The office equipment you use, and how you use it, as well as where your office is located, has an impact on your health, well-being, productivity, and, ultimately, your use of time. Healthy workers are more efficient workers. When the physical requirements of a job don’t match the physical capacity of the workers, musculoskeletal disorders can result. Ergonomics is the science of fitting the job to the worker.

The Ergonomics of It All

An ergonomic office is essential to helping prevent injuries due to cumulative trauma from repetitive tasks, such as typing. If you work in a progressive organization that is interested in promoting wellness, see if you can have your seat, desk, and computer monitor aligned so that they are at the proper height and the correct settings for you.

If you’re having back problems because of the chair you are sitting in, your wrists are hurting, or something else is askew, you are certainly not going to be at your best. You won’t be as productive as you could be. You may end up taking sick days that you otherwise could have avoided. Not getting a good night’s sleep every night compounds the problem.

The costs of cumulative trauma injuries can be considerable. Avoidable afflictions such as carpal tunnel syndrome and back strain cut into workers’ productivity, sometimes forcing employees to miss work or even change careers altogether. Experts estimate that the hidden costs (lost productivity, absenteeism, turnover) of cumulative trauma injuries are 2 to 7 times greater than the visible costs.

Pre-empt the Pain

Before you or your staff experience sore forearms, aching wrists, or lower back pain, invest in making your office ergonomic. The fact that you are willing to invest in their well-being can also help build loyalty, boost morale, and improve retention. If that’s not incentive enough, consider these statistics from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration:

• Work-related musculoskeletal disorders account for 34% of all workday illnesses and injuries.
• 1,800,000 workers experience repetitive stress injuries each year.
• Workman’s compensation claims due to physical stress have tripled since 1980. Sixty percent are estimated to relate to poor ergonomic conditions.
• About half of every dollar spent on medical costs will be for treating cumulative trauma disorders.
• Indirect costs (overtime, replacement, attorney fees) from work-related musculoskeletal disorders to U.S. businesses may run as high as $45 billion per year.

A study sponsored by State Farm Insurance indicated that clerical workers’ performance improved as much as 15% with ergonomically acceptable workstations and seating. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed standards to force employers to make their offices ergonomic, but it was tabled in early 2001.

Buying ergonomic furniture or other equipment and hiring consultants to teach your workers how to protect themselves against injuries can be expensive. However, the costs incurred by not making those investments are much higher.

Becoming “EC”

Fortunately, there are a wide variety of resources to which you can turn to ensure that where you work and the way you work are “EC”– ergonomically correct. Listed below are a variety of Web sites that offer useful information.

www.virtualpsych.com	Advice for emotional coping and wellness
www.americanheart.org	American Heart Association site
www.amtamassage.org	American Massage Therapy Association
www.apa.org	American Psychological Association site
www.acsm-iawhp.org	Association for Worksite Health Promotion
www.ayurveda.com	Aurvedic Institute site
www.jazzercise.com	Dance exercise site
www.cdc.gov	Center for Disease Control
www.tifaq.org/ergonomics/office.html	CTD Resource Network
www.ergonomicsmadeeasy.com	Ergonomics Made Easy
www.ergoweb.com	ErgoWeb, Inc.
www.office-ergo.com	F-One Ergonomics
www.oldwayspt.org	Food and diet research site
www.mayohealth.org	Mayo Clinic diet and food site
www.ncbtmb.org	National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage
www.cdc.gov/niosh/ergopage.html	NIOSH
www.officeworld.com	Office World
www.sleepnet.com/depriv.htm	sleep deprivation links
www.workspaces.com	Work spaces

Massage and Bodywork sites
www.naturopathic.org
www.polaritytherapy.org
www.yogaclass.com

If you suspect that your office ergonomics are lacking, here are five steps to improve them:

1. Set up computer stations properly. Desks are made for writing, not for computing. The standard desk height is 30 inches; consultants recommend 27- or 28-inch work stations for people who spend at least half their work time at a computer. The wrong keyboard height can lead to wrist, back, neck, and shoulder strain. Monitors should be set up so that the top line of type is between eye level and 15 degrees below eye level. Proper positioning can prevent neck and back problems.

2. Buy adjustable chairs. Make sure your chairs have adjustable heights, rotating five-wheel bases, tilting seats, and adjustable back rests. Staff should familiarize themselves with their chairs’ features so they can position them for maximum comfort. Knees, hips, and elbows should be kept at right angles when sitting. If staff members share workstations or are frequently moving to different desks, encourage them to always adjust the height and backrest of whatever chair they are using that day.

3. Keep muscles loose by providing support and adjusting position. Proper support for sensitive body parts encourages blood flow, which carries oxygen to muscles and carts away waste. Consider buying forearm rests and wrist cushions to use while typing or footrests for employees whose feet do?t rest squarely on the floor. Tell all staff members to adjust their positions repeatedly throughout the day so they don’t continually fight gravity with the same muscles.

