Haworth Very Task Office Chair Review 2024

Is your office chair starting to show its age? Is the seat cushion beginning to break down, providing less and less comfort as time goes by? Or maybe you purchased a chair that didn’t offer much in the way of ergonomic support, and now, you’re regretting that decision because your back is screaming by the time you get up from the chair.

Whatever the reason, if you’re in the market for a new office chair, you’re going to love what you read in our Haworth Very chair review.

You may not be familiar with Haworth as a company. Although they are a giant in the world of business furniture, they don’t have a huge footprint in the consumer market. A family-owned company, they’ve been in the business since 1948 and have quietly grown into a $2 billion behemoth with a world-class design team.

Even better, theirs is a design-driven company, and the Very office chair is an excellent example of their work, showcasing the strength of their design-driven focus.

An Overview Of The Haworth Very Mesh Office Chair

As the heart and soul of our Haworth Very chair review, you’ll find a lot to like here. Before we get into the specific things that make this chair special, let’s start by providing a broad overview of basic stats. Here they are:

There’s a lot to talk about where these numbers are concerned, and the first thing that probably jumps out at you is the fact that the Haworth Very office chair is extremely customizable. 

Note that the seat depth can be adjusted to taste, which is a rare feature in the office chair world, and you can order your Very in either standard or tall variants, depending on the height range adjustment you’re looking for. 

In addition to that, note the surprisingly modest weight of the chair. This is handy because it means you won’t struggle to move it around if and as needed.

In the office chair world, the informal standard where supported weight is concerned is right at 300 pounds, and the Very is marginally above that, which is another plus.

Note, however, that the maximum supported weight limit isn’t a suggestion, so if you happen to weigh more than 325, this chair is not for you, and unfortunately, Haworth doesn’t offer a ruggedized variant that supports more weight.

Now let’s talk about a few features not captured by the basic starts, and we’ll start with armrests.

Here, we find even more adjustability because you can order your Very with either 3D or 4D armrests.

Whichever option you choose, you’ll find that the armrests are ergonomically sculpted and amazingly adjustable. Note, too, that if you prefer, you can order your Very without armrests at all. Unlike a number of lower-priced office chairs, the armrests aren’t essential for overall structural integrity.

The design of the seatback deserves special mention, too. It’s curved to follow the shape of the spine of the person sitting in the chair, giving you decent ergonomic support, even if you don’t get the optional adjustable lumbar support.

On top of that, there are a variety of castor/glide options available and an optional mechanical shock absorber, and you can order your chair with or without a headrest.

Before we leave this section, we should also mention that this chair features a back lock and a tilt tension adjustment knob, and can be tilted forward up to five degrees, allowing you to customize your seating experience to your heart’s content.

Overall then, what we’re looking at is an incredibly versatile chair, built to be of use to the vast majority of the market, which is to say that it has “Very” good bones!

Ordering A Haworth Very Task Chair

This is probably the most important part of our Haworth Very chair review. 

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to get your hands on one of these chairs. You can either order from a third-party vendor like Amazon or you can get one directly from the company.

The main advantage of getting one from a site like Amazon is that all the decisions have been made for you.

If you’re more interested in getting a chair and don’t want to spend a lot of time poring over the various options, this is the right choice for you.

Unfortunately, that convenience is also the main downside of doing it this way. Since someone else made all the decisions, you may not get exactly the chair you want. You’re essentially at the mercy of someone else’s decision-making.

If you want to maintain full control and get exactly the chair you want, then the best way to do that is to head to the company’s website and customize your own. That’s what we’ll focus on here, so you’ll know what to expect if you decide to go that route.

Before we begin, we’ll give you two links. Here’s the link to order the Very mesh office chair:

You can also order this chair in a stool variant, but if that’s what you’re looking for, there’s a different customization link for that. Here it is:

In this section, we’re going to focus on the task chair ordering function, but it’s worth mentioning that although some of the options differ, the overall process is the same on the stool ordering page.

