Office ergonomics advice

Many organisations start the (re)fitting of their office or business premises full of enthusiasm. In office layout, choices are made about colours, materials, furniture and floor plan, often together with project fitters or architects. Yet in practice we see that, despite good intentions, the wrong choices are regularly made.

A few examples: office chairs turn out to be insufficiently adjustable, desks do not suit the work processes, or monitor arms and laptop stands go unused because they are not practical or ergonomically usable. This increases the risk of physical complaints, reduced productivity and unnecessary costs for adjustments afterwards.

Ergonomics – also called the human factor – goes further than merely meeting minimum health and safety requirements. It is about creating a working environment in which people can function optimally, with as little physical workload as possible and as much comfort and ease of use as possible. An independent ergonomist answers the following questions:

• What are the health and safety guidelines for the number of square metres per workstation?
• What requirements must the furniture meet?
• Where do I find the right furniture?
• What are the ergonomic guidelines for a good workstation set-up?
• What must the lighting and indoor climate comply with?
• How do I make sure all ergonomic aspects of the layout are included in the process?

With expert, independent advice and guidance you can be sure you make the right choices when fitting out your office.

In a refit, the choices are usually made by purchasing, facilities and the project fitter. The people who will be sitting on it for eight hours a day are only brought in once everything has been delivered. Then it turns out the office chair has too few adjustment options, the armrests are too wide apart for anyone slightly built, or the backrest gives no support where it is needed. Sometimes the chair is so complicated that nobody sets it correctly.

With screens it often goes the other way. Monitor arms with eight adjustment options stay in practice exactly as the fitter left them. And desks that can only be height-adjusted with tools do not work at a hot desk where someone different sits every day.

National research confirms this picture. Of employees who do six hours or more of screen work a day, 39 percent say health and safety measures are needed. A quarter consider the measures taken insufficient, and 15 percent say nothing has been done at all. Those figures come from the 2024 Netherlands Working Conditions Survey (NEA) by TNO and CBS.

Even good furniture delivers little if it is positioned wrongly. In a field study among one hundred Dutch office workers, 61 percent had never adjusted their office chair; among 246 Spanish colleagues that was 24 percent. A follow-up study in Applied Ergonomics showed that most users, apart from seat height and armrests, did not know what the controls on their chair were for. Of those who did recognise a control, fewer than half had ever used it.

How extensive a project becomes depends on what is changing. When replacing furniture it is often limited to advice on the type of furniture and guidance of a user test. For a relocation or a complete refit, we go through these six steps.

The regulations on the number of square metres per office workstation have become more flexible.

Today the starting point is no longer a fixed number of square metres, but the sum of the components present at a workstation. A critical assessment of the number of square metres needed can therefore deliver a considerable saving in accommodation costs.

The standard that applies here is NEN 1824. It requires a minimum of 4 m² for a workstation used for more than two hours a day, and then adds what is at that workstation: about 1 m² for desk and screen, 1 m² for reading and writing work and 1 m² for a cabinet. That brings you to about 7 m². The standard does not apply to a hot desk where someone sits for an hour answering email.

An ergonomic assessment of the work establishes how large the worktop needs to be or how many cabinets are needed in a room.

The conclusion is often that considerably less office furniture needs to be purchased than originally estimated.

Paying attention to the ergonomic guidelines for the furniture and its layout and set-up before and during the relocation or refit results in fewer physical and wellbeing complaints among employees in the longer term.

An ergonomically correct workstation set-up combined with ergonomically sound furniture is an important condition for a healthy working climate. When introducing a flexible office environment it is important to increase the functionality of the space and furniture.

Factors such as the use of colour, movement at work, daylight and artificial lighting influence employee wellbeing.

Paying attention to these factors promotes employee wellbeing. And an employee who feels content and comfortable in his or her working environment performs better!

More and more organisations work with hot desks and working-from-home days. This shifts part of the responsibility for healthy working to the employee, and the layout can make that easier or harder.

The figures on sitting are solid. 3.9 million employees, 48 percent, sit for six hours or longer on a working day. Add to that an average of 3.3 hours of sitting in leisure time and over an hour of commuting. Within Europe the Netherlands leads the way: 26 percent of the population over fifteen sits for more than eight and a half hours a day, against 11 percent in the rest of the EU. In 64 percent of European enterprises, prolonged sitting tops the list of health risks.

In a refit you can take that into account. Think of standing spots and meeting spots where nobody needs to sit, and of facilities that get people out of their chairs: a boxing mat or punchbag, active stools, a table tennis table.

“Provide a working environment and work organisation that challenges people to move more. For example, give employees the option to work and hold meetings standing up, let them work on sitting balls instead of chairs, or organise a table tennis competition. It does no harm to make it a bit of fun as well.”

— Richard Sloot, Ergomotion, in de Volkskrant

Such facilities only work if they come with an explanation. A sit-stand table that nobody raises does nothing, and an active stool without instruction stands unused in the corner after a week. So budget for information in the plan and not as an afterthought.