Simple ergonomic tips for working from home

Working from home can be a pain in the neck, but it doesn’t have to be. Preventing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) exposure at home is just as important as working in the office. MSDs are soft-tissue injuries caused by sudden or sustained exposure to repetitive motion, force, vibration, and awkward positions. These disorders can affect the muscles, nerves, tendons, joints, and cartilage in your upper and lower limbs, neck and lower back.

Reality is, working from home may be temporary and you don’t have an allocated office space in your home. Even if working from a kitchen table and chair or couch there are cheap and creative ways that you can use to set up your workstation to stay comfortable and prevent injury. For example:

• Use a good chair if possible. If you don’t have a good chair, add pillows or rolled towels for back/leg support.
• Raise your chair as most kitchen tables and desks are too high. Use a pillow or seat cushion if needed.
• Raise your monitor by using boxes, books, bricks, cans of soup, etc.
• Support your feet on books, a shoe box, etc., if they don’t firmly touch the ground while sitting.
• Use an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor if possible. This helps prevent bending your neck and looking down. The top of the monitor should be at or just below eye level, shoulders relaxed, elbows and knees at a 90-degree angle.
• Take breaks. Set a timer every 60 minutes to get up and walk around.

Here are tips from an ergonomics expert on how to set up your desk. The Mayo Clinic also has a how-to guide to help ensure your home office area is set up correctly.

Here is a webinar from the Vermont League of Cities & Towns on Remote Working Best Practices.

If you are a FirstNet Safety Training user, there’s online ergonomic training to select for your employees. LMCIT also has an alliance with CoastalFlix, a new, no-cost way to bring safety training videos for our members. There are many short ergonomic streaming videos to select from.

Submitted by: Julie Jelen, Loss Control Consultant