In an office environment where workers spend hours at their desks, it’s essential to keep ergonomics in mind. When workers are distracted by discomfort, their productivity and work satisfaction suffer.

Follow the 4 Zone Approach to provide for your staff’s wellbeing. This approach addresses common issues relating to comfort, dividing the workstation into optimizable sections. While these are listed separately, each section impacts one another. Implement all four to practice good ergonomics.

Zone 1: Prevent Back Tension

Many factors contribute to spinal posture, including the next few zones we’ll discuss later in the blog. To start correcting posture, back and foot supports are great tools. Back support can alleviate lower back pain while providing an ideal position for the spine. Adding foot support helps employees customize their workspace to the proper height for good posture, raising or lowering their chair to keep their arms in a good position while still supporting their legs and hips.

Fellowes®
Standard Footrest

Fellowes®
Breyta™ Footrest

Fellowes®
Office Suites™ Footrest

Fellowes®
Heat and Soothe Back Support

Fellowes®
Office Suites™ Mesh Back Support

Fellowes®
Professional Series Back Support

Zone 2: Avoid Wrist Pressure

Avoiding wrist pressure is essential to prevent carpal tunnel. Forearms should be kept parallel with the top of the desk, while wrists should rest in a neutral position. Use keyboard wrests and wrist rests to optimize posture. Avoid small keyboard trays, as they restrict movement and can force users into bad postures.

Fellowes®
Memory Foam Keyboard Wrist Rest

Kensington®
ErgoSoft Mouse Wrist Rest

Fellowes®
PlushTouch Mouse Pad with Wrist Rest

Zone 3: Relieve Neck Strain

To ensure comfortable viewing, eyes should be in line with the top of monitor screens. At rest, most people tend to face forward with their eyes slightly down. Positioning the monitor within this viewing angle helps reduce neck strain from looking too far down or too high up. Use monitor arms or risers to place screens correctly.

Fellowes®
Standard Monitor Riser

Fellowes®
Office Suites™ Laptop Riser Plus

Fellowes®
Reflex Dual Monitor Arm

Zone 4: Reduce Inactivity

Remaining stagnant all day is mentally draining, in addition to having negative impacts on health. Adding sit-stand options to the workstation encourages staff to move, providing for a more active and healthy work environment. Be sure to include anti-fatigue mats to reduce any foot pain that main prevent employees from choosing to stand.

Fellowes®
Anti-Fatigue Wellness Mat

Fellowes®
Lotus LT Sit-Stand Workstation

Fellowes®
Lotus DX Sit-Stand Workstation

Show your staff that you have their backs. Implement the solutions addressed in this blog to keep everyone happy and healthy.

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Happy Employees Means Happy Customers

Boosting employee morale and productivity will increase the efficiency of your workforce, improve work-life balance for you and your employees, and help with focus. If you want to see an improvement in your business, start by noticing any signs that employees are unhappy. You can then take steps to address those issues head-on, such as by listening to and receiving suggestions for how they might improve their work-life balance and offering more flexible schedules or hybrid working. Asking for input from your staff is a great way to find out what’s going on and try to fix things before they get worse.

Recognize Performance

Make sure you’re recognizing your employees’ accomplishments. Recognizing performance can lead to improved focus, higher efficiency, and greater employee engagement. Consider these tips for creating a positive work environment where people feel appreciated and motivated:

• Office Awards – give out awards to celebrate anniversaries, recognition of anniversaries, or recognition of success.
• Appreciate Hard Work – thank employees for their hard work with handwritten cards, phone calls, bonuses, gifts, or even by giving them coffee or lunch on the house.
• Recognize Collaboration – get everyone together in one room at least once per week to brainstorm new ideas and come up with solutions to problems.

Listen and Learn

There’s a lot of potential to improve employee morale and productivity by implementing these four suggestions:

1. Ask Questions
2. Listen
3. Implement Suggestions
4. Improve the Work Environment

The first step is learning to listen and the next is learning to ask questions. It’s important for employers to not only listen but also ask questions so they can find out what their employees need from them in order to be more engaged.