4. Set up desks so that workers can avoid repeating difficult tasks. For example, a worker shouldn’t have to make an awkward reach for a frequently used folder.

5. If someone experiences physical discomfort at work, act at once. Even a small delay can turn a small problem into a major one. Do?t hesitate to call a consultant if one is needed. A single appointment could prevent a serious injury.

Setting Up Your Home Office

Just as ergonomic alignment of your office furniture and equipment can keep you healthy and more efficient, the layout of your office (and, if you’re working from home, location within your home) can make a significant difference in your effectiveness, your marketing, and how other perceive you.

As you undoubtedly know, affordable computer technology enables more people to flourish in a home-based office environment. If you’re already operating a home-based office or business, you’ve probably discovered many benefits of working from home.

These benefits include:

• No additional rent or lease expense.
• Reduced wardrobe expense.
• No warming up the car.
• No time lost commuting, and no commuting stress.
• No auto mishaps, fewer car repairs, lower fuel expense, and longer car life.
• No need for extra keys, security cards, parking passes, or lock combinations.
• Moderate expenses for extra phone lines; moderate increases in utility costs.
• Enhanced ability to make and receive after-hours work calls.
• Use of other equipment at will; more flexible hours in general.
• Enhanced ability to relax, rest, or nap at will.
• Enhanced potential to eat more nutritious, well-balanced meals.

Working from your home office, particularly if you hold another job outside the home, helps define and separate your two jobs. Lengthened workdays with less fatigue become possible because you control many of the environmental factors.

The disadvantages of working at home, in many cases, stem from not having the discipline to capitalize on the advantages. For example:

• Making and answering phone calls at odd hours may become the norm rather than the exception. Many of these calls may prove to be disruptive.
• Napping, snacking, and home distractions may cut into vital working time. The capability to snack whenever you choose often leads to an increased belt size.
• The stress and tension of working in a traditional office may be supplanted by a different kind of stress, that is, attempting to do too much, being unfocused, or, ironically, becoming too successful as a home-based marketer.

Working from a home office can disrupt home life, and small children can distract a parent from his or her business activities. What’s more, the typical home office is often crammed into less space than it would be in a commercial building or elsewhere outside the home.

If there’s a pattern to successful time management in a home-based office, achieving it likely entails much of the following. The entrepreneurs:

• are persistent.
• base their decisions on factual information as often as possible.
• make continual, total commitments to the needs of the business.
• quickly identify their immediate supporting environment–suppliers, customers, employers, friends, and relatives.

Despite everything that’s going on around you, when you’re working, your home-based office should become the center of your universe. How you feel about working in your home office actually is more important than where it is located within your home.

Your office needs to be comfortable and accessible for you. It has to be designed to support you, and if you choose to greet co-workers, clients, or customers at home, it needs to favorably influence them.

Variety Rules

Regardless of whether you live in a detached single-family home, a high-rise condominium, a garden apartment, or any other structure, the office layouts that you can devise to support your efforts vary widely.

Den Office
The den office (or an office set up in a spare bedroom) is the most popular among home-based workers and provides the greatest number of advantages. If you have a den or spare-bedroom office or a detached office, you are apt to enjoy more benefits than with an office in another part of your home, such as the attic, basement, or dining room. Heating, cooling, and ventilation are likely more easily controlled from the den-type office.

Close proximity to the front door is useful when greeting visitors and making your own quick exits. Close proximity to the bathroom cuts down on time away from your desk and opportunities to be distracted as you walk through the house.

A den or spare-bedroom office in a home with a spouse or children (or roommates) may not give you the privacy and silence you need to do your best work. If this is the case, many options exist to soundproof and cordon off your office space. Room dividers and sound barriers are available in a variety of shapes and sizes. Placed in front of your desk or outside the door to your office, they can improve any existing sound barriers.

Various white-noise and sound-dampening gadgets are available today through direct mail catalogs and at popular electronics stores. They mask the sounds behind them (such as noisy kids) and quickly pay for themselves.

Detached or Semi-Detached Office The detached or semi-detached office is often mandatory, particularly if you are a lawyer, doctor, or dentist. A semi-detached office is a completely finished room, or set of rooms, adjacent to, or part of, your home’s overall structure that is otherwise not a part of your home. Ideally, you would have both an entrance for clients and a passageway to the rest of your home.

The detached office offers privacy, can be decorated and furnished in complete contrast to your home, and provides most of the advantages of a commercial office.

