Ergonomics is the study of people in their working environment. Ergonomics has come to a central stage during the Covid 19 era. Most of us have moved away from working in an office to working in a home environment. This work from home situation is not going to go away soon and many companies and influential businesses are now seriously considering the option of introducing remote working as a way of working. It seems like the worldwide trend of work from home is here to stay for a very long time.
Most of the companies invest a substantial amount of money in setting up an ergonomically viable office. However most of us don’t have an office setup at home. Let’s be honest, many of us started off woking from home sitting at the dining table or in our couch or bed. But this is not a viable option when you are spending nearly eight hours or more for work. It is vital to understand the advantages of proper ergonomics while working from home, some of which are given below:
- Increased productivity due to reduced tension and stressful positioning of the body.
- Financial benefits of less leaves and absenteeism from work.
- Reduced medical bills from injuries related to poor ergonomics.
- Ability to maintain a good posture and thus avoidance of posture related aches and pains.
- Ability to carry out repetitive activities such as typing without getting a repetitive stress injury (RSI) such as Carpal tunnel syndrome or tennis elbow.
- Avoidance of musculoskeletal disorders arising from poor ergonomics, such as neck or back pain, radiating nerve pains, prolapsed intervertebral discs, etc.
Ergonomics can help you by designing or modifying the work to fit you and thus eliminate discomfort and risk of injury due to work. This is true for both reactive and proactive ergonomics. Reactive ergonomics is when something needs to be fixed, and corrective action is taken to do so. Proactive ergonomics is the forecasting and fixing areas that can be improved before they become a problem.
In simple terms, you can either change the devices that you use (changing the height of your chair) or change what you do with the equipment (change the way you use the mouse) or change the environment in which you work without changing the physical equipment that you use (install a blue light shield on your computer monitor to avoid eye strain).
If you need more help with setting up an ergonomic work space or if you are suffering from neck or back pain or any posture related pains join my free community where we discuss these topics in a judgement free and friendly group.
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