Are You Living an Ergonomic Lifestyle?

Most people never thought in 2020 their kitchen table or tiny desk in the bedroom would be their home office for the next several years! They began to miss the comforts of the office, their good ergonomic chair, the sit-to-stand desk, and good internet speed! They yearn for an ergonomic lifestyle!

An ergonomic lifestyle is one where you are happy, safe, and comfortable wherever and whenever you work because you have the right equipment that fits and supports you. Your work is human centered or U-centric!

Now that the pandemic is in our rear-view mirror, many employers have committed to fully remote, or hybrid work schedules. This has led to rapid innovation and change in how we work, communicate, and learn.

It has thrust e-Learning into the forefront as a practical and inexpensive way to train employees. There are so many practical reasons to implement online learning ergonomics if you haven't yet.

This especially applies to full-time remote workers. For this reason, e-Learning home-office ergonomics is essential to onboarding remote and hybrid workers and training current workers! 

Working remotely has its pros and cons as we have all learned. There are some really great benefits of work from home, but the downside, can be problematic. One of the limitations is not having the best ergonomic set up at home leading to lost productivity, impaired performance, and injury.

What the Experts Say

The pandemic is unfortunately here to stay for at least two more years says Toolie Garner, a remote leadership expert. Toolie and I spoke recently where she indicated it will literally take the entire world getting vaccinated before the pandemic slows. New variants will continue to emerge and air travel makes it easy for the virus variants to spread globally.

The Era of the Remote Worker 

The era of the remote worker is here to stay. With it comes new responsibilities for all employers who are pivoting to remote work as a corporate strategy. In the last year, many have had to make the change from the office to working from home whether we had a home office or not.

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our working world upside down, changing what we know about how work can be done. Whether you are thinking about how to get by with remote working now or are rethinking how your company will operate going forward, here are five must-haves your company needs to successfully lead a remote workforce.

Your Onboarding Process

Having a consistent onboarding process for new hires can make or break any employment relationship. In today’s new way of working, a personal, and well-designed remote onboarding process for new hires is more important than ever. Recent high growth industries that have taken off during the pandemic, such as grocery stores, manufacturing of pandemic-related products, pharmaceuticals, high-tech, digital platforms, and cloud-based services, and more rely on an effective online, on-boarding process. This is particularly important for employees working remotely at home.

When the pandemic started and we had to shelter in place, I knew it was going to be important for people to have someone to answer questions about working at home with good ergonomics.

From that moment on, the Home Office Ergonomist was born! I'm the Home Office Ergonomist, aka Alison Heller-Ono PT, MSPT, CPE, and much more. 

Studies have shown time and again that good ergonomics in the workplace produces happy, healthy, and productive employees. Many business leaders have thus invested time and money to create an ergonomic office and reap its benefits. But now that the current health crisis has pushed a huge part of the workforce into remote working arrangements, what can managers do to make sure their teams will practice good ergonomics at home? In this post, we’ll take a look at why ergonomics matters and how remote workers can achieve it.

This country has been in a big “reset” lately! Everything has changed. To survive in our new economy, companies have had to become more mindful of the impact COVID-19 has had on their employees and customers. Companies thriving right now demonstrate agility, resilience, and a unifying purpose within their organizations and externally to their community. There is a significant emphasis on holistic wellbeing to include mental, physical, financial, and social wellness.