Agile Working – Is it the Future of Small and Corporate Business?

The agile worker has the advantage of a ‘moveable work feast’ in the office, engaging with different team members and repositioning themselves throughout the day to maintain that spark that leads to greater productivity – but at what cost to health and wellbeing?

The idea behind “agile working” is that it can benefit both businesses and employees inclusively. If you’re considering integrating this forward-thinking approach into your corporate space, you’re not alone. Many industry pundits are offering flexible work environments for their staff and reaping the benefits. In Australia, large accounting and law firms often use the dynamic desk approach in their offices to encourage a cohesive and animated work atmosphere. In 2016 in the UK, Mitie Group published statistics that predicted a staggering 70 per cent of offices will embrace flexible working in some form or another by 2020.

Working from no fixed address

In its essence, agile working encompasses one or more workplace concepts. The primary model involves office-based staff transitioning from permanent – and personalised – workstations to a more mobile approach in order to increase employee engagement and therefore the business’s bottom line. This mobile worker will have to give up their pot plants, pictures of families on desks and postcards of summer holidays stuck to cubicle walls in order to embrace the dynamic desk paradigm.

Bringing the buzz back to work

The reward for staff losing their ‘own patch’ is an energetic and vibrant workplace that helps employees to thrive, rather than wither away behind their partitions. Individual workers join their fellow employees within collaborative groups to facilitate specific projects or various phases of a project.

The modern office becomes a collection of communal hubs, which are utilised by diverse teams and individuals to foster more passion for their own roles and those of their colleagues. These organic office spaces include shared facilities such as communal workstations, boardrooms, digital conferencing rooms, brainstorming zones and social spaces. Yet these portable workspaces come with a hidden warning for your health in the name of reoccurring “pain”.

Digitally enabled remote working and video conferencing has allowed agile workers to work effectively offsite, as well. The home office worker is likely to have utilised the local café, kitchen table and perhaps the couch as their agile workstation, risking neck, shoulder and back strain, on a regular basis. So how do you make your workspace comfortable and ergonomically sound to help reduce the risk of workplace injury, strain and chronic pain issues?

So, what’s the catch?

It is clear that agile working provides lifestyle and financial benefits to businesses, organisations and their workers. The biggest hurdle facing corporates that want to take their offices into the dynamic zone is how to facilitate work health and safety compliance. If you have a bunch of different people using different desks, at different times of the day and/or night, how do you find a “one size fits all” approach?

The services of an Ergonomic Office Consulting company will provide an invaluable service by helping to address these issues and provide a range of agile working solutions.

Providing a working solution

The team at ErgoEquip can provide a range of innovative products that meet the needs of the agile worker head-on. Many of the issues related to RSI and so-called “tech neck” arise from working in a non-ergonomically centred environment. The modern agile worker is constantly bending their neck to view devices, therefore our laptop and tablet stands, wireless keyboards and mice work together to raise the equipment to eye level. From sit to stand workstations, chairs and ergonomically designed office desks, ErgoEquip can provide everything that the agile workforce needs for all-around healthier working. Alleviating posture tension and neck strain can help improve wellbeing overall, which in turn will positively impact productivity.

Our consulting team can provide any sized business or organisation with tailored ergonomic work solutions, which address their unique requirements. Talk to us to help save your business valuable downtime from pain-afflicted staff, along with the consequential loss of revenue that often accompanies WH&S issues around chronic strain.