Entries Written By Mark Eltringham
Ergonomics – so easy a child can do it
Language may be constantly evolving but if you want to see how a word can lose its meaning quickly, there’s no better example than watching the way some companies can misappropriate it in a misguided attempt to help them sell their products. For example, the big problem with the way some people talk about the …
in News, Workplace Design
The problem of office distraction and the quest for sanctuary (some of the time)
Ask most office workers what they find most annoying and unproductive about their workplace and they’re most likely by some distance to suggest that it is sound, closely followed by the related issue of visual privacy.. The issue has intensified over the past few years with the proliferation of mobile devices and as the amount …
Working from home means getting your priorities right
It should come as no great surprise to learn that data from Leesman, the world’s leading workplace analyst, found that the chair was seen by remote working employees as the second most important feature in creating a productive home working environment. Cited by 90 percent of people, it was narrowly beaten into second place only …
Getting the right balance – we shape our environment and it shapes us
It is a universal truth to say that humans are the products of their environments. That is why we enjoy such physical, social and cultural diversity. The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once famously wrote ‘I am I plus my surroundings and if I do not preserve the latter, I do not preserve myself’. …
The elements of wellbeing are eternal, wherever we work
Many people appear to have been somewhat taken aback by the success of the large-scale shift to remote working of the past two years, and its impact on our productivity and wellbeing. But they shouldn’t have been.
Not busy-ness as usual: how boredom may be one of the keys to creativity
The modern world seems geared to help us avoid boredom. But there’s a problem. Artists have long recognised that boredom can drive creativity.
in News, Workplace Design
Remote work highlights the value of weak ties
Something we can expect to hear a lot about in the near future is the power of weak ties. It’s a well-established idea in sociology, anthropology, and social network analysis theory. But it’s about to be invigorated as a way of thinking about workplaces and working culture in the wake of two major peer-reviewed studies …
in News, Workplace Design
Getting collaboration just right will be the new focus for both digital and physical work places
We should be careful not to read too much into the results of the ongoing Great Workplace Experiment, if only because it is happening under very peculiar conditions. We’ll only really understand it in retrospect and what we’ll probably conclude is that it taught us things we already knew (more or less) about humans, their …
Knowing when to lie flat in the new era of hybrid working
When people first started working from home in large numbers for the first time in the Spring of 2020, one of the most talked about issues was how the productivity of most stayed the same or improved. This shouldn’t have been that surprising given all that we have learned about remote and flexible working over …
The pivotal role of Sedus in the history of workplace ergonomics and wellbeing
The roots of our 21st Century approach to ergonomics lie in a small town called Waldshut, which sits at the southern tip of the Black Forest, on the North bank of the Rhine where it forms a natural border between Germany and Switzerland. It was here nearly one hundred years ago that Sedus first introduced …