When you get to the ordering page, all the action will happen on the right side of the screen, with most of the page being dominated by the image of the chair you’re building.

Starting at the top and working down the list, the first decision you’ll be asked to make is the type of armrests you want. Select 3D or 4D at your preference.

Bear in mind that this is a mixed materials chair, or at least it can be. If you like, you can order your Very with a mesh seatback and a fabric-clad seat or you can get one with either leather or artificial leather seat. This is where you’ll make that decision.

You’ll also find color options here. The mesh components of the chair can be ordered in your choice of Fog, Kale, Slate, or Black. If you choose the fabric-clad option, you’ll find literally dozens of color options available, allowing you to tailor the color of your chair to match whatever your prevailing color scheme happens to be.

Next, you can decide whether you want standard or fire-retardant finish foam. Standard is probably fine for most people, but if you want or need the fire-retardant option, it’s very cool that it’s available.

After that, you get to pick the color of the plastic parts of the chair. Here, your options are Black or Fog, and make a decision about the kind of base you want.

In all cases, the chair comes with a five-point base, but you’ve got a variety of color and finish options available, and you can choose between an aluminum or plastic base.

The next two options allow you to decide if you want a headrest or not and a shock absorber.

We’re sold on the headrest, especially if you plan on spending several hours of each day in the chair, but we’re less convinced that the shock absorber is worth the added cost.  Ultimately, there are no right answers, though. It comes down to what you want from your chair.

Below those options, you can select the type of castors or glides you want and then decide if you’re interested in the standard or tall variant of the gas lift.

As we said, there are a lot of decisions to be made, but if you want an nth degree of control over the process, it’s well worth spending a few minutes to guarantee that you get exactly the chair you want and that when it arrives, it fits you like a glove.

Pros and Cons of The Haworth Very

This was an easy section to write because, honestly, there’s only one potential negative associated with this model. It’s expensive.

Note that we call this a potential negative because the chair comes with an impressive twelve-year warranty, so clearly, this isn’t a chair you’ll buy today and replace a year from now. The Very will serve you for a long time with proper care.

All that to say, you can’t make an apples-to-apples comparison with this chair and a lightly constructed budget option that you’ll have to replace in a year. A more apt comparison would be this chair versus 10-12 budget chairs because that’s how many you’ll have to buy to give you the same number of years of service.

When you compare the Very in this way, it’s actually not expensive and, in fact, provides solid value for the money.

Ultimately then, it comes down to which approach you prefer. If you like trying out a bunch of different chairs, you’ll probably be happier buying several cheaper models over the next decade. 

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a superbly designed “buy and forget” chair that will be with you a decade from now, this model belongs on your short list of options to consider.

Haworth Very Chair Review Conclusion

We love the Haworth Very, and we think you will too. The company is superb, and the design is rock solid. If you invest in this chair, it will serve you extremely well. We recommend it without hesitation.

Other Options To Consider

If, after reading to the end, you’ve decided that the Very isn’t the office chair you’re looking for, here are a couple of other options you may want to consider:

Like Haworth, SIDIZ is a huge B2B company but is less well-known to consumers. This is a solid chair and a good bit less expensive. We would point out that the warranty here is only three years, so it’s likely that you’ll need to buy two or three of these over the same period of service the Very would be in use.

Even so, if you just don’t have the money to spend on the Very, this is an excellent, full-featured alternative.

Steelcase is considered by many to be the final word in office chairs, and this model is absolutely legendary. With even more customization options available when you buy direct, this chair should be considered the gold standard that every other model on the market today has to try and measure up to.

Even if you ultimately decide it’s not the chair for you, this one is well worth taking a look at.

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

• Haworth, Official Brand Website.
• Design and Development of an Ergonomic Chair for Students in Educational Settings, Brieflands.
• 10 Reasons Why Ergonomic Chairs are Essential for Your Workspace, Omnicore.
• Why Good Posture Matters, Harvard Health.