You Won’t Believe What Businesses and Ergonomists Have Been Neglecting for Decades!
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Many people are returning to work in offices and many are still working from home or in a hybrid model, whichever situation describes your work environment, ergonomics plays a role in how comfortable (or uncomfortable) you are in your office environment. Ergonomists get excited about products that require no change in habits by us humans, but simply buying and putting the product in place - why?
Human habits are hard to change.
Office ergonomists in office, warehouse, manufacturing, home office settings tend to look at two types of movement:
Those that cause awkward postures.
Those that promote mini-breaks (visual or movement breaks).
Awkward Postures = “Bad”
Mini-Movement Breaks = “Good”
Awkward postures can stress the spine and cause muscle fatigue or pain when repeated consistently and over time. Awkward postures can lead to Muscloskeletal Disorders (MSDs) such as strains and sprains.
Mini-movement breaks allow muscles that have been static (not moving) to move and those muscles that are tense to relax, they allow blood to flow more freely in the legs, they are generally considered to be under 30-60 seconds in length. While micro breaks (mini-breaks) are a promising and simple strategy, just coaching and training will likely have no effect. Studies have shown that workers provided with education and advice only, did not take sufficiently frequent breaks to change discomfort levels (references in full research study write up - see below for link).
Interested in ergonomic services for your business? Check out our services.
what is it?
What have Businesses and Ergonomists Have Been Neglecting for Decades?
The answer is - your FLOORING !
Office chairs (with all of the fancy adjustments or without) have a few vital functions:
to allow you to roll
to allow you to swivel
to support your back
to let your feet be flat on the ground
WMergo recently completed a pilot study to determine the amount of force required to roll an office chair on different flooring surfaces. Human behaviors such as movement in an office chair and awkward postures were also studied to determine if a correlation between force required to roll an office chair and human behaviors was present.
We researched rugs, carpet tiles, plastic chair mat, vinyl chair mat, and the Vitrazza® Glass Chair Mat.
And guess what?
There is a Connection between the force to move the chair and Human behaviors- the slicker the better!
This pilot study demonstrates that human behaviors were changed by simply changing flooring surfaces. Those requiring less foot pounds of force (more slick) to move resulted in more natural opportunities for movement and fewer awkward postures.
Simply put - the harder it is to move your chair more “bad” behaviors and less “good” behaviors were observed.
When looking at the flooring that resulted in the greatest reduction in awkward movement plus the greatest increase in mini-movement breaks, the the Vitrazza® Glass Chair Mat provided more benefit in reducing “bad” awkward postures and increasing “good” mini-movement breaks versus the other flooring choices.
