Quantifying the impacts of posture changes on office worker productivity: an exploratory study using effective computer interactions as a real-time indicator

Background Working in a standing posture is considered to improve musculoskeletal comfort and can help enhance office workers' performance in the long term. However, there is a lack of a quantitative, real-time measure that reflects on whether office workers can immediately become more concentr...

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Published in:BMC public health 2023-11, Vol.23 (1), p.1-2198, Article 2198
Main Authors: Wang, Hong, Yu, Diran, Zeng, Yu, Zhou, Tongyu, Wang, Weixiang, Liu, Xuan, Pei, Zhichao, Yu, Yumeng, Wang, Chaoju, Deng, Yingqi, Cheshmehzangi, Ali
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Brain research
Computer interaction
Computers
Data collection
Electroencephalography
Employee performance
Exercise
Influence
Keyboards
Office workers
Posture
Postures
Productivity
Productivity measurement
Public health
Quantitative analysis
Quantitative approach
Questionnaires
Real time
Sit-stand desk
Software
Time measurement
Work productivity
Workers
Working conditions
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Summary:Background Working in a standing posture is considered to improve musculoskeletal comfort and can help enhance office workers' performance in the long term. However, there is a lack of a quantitative, real-time measure that reflects on whether office workers can immediately become more concentrated and work more efficiently when they switch to a standing posture. Methods To tackle this problem, this study proposed that the number of effective computer interactions could be used as a real-time indicator to measure the productivity of office workers whose work is primarily computer-based. Using this metric, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the correlation between posture and productivity changes at a 10-minute resolution for eight participants. Results The study found that when allowed to use sit-stand desks to adjust postures, participants chose to switch to standing posture for about 47 min on average once a day; standing work was most frequent between 2:30 - 4:00 pm, followed by 10:30 - 11:30 am, during which time the number of computer interactions also became higher, showing a significant positive correlation. In addition, participants were approximately 6.5% more productive than when they could only work in a sitting posture. Conclusion This study revealed that posture changes could have an immediate improvement in productivity. Keywords: Sit-stand desk, Work productivity, Office workers, Quantitative approach, Computer interaction, Postures
ISSN:1471-2458
1471-2458
DOI:10.1186/s12889-023-17100-w