With jobs being more sedentary now than ever before, are your employees really comfortable?
It’s easy to forget that your employees will spend the majority of their day at their desks and staring at a screen. While many people are used to this now, it’s important to realize that this can have a bad effect on your comfort and long-term health.
As an employer, you’ve got the responsibility to provide a safe and proper workspace for every one of your employees. This includes offering protection from injury, as well as helping to prevent health problems where you can.
This is where the design of your work environment is actually very important. There’s a reason why employers are spending more and more time updating the office with new desks, chairs and computer monitors.
So, you might be thinking, what’s a chair got to do with doing my job properly? Well, you’ll find that it can make all the difference to your employee’s workplace experience.
Office ergonomics actually plays a big role in increasing productivity with your staff. You’d be surprised just how rewarding it can be to invest a little time into the right office furniture, such as chairs and desks.
You may think that your levels of concentration and productivity are all in the mind. But, actually, if you’re physically comfortable, this lets you become more focused and productive too.
Ever noticed that when you slump over your laptop, you get an aching back and neck at the end of the day? This is because your body is uncomfortable in this position and often this will distract you from the work that you’re doing.
With the wrong office furniture, your staff can be more at risk of repetitive strain injury and musculoskeletal injuries. In fact, problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome can leave your employees unable to carry out their work properly.
Millennial workers who are now taking over the workforce appreciate proper office ergonomics more than ever before. It leads to not only increased productivity but also employee satisfaction. Plus, it’s going to reduce your costs later down the line when it comes to injury and employee absence.
Of course, it’s not just the workspace and environment that you’ve got to work on. There’s things that employees can do too to make sure they avoid preventable injuries and pain that’s going to upset their comfort and productivity.
The problem is that most employees don’t know what they can do to making their work experience better. So, this is where online learning comes into play!
Educate Employees with Online Learning
Office ergonomics is not all about investing in new office furniture – it’s also about teaching employees how they can use their office space to their advantage and make their work experience more enjoyable on a day-to-day basis.
With online learning, employees can find out ways that they can prevent injuries that are common in sedentary jobs. When they know how to identify the hazards to their health, they can find ways to avoid them.
In addition, there’s no point in having advanced technology and furniture if your employees don’t know how to use it properly. So, with online learning, your employees can find out what equipment they should be using, how they should use it and ways to arrange their workspace.
Of course, online learning will also reinforce how important office ergonomics are in the workplace and that it should be taken seriously to reduce fatigue, feel less irritable and agitated, as well as become more efficient and perform better at daily tasks.
Online Learning Makes Training Fun Again
Let’s face it, training has become pretty boring and generic in recent years. There’s a lot of focus on training weeks and attending different events that the fun has been sucked out of it. After all, employees want to learn.
This means that training shouldn’t just be something that you’ve got to complete and can’t wait for it to be over. It should be something that everyone looks forward to. We all know that we perform better and retain more information when we do something that we enjoy.
So, that’s where online learning comes into play. Now you can make your training on office ergonomics fun again. There’s hundreds of e-learning courses that are available and they use a variety of media to engage your employees and teach them all about office ergonomics.
From presentations and quizzes to gaming and videos, there’s a way for everyone to learn effectively. What’s also great about online materials is that they can be accessed from anywhere at any time.
This means that you don’t have to set aside time for training that upsets normal running of business – employees can learn in their own time and in an environment that suits them. Whether this is traveling on the bus to work or sitting at home on the couch in the evening.
And don’t worry, you’ll be able to track all of their scores and see who is completing training. This means that you can keep up with who is using office ergonomics to their advantage and who could do with a push in the right direction!
So, is it about time that you invested in office ergonomics? Well, the first place to start is by teaching your employees all about its advantages and things they can do to make sure their working experience is the best it can be.
