Chair Mats: Overlooked Maintenance Tools That Save Your Flooring (and Your Back)

You’ve tackled your floor care protocol by stocking up on all the necessary cleaning supplies and equipment. You’ve upgraded your office with ergonomic furniture to help keep your employees comfy and in top shape. Finally, you’ve stocked your breakroom with the best snacks and plenty of coffee supplies, so you don’t have to worry about any afternoon crashes.

You think you’ve covered everything on your plate and let out a sigh of relief. As you go back to your desk and pull back your office chair, the wheels snag on the carpet beneath you. The chair gets stuck, and you end up stumbling backward, and just barely avoid falling flat on your back. As you collect your bearings, you realize you missed something very important: chair mats.

If you’re an office manager in the DC Metro area, odds are you’ve dealt with similar flooring-related headaches. Rolling chairs grind into the hardwood flooring until the finish wears off, creating minor scratches and scuffs that eventually become unsightly grooves. Chair wheels snag on the carpet, causing the fibers to get pulled out. The carpet fibers flatten out from the office chairs constantly moving back and forth. All of this can be avoided with office chair mats.

The chair mat is an easily overlooked item when it comes to office maintenance. However, it’s one that carries more than its fair share of power when it comes to improving both your bottom line and your employees’ well-being. We’d like to go over three reasons why chair mats matter so much and show you how to pick the right ones for your office, educational facility, or healthcare facility.

Types of Chair Mats

Before we go further, it’s important to know that chair mats are not one size fits all. The type of chair mat you choose has everything to do with two main factors: the type of flooring your facility has, and the kind of aesthetic appeal you want to create. With that in mind, we’ll go over some of the most common chair mats that are used in work environments.

• Hardwood floor mats are built specifically for wood and tile surfaces. They are thin and are usually made of clear polycarbonate or PVC. As a result, they let the wood’s natural look and color show through, while protecting the floor from scuffs and dents that can be caused by chair wheels.
• Carpet mats are built differently from hardwood floor mats, as they feature little spikes (or “teeth”) on the bottom. These spikes allow the mat to grip the carpet fibers, which keeps them from slipping and sliding around while employees are working.
• All-surface mats blend elements of hardwood floor mats and carpet mats into one product. They are often used in office environments that have high pile carpets or feature a mix of flooring types in a single room.
• Finally, there are tempered glass floor mats. These hold up under heavy daily rolling, without yellowing or cracking the way plastic mats eventually do. Because they hold up in terms of aesthetic appeal, they might be a better choice for offices that entertain clients on a regular basis.

With the common types of floor mats explained, let’s go in-depth on the benefits that chair mats can bring to your facility.

Protect Your Floors, Protect Your Bottom Line

Chair mats aren’t just for improving your workplace aesthetic. These mats may be thin, but they are powerful tools when it comes to shielding your floors from scratches, dents, spills, and wear-and-tear, all things that chair casters can easily cause. Not only does this keep your workplace looking presentable, but it also saves you a lot of money in the long-term.

Use hardwood, tile, or laminate flooring? All these types of flooring benefit from having the protective layer of a chair mat. The chair mats prevent wear and tear on these surfaces, ensuring that they don’t get scuffed up. In turn, this keeps you from shelling out the money needed for costly floor maintenance and repairs.

If you have carpeted floors, chair mats will keep the chair casters from pulling out the fibers. This means you won’t have to worry about paying for any costly recarpeting services.

Better Mobility for Employees

It’s not unusual to see someone swivel around in their chair to face someone who is behind or next to them. In a similar vein to that, it’s not uncommon for people to roll their chairs around in open-plan offices. After all, it’s easier to collaborate with other employees when you can just roll over to them without having to stand up.

If office chairs are stationed on a thick carpet, however, the wheels can catch, drag, and stall. Employee mobility will suffer as a result, which can hamper productivity levels in an open office. Chair mats provide smooth surfaces that allow office chairs to roll around easily, providing better mobility for employees.

Improved Employee Well-Being

Chair mats also provide a host of other ergonomic benefits. It takes significantly more effort to roll a chair over a thick carpet than it does to roll it over a smooth chair mat. Employees end up shoving themselves backwards or twisting at the hip, only to scoot a few inches away from the starting position, or scoot right into a filing cabinet that’s behind them. Do that multiple times in one day and the strain on the body adds up, particularly on the lower back, legs, and ankles. An employee’s shoulders will tighten and their wrists will strain as they grip the edge of the desk or the table, all just to push their chair out. By making movements like these easier, chair mats reduce body strain and make the workday more ergonomically sound.

Ordering Chair Mats from a Local Supplier

Working with a local supplier like Guernsey to purchase chair mats offers several key benefits over ordering through a big-box store. We’ve served local businesses in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC for years, and that regional presence means faster delivery and sizing advice based on real office layouts. You won’t just get a generic template pulled from a national catalog. A supplier that ships mats from the other side of the country can’t come to your site to measure your space or answer questions about your specific building. Guernsey can.

In addition, we also stock quality office chairs and can deliver them to you in a flash when one breaks or a new hire starts the next morning. By pairing the right chair with the right mat, you can protect your floor and your people simultaneously. Plus, having one supplier handling everything keeps your facilities team from chasing down multiple vendors for product information.

If you’re looking for an easy way to maintain your flooring, save on costs, and improve your employees’ well-being, reach out to Guernsey before your next flooring bill arrives. A short conversation about your floor type and traffic patterns is all it takes to find the right mat for your workspace.