Spend as much as you can afford on your office chairs, even if it means reducing the amount your spend on the office desks or storage cabinets.

This is because an office chair is a dynamic piece of furniture, which can have an influence on your health and you productivity.  Bad backs are the most common cause of staff absenteeism and most of this can be attributable to unsuitable office seating.

Executive chair

For most people an office chair is an office chair, but in reality there is a bewildering range of confusing mechanisms and adjustment options, some which are useful and some not so useful. To the uninitiated it is difficult to work out which ones are really useful and which one are just gadgets or gimmicks.

At the bottom end of the office spectrum sits a basic entry level budget operator chair.  These are typically around £50 to £60 each, and will give you something to sit on, but not much else. There will be a gas ram seat height adjustment mechanism, and probably some means of altering the seat rake, but often not much else.

More worryingly are the things that are missing which you cannot see. The gas ram for instance may only be rated for 11 stones. Most business to business chairs are rated at 18 stone, you can go higher. Also the mechanism has probably not been designed for all day use.

This is the sort of chair that you may use at home or for an occasional workstation but certainly not in an everyday office.  If someone in your office is over 11 stone and is using it all day there is a good chance that something will fail, and then your problems with the warranty will begin.

It will be easy for the manufacturer to spot where the chair has been overloaded or overused. And they would have every right to reject you warranty claim, as you had not used the office chair for its intended purpose

So it really does pay to speak to your office furniture dealer, and you let him know exactly what it is you require from a chair.

They will guide you to the most suitable product, and will be able to explain to you all of the useful mechanisms and features which are available

If you staff are going to give you their best, sitting for over 6 hours a day for 48 weeks of the year, then you owe it to them to make sure that you are giving them the best in terms of their office seating.

After all, even an expensive ergonomic armchair, with a full 5 year warranty is only going to cost you less than twenty pence a day.

Surely every member of your staff is worthy of such a minimal investment