The Uplifting Guide to Practical Home Office Ergonomics

If you are someone who works from home, home office ergonomics will have a major impact on your life. If you don’t take ergonomics seriously, you will deal with unpleasant health issues in the near future. Ergonomics may seem like an overused buzzword, or a problem only manual laborers must worry about. However, it’s something we all need to learn about, especially if you are working remotely in a home office.

The Global Shift to Remote Work

The Covid-19 Pandemic has permanently shifted the way people work. In March of 2020 the world went into lockdown, and the sectors that could adapt quickly did so. With the advent of great workplace communication technologies like Slack, Zoom, and Google meet, tech-enabled companies were able to go fully remote without skipping a beat. People began to immediately reap the benefits of flexible work from home policies. No more sitting in stand-still traffic, paying for parking, and less money spent on gas.

Flexibility and autonomy – the remote work life

Work from home has allowed people to focus on what is really important. We can prioritize getting work done and spending time with loved ones, not wasting time in traffic. According to a study conducted by Stanford on 16,000 workers, working from home can increase productivity by 13%. Management teams at remote enabled companies have had to shift their focus to output oriented goals. To hold employees accountable, managers have to measure what really matters, accomplishing goals. This is a change from the past, where being in an office to prove you are working was the norm.

The shift towards remote work has drastically changed the labor market. We think it’s for the better. There used to be major geographic barriers to working for your dream company. If you wanted to work for a FAANG company, or a hot tech startup, you needed to live in California. You can now live anywhere, and work for many of these companies.

People can live in areas with lower costs of living while raking in huge coastal salaries. Around 62% of employees aged 22 to 65 say they work remotely at least part time. The pandemic has caused pain and misery for so many people. However it has democratized the workplace environment for millions of working employees. Workers in WFH enabled industries are no longer beholden to a company or a geographical location. We can now find a city to live in that we truly love and can afford. People can also travel to unique destinations and work remotely, if wifi is available.

WFH is amazing! But what are the potential downsides?

There are many benefits in the shift to remote work, but what are the negative aspects of working from home? The world has made this shift rapidly without thinking through the potential downsides. Working from home can have a severe negative impact on both your physical and mental health if you don’t think about ergonomics, posture, and home office design. We all need to be learning about remote work best practices. This will help prevent injuries, aches, pain, and mental health problems associated with remote work.

What is Ergonomics?

Ergonomics is the study of the interaction between people and the tools they use, and how employees and their tools interact.

Why is Home Office Ergonomics Important?

Improper ergonomics can cause the employee both short and long-term pain to their body. People can become seriously injured if they are using bad ergonomic practices, and it continues over long periods. It is crucial for employers to educate employees on proper ergonomics. Also, it is essential employees have access to proper equipment. Companies should invest in good workplace equipment to make sure employees can stay healthy. If it a remote first company, giving stipends for ergonomic equipment is a great potential benefit!

In physical industries, companies spend countless hours and money training employees on best practices to stay safe while working. They also invest in equipment and tools that can reduce the chances of workplace injuries. This seems logical for industries where workers are surrounded by dangerous machines while using their body all day long.

Remote workers also need to prioritize their physical and mental health. Your back and neck will thank you 20 years from now if you take this seriously. If you don’t take ergonomics seriously, the future bodily pain could be terrible! Even though the risk of injury is lower, we need to learn proper posture and invest in good equipment. The right chair and desk is an amazing investment for remote workers.

OSHA says…

Improper office ergonomics can lead to prolonged neck pain, back pain, and many other musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). OSHA has cited that MSDs have direct costs of $20 billion per year, with total annual costs reaching $54 billion. Some of the common injuries related to office ergonomics are, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Sprains, Strains, Hernias, and many more. MSDs are the second most common cause of disability in a work setting. These MSDs are responsible for up to 50% of the costs of all work-related diseases. Also, 50% of prolonged absences from work are caused by MSDs.

What are Some Home Office Ergonomic Products?

There are many potential negative impacts bad ergonomics can have on remote employees. Therefore, people who work from home should learn as much as they can about proper ergonomics. We all need to learn the proper ways to sit in a chair, proper posture will reduce back pain. The proper monitor height can reduce eye and neck pain. Standing desks can burn calories and get us up from our chairs. Wrist and elbow position when typing have an impact on likelihood of developing several MSDs.

Correct posture or better equipment? We need to have both.

