With businesses looking harder than ever at ways to improve efficiency and productivity, staff wellbeing has never been more important — and one of the most effective ways to improve employee wellbeing is to provide a working environment designed around the people who use it. An ergonomic office promotes worker wellbeing and productivity in equal measure.
What is an ergonomic office?
An ergonomic office is about much more than chairs that support your back or desks with adjustable heights. While both of those will help protect employees from back problems by improving posture, true office ergonomics means designing and organising the workplace — and everything in it — so that it suits the people who use it. The emphasis is on human comfort and wellbeing.
It’s also a sound investment. Musculoskeletal problems remain one of the biggest causes of workplace absence in the UK, and investment in employee wellbeing saves lost productive days, improving efficiency and profitability. A comfortable workplace lifts general morale too — people simply do better work in spaces designed around them.
The office chair is where ergonomics begins. Look for adjustable seat height, lumbar support, seat tilt and properly positioned armrests, so each person can set the chair to suit their own body: feet flat on the floor, knees at a right angle, lower back supported and shoulders relaxed. Our ergonomic chairs range covers everything from entry-level operator chairs to fully adjustable posture seating, and you’ll find more guidance in our Ergonomic Centre.
The desk matters just as much as the chair. There should be room for the monitor at arm’s length and eye level, with space for the keyboard, mouse and paperwork without cramping the arms.
Increasingly, businesses are also introducing height adjustable desks — sit-stand desks that let people change position through the day. Alternating between sitting and standing reduces the strain of prolonged static posture, and desk converters make it easy to add sit-stand working to an existing desk without replacing it.
Furniture and equipment aren’t the only considerations when designing an ergonomic office. An integrated approach incorporates ergonomics into all areas of planning.
An ergonomic layout makes the best possible use of the space available, while ensuring workstations, boardrooms, reception areas and storage are all designed with staff wellbeing and productivity in mind. That includes leaving appropriate space for people to move between desks, and sizing meeting tables to seat people comfortably with easy access and egress.
Modern bench desking helps here too: shared frames and built-in cable management keep floors and walkways clear of trailing cables, while making efficient use of open plan space. You’ll find the full choice of layouts in our desking range.
Due consideration should also be given to lighting. Office lighting that isn’t bright enough — or a space with too much glare from natural light — can lead to health issues including blurred vision, headaches and neck pain. Position screens side-on to windows where possible, use blinds to control glare, and make sure every part of the workplace has the right amount of light for the tasks done there.
In addition to chairs, desks and lighting, a range of accessories will help transform your office into a truly ergonomic workspace:
Small additions like these often deliver the quickest wins — an inexpensive footrest or laptop riser can resolve a posture problem that’s been causing discomfort for months.
If you’re reviewing your workplace, start with the areas where people spend the most time: seating first, then desks, then layout, lighting and accessories. Visit our Ergonomic Centre for products and guidance, or get in touch with the LOF Direct team — we’re always happy to help you plan a healthier, more productive office.
We like to work with the best office furniture manufacturers available, so from office seating manufacturers in Northamptonshire to office furniture manufacturers in Lithuania, we have access to them all. This means we can bring the best in office furniture designs direct to you at fantastic prices.
