To control the coronavirus infections, most of the workforce is working from home. Unlike pre-COVID times when you worked only a few hours at home in a week in less than ideal ergonomic conditions, you are now working from home 40 plus hours a week or more on your laptops in temporary workstations and improvised home offices. According to an April survey from the American Chiropractic Association, 92 percent of chiropractors said that patients report more neck pain, back pain, or other musculoskeletal issues since the stay-at-home guidance began.
Hence the need to take proactive steps to design and set up the workspace at home to protect your health. Ergonomics is the study of how humans interact with the physical systems in their environment. Given below are some tips to help you replicate the best ergonomics setup possible, and stay safe and comfortable, even if you’re working from home away from the office.
7 ergonomic tips for ‘work from home’:
1. Designate a separate workspace.
Create a dedicated space for work, preferably only for you so that you can set up your computer equipment correctly and customise it according to your needs, so that you don’t waste time adjusting it when you begin work. Set your table or desk in a quiet and private corner or room of the house. Avoid using the bed or sofa/couch or dining or kitchen table as your work station. A separate workspace will help you make a physical and mental distinction between work and personal time at home.
2. Set your work table.
Your screen needs to be at an arm’s length away. If needed, put your laptop on a stand or a stack of books for the right line of sight: eye level or slightly below. Proper workstation height promotes better wrist alignment and prevents elbow pain. It would be wise to invest in work accessories and additional tech equipment in the long haul. For example, a mouse, that is better for your wrist than a trackpad. If working on sofas or beds is unavoidable in a shared space, then use pillows behind your back or under your thighs and create a tray to put your laptop on.
3. Find the right chair.
Invest in a good office chair with low back support and a seated cushion. If using a kitchen or hard dining chair, insert a firm seat cushion and roll up a tightly folded soft towel or blanket to place behind your low back area. Make sure your feet are not dangling from the chair. Adjust the height of your chair so that your thighs are nearly parallel to the floor and your hips are slightly higher than your knees. This will reduce stress on your lumbar spine. If the chair height cannot be adjusted, place your feet on some boxes or a footstool/pedestal under the desk.
4. Optimise workplace lighting.
Ensure proper lighting, not too bright neither too dull, whether natural or through artificial sources such as lamps. Avoid sitting right next to a window or sit perpendicular to it to reduce glare on your computer screen.
5. Practice proper posture.
When sitting, make sure your back is against your chair, shoulders are relaxed, and your arms and elbows are relaxed at 90-degree angles. Maintaining a good posture for extended periods takes practice. So keep checking your during the day and adjust it if needed.
6. Follow the 20-20-20 rule.
For every 20 minutes of screen time, look away for 20 seconds at anything 20 feet away. This will serve as a rest to your eyes to reduce strain. Set an alarm on your phone for this. You could even keep a potted plant at the designated 20 feet from your workstation for something green and pleasant to look at.
7. Plan your work breaks.
Schedule frequent micro-breaks for snacks, beverages, to refill your water bottle, and for meals, just as you did in the office. It's important to stay well hydrated and nourished. Besides serving as a breather to improve work efficiency, these breaks will serve as an opportunity to stand up, walk around, and let your eyes have a rest from the computer screen. In any case, stretch and move after every half an hour to banish posture fatigue. Moving intermittently throughout the day, outside if possible, or even to a different room, helps to vary your posture to avoid strain.
To serve as reminders to stand up and move from time to time, you can download free break timers such as Break Timer, Micro Breaks, etc. This will also help you to get in as many steps as possible during work hours.
Good habits take practice, whether at home or at the office. Pay attention to any pain, strain, or discomfort which signals how the body is feeling, and accordingly tweak your workstation. Now is the time to develop good 'work from home' habits, so that you can promote work productivity along with a healthy lifestyle.
Meetings are a mainstay of modern workplace communication, and for good reason. Done right, meetings aid collaboration, creativity, innovation, and inclusivity among teams. A study1 by ResearchGate reveals that over 50% of respondents considered their meetings productive and only 15% complained about them being a waste of time.
