Herman Miller Inc. knows that you've been working at home a lot, and that you expect you'll still being working at home — at least part of the time — in the future as more firms embrace hybrid office work strategies.
So the office furniture maker is also embracing change, with a podcast that will examine "the future of work." Ryan Anderson, vice president of global research and insights at Zeeland, Mich.-based Herman Miller, is hosting the Looking Forward podcast, which is available on most streaming platforms. The first guest for the podcast is an executive from Slack, a network that has seen a lot more use during the pandemic.
Obviously the company's bread and butter has been the traditional office, but as Anderson notes in a short introduction to the series, it is also seeing some employers try to improve home work settings for a future "new normal" that will allow people to work from home at least a few days a week.
"If an employee spends two days a week working from home, that's 40 percent of their work week when they're not able to benefit from the ergonomic work settings that their office provides," Anderson says.
Beyond the podcast, if you haven't seen it yet, check out this story on how Herman Miller reengineered the Aeron chair to use ocean-bound plastics.