve seen various cast members star in before. But I discovered last Thursday that she has it lucky.
Craig Pickersgill, a Manchester-based office furniture salesman, told me at an event in Burton that his wife has to put up with him pressing ‘stop’ just to rattle off the product name – perhaps even the pricing and, indeed, the lean ratio – of chairs showing on-screen.
Who’d have thought it would be possible to be this passionate about a workplace perch?
And for good reason, as Craig’s Coventry colleague, Jake Tatlow, pointed out to me: professionals spend far more time on their office chair than their sofa at home, on which we’re still willing to fork out hefty sums – even accounting for the non-stop ‘FLASH SALES’.
Perhaps it’s no wonder, then, that there was a palpable sense of excitement (yes, really) as these and other professionals gathered just before the Easter holiday at their ORS UK head office on Derby Road – joined by representatives from local businesses, as well as from some big national brands – to show off a new and impressive piece of workplace furniture. And no, that wasn’t just because of the pork pies and prosecco.
The seat has been designed by Jamie Hood – a self-professed “chair geek”, which explains why he’s been in the business for about a quarter of a century – and his team at JH Chairs.
Jamie describes it as “a chair that will do everything” – hence the name, the Everything Chair. It has a range of comfort features, happily tested by the team at Burton Echo. I particularly liked the proper foot-rests, shamefully missing from any other office chair I’ve tried in the past. And Scott put the ‘automatic lumbar’ support – a “new solution”, best described to you and me as the lean function – to good test.
Just as importantly, in a world where businesses are increasingly looking to become more environmentally-friendly, Jamie stresses that this is a “sustainable product”. The Everything Chair has been verified 93.65% deconstructable, 57.18% reusable and 92.69% recyclable.
This fits in well with ORS UK’s mission of environmental responsibility. A tour around its warehouse showed me a mass of used – and, significantly, perfectly reusable – furniture ready to be sent out. An important step in the combating of Britain’s throwaway culture.
Karl Ward, the company’s managing director, gladly told those present that because of this mission, “we’ve got a certain niche in the market place, and we’re well respected”. He’s been in the business for almost two decades, joining not long after ORS’ founding in the early 2000s, and maintains that even after all this time, work doesn’t really feel like work at all.
Kevin Denver, ORS’ director, predominantly deals with sales for the head office, and equally believes in the importance of “high-quality, sustainable office furniture solutions”. As Group Sales Director Laura Denver puts it: “Our furniture doesn’t cost the earth.”
Karl and his team’s sales efforts are no doubt aided by the price of the Everything Chair, which is good relative to others on the market – not least due to its long (10-year!) life cycle.
Chairs to that!
