From hard wooden chairs to the four-legged variety without arms, the chairs used in business were not improved on until about 1860. This was when businessmen spent a large amount of time trying to figure out how they could improve these chairs. Their main objective was to improve the efficiency of their office staff. The revolutionary idea of putting casters on the bottom of these chairs allowing the staff to roll around the office without every having to get up was the next idea. What better way to keep them busy than to keep them in their chairs?
Their next study involved trying to figure out how they could keep them in their seats by making them a little more bearable on the bottom. Sitting in these chairs for hours could take it’s toll and the productivity would begin to suffer. As the chair began to improve, the shape began to be more in tune with the human body. These improvements were realized in the 1970’s when ergonomics were first brought into the picture. The chairs of today are a result of the early attempts to keep the office workers in their chairs so there would be no decline in the work they performed.
The impact of ergonomics throughout the last century, culminating in the body-friendly designs of the mid to late 1970s, has produced a modern office chair that is phenomenally adjustable. Most modern office chairs can be adjusted to fit any employee, ensuring hours and hours of blissful productivity. Unfortunately, these accommodations have not done away with work and repetition-related strains to the shoulders, neck, back, and wrists. Ergonomic specialists recommend standing and stretching once every half hour.
However unfeasible, many people believe business owners would love to keep employees in their chairs eight hours a day. In today’s society this would be considered above and beyond the call of duty, perhaps even criminal. The chair has come a long way in the last 150 years. The chair is a status symbol. The better chairs with all the latest in comfort and flexibility are the ones the bosses get. They have the high comfortable backs and the arms that are padded and plumped. The chairs with all the comforts of their recliner at home are the ones reserved for managers and vice-presidents who, indeed, spend a great deal of time in the seated position.
Somehow this just does not seem right. It would stand to reason that the people that spend the most time in the office chairs working should have the most comfortable ones. The emphasis is on working as there are many people who could spend hours a day in these chairs. The only question is are they really as busy as they look. Working 8 and 10 hours a day from these chairs whether it is answering phones, data processing, bookkeeping or whatever job they perform, the comfort level of these workers should be taken into consideration first. The best office chairs should go to those who need them the most.
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