Forced to work at home

Nieuws - 26 maart 2020 - Communication

Due to the current Corona crisis, we have all been forced to work from home. But how do you maintain a work-life balance, or a good working posture when encountering bad ergonomics? After all, most of us did not design our home as a more permanent work-space. We asked our own Professor of Environmental Ergonomics, Peter Vink, to provide us all with some handy tips.

“Keep in mind, this has not been tested on a scale as large as we are experiencing right now. But research shows that working at home is beneficial in general. Productivity can be higher, concentration better. You often have more control on your work-life balance.

However, there are also negative aspects. Being forced to remain at home can lead to feelings of isolation. It can make you feel disconnected from the organisation where you work. We know that for many people, one of the factors making you happy is talking to colleagues. Not to mention the often bad ergonomics of working at the kitchen table. And in the news we hear that when the children are at home, you can be disturbed frequently and in sometimes surprising ways. Perhaps the cats also feel like you are intruding on their personal space.

Research does show us some solutions, let me share the three most important ones with you here: 

  1. When working at home, do not only fire off emails and Whatsapp messages, but plan a group video session. Plan meetings via Skype for Business, Zoom or your video-conferencing tool of choice. This enables you to keep in contact with your colleagues and our beautiful university, share what you will do or are doing and help each other when needed.

  2. Vary the work and work station. Don’t sit more than an hour in one posture (many guidelines state 2 hours by the way, so I am exaggerating). Honan (2015) already showed that people vary the use of their device, please keep doing that when working as it results in other postures.

  3. Finally, make sure to move 30 minutes per day, either by walking, bicycling or running. Go alone if possible, avoid crowded places and of course to keep a distance of 1,5 meters to others.

Figure 1. Average number of hours per day the different devices are used Honan (2015).

If you would like to know more about ergonomics, working environment design and comfort, check out a selection of three publications below. Take care of yourself and each other.” Peter Vink

References
Honan M. 2015. Mobile work: Ergonomics in a rapidly changing work environment. Work 52(2):289-301Robertson M, 2015. Expert session on: new ways of work: different perspectives influencing environmental design.

HFES session. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 59th Annual Meeting – 2015 page 378-379.

Vink P, 2016. Het nieuwe kantoorinrichten. Vakmedianet, Alphen aan den Rijn, Nederland.