Monthly Archives: June 2021

Cut Your Anxiety and Be at Your Productive Best Using These Workplace Tips

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It’s normal for any person to experience work stress at some point in time. Whether it’s about meeting deadlines or resolving project issues at critical stage, work related stress can leave you unnerved. Studies show that excess stress can have significant impact on your physical health. Headaches, high blood pressure, trouble sleeping and mood disorders leading to anxiety and depression are just to name some. In such a scenario even the most personalized work-from-home set up including your comfy home office furniture can fail to offer the desired solace.

Ongoing-stress can also take a toll on your professional as well as personal life. Reduced work quality, deteriorating relations at personal and professional level, lack of motivation and concentration, all can throw you off balance. If you are experiencing stress or anxiety at work, do not overlook it. Instead, try to figure out the root cause and adopt effective strategies to weight it down. Easier said than done, right?

Well, here are some tried and true methods that will guide you to relieve stress at work – so you can bounce back.

• De-clutter Your Workspace

Do you have mounds of files and papers strewn around your desk or walls that are too heavily hung with picture and artwork? Well, you really need to rethink about your work space. Clutter has way of diverting attention and causing confusion. The more things you see, the more distracted you can get from work. Going minimal is the key. Take time to de-clutter your office workstation. Identify the items you use routinely and place them within your reach. Rest you can put in a drawer or some other space on your desk. Also, check if your modular office furniture arrangement supports ingress of natural light. With a cleaner and well-organized workspace, you will feel more put together and motivated.

• Create a comfortable workspace

Being locked to the screen for long periods of time, especially when you’re not positioned properly, can be detrimental to your body muscles and joints. Create a healthy work space with right furniture that supports you. Invest in best ergonomic chair to avoid working at uncomfortable position. HNI India offers a wide range of ergonomic chairs that are primed to help you maintain right posture and feel relaxed. You must give it a try! Remember, ergonomic seating is not a luxury but a necessity. Also, staying active is important. Stretch a little before sitting down, go for a mid-task walk, stand every thirty minutes/hour and even consider investing in a movable desk where you can arrange the height to stand or sit.

• Adopt practical approach to fulfill your commitments

It’s good to be career-driven and goal oriented but don’t buckle under the strain of long term commitments. If you are too stressed about future to-do list instead of focusing on present task, you might find yourself stuck. Try to shift your focus to short term task list. If you have a major project to handle, break it into smaller tasks and tackle each, one at a time. Learn to prioritize and delegate responsibility. This will help you stay de-stressed and attain your objectives positively.

• Comparison can hold you back:

It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others, but doing it in a way that makes you feel insecure and stressed out can get you into a vicious trap. There will always be people around you performing better or appear to be more together. Don’t strain yourself trying to keep up with them. You can’t be that person and it’s just fine. Avoid negative comparison to others in the workplace. Instead focus on your strengths, development and performance to secure personal success.

• Add a little privacy to your workday:

Working remotely poses challenge in establishing a personal workspace that fosters productivity, creativity and connection. If you are sharing your office space with your roommate/partner or your children are cause of distraction, then getting that professional feel of office workstation is difficult to achieve. However, you should not let these factors hinder your work. All you need to do is systematize things a bit- align space and time that suits you best. For instance, you can choose to work early morning when there is least distraction or place a sign of I’m busy on the door when attending an important meeting. You may even re-arrange your furniture or order an item that can help create the illusion of separation. Drawing balance is essential; just strive to set those healthy boundaries and reap long term benefits.

In the current times when it’s easy to lose motivation, connection and certainty, discover ways to bring joy and positivity into the working space. The above pointers will help you stay more aware of your requirements, maintain healthy work style and reach your optimum potential.

Is There Such a Thing as an Indian Ergonomic Need?

Who wouldn’t want to work in an office environment or have a home office setup that is designed to keep your posture right and support your musculoskeletal health? An office that is not just well-lit and airy but also offers ergonomic furniture options like height adjustable tables, provides back support pillows for additional comfort, has monitors with anti-glare screens, and of course, provides adjustable chairs. This would surely be nothing short of a bonus, especially for us Indians, considering we spend an average of 9-12 hours a day in the office. With such long working hours and time spent in offices or home offices, what we need to have in place is sound workplace ergonomics.

Workplace ergonomics

Workplace Ergonomics is defined as the design engineering of workplace products such as office chairs and tables that are intuitive and promote healthy postures and easy movement. It is very important to have ergonomic furniture at the workplace where employees are seated for several hours throughout the day. An awkward or uncomfortable seating position can aggravate physiological and mental stress and can negatively impact their performance. 

Simply buying any ergonomic furniture is not enough, you need to be sure that the measurements are according to the native standards. It would be inefficient to use American measurement standards while manufacturing Asian or Indian furniture. This is where anthropometry comes into the picture. Anthropometry is defined as the science of measurement and the art of application that establishes the physical geometry, mass properties, and strength capabilities of the human body. In simple meaning, Anthropometry can be defined as the study which deals with body dimensions i.e. body size, shape, strength, and working capacity for design purposes. The Indian population has its own anthropomorphic needs, something that has often been ignored. They should be considered while choosing furniture solutions for Indian workplaces. 

Ergonomic design considerations & the variation of anthropometrics according to demographics

Anthropometric dimensions for each population are ranked by size and described as percentiles. It is common practice to design for the 5th percentile (5th%) female to the 95th percentile (95th%) male. The 5th% female value for a particular dimension (e.g. sitting height) usually represents the smallest measurement for design in a population. Conversely, a 95th% male value may represent the largest dimension for which one is designing. Data in anthropometric databases may represent static dimensions, such as “lower leg length” or functional dimensions such as “reach.” Anthropometric datasets compare people of different ages and occupations. The ideal measurements also vary depending on the geographical location. Asian ergonomics will be different from say American or European ones since the body types are different. Likewise, even under Asians, the Indian ergonomics will be a little different. 

For instance, the optimum Seat height, which is the length between the seat and floor (or footplate), has to be precisely measured from behind the person’s knee to the sole of their foot while seated. It is different for Indian, Asian and American standards. Let us understand few of the parameters better with the help of images comparing American, Indian and Asian measurement standards.

 

 

At HNI India, we focus more on the Indian ergonomic needs as it is an area that has long been neglected by office furniture manufacturers. We have been working at the intersection of the social behavior of people, technology, and the impact of space on their behavior. This human-centered design ideology has been influencing our thinking and our understanding of workplace needs for the past several years. 

If you are looking to buy ergonomic chairs or desks for your office space and want to consult the global ergonomics experts - HNI is here to help! Visit our website and contact us, today!