Yet, many of us hear superiors say, “If you’re invited to a meeting, we expect you to speak up. Don’t wait for someone to ask you.”
So, when you can’t find your voice in a meeting or if you’re getting interrupted too often when you try to speak, here are a few ways to make yourself heard in meetings.
7 Ways to Make Your Voice Heard in Meetings.
1.Do your research beforehand.
Walking into a meeting with no idea about its purpose or agenda is like going to war without guns. It’s imperative that you study the agenda before the meeting and arm yourself with ideas, questions and suggestions. If there are topics on the agenda that you can contribute to, convey the same to the host in advance and request that they set aside a few minutes in the meeting for you to speak. And if public speaking gets the best of you, practice your speech before the meeting with a friend or a trusted colleague, and invite questions and suggestions. Remember, practice makes perfect.
2.Arrive early to a meeting.
Reach the meeting room 10-15 minutes ahead of time and start conversations with those who are already present. It’s astonishing how even experienced people shy away from contributing in meetings because they fear what others will think of them. Being assertive in your communication with attendees gets easier if you’ve already spoken to them and built a rapport before the meeting. And if small talk is not your thing, just pull out the agenda and ask for someone’s opinion.
3.Consider questions as contributions.
Questions spark curiosity, curiosity creates ideas, and ideas lead to innovation. So never hesitate to stand up in a meeting and ask your questions. But don’t ever use questions to draw attention towards you. If your question doesn’t have merit, you’re only wasting your and your entire team’s time—a crime too grave to commit when everyone is already pressed for time. Don’t have questions but want to contribute? Make your voice heard by answering questions or summarizing the meeting based on your understanding.
4.Make sure your ideas get the attention they deserve.
When you’ve finally won attention in the meeting, hold the floor until you’ve made your point. Sometimes, even though you’ve made an important contribution, another attendee might think that they’ve come up with an idea of a lifetime and your idea will get lost under their enthusiasm. To avoid this, right after you make your point, engage others in a conversation by asking them “Do you think we can work with this idea?”, or “How can we make this work for your team as well?” to make sure your idea gets the attention it deserves.
And if someone interrupts, politely tell them that you’d like to hear their opinion but have just two more points to make. After you’ve completed your dialogue, remember to ask the person what they were saying.
5.Respond in agreement or disagreement.
If you agree to a point, ensure you voice your agreement with facts or reasons for the same. And if you disagree, speak up and explain why. Never apologize for disagreeing with someone, instead be assertive in your communication without being disrespectful.
Avoid starting with phrases like “I’m sorry but I think...” or “I don’t want to interrupt, but…” and start with these:
● In my opinion, we have a better solution if we….
● I understand Sheetal’s point, but that could lead to…
● I see it differently because…
6.Ask yourself why you want to contribute.
You either have something important to say that will change the course of the meeting, or you’re worried that you’ll be at the receiving end of the “If you’re invited to a meeting, we expect you to speak up.” comment.
If your contribution is driven by the latter, begin by asking yourself why you care about your role, your organization and the project at hand. Answering these questions will help you develop a sense of connection to your work, so you can find new ways to contribute instead of just making your presence felt.
7.Leave your emotions at the door.
People complain that they get “shut off” or “spoken over” in meetings. The only way to get past this is to leave your emotions at the door before a meeting. If you’re being spoken over, or when your idea isn’t being accepted like you wish it to be, staying in a neutral emotional state will help you cope with the feedback. If you have an important point to make that was interrupted, stand up and assert it; if it wasn’t, let it pass. Remember, the point of the meeting is to find solutions to a problem, and not to hear you out.
Making yourself heard in meetings can be tricky, especially when you’re stuck in a workplace that doesn’t notice your contributions. Give these suggestions a go, practice ways to be more assertive in your communication, and you’ll soon find it easy to be heard in meetings!