It is crucial that people use ergonomic best practices when working in an office environment. However, using proper form and technique will not solve all the potential ergonomic issues associated with remote work. There are many products available that can help remediate the typical risks of working in an office every day.

Essential remote worker wellbeing products are: standing desks, ergonomic office chairs, monitor arms, and office exercise equipment. There are many products that can help accommodate each person’s individual needs, but these are necessary. Each one of these products has many potential positive impacts on office health, safety, and overall wellbeing.

Standing Desks – Home Office Ergonomics Essential Item #1

Standing desks have become ubiquitous in the modern home office, and for good reason. We were not meant to be sitting during all hours of the day. It may seem counterintuitive, but utilizing a standing desk will result in having more energy. Standing desks can lower the risk of heart disease, obesity and neck pain too! Even people who exercise daily can run into problems if they are sitting for too long.

Why you need a standing desk to create your dream remote work setup.

The standing desk is a great idea for both home and company offices. Electric standing desks offer flexibility to move your desk to whatever position you like easily. If you have this, you can set it to a height where your monitor is at the correct viewing angle so you don’t strain your neck. You will also want to set it to a height where your are at a 90 degree angle. A widely accepted study claims that standing while at work will burn 8 more calories on average compared to sitting.

Sitting down all day is bad for you.

Experts are now calling sitting the new smoking. The World Health Organization has identified physical inactivity as the fourth biggest killer on the planet. Long periods of inactivity can increase our risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, and much more.

As soon as you sit, electrical activity in the leg muscles shuts off. Also, calorie burning drops to 1 per minute, and enzymes that break down fat drop 90%. Also, people with sitting jobs have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs.

Many of us intuitively understand that sitting all day isn’t great for you. However, we don’t all understand how severe the long-term effects of constantly sitting are. Having a standing desk isn’t going to replace regular exercise and a healthy diet. Using a standing desk can reduce the risk for many diseases, so it might be a good option for you. The long-term health benefits of a standing desk should be considered by anyone who is working from home. For the employees that still go into the office, does your office have an appropriate selection of standing desks?

Ergonomic Office Chairs – Home Office Ergonomics Essential Item #2

Do you spend multiple hours per day working in an office chair? If yes, you should consider the short and long term benefits of an ergonomic office chair. Finding the right chair is a combination of style, comfort, design, breathability, functionality, and ergonomics. Finding a chair that is excellent in all of these qualities can be difficult and expensive. Learning about the factors that make an office chair ergonomically designed is important for remote workers. If you are buying a chair from an online store, learning about these factors is twice as important! Buying office equipment from e-commerce stores may seem quick, efficient, and painless. However, there are endless office chairs for sale online, and most are not comfortable or affordable. Picking the right office chair is a huge part of proper home office ergonomics.

When you are sitting in an office chair, you should be comfortable.

Nearly 60 million Americans have experienced back pain or discomfort in the recent past. The average American spends over 13 hours per day sitting down. Ergonomic office chairs are designed to help with problems caused by bad posture and form. Many people don’t know how to sit with proper posture in the workplace. Are you sitting with good posture right now? I know I’m not. Even people who are aware of how to sit properly may not do so at all times. We are getting distracted by work or our phones constantly, so it might be hard to always sit properly. The right office chair should take away some of the burden of focusing on posture. A good product can do this by having thoughtful ergonomic and user-friendly design.

What qualities make an office chair ergonomically designed?

What does thoughtful ergonomic design for an office chair look like? It means designing a chair where the natural sitting position is also the correct ergonomic posture. These will have your joint angles in the correct position. There will be an adjustable bar on the back for lumbar support. The chair will also be positioned so that you won’t have to crane your neck.

The best office chairs should put a priority on comfort. The seat cushion and arm rests have constant contact with your body, so they need to be comfy. To make these comfortable, brands need to use high quality materials and ergonomic worker-centered design.

Another underrated aspect of great office chairs is flexibility. Ergonomically designed office chairs should be able to seamlessly adjust seat height that is perfect for the worker. They also need to adjust arm rest height, and be flexible on the back. Any part of the chair that touches a joint on your body should offer some flexibility.

We love everything related to ergonomics at Sayoasis, and we hope to help you make an informed decision when setting up your home office!

We hope you now have a basic understanding of home office ergonomics. It is crucial for all of us to take our home office setup seriously. Investing in proper equipment and training will pay dividends in your future. It will save you a ton of pain and health problems as well!