Office workers "forget to stand"

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.

Is sitting up straight really ergonomic?

This recent article on the BBC website suggested that sitting up straight to work wasn't actually as good for your back as previously suggested.

…an interesting report suggesting the low-strain result of slouching, we're sure that the results are right, but what about the conclusions in the article?  The report could easily be misinterpreted

The posture may be OK for relaxing (isn’t this what this is all about?), but for all those people working on a computer at a desk, it can raise other problems:

• Viewing distance to the computer screen is much increased in this position, making great demands on visual acuity. This posture makes the person lift their head, whereas, with an upright posture the head is more naturally balanced. For many people, there will be  a tendency to strain the head forward, creating more trouble in the neck than it saves in the lower back.
• This is particularly true of those who wear varifocal glasses, since the increased viewing distance prompts a view through a higher part of the lens, which in turn forces the head more forward
• It’s difficult to hold the arms outstretched for any length of time, so this seating posture needs to be combined with a lower desk, moved close in to the body – which limits freedom to fidget around. Everyone agrees (do they?) that regular movement is good!

The illustration shows a chair with what appears to be a good lumbar support. I would predict a very different result if the chair had been a canvas deck-chair, where the lumbar region has to be supported by the body’s own musculature.

Most of us have seen, heard of or tried the “kneeling” chair, designed to reduce the angle between pelvis and thighs. This has only a marginal success, not because the reduced pelvic angle is bad – it isn’t, but most “kneeling” chair designs actually limit freedom to move the legs as widely as an “ordinary” one. People with weak knees also suffer from the load on their knees

So, for most of us, an upright posture will still be the all-round winner for the working environment. As Ergonomists, we will probably continue to encourage people to sit upright when working and, critically, to keep up with breaks and changes in posture.

Health & Safety gone mad? What can ergonomics do?

There are always articles appearing in the press about "barmy" decisions taken on the basis of "health & safety", usually by local authorities. The theme is usually an over-reaction to what, for most of us, would seem a fairly non-hazardous activity in an attempt to remove any trace of liability.

Two articles in the press this week highlight this again: firstly, this article appeared in Metro  (http://tinyurl.com/3668ey2) on children doing work repairing a carving in a chalk hill - a task that the Probation Service assessed as too risky for their offenders to do. Second, was this article in the Evening Standard about a letter box that has been closed as it has been assessed as a handling risk for postmen as it is too low (http://tinyurl.com/34ucswr).

Our argument is not whether these decisions were right or wrong but that these types of story often suggest a problem with a lack of understanding of ergonomics, physiology and the liklihood of particular actions causing injury.

The situation on the hillside might have been addressed through identifying control measures such as appropriate footwear and training which could have reduced the risks to an acceptable level.

The postbox is interesting as the ergonomics of manual handling requires consideration of the frequency of handling, the nature of the loads as well as the posture and environment. A poor posture, such as a low height, is not automatically an unacceptable risk if the handing is not frequent (once a day not usually being regarded as constant) and the loads are not heavy or unstable.

To produce sensible results the risk assessment process required in Health & Safety law requires a sensible judgement on probablility and consequence (i.e. you cannot eliminate risk) as well as a good and competent understanding of ergonomics.