Spending nine hours in the office every day can take its toll on employees’ health. Sitting in an office chair the whole day and staring at a computer monitor for several hours is bad for anyone’s health.
But there are ways to counter this. As long as you implement ergonomic principles in your workplace, as well ask the stair installation team to make a few adjustments, you can help your employees become healthier.
Implement ergonomic workstations
The first thing you should focus on is how your employees sit in their workstations. Ergonomic experts say everyone should follow these rules.
- The monitor is at arm’s length away.
- The monitor is at eye level.
- The employee’s wrists are straight.
- The employee’s hands are levelled with the elbows.
- The chair’s height is high enough that the employee’s knees are at the same height of the hips.
- The chair’s backrest curves to support the employee’s spine.
- The arm rests are high enough that the employee’s shoulders aren’t too low or too high, but resting comfortably.
- There is ample space underneath the desk for the employee’s legs to move around freely.
- All items on the desk are within reach. If an item is not, the employee must stand up and reach for it. Minimise lunging forward while seated to reach for an object.
- If there is a need to talk to a client, the employee must use a headset or put the phone on speaker instead of cradling the phone on the neck.
These are the steps to take to make your employees’ workstations more ergonomic. Implement these in your office, and you will notice eventually that your employees will complain less about stiff necks, bad backs, pain in the legs, and splitting headaches.
Encourage exercising in the office
You can also encourage your employees to exercise their hearts and legs more often in the office by making some adjustments to the design of the space. For one, you can make them use the stairs more frequently by making them more beautiful.
Granted, people hate using the stairs because it is exhausting and the elevator is much more convenient. But if you design your staircase to look prettier, you might be able to convince your employees to use it more often.
Or, you can ask your building contractor or architect to come up with a way to make the elevators less accessible. You can probably ask your architect to create a pathway that will make it harder for your employees to reach the elevator but not the stairs.
This way, you can push your employees to use the stairs more frequently. And if that is not enough, why don’t you post signs in your office informing your employees that climbing the stairs regularly is a sure way of losing those unwanted pounds?
Your employees are your greatest assets, so it is only important that you invest in their health and well-being. The healthier they are, the more productive they can be. And that will definitely lead to great things to your company.