Attic Office
Depending on the specifics of your location, there are some distinct advantages to maintaining an attic office: Advantages

• If space is sufficient, you will be able to lay out several projects at once.
• You can set up substations for specific tasks (helpful when using part-time staff).
• It may offer excellent privacy and desirable isolation.
• Your view from on high may foster creative thinking.

Disadvantages

• You tend to hear and be aware of all changes that take place under you (i.e., someone coming in the front door).
• Lack of proximity to the entrance and the aforementioned stops can be annoying.
• The office may not be suitable for meeting clients.
• Rain, branches striking your roof, and a whole new cast of disturbances may arise.
• Heating and air conditioning may pose special problems.

Basement Office
The advantages of maintaining a basement office in terms of supporting your efforts include:

• If space is sufficient, you will have the ability to lay out several projects at once.
• You can create substations for specific tasks, helpful if using part-time staff.
• It can offer the right amount of privacy and isolation.

The disadvantages include:

• Basements tend to be cold.
• You tend to hear and be aware of all changes that take place above you (i.e., someone coming in the front door).
• Lack of proximity to the entrance way, bathroom, and other areas can be an irritant.
• The office may not be suitable for meeting clients.

Dining Room Table Office
The dining-room table, another table, or a corner of your home can effectively support you in your home-office efforts under the following conditions:

• You’re a sales representative for a company with headquarters elsewhere.
• You’re a part-time entrepreneur, or the revenue you derive from your home-office venture is not crucial to your income.
• Your venture doesn’t require a lot of paperwork, notes, files, materials, etc.
• You have a few key accounts, and the work you do for them can be performed in a small area.
• You derive most or all of your income from online connections.
• You are an extremely organized person and have supporting resources.
• You live alone or have a very understanding spouse.

Here is a quick summary of the advantages of the dining-room-table home office:

• It’s a reasonable option if no other space is available.
• Work materials can quickly be assembled and disassembled.
• It usually provides sufficient table space to spread out work-related materials.
• Lighting is usually excellent.
• It provides a chance to be near other members of the family, if that is an objective.
• Assembling and disassembling work materials, if handled correctly, can actually promote orderliness and efficiency.
• It’s close to all household amenities.

The disadvantages are:

• It quickly and frequently leads to clutter.
• Generally, it is not conducive to sustained growth or expansion.
• It can be disruptive to home life.
• You become subject to distractions and lack of privacy.
• Files and paperwork can be lost or stained.

Home Offices Require Quiet

Many first-time home-based workers are in for a huge surprise — disturbances in and around the home can be as disconcerting as a traditional office! Michael Korda, the famed publisher at Simon and Schuster and successful author, set up an office in his country home in an attempt to get more work done, avoid the commute, and have a life. In his book Country Matters, he discusses how invariably someone would drop by in the morning, there would be an unexpected phone call, an important fax would come through, and then some other matter in the household needed tending. Before he knew it, half the morning would be consumed.

Korda learned, as do all successful home-based workers, that you need to establish physical, psychological, and auditory boundaries. For example, what are the hours in which you don’t wish to be disturbed? Perhaps you need to post them. Establish your routine so that you work the same hours every day and everyone in your household knows it. Noise is another matter.

In my own home-based office, I maintained a policy for many years of “Nobody enter; I will be coming out on occasion and at that time you may hit me with whatever matters I need to know.”

Your Secret Hideaway

If you have enough space, set up two work centers. (I know this could lead to more expense and shuffling items back and forth, but read on!) Alternatively, find a park bench, or far library table where you can work undisturbed. I find it highly advantageous to have an administrative office where I answer the phone, read email, work with part-time staff, receive mail, and so on.

When I need to have utter quiet for writing, composing an outline for a new speech, or simply engaging in creative thought, I have a different setting where I go. In my quiet domain, there are no phones, fax machines, or emails to disturb me. Talk about managing your time to the max and achieving your greatest productivity!

I greatly look forward to retreating to my sanctuary (in my case, a rented space) and feel that I can’t spend enough time there in the course of a week. Fortunately, I do manage to get in several hours every couple of days. Often, those hours tend to be the most rewarding from time and productivity standpoints, as well as offering a deep sense of satisfaction.

To Summarize:

• When the physical requirements of a job don’t match the physical capacity of the workers, musculoskeletal disorders and pain can result.


• Workman’s compensation claims due to physical stress have tripled since 1980, the year computers starting becoming popular. Most of the claims were related to poor ergonomic conditions. Ensure that your desk, furniture, and equipment are properly aligned.


• Adjust your working positions repeatedly throughout the day so you don’t continually fight gravity with the same muscles.


• Home-based workers need a comfortable and accessible work space designed to support them and, if applicable, to favorably influence any co-workers, clients, or customers at home.


• Disturbances in and around the home can be as disconcerting as a traditional office! Establish barriers and boundaries so you can remain productive.