Insights with Dr. Kermit Davis: Navigating Workspace Ergonomics
Have you ever gone into work and just sat, the whole time? No breaks, no stretching, just hours of virtual meetings along with body aches and brain fog? It could have something to do with the ergonomics of your work setup.
Ergonomics is a multidisciplinary field that concerns a plethora of mental and physical health issues. The primary goal of ergonomics is to understand the capabilities and limitations of the human body, and improve both physical and cognitive aspects of human performance.
Whether full-time or hybrid, remote work has been a common alternative workspace among companies and employees, especially since the pandemic. Remote-work setups, however, come with their own set of challenges. For instance, corporate offices and classrooms, or what are considered “traditional workspaces”, are typically designed with certain ergonomic principles in mind; they have designated work and break areas as well as equipment and accessories, all to help enhance productivity and mitigate physical stress. Translating these workplace features into a remote workspace is not always possible; they can be expensive, inaccessible, difficult to set up, or time-consuming. However, not paying attention to how you’re working can result in poor working habits that can exacerbate musculoskeletal discomfort and mental strain.
So, how does a normal person tackle this double-edged sword?
As an expert on ergonomics, Dr. Kermit Davis discusses how certain activities or methods of intervention can help with preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders, which are often the result of improper workspace setups. Understanding how physical and productivity demands of our workspace can affect our lifestyle can help us incorporate things like postural mobility into it. To understand what this means, let’s dive into Dr. Davis’ research.
Who is Dr. Kermit Davis?
Dr. Kermit G. Davis is well published in the realm of ergonomics. His research delves into the impact of workplace stress and mental demands on muscle activation patterns in the lower back. The focus of his research is on the alleviation of ergonomic stressors for healthcare professionals and, relevant to his PREMUS 2023 keynote, workers in remote setups. He currently serves as a professor within the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences at the University of Cincinnati, where he actively contributes to the progress of ergonomic knowledge and the development of strategies for preventing and treating musculoskeletal disorders.
Dr. Davis’ Research: The Importance of Ergonomics
Ergonomics has to do with both the physical and mental well-being of an individual and the influence of ergonomics can vary in situations and individuals. For instance, through biomechanical modeling on warehouse employees, Dr. Davis found that altering the amount of mental stress placed on both introverts and extroverts resulted in different muscle activation patterns in either personality type. This indicated that psychosocial factors can influence an individual’s ability to handle workplace stress. Therefore, understanding these connections between psychosocial factors and biomechanical loading can mean the difference between response and reaction. How and where you work can affect your mood and consequently your ability to respond to workplace stressors. His research also extends into the realm of healthcare, where a survey he conducted highlighted the strain that healthcare professionals experienced due to physical workload stress, which in turn, was a result of patient handling. Such workload stresses eventually led to mental fatigue and burnout. Here, he emphasises that postular mobility, along with a collaboration between healthcare professionals, architects, and interior designers can help in building ergonomic and functional spaces.
While remote workspaces have existed since the late 1990’s, Dr. Davis’ most recent research is focused on the outcomes of such work setups during and post pandemic. During the early stages of the pandemic, public health protocols highly recommended, and in most cases enforced, stay-at-home orders until more could be understood about the virus. Dr. Davis discusses how these sudden transitions to remote work environments meant adjusting to a “new-normal” of makeshift work surfaces. These work surfaces included treadmills, sofas and beds, with hours of virtual meetings crammed into a day, all of which exacerbated musculoskeletal pain. He found that transitions to online classes were particularly problematic for college students who exhibited musculoskeletal discomfort due to prolonged use of technology. Even a year after his initial survey on the effects of work-from-home setups, he found that participants had made minimal changes to their at-home workstations and as such continued to experience overlaps in musculoskeletal pain where individual participants had multiple pain points all over their body.
However, as ergonomically problematic as a home workstation might be, it affords several advantages, such as schedule flexibility, reduced commute times, and overall workspace convenience. This is perhaps why the future of work is more hybrid, where people would like to work from home on certain days and still come into a common workspace to physically meet colleagues. Therefore, Dr. Davis recommends incorporating some type of movement into everyday life, regardless of where you are working from; the home office or the conventional office. He suggests that taking even a 30-minute break, wherever possible, can help alleviate discomfort and reduce the negative effects of sitting too long. Dr. Davis also suggests making simple adjustments at home, such as using external monitors, keyboards, even raising the monitor with books, and advises against working from beds or sofas, no matter how tempting they may seem! For more information, watch the interview.
Enhancing Well-being and Performance within Our Workstations
Learn More
For medical professionals, researchers, and individuals who benefit from incorporating remote work into their lifestyle and want to understand how ergonomic stressors might be impacting them may find this interview insightful. Head over to our Exclusive Interview with Dr. Davis, hosted by Vivek Narayan.
Here are a few questions Dr. Davis addresses:
-
How can we resist the temptation to work from the sofa or other uncomfortable positions while working from home?
-
What are some specific factors that contribute to burnout in remote workers that may be different from those experienced by traditional office workers?
