Storage solutions are a major strength of The HON Company and have been since we were established over 70 years ago. Beginning in the kitchen cabinets and recipe boxes market, we have since positioned ourselves as one of the industry’s leading manufacturers of workplace storage.  While our dedication to practical storage has not changed, the way people use storage has.  The footprints of workstations and private offices have dramatically decreased over the past several decades, making less room in the work area for storage.  Parallel to this workplace shift is the impact of technology.  The invention of flash drives and mobile devices allows people to save and access digital copies of documents that were once needed to be stored in vertical and lateral file cabinets.

This led us to wonder, what exactly are people storing today?  To find the answer, we conducted extensive Voice of the Customer (VOC) research and categorized our findings within three categories:

Active
Active storage is located within arm’s length of the user in the workstation and is used very frequently during daily workflow.

Anticipated
Anticipated storage is commonly found within a workstation or nearby and is accessed on occasion to support day-to-day activities.

Archival
Archival storage is typically located outside the workstation in a place not visited often such as storage rooms or basements.  This type of storage is acessed infrequently and includes items kept for long-term record-keeping.

Through the VOC research, the HON product development and engineering team discovered that today’s storage needs go beyond just paper and office supplies.  As the demographics of the workplace continue to change and the line between home and work blurs, more and more people are using storage for items such as food, purses, gym shoes, medicine and even apple slicers.  In response to these research findings, HON recently launched a new credenza storage solution named Contain™. These credenzas allow users to file and pile within the same unit.  With a variety of finishing options and configurations, Contain offers effective and attractive active storage within arm’s length of the user. You can learn more about Contain™ at hon.com/Contain.
Here are a few behind-the-scenes photos of what members at HON headquarters are storing beyond basic office supplies:
Other findings from our research show that people store paper in one of two ways: filing or piling.  Here are snapshots of “pilers” and “filers” at HON headquarters:


 

How do you store?