workplace wellness

Part 2:  The Challenges of Sit-to-Stand Workstations (SSW)

Simply changing a workstation from predominately sitting to the ability to alternate between sitting and standing may not eliminate the root cause of staying in a static position for extended periods of time.  This is especially true if workers shift from prolonged sitting to prolonged standing.  This raises the potential of shifting the same chronic, static experience from one posture (sitting) to another (standing).

Does Discomfort Really Decrease?

More and more companies are focusing on employee health and wellness.  The drivers to do so are many such as:

·        Sitting is the “new smoking”

If you’re like most people, myself included, you probably spend a good portion of your day in a seated position. Avoiding sitting is very difficult these days, as computer work predominates.  In addition, you may spend many hours each week driving to and from work.

The research is growing that suggests sitting for extended periods of time is an independent risk factor for poor health and premature death. Even if you are very fit and exercise regularly, if you uninterruptedly sit for a great percentage of the time, you’re still at an increased risk of dying prematurely.

In this part two of my blog series on obesity and driving.  In Part 1 of this blog series I discussed a study (1) that examined normal weight and obese truck drivers based on BMI.  The study showed that severely obese drivers were 43% to 55% more likely to crash than were drivers with a normal BMI.  This is a striking correlation between weight and driving accidents.  Reading this study caused me to do a little more research on obesity and driving which is how I came across this second study:  Driver obesity and the risk of fatal injury during traffic collisions (2).

Productivity and efficiency—two buzz words that are talked about and heard continually from large to small businesses.  Why?  The productivity and efficiency of people and operations can make or break a business.  Unfortunately we can’t snap our fingers and make high productivity happen all by itself.  However, significant improvements are common when you apply the right principles, guidelines and tools to your business systems and processes.

Although sit-stand workstations have been around for several years their popularity has only recently grown.  This has been primarily due to research on the negative effects of prolonged sitting which has been labeled “Sitting Disease”.   To combat sitting disease in an office/computer work environment employers and employees should modify the work environment and tasks to allow for a reduction in the amount of time spent sitting and increase the amount of time spent standing and/or walking—hence the upsurge in demand for and use of sit-stand computer workstations.

Standing has become the thing (preferred posture) to do at the office these days thanks to all of the attention and hype on “Sitting Disease”.  When working with office-based clients the question that always comes up from the office manager is how they can cost effectively provide standing workstations since the majority of their workers are now requesting standing workstations.  When I teach my office ergonomics class on “How to make your workstati

It is becoming more and more apparent that shift work has a negative effect on workers’ performance, injury level, sleep quality and quantity and overall health.  In recent blogs I’ve shared studies and articles that showed the increased work-related injuries in shift work employees, and the negative effects caused by worker fatigue in general.  Another study, Job Stress and Work Schedules in Relation to Obesity was recently released in the Journal of Nursing Admi