Reported by the BBC, a study recently presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference suggests that people are spending longer sat at their desks and forget to stand, walk around and get the benefits of some posture change. Workers are now spending on average nearly 6 hours a day at their desk!
Some suggest reminders to get up are a way to solve this such as a post-it note on your screen. We think it is better solved through design. Office layouts should put things like bins and printers away from desks so workers have to get up to use them. Organisational and job design can also support thinking about the office layout to encourage and require more face to face working with a variety of workspaces. For the more adventurous, the provision of sit/stand workstations can build some posture change into the workstation - in our office we find the good old drawing board remains a useful working area.
By nature people will get "sucked" into their work. They won't get up and move around unless required to or they have some positive incentive. Good design can do both of these.Labels: design, ergonomics, health, interior design
