Protect your hard floors from scuffs, scratches, and dents with an office chair mat. For use on hard surface floors, a chair mat should be flat. If the chair mat had spikes, it would be elevated, uneven, and painful to sit on or walk on. There is an option for a flat chair pad to protect the flooring from the chair. Hard surfaces, such as oak and laminate, need this layer of defense. They can be severely damaged by a chair before it can be repaired, but this takes a lot of time and money. It should be sealed in place or cleaned frequently to stop grit from getting underneath the chair mat and the slight motions from rolling on it from rubbing against the surface.
Whether or not you need a chair mat will depend on how hard the tile is. If it's generally flat, like the tile found in many government buildings, you don't need a chair pad because the tiles are sturdy enough on their own and don't need to be covered. If the chair is more like a tile with gaps, a chair pad can help prevent the chair from breaking a tile or sliding in the grout.
