The Art of Ergonomics

Go beyond the chair to bring health and wellbeing into your plan

When changing our working environment, we concentrate on ensuring the right solutions for the collective around orientation, productivity, storage and key personnel. However all too often we forget to consider the individual workstation and how we need to adapt that to the new environment, legislation and challenges of the modern office.

The best organisations continuously change and challenge their employees to look after themselves at work, ensuring their company culture embraces ergonomics.

A recent Ipsos Mori and BITC survey discovered that FTSE100 companies that report on employee health and wellbeing outperform those that do not by 10%. The reason is simple - with less absenteeism, a healthy and motivated staff perform better. Proactive organisations implement change to prevent the consequences of inaction, reduce absenteeism and ensure they comply with legislation to prevent personal injury claims.

The key to any organisational change is to build a culture that promotes the use of ergonomic products and creates an environment in which staff are expected to look after their health.

When implementing change in the office, an ideal starting point is to carry out a health and wellbeing survey and a series of workstation assessments to kick-start the process. In fact, adding these steps as part of the process is a great way to show employees they matter and to mitigate any concerns regarding issues like increased hot desking or smaller workstations.

When you relate changes to office layout with improvements in individual environments you will reap double the rewards in productivity, wellbeing and morale.

If you need an help with planning your office, workstation assessments, chairs and ergonomic products, get in touch at [email protected]