Ergonomics and Work Station Design

As a designer of office work spaces, you have many factors to think about: productivity, work flow, new modes of work, your clients' changing needs, image and aesthetics, standards, costs and much more.

Here's another item to add to your list: ergonomics. A basic understanding of how this science applies to work station design can save your clients huge amounts of money and their employees a great deal of pain and suffering.

Ergonomics is the science of fitting the physical aspects of the work environment to the human body.

That isn't just a matter of making things convenient. It's a vital aspect of workplace health. You may not think of an office as a place where injuries occur: those all happen in areas devoted to manufacturing and warehousing, right? Wrong. Injuries resulting from poor office work station design—or poor use and set-up of its elements—are common and costly.

When the physical environment isn't suited to the physical capacity of the person to perform required tasks, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) can result. MSDs are injuries and disorders of the muscles, nerves, tendons, ligaments, joints, cartilage and spinal discs. Examples of MSDs are carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, sciatica, herniated discs and low-back pain. The effects of these conditions have significant impact on worker productivity and cause financial losses to organizations in terms of lost time, employee efficiency and utilization, and insurance and workman's compensation costs.

On the other hand, a solid understanding of applied ergonomics can eliminate most of these injuries and improve worker morale and productivity.
What Ergonomics Really Means
The term ergonomics is in danger of losing its useful meaning. Many products are promoted as "ergonomic" that have little benefit or are even detrimental to the body. The real science of ergonomics is based on anatomy and the merging of man and machine based on the height and size of the body.

The study of workplace ergonomics needs more emphasis on physiology. Most ergonomists are not adequately trained in this field. Physical therapists probably have better training for evaluating work station ergonomics than many of the people who design them. Too many people are led by the norm.

Moreover, a critical aspect of the problem is that workers need to take responsibility for their own health. They need the training and advice to understand what constitutes the right workstation set-up and the motivation to carry it out. My organization, Task Group International, wants people trained and self-sufficient, not dependent on anyone else, so they can make their own decisions on posture and setup.

Designers need to understand how and why the body wears out, why certain postures cause changes in the body—for instance, the head constantly looking down. Bad posture causes a phenomenon called bone remodeling, which leads to osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease. Even many ergonomists don't understand how bone remodeling works. Many are working with incorrect roadmaps, although many doctors are now trying to emphasize anatomy and physiology training in the field. This all needs to be applied to work stations.