Topic: Workplace Page 14

The truth is, sitting isn’t killing us. But as this paper will demonstrate, sitting in poor postures for long periods with little movement and few breaks for standing or walking can impact our health and reduce our productivity.

Culture, the reigning champ of hip offices everywhere, promises to fuel employee positivity, productivity and loyalty in small businesses—but do we have proof it actually delivers results? We do now.

Leaders worry about how well their organizations are positioned for the new economy, the mobility of work, dramatic changes in technology and recovery from a global recession that sent everyone reeling. Steelcase faced this challenge by using space to help drive culture change in the organization and better align people, culture and work processes for a fast-changing business world. Read more about our journey to a new culture…

Cool cafés are popping up in corporate environments everywhere. But any office can mimic the cool factor of a coffee shop with Wi-Fi and an espresso machine. Creating a great corporate third place that gives people what they need to do real work requires a lot more.

In today’s economic landscape organizations can’t allow distance to be a barrier to effective teams. As distributed teams become pervasive, the challenges they face become more evident.

Over 600 students submitted design solutions. After initial judging by the students’ faculty members, each school’s top two entries moved on to an evaluation by an independent panel of professional judges.

In offices, irritating noise can come from all kinds of sources: air conditioning, obnoxious ringtones, traffic, nearby construction, unsophisticated sound-masking systems and—especially—from other people’s voices.

A 2014 Steelcase-commissioned survey in 14 countries around the world confirms that people who are the most satisfied with their work environment are also the most engaged. These employees are not looking for the paradigms of the past.

Because of this perception, many introverts go through their day trying to overcome their natural tendencies and to exhibit more extroverted types of behaviors that seem to be critical to success.

In a year-long study people who received the Leap chair and office ergonomics training achieved up to a 17.8% increase in productivity.

Whenever work changes in a fundamental way, it’s important to reexamine the ergonomic support that’s needed. New work trends—especially the introduction of tablets, smart phones and other touch-based technologies—present a new set of challenges for worker health and wellbeing.

As technologies and trends transform work processes, understanding the impact on postures is crucial for helping people work safely, comfortably and productively.