When it comes to the decor of an office, it’s important that it be both fashionable as well as functional. From office floor mats to types of custom chair mats, an employee that is comfortable and able to sit and do their work is not only happier but more productive. Custom chair mats might seem like a minor addition or change to make to an office, but they can have a bigger impact than you might think – after all, office furniture bought online alone is a $12 billion dollar industry.

Office chairs can make or break us – literally. They’ve been around forever, created nearly 5,000 years ago and popular in the every day home by the late 1800’s. Chairs have come in many iterations and designs – like the plastic chair, which was introduced in the sixties, or the butterfly chair, which came into popularity during the 1960’s as well, as modernism came into style – but they’ve truly been around forever. Unfortunately, chairs in office spaces have not and are not always comfortable. Many of these chairs can, unfortunately, lead to health problems and studies have shown that by 2001 over a million people working in the United States suffered some type of musculoskeletal disorder thanks to the chair they sat in all day long. These musculoskeletal disorders, aside from causing pain to those who suffer from them, have also lost over 45 billion dollars in lost time and wages.

Fortunately, even small steps we take to make office chairs more comfortable can have an impact. Office floor mats, for example, can give employees a comfortable place to rest their feet, taking some of the pressure off of their spine and back. A vinyl chair mat or other type of chair mat can provide a cushion for the tailbone and can directly help to make the spine more comfortable. These small changes can help employees to correct their posture and realign their joints as they sit. Massage chairs can also provide a certain level of comfort to a sore back. Massage chairs and the like are relatively recent – in fact, chairs including different types of technology have only come into popularity since the twentieth century, certainly recently when we think about the thousands of years that chairs have been around.

Be it through office floor mats or chair cushions, comfort while working is important to physical health as well as mental health. A small change like the addition of office floor mats can have a huge impact on the overall well being of company employees.