Ergonomics: It’s Not Intuitive And Not Common Sense

The work environment is not only complex as it is ever-changing. Employees need to be extremely versatile with the tasks they need to perform as well as technology keeps evolving at a fast pace. So, employees and employers need to pay extra attention to a wide range of factors to ensure that their employees can be productive. And this is where ergonomics comes in. 

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Ergonomics Is A Powerful Change Agent

There’s no question that ergonomics is a vehicle that allows both organizational and individual productivity. 

One of the things that you may not know os that ergonomics is human-centered design. Ultimately, it is the relationship between you and your own work environment that includes all the materials and tools that you use as well as the tasks that you need to perform. 

Simply put, ergonomics seeks to maximize your efficiency, productivity, safety, and health in performing work.

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One fact is that most employees lack the awareness to recognize when repetition is fatiguing their muscles or when prolonged sitting is affecting spinal health. While it may seem obvious, the reality is that it’s not intuitive to know how to adjust an ergonomic chair effectively. Just to give you an idea, in a 2016 study from Cornell U., “What am I Sitting On? User Knowledge of Their Chair,” Dr. Alan Hedge studied how over 1004 office workers at 23 different organizations used their chairs. The only thing employees understood or utilized on a chair was the height mechanism and possibly the armrests.

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Besides, it is important to consider that the office chair is not the only equipment you need to use. Many employers are providing adjustable-height sit-to-stand workstations. Yet, employees are standing too long or fail to set the height correctly.

The most glaring problem is that employees don’t know how to use the ergonomic equipment and technology provided to them. 

Having The Right Equipment And Setup Are Key

While the science of ergonomics was introduced more than 70 years ago, the sad truth is that it still remains as non-intuitive and it’s not definitely common sense. 

The reality is that you just need to enter one of the many buildings you have around you. While you will see the latest trends in terms of design, colors, and materials, the truth is that they lack ergonomics. You can see a bunch of ball chairs that tend to cause even more posture problems and even falls, and even the offices that pick ergonomic office chairs ten to find the so-called “one size fits all” office chairs. However, the same office chair won’t fit both tall and short people. 

These are the best office chairs for posture.

Bottom Line

When you are creating a new office and buying new office chairs and desks, it is important that you take ergonomics into question. It is always important to think about the looks but also the functionality and make things adaptable and adjustable to every single employee that you have.