ERGONOMICS: Hidden costs of the uncomfortable workplace

by Danny Bradbury

Published: February 2007 by FT.com

Ask outgoing employees why they’re leaving a company and they might be expected to cite better career opportunities elsewhere or perhaps personality clashes with the boss.

But how many are leaving because they do not like the working environment, or are frustrated by unusable technology? And what is that doing to the company’s bottom line?

“We did an independent survey with one firm and found that 80 per cent of the reasons that people gave for leaving that firm, were to do with their core workplace environment’ recalls Nick Cook. Managing director at consultancy Hayward’s. Poor lighting, poor storage, poor desk configuration, and poor worker interaction because of badly designed office space were all factors in their decisions.

"For example, the printers were at one end of the building, so staff had to walk 190ft from the furthest desk to the printer,” he says.

That alone might not be enough to send employees to the recruitment pages, but along with other ergonomic blunders, it might have a negative effect on morale and productivity.

Ergonomics is more than keyboard and monitor positioning. These must not be overlooked, but it goes beyond wrist rests and customised computer mice.

Derived from Greek ergon, ‘work’, the discipline covers a broad array of working practices, ffrom the physical (lighting and heating) to the virtual (what appears on employees’ computer screens) — and many things in between How an office’s technical infrastructure is configured can lead to quantifiable improvements in productivity.

In his book Introduction to Ergonomics, Robert Bridger cites a 1990 study that measured the keystroke rate of data entry clerks working in a poorly lit environment with low reflective walls. Productivity in this environment, with poor light levels (65-250 lux), dropped by 10 per cent in the afternoons After the lighting was improved to an ideal level for an office (450-500 lux), the average number of keystrokes an hour Improved by more than a third.

“When you ask people what the most important thing is to them in the workspace, 36 per cent say that natural light is a major concern,” says Mr Cook. Natural light is tied to building structure, and expertly designed buildings will allow proper light to reach the employees.

Heating and ventilation systems have equally significant effects on staff who spend long periods at computer terminals. Inadequate ventilation can cause carbon dioxide to accumulate in areas of the office — watch for employees yawning.

And the temperature needs to be kept between 18 and 22 degrees centigrade. ‘People use their work rate as a thermo-regulatory control mechanism and they do it unconsciously,’ says Mr Bridger ‘They slow down for every degree the temperature rises above about 22°C.

Allowing an office’s temperature to rise during hot weather to save money on air conditioning might therefore be a false economy, trading electricity costs for worker output.

Air conditioning is not the only way to keep temperatures at optimum levels. Upgrading IT hardware can help too: replacing cathode ray tube monitors with flat-screen LCDs will greatly reduce heat output, while improving user productivity.

Studies led by Professor Alan Hedge of Cornell University in the US suggest that LCD screens need fewer and shorter eye fixations per page when reading text - which means searching a screen for a specific piece of text takes less time than on a CRT screen. This is partly because LCD screens do not flicker and are less tiring on the eyes than CRT screens.

LCD screens can also improve work areas in other ways. Apart from being easier to adjust, they are also thinner, leaving more room for employees to work.

Adjusting office equipment and furniture to suit an employee’s immediate needs has a huge impact on work satisfaction, says Leslie Fountain. senior consultant at ergonomics consultancy System Concepts.

She says: ‘If you buy the same chair for everybody, then if one guy happens to be six foot five and 300 pounds, then that won’t work effectively’.

Systems furniture, which is designed for specific tasks, is a good example. Mr Bridger cites a 1987 study in which workers who were given systems furniture increased productivity by a fifth, compared with a barely noticeable improvement among workers given additional conventional furniture.

Most modem workplaces are predominantly open plan with some shared equipment and communal spaces, which help knowledge and Ideas flow between employees- But how shared spaces and facilities are arranged is vital.

Ms Fountain argues that, for example, putting a noisy photocopier next to an employee who needs to concentrate is asking for trouble. Anything that helps the employ feel in control will increase morale, she says.

Andy Nicholson, managing director of ergonomic consultancy Hu-Tech Ergonomics, agrees. but warns: ‘If you’re going to do that, you have to educate Employees must be empowered first of all to make the changes but must be aware of the implications that those changes will have on them”.

This is where technology can have another impact Roaming telephones can help free staff to collaborate in teams without being tied to The desk, for example. And computerisation of tasks can facilitate hotdesking, flexible working and telecommuting.

But computer-based workflows and the interfaces between them can pose threats. "It’s wrong to think that a company is more advanced simply because it uses more technology" says Don Norman, principal at the Nielsen Norman Group, a US-based consultancy specializing in user-centric design. "It has to use the appropriate mix, and the way you determine that is by analysing the work that must be done, and that’s cognitive ergonomics."

The biggest mistake companies make when trying to improve worker efficiency through technology is putting the technology first and the employees second. Mr Cook has seen workers spend nearly 20 minutes trying to log into a server remotely thanks to poorly configured user interfaces and security mechanisms that fail to take user convenience into account.

And Mr Cook warns against poorly thought-out hotdesking scenarios, for example, in which not enough thought is given to the number of desks needed per user.

If employees end up driving between offices to find places to work, the ergonomics and productivity battles are both lost.

Making sure all software, including off-the shelf applications, is best configured to prevent employees from stumbling into inefficient or unproductive ways of doing things can also save money.

"So often people don’t understand how to make the best use of the software provided. There’s often a gap between what the software is capable of and how people use it," says Nigel Heaton, an ergonomist at risk management consultancy Human Applications. ‘People making inefficient use of software is a hidden cost."

The more latitude companies have in designing or configuring systems, the more opportunities they have of reflecting employees’ unique tasks. But ‘feature creep’ (piling on more features that make software too complex) must be avoided, warns Ms Fountain.

Ultimately, ergonomists have to understand how people do their jobs before they can configure technology and furniture around them.

Get it right and productivity may rise, and staff turnover fall.

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