JPA Workspaces – Functional, Forward-Thinking Workspace Solutions for thriving Businesses and Organisations

JPA Workspaces is an award-winning furniture solutions provider offering creative and excellent workspaces for commercial buildings, the education, and healthcare sectors. Established as a contract furniture supplier for over 40 years, JPA continues to adapt to the changing needs of its clients by delivering flexible, functional, and sustainable workspaces. The family-owned company has a track record of excellent customer service and great after-care support to a long list of satisfied customers.
 
These days, JPA is in its second generation of ownership and is one of the largest contract furniture suppliers in the South East of England. Recently, Herts Review sat down with Fiona Edwards, Sustainability Director of JPA to discuss how the business is evolving and laying down the foundation for the next phase of its growth.
 
Founded in 1974 by John Pulsford as John Pulsford Associates, the company has been providing quality furniture solutions to customers in Hertfordshire, London, and surrounding areas. He aimed to be different and do things better.  That meant offering better quality products, paying decent wages to staff, and doing good in the community. This legacy has continued to date.
 
Over time, the name of the business also evolved from John Pulsford Associates to JPA Furniture and now JPA Workspaces to better reflect its services, objectives, and the market it serves. The business is now owned and operated by John's children namely Graham Pulsford as Managing Director, Fiona Edwards, and Ian Pulsford as Directors.
 
As one of the largest contract furniture suppliers, JPA has extensive experience in the public and private sectors. It is known for its friendly, professional, and customer-focused services. The company sources its products from trusted suppliers offering a great mix of products that meets the needs of their customers. JPAs services cover furniture installation, repair, refreshing, reupholstering, and reconfiguration. Their objective is to make your workspace great while keeping your furniture lasting longer.
 
The company has successfully delivered projects at University College, London, Enfield Civic Centre, Macmillan Centre, Local NHS Trusts, and the recently completed Rothamsted’s iconic Russell Building amongst others.
 
In addition to providing great workspace solutions, having a positive impact on the community and environment is a priority for the company. JPA is committed to health and safety, sustainability, and waste reduction. Over the last decade, the company has been recognised at local and national levels for its excellent credentials in recycling, reduction in carbon use, rehoming furniture items in the community, and promoting zero waste. For JPA, sustainability is a big part of its customer proposition and influences all aspects of its service.
 
For this reason, the company is redefining how it works with clients by getting involved at the early stage of projects. That way, the team gets a better understanding of client requirements, audit existing furniture, work out what is reusable or what can be reconfigured. The objective is to always deliver long-term value by creating great environments to work in, where people flourish, build relationships, share ideas, and help the organization achieve its goals. You know the saying that ‘Furniture finishes off a house’. It is never only about the furniture although it is an important part.
 
JPA’s service also includes advising and consulting on workspace design, designing and optimising space, project management, maximizing existing resources, assisting with moves and relocations. According to Fiona, to deliver this great service you need the right people. For JPA, its people are its biggest asset. With a team of 20, the company rewards loyalty, hard work, and champions fair treatment. The average length of service is 11 years in the company. It is key to keep the expertise and experience of the team to consistently deliver that high standard of service.
 
With the covid-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown, the company is working on innovative solutions to create better spaces for the safe return of workers in offices, commercial workspaces, education, and healthcare institutions as well as the hospitality sector. It is common knowledge that a hybrid working model (working from home and the office) has come to stay. Therefore, JPA are offering great solutions for home working as well.
 
“We are exploring options of reviving the high street by converting empty shops, unused or underused space into flexible working environments. Parents with kids, start-ups, community groups can use these spaces while abiding by social distancing measures." 
 
"This may be a good strategy for increasing footfall to local shops and gradually bring us back to normality. There has to be more flexibility from employers and employees. Reorganising how and where we work is key. We must think of the future and start laying the groundwork. We have to seize this opportunity to do better by society and community”.
 
“In 2021, we will be taking the sustainability message further. As an organisation, we will use technology to get slicker and efficient. This means updating our CRM systems, going paperless, and using automated devices within our supply process. It also means sourcing better ranges of furniture and going carbon neutral."
 
"Imagine if we had a school furniture swap in Hertfordshire. Furniture can be moved around based on demand as school admissions fluctuate from year to year. Hertfordshire has the potential for great things, and we will be playing our role in ushering that beckon of change.”
 
There is no better way of describing the heart and culture of JPA as the events over Christmas Eve last month. At 2.15pm when the company had closed for Christmas, an urgent call came through from one of their NHS Trust clients urgently requesting they get to London to help move furniture and create space for additional beds to accommodate covid-19 patients. The JPA team got to site at 6pm and completed the furniture move as needed. The client informed JPA that their prompt response had helped save the lives of 20 patients which left everyone teary-eyed and was the best Christmas present ever.  JPA also had an NHS hotline open and in place over the Christmas break for new furniture enquiries, end of year spend and emergency work.
 
As JPA Workspaces approaches its 50th anniversary in the next 4 years, the leadership are working on several plans to usher in the next phase of growth. Investment in tech, more marketing, and networking will be the engine to drive growth and profitability. The covid-19 pandemic has simply highlighted that any organization that is not efficient and fully utilizing tech will be left behind.
 
JPA Workspaces commitment to sustainability, unique after-care support, experience, and expertise means they are the preferred contract furniture solutions provider. For enquiries follow this link.
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