Employers in Canada and US please be aware!
Strong marketing programs on the part of furniture manufacturers and the media’s penchant for looking for the panacea related to sitting at work are resulting in employees demanding, yes demanding, sit to stand workstations!
Wellbeing in the Workplace is in large part about well designed and maintained facilities.
At OPC we want our clients and employers to expect an influx of employees asking for sit to stand workstations and going as far as having their Physiotherapist or MD write a note to this effect. In some cases which we have seen already with some clients, the employee complains they did not like their Ergonomist and their recommendations and request a second assessment.
In order to be proactive with our clients we will continue to ensure we only recommend sit to stand workstations where the ergonomic, medical and JDA indicators prove this is required. Remember at OPC Inc we DO NOT Represent any lines of furniture or seating or equipment. This leaves us free to recommend solutions which are best for the employee and client!
OPC Inc will stay the course with our evidence based and written standards based approach.
We advise our clients however that they need to meet with us to develop Internal Ergonomic Standards documents + Written Communiques (including how they will handle doctors notes and PT notes). Contact us at Info@optimalperformance.ca to arrange a meeting with one of our experts regarding the development of the Standards and the Communiques.
If employers do not do this they are going to find themselves vulnerable to employees making complaints to the WCB/WSIB and/or Ministry of Labour, Internal Ombudsman in the case of financial institutions, and even Human Rights complaints or AODA & ADA based complaints.
It used to be that office environments were pretty straight forward regarding ergonomic analysis and recommendations. Now that employees are more informed about the Ergonomic Standards in place for each province and thru OSHA and NIOSH in the US, coupled with the media and furniture manufacturers marketing efforts, we predict this is going to be a large issue for HR, Facility Managers, I Designers and Operations.
We can help prevent this trend in your workplace. Contact Carla or Jamila at 1 888 768-2106 or Info@optimalperformance.ca