Next, it is vital for employers to implement suggestions from their employees and make changes that will improve the work environment, like adding more breaks or providing a healthier workplace.

Finally, encourage your employees to enjoy the balance between work life and personal life; this will help you maintain high levels of employee engagement while improving overall happiness and productivity in the workplace.

Allow for Freedom

Some of the best ways to boost employee morale are to allow for creativity and freedom, encourage nontraditional approaches, promote philanthropy, celebrate employee successes and implement a hybrid work environment.

In an effort to boost morale, some employers have been implementing a hybrid work environment where employees can choose the hours that they want to work in order to accommodate their personal needs. In addition to getting more done in less time than in traditional workplaces, this also helps with improving focus. To improve focus, some employers encourage nontraditional approaches like flexibility and open-space layouts so employees can make better use of their time.

Encourage Boundaries and Work-Life Balance

A healthy work/life balance is important for both employers and employees because when people spend too much time at work or obsess over every minute detail, productivity suffers, and mental health declines. When people feel unappreciated by bosses or when they’re bored from repetitive tasks day after day, it’s easy to get burned out quickly.

Communication is Key

There are many ways to keep employees informed about what is happening in the company. Having an all-hands meeting once a week to check in with each other is vital. This allows you, the boss, to know what is and is not working. Additionally, help your team.

For example, managers should not ask an employee to do something that they, the manager, are not willing to do. Communicate and work in tandem with employees to make sure everyone is following your lead when it comes to how you want the company to operate. After all, you’re the expert.

Communicate openly with your team, respect their time, and allow for feedback from them as well. Respect starts at the top and trickles down to everyone.

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Antimicrobial Fabrics

Antimicrobial fabrics have become the norm and for great reason. Not only is the fabric durable but it creates a defensive barrier between your furniture and bacteria, mildew, mold, viruses and odors. These furniture pieces not only need fewer washes, but don’t suffer from the normal wear and tear of other fabrics due to the coatings designed to stop microbes from attaching themselves to your products in the first place.

Modular Furniture

By using modular, adjustable furniture, you are able to create off-shoot spaces within the workplace. This can not only help with collaboration, but also storage, flexibility, and mobility. You can tailor your furniture to the needs and aesthetics of your brand and business. With modular furniture, you have full creative control over how things look and where they go in the office. Even better, you can move it around! If you need to redesign or move, you can use the same modular pieces to adjust to new designs or spaces.

Flexible Furniture Solutions

Say you have a meeting in your office and have run out of available seating. But you have a rolling file cabinet where you have storage for files, pens, workplace necessities, and more. This cabinet happens to have a cushioned top and has now turned into additional seating, allowing for both comfort and convenience.

Touchdown Spaces

Creating spaces within your workplace that are non-traditional will encourage everyone to work where they work best. Optimal work environments create optimal work output. Having flexible workstations available to your team means that they will spend their time wisely and well, raising the bar on their productivity levels. Touchdown spaces also encourage collaboration and teamwork.

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It can be argued that many of the reasons we act the way we do is because of our sense of smell. This sense can affect almost every aspect of our lives and is a main part of how we experience our lives and determine our preferences. Without scent, we would only be able to taste that ice cream is sweet, not that it’s chocolate, or that pretzels are salty, not that they’re buttery. Our tastebuds tell us the taste and our noses tell us the flavor.

Scent is directly connected to the emotional hardwiring of our brains. Memories are tied to our experience of emotions and our emotional memory is tied to our sense of smell. This is one of the main reasons companies use olfactory branding. If you have a positive interaction with a brand and they have a signature scent, you’re going to have a positive reaction every time you smell that scent, whether you’re conscious of the reaction or not. And everyone wants to be remembered positively.

How Can Scent Improve Your Mood?

