Although not every office is created equally, most have a similar inventory to help employees get their work done efficiently. Some office supplies are absolutely essential and no good office should be seen without one.

1. A shredder

Data security is incredibly important in the 21st century, with there being an almost insurmountable number of ways to steal your data and use it fraudulently. Having a shredder gives you a way to take the potential for harm out of a criminal\’s hands and put the ball back in your court.

It should be noted that just having one is great, but it\’s important that you mandate your employees actually use it, otherwise it becomes a quite useless heap of plastic and metal.

2. Sticky notes

Every time you go to tell someone an idea or pass on a message and your face goes bright red as you realise you\’ve forgotten, a sticky note could have come to your aid. Leaving one on a co-workers desk to remind them of that meeting coming up or having one on your monitor to make sure you take frequent breaks is invaluable and makes them worth more than their weight in gold.

3. Spare keyboards and mice

You never know when disaster will strike and somebody\’s keyboard or mouse will completely stop functioning, preventing them from working. If you don\’t have a few spares lying around, it\’s likely that they\’ll lose an hour as they go out and buy a new one, which isn\’t really ideal for either party. Back ups are one of those things that you may never need, but will always regret not having.

4. Printer ink/toner

Keeping a well stocked cupboard full of printer ink and toner is another often forgotten life saver that can save a lot of stress. Imagine this scenario: you have taken on a major client and have a meeting with them in an hour.

You\’ll need to take a printed proposal complete with a few useful charts and graphs, so you go to print it off and horror sets in as you realise there is no more ink. As you wonder why nobody had replaced it earlier, you rush around the office trying to find a spare cartridge, and realise that there are none and you have wasted so much time looking for it that you will now be late for the meeting and won\’t have any supporting documents.

How terrifying.

5. Comfortable chairs

Although a lot of people wouldn\’t usually think of chairs when talking about office supplies, a comfortable chair is a real productivity booster. The discomfort you feel when sitting in a hard, unyielding seat that seems to have been made specifically to hurt your back is very distracting and can result in a surprising amount of time lost and morale drained.

It may seem expensive up front, but investing in chairs that won\’t make your employees detest having to come in to work is always a fantastic idea.

6. Writing utensils

No matter how good computers are, it\’s hard to imagine a future without a pen or a pencil. Without the right supply inventory, that future may become a very palpable reality – leaving you both frustrated and unable to make quick notes. The great thing about writing utensils is how cheap they are, so investing in 1,000 pens and pencils is unlikely to break the bank, but will more than likely end up paying for itself in the long run.

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, specialists in Office Supplies

Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World (http://www.cartridgeworld.co.uk), specialists in Office Supplies

Author Bio: Ben Greenwood is writing on behalf of Cartridge World, specialists in Office Supplies

Category: Business
Keywords: office supplies, business supplies