Ergonomic Desk Chairs Pay Off
Profits Can Rise When Workers Sit in Adjustable Desk and Task Chairs
Aug 5, 2008
A recent study of 200 tax collection personnel, by a group of researchers coordinated by the consulting company Health and Work Outcomes, Brunswick, ME, showed productivity can increase by as much as nearly 18% when office workers are provided with adjustable ergonomic chairs and training in how to use them.
“This study was designed to assess how well a highly-adjustable chair and office ergonomics training could affect ergonomic knowledge, postural behavior, health and productivity,” said Ben Amick, Ph.D., University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston, one of the lead researchers.
Health and Productivity Measurements
To measure health benefits, the researchers collected information from the participants before and during the year-long study. Participants filled in questionnaires to rate pain and discomfort.
Researchers measured productivity by the tax revenues collected per employee before and during the research period.
The workers were divided into three groups:
- People in one group were provided with the Leap adjustable ergonomic chairs manufactured by Steelcase, and were given 90 minutes of training in ergonomics and how to adjust their chairs;
- People in a second group were given 90 minutes of training in ergonomics and how to adjust their chairs, but they continued to sit in the chairs they had been using prior to the research;
- The third group was the control group that received neither new chairs nor the training.
Health Benefit
The workers who received both the new chairs and the training reported lower pain, discomfort and symptoms of musculoskeletal problems (e.g., strained muscles or lower-back pain) than the other two groups. At the end of the working day, the control group people reported the highest level of discomfort, and the group who received training the second highest level. The people in the new chairs said their level of discomfort was only slightly more than at the beginning of each day.
Output per Employee
The productivity benefit of the new chairs and training was easy to see. The people who had the new chairs and training increased the taxes they collected by an average of $6250 per employee per month in the 12 months of the study. This was a 17.8% increase in productivity.
“The productivity benefits shown . . . were quite large compared with the program’s costs. In contrast, the training-only group did not show any statistically significant changes in productivity,” said productivity researcher Kelly DeRango, Ph.D., of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
Because of the increase in productivity, the new, ergonomic chairs paid for themselves in less than ten working days.
Worker Satisfaction
In another study, the Steelcase Workplace Index Survey of office employees in organizations across North America, 79% of respondents said they believed physical comfort had a serious influence on worker satisfaction. However, more than half of them said their employers had only little information on the level of satisfaction employees had with their physical work environment.
These employers might be gambling that their employees will not seek other jobs, or they might regard their workers as expendable since there are always others in the job market.
Bottom Line Benefits
Potential benefits the study did not quantify were lower rates of absenteeism through aches and pains and musculoskeletal disorders caused or aggravated by non-ergonomic seating. Added to this could be lower costs of pain killers, other medications and treatments for strained muscles or lower back pain charged to the employee health benefits plans.
The bottom line is that although ergonomic chairs and the time taken to train people how to use them have a cost, the results can be an increase in productivity that yields an early return.
See also: Ergonomic Seating Cost Benefit
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