Have you ever walked past something – a burger joint, a freshly-mown lawn, a lilac bush – and gotten a great whiff? You know the smells. As soon as you read them, you knew them. Those smells can make you hungry, can remind you of your childhood, or remind you of a particular person. There are a few specific smells that are known to improve a person’s mood just from an aroma.

Lavender

We often use lavender as a calming scent. Perhaps you put it on your wrists before a flight. Or maybe you drink a stress relieving lavender tea after a tough day. However you use it, lavender is great to help relieve stress and improve mood.

Jasmine

Similar to lavender, jasmine can calm someone down. It’s also known for its cheerfulness. This rich, sweet flavor can induce feelings of optimism and strength, allowing you to tackle the day’s tasks.

Rosemary

Did you know that rosemary increases brain function, improves blood circulation, and boosts the immune system? So much good comes from one small herb.

Lemon

Lemon has antiviral properties that help you fight both sickness and sadness. This cheerful, bright scent is a “pick me up” in the day. A small sniff of lemon will wake you up and keep you focused and strong.

Ways to Bring Scent into the Office

Known for their “Smellitizers,” Disney parks have specific smells for a specific areas. This kind of olfactory branding is used to equate a good experience with a good smell. How can you bring this kind of technology into your office? Quite easily. Metered Dispensers will emit a scent according to an internal timer. Every 90 seconds, a small burst of Lavender-Chamomile will waft into the room, improving mood, focus, and output. Or perhaps you prefer Crisp Linen or Sandalwood. Whatever scent you choose, be sure to remember that smell sensitivities and allergies are important to consider.

Ways to Deodorize Your Office

Now, we know not all scents are good. So, we have things that can clean, cover up, or deodorize the air. The scent of something that is freshly cleaned can improve mood, as knowing you’re being kept safe is a great mood enhancer. You can also improve the air quality of your office with an Air Purifier.

Contact your Sundance Office account rep to order today!

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In today’s workplace, touchdown spaces are the new trend. If employees are coming into the office, they expect to get something out of it, so the office must be both comfortable and productive. However, what this means can vary by employee. Some employees may need a space to collaborate with their team, while others may need a calm place to focus solely on their work. Depending on the nature of their work, a lounge could bring comfort to one employee while another may need the privacy that a workstation or cubicle could provide.

What is a Touchdown Space?

A touchdown space can be a private room, lounge space, conference room or collaborative area. The main goal of a this space is that the employee can use it to easily work from their laptop away from an assigned desk. A touchdown space allows employees to quickly respond to emails or make a call in-between meetings or other tasks. With an on-the-go workforce, traditional assigned spaces are being replaced by more touchdown spaces that are activity-oriented and results-driven.  

How To Create Productive Spaces

As an employer, you want your employees to be efficient and perform their best. As you think through your office furniture and space, think of ways to incorporate touchdown spaces into your design:   

Waiting Areas

Waiting typically wastes time, but it doesn’t have to with touchdown spaces. Make it more than just a set of seats by integrating power plugins to recharge devices, as well as tables or desks guests and employees can use to easily work on their computers.   

Dedicated Touchdown Space Outside of Conference Rooms

Waiting for a meeting space also can waste time, especially when meetings go on longer than expected. Give your employees the opportunity to be productive while they wait by outfitting the areas near conference rooms with touchdown spaces. 

Private Rooms or Booths 

Sometimes, employees need more privacy. Consider creating areas for small confidential meetings or personal phone calls. Furniture and chairs that easily fit all shapes and sizes allow for quick use of space without major adjustments. 

Modular and Flexible Furniture  

Flexible options that allow for easy collaboration are key. Furniture that can be easily moved around a space allows colleagues to work together effectively, no matter what tasks they are looking to accomplish. 

Interested in Touchdown Spaces for your Oklahoma office? Contact Sundance at sosupply@sundanceoffice.com or 918-252-4100 and let our team provide a free consultation! 

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