Enhancing Well-being and
Performance within Our
Workstations
While remote workspaces have existed since the late 1990’s, Dr. Davis’ most recent research is focused on the outcomes of such work setups during and post pandemic. During the early stages of the pandemic, public health protocols highly recommended, and in most cases enforced, stay-at-home orders until more could be understood about the virus. Dr. Davis discusses how these sudden transitions to remote work environments meant adjusting to a “new-normal” of makeshift work surfaces. These work surfaces included treadmills, sofas and beds, with hours of virtual meetings crammed into a day, all of which exacerbated musculoskeletal pain. He found that transitions to online classes were particularly problematic for college students who exhibited musculoskeletal discomfort due to prolonged use of technology. Even a year after his initial survey on the effects of work-from-home setups, he found that participants had made minimal changes to their at-home workstations and as such continued to experience overlaps in musculoskeletal pain where individual participants had multiple pain points all over their body.
However, as ergonomically problematic as a home workstation might be, it affords several advantages, such as schedule flexibility, reduced commute times, and overall workspace convenience. This is perhaps why the future of work is more hybrid, where people would like to work from home on certain days and still come into a common workspace to physically meet colleagues. Therefore, Dr. Davis recommends incorporating some type of movement into everyday life, regardless of where you are working from; the home office or the conventional office. He suggests that taking even a 30-minute break, wherever possible, can help alleviate discomfort and reduce the negative effects of sitting too long. Dr. Davis also suggests making simple adjustments at home, such as using external monitors, keyboards, even raising the monitor with books, and advises against working from beds or sofas, no matter how tempting they may seem! For more information, watch the interview
Learn More
For medical professionals, researchers, and individuals who benefit from incorporating remote work into their lifestyle and want to understand how ergonomic stressors might be impacting them may find this interview insightful. Head over to our Exclusive Interview with Dr. Davis, hosted by Vivek Narayan.
Here are a few questions Dr. Davis addresses:
-
How can we resist the temptation to work from the sofa or other uncomfortable positions while working from home?
-
What are some specific factors that contribute to burnout in remote workers that may be different from those experienced by traditional office workers?
Insights with Dr. Kermit Davis: Navigating Workspace Ergonomics
Have you ever gone into work and just sat, the whole time? No breaks, no stretching, just hours of virtual meetings along with body aches and brain fog? It could have something to do with the ergonomics of your work setup.
Ergonomics is a multidisciplinary field that concerns a plethora of mental and physical health issues. The primary goal of ergonomics is to understand the capabilities and limitations of the human body, and improve both physical and cognitive aspects of human performance. Whether full-time or hybrid, remote work has been a common alternative workspace among companies and employees, especially since the pandemic. Remote-work setups, however, come with their own set of challenges. For instance, corporate offices and classrooms, or what are considered “traditional workspaces”, are typically designed with certain ergonomic principles in mind; they have designated work and break areas as well as equipment and accessories, all to help enhance productivity and mitigate physical stress. Translating these workplace features into a remote workspace is not always possible; they can be expensive, inaccessible, difficult to set up, or time-consuming. However, not paying attention to how you’re working can result in poor working habits that can exacerbate musculoskeletal discomfort and mental strain.
So, how does a normal person tackle this double-edged sword?
As an expert on ergonomics, Dr. Kermit Davis discusses how certain activities or methods of intervention can help with preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders, which are often the result of improper workspace setups. Understanding how physical and productivity demands of our workspace can affect our lifestyle can help us incorporate things like postural mobility into it. To understand what this means, let’s dive into Dr. Davis’ research.
Who is Dr. Kermit Davis?
Dr. Kermit G. Davis is well published in the realm of ergonomics. His research delves into the impact of workplace stress and mental demands on muscle activation patterns in the lower back. The focus of his research is on the alleviation of ergonomic stressors for healthcare professionals and, relevant to his PREMUS 2023 keynote, workers in remote setups. He currently serves as a professor within the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences at the University of Cincinnati, where he actively contributes to the progress of ergonomic knowledge and the development of strategies for preventing and treating musculoskeletal disorders.
Dr. Davis’ Research: The Importance of Ergonomics
Ergonomics has to do with both the physical and mental well-being of an individual and the influence of ergonomics can vary in situations and individuals. For instance, through biomechanical modeling on warehouse employees, Dr. Davis found that altering the amount of mental stress placed on both introverts and extroverts resulted in different muscle activation patterns in either personality type. This indicated that psychosocial factors can influence an individual’s ability to handle workplace stress. Therefore, understanding these connections between psychosocial factors and biomechanical loading can mean the difference between response and reaction. How and where you work can affect your mood and consequently your ability to respond to workplace stressors.
His research also extends into the realm of healthcare, where a survey he conducted highlighted the strain that healthcare professionals experienced due to physical workload stress, which in turn, was a result of patient handling. Such workload stresses eventually led to mental fatigue and burnout. Here, he emphasises that postular mobility, along with a collaboration between healthcare professionals, architects, and interior designers can help in building ergonomic and functional spaces.