Health and Safety Chairs
Today, many people sit in chairs for most of the time that they are awake. They sit while having breakfast, while going to work in cars or buses, in school classrooms, in meetings, in offices, during dinner, and at home while watching television, gaming or living their life online. Many people also sit at work in front of screens or machines for eight hours or more.
Although sitting requires less physical effort than standing or walking it puts a lot of stress on the back or lumbar area. The combined effects of a sedentary lifestyle and a job that requires sitting can lead to many health problems which is why choosing the right chair is so important.
Your chair is probably the single most important component of your working environment so it is worth investing some attention in the choice and care of both.
The selection of a suitable chair is a critical step in preventing health problems for people who work in a sitting position and should be considered carefully by employers keen to comply with health and safety legislation.
ONCEnvironmental Office Furniture Solutions can help you find the right chair for you as an individual in your home or you as a boss finding the right equipment for your staff with health and safety paramount in your mind.
But remember, one chair does not fit everyone. The users' body dimensions must be used when selecting a chair so that it does not strain one part of the body while fitting another. Gather information about the user's body height. The optimal seat height is about one quarter of the body height. This is only a rule of thumb since the torso-to-leg ratio can vary widely, and at ONCEnvironmental Office Furniture Solutions we know that no one chair is suitable for every activity, hence our wide range of chairs which comply with health and safety standards.
It is widely accepted that some features are mandatory for a good chair regardless of how you intend to use it:
- Adjustability - Check to see that seat height is adjustable.
- Seat height range - Check whether the seat height can be adjusted to the height recommended for the worker(s) who will use it. Other chairs may have to be selected for very short or tall workers.
- Backrest - Check to see that the backrest is adjustable both vertically and in the frontward and backward direction.
- Seat depth - Select the seats that suit the tallest and the shortest users
- Stability - Check for the stability of the chair; a five-point base is recommended.
All our chairs in-store pass these key health and safety tests.
The user’s feet should be supported - if they are not, or if just the toes reach the floor, it will affect one’s whole posture adversely. If necessary, you should be able to lower your chair, or lean the seat of the chair forwards slightly.
If you are working at a desk, you must have an adjustable chair; height adjustment is the most basic and critical of adjustments. Everybody is of a different height and shape and so workstation adjustment is very important.
If you are using a particularly high chair, a footrest enabling your feet to rest firmly will help keep your posture correct. Your thighs should be horizontal or sloping downwards slightly.
Hunching up your shoulders will increase the risk of neck and upper arm strain. You should be able to relax your shoulders while working and let your arms hang loosely. If you can't, this may be due to your desk being too high, or your armrests too high; make sure you can adjust the height of your armrests.
Make sure your armrests are not too high; you should be able to relax your shoulders and let your arms hang loosely down while working.
You should be able to roll your chair easily to adjust its position as you work. You should be able to rotate your chair as you sit in it as you work, rather than constantly rotating your body.
Here at ONCEnvironmental Office Furniture Solutions we can help you work through each of these considerations as you go about creating a healthy working environment.
Demonstrate commitment to your employees' well-being. In today's challenging times, you need to go that extra mile - make sure your employees are sitting comfortably with a Health and Safety Chair from our range of new and used office furniture.
Personal preference is essential to the process of selecting a chair. After some suitable chairs have been identified, allow the person who will use the chair most to try out the chair in a real work situation. It is especially useful to obtain several sample chairs for a trial comparison by those who will be using them.
Make sure that the chair meets the needs of the workers and their jobs before any final selection is made.
A well-designed chair allows the user to sit in a balanced position. Buying an ergonomic chair is a good beginning but it is only one component of an ergonomic workstation. Consideration must be given to desk and the positioning of computer equipment and telephones.
Our desk and storage solutions ensure you can meet all health and safety requirements for the creation of an ergonomically sound working environment for you and your teams.
Finding the right ergonomic chair is a common problem especially for people who want to purchase new equipment to make workstations safer and healthier places.
There are many ‘ergonomic’ chairs available but it can be a mistake to purchase one simply because it is labelled ‘ergonomic’.
Let our trained staff at ONCEnvironmental Office Furniture Solutions work through your health and safety considerations with you and assist you to make the right choices at the right price.