Office Ergonomics Tip Of The Week

Most of us know that it is impossible to be ergonomically correct if we are not sitting up straight, but did you know that it is equally important to pay attention to the position of your arms?

It is important to mind your upper body and arm position when trying to be ergonomically correct.  Make sure you are sitting properly in your office chair by checking the positioning of your forearms. They should be parallel to the floor when working on your desktop. Your elbows should be close to your sides, not poking out. If you find you are having trouble maintaining this arm position, you may simply need to adjust the height of your office chair. Try to use your conference or telephone headset as much as possible to help maintain your good posture and arm positioning. 

Don’t forget to check back next week for your next office ergonomics tip!

Bi-Monthly Office Book Review

Today’s Bi-Monthly Office Book Review is geared towards home office dwellers. If you do not have any plans to create your own personal office, the Home Office Book, by Donna Paul, may make a nice gift or coffee table book for the home office owner on your list. 

If you are looking for pricey yet practical home office decoration solution, then look no further than The Home Office Book by Donna Paul. While this book lacks in the how-to part of the designing stage, it does offer some great inspiration. The stunning photos, by Grey Crawford will help get your motivational juices flowing and get a great start on the brass tacks like where to put your outlets, to where to put your conference phones. 

If you have an ample home office design budget, than start your planning with this book, only $40.00 for the hardcover. Oh, and afterwards, It will make a nice home office coffee table book!

Office Ergonomics Tip of the Week

This week’s office ergonomics tip is for the home office worker:

Often, working from home means sitting in the same position while performing repetitive tasks, often for hours. As someone who works from home, myself, I know that it is very easy to forgo breaks and take lunch at my desk, if at all. I find that it is a lot easier to skip lunch when working from home because no one is knocking on our office door inviting us out or walking past our cubicle with a freshly popped bag of popcorn.

Obviously, sitting in the same position for an extended period of time, doing the same thing over and over can wreak havoc on the back, neck, legs, and almost any other body part. To solve this problem, try making it a point to go out for lunch every day. Put down the telephone, pack a lunch and take it to the park. Go on a power walk. Eat at your favourite salad bar. The important thing is to stretch out your muscles, get some fresh air, and enjoy a stress-free lunch hour.

When you get back to “the office” you will be glad for the break.

Quality of VoIP Improved By Headsets

Back in the day, when VoIP first came on the scene, were you among the many who were incredibly excited about all the possibilities VoIP entailed. I worked for a company at the time that decided to stay above the curve and equip their entire company with VoIP capability. Well, the results were a little less than stellar. Many employees and clients complained about the quality of their calls, among other things. A lot of resistance, I think, could be written off as technophobes resisting new technology. With that said, I did notice a dip in quality, static, ringing, hollow sounds. It did not bode well for the relationship between my employer and VoIP.

Fortunately, we learned very fast that a lot of the quality issues we were having could be cured with some new equipment – headsets, believe it or not. Once we invested some time and a surprisingly small amount of money into high quality headsets, we found that the quality of our conversations greatly improved. Phew! Disaster avoided.

I found another blogger promoting the same fix in the post, A Good Headset Can Boost VoIP Call Quality

Office Ergonomics Tip of the Week

Office workers today spend a lot of the time talking on the telephone. Over time, this can cause neck, shoulder, general upper back pain, and head aches. If you spend a lot of time talking on the telephone at the office, here are three simple things you can do to avoid headaches, back and neck strain. 

    1.      Keep the phone within easy reaching distance.

    2.      Utilize the speakerphone option.

    3.      Use a telephone headset instead of the handset, preferably wireless.

Most people do not realize just how much of their day revloves around telephone meetings and conversations. Often we leave the office wondering why we are so stressed and our muscles are tense. Incorporating these small ergonomic friendly habits into our daily office routine will likely lead to a notable improvement in our mood, posture, and physical comfort. 

Our Office Ergonomics Tip of the Week was inspired by an article from SafeComputing Tips.com.

Bimonthly Book Review: Mad Libs – Who Moved My Cubicle

This one is completely juvenile but that did not stop me from giving it to my coworker as a holiday present. We had some fun completing the office-centric stories with our equally office-centric jargon. A few other fellow cubicle dwellers got involved and I was reminded of my childhood.

 Inspired by the cubicle version, I stopped off at the local Chapter and picked up a few of the other Mad Libs books for my younger brother’s stocking. As I suspected, he got the quite the kick out of his books. Can you believe, he is 10 years old and this was his first introduction to Mad Libs? I tell you, kids these days are missing out! Oh, and as soon as the family opened the Xbox, with all of the accessories, including awesome gaming headsets, the Mad Libs were cast aside like dirty socks. Sigh. Anyway, Who Moved My Cubicle is available at most bookstores or online for about $4.00.

Office Ergonomics Tip of the Week

An important consideration in office ergonomics is the position of your monitor. To ensure your monitor is at the optimal position, sit up straight and look directly at your monitor. If you find yourself looking up or down to see your computer screen clearly, you either need to move your monitor slightly further away or you need to reposition the height of your monitor. With the size of computers shrinking, many people are now laying their computers flat on their desks and then stacking their monitors on top of their computers. In most cases, this will raise your monitor to a level that is too high. If you find that you are raising your head slightly, suffering from neck strain or pain, consider placing your monitor directly on your desk. Place your computer on one side of your monitor and your office handset on the other side, both easily within reach.