The effect on muscle activity variation of combining different office tasks is not known. We recorded electromyography from the upper trapezius (UT), wrist extensor (WE) and lumbar erector spinae ...(LES) in 24 office workers during five productive tasks, and breaks. Minute-to-minute variance was then estimated, by simulations, in a reference 'job' consisting of 85% sitting computer work and 15% breaks, and in 'jobs' where sitting computer work was replaced by different proportions of the other office tasks and breaks. Replacing sitting computer work with sitting non-computer work increased estimated variance by, in median, 23% (UT), 19% (WE) and 0% (LES). Replacing it with other tasks, in particular, standing computer and non-computer work, was less effective in increasing variance. Thus, some combinations of office tasks have a slight potential to increase muscle activity variation in the shoulder and lower arm, but not the lumbar back, while others will be ineffective.
Practitioner summary: The need for exposure variation is often emphasised in office ergonomics. We estimated the effect on muscle activity in the shoulder, forearm and lumbar back of combining sitting computer work with other available tasks and breaks, finding that introduction of sitting non-computer tasks and non-desk work slightly increased variation; other tasks were essentially non-effective.
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Nearly half of workers agree that their workspace is unsuitable for their work tasks. Furthermore, it is assumed that happy workers often perform better than unhappy ones. Nevertheless, due to the ...effect of the emotional-cognitive processes, the misfit between employees’ office type and their work patterns (complexity and interactivity) may hamper this relationship between well-being and performance. This diary study on 83 office workers (n = 603 time points) combines information about work patterns identified by using cluster analysis with Neufert’s office type classification. Results show that the work pattern–office type (mis)fit moderates the relationship between well-being and performance. The “fit” group shows four out of six positive associations: flow and positive emotions with in-role performance, and positive emotions and activity worthwhileness with extra-role performance. The “misfit” group shows only one out of six positive associations. Thus, the office environment–work pattern fit has a relationship to in-role and extra-role performance.
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Research demonstrates that work interruptions are considered one of the most common work stressors. Understanding the mechanisms of work interruptions is therefore vital to reducing worker stress and ...maintaining performance.
The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of the frequency of work interruptions on subjective workload in the context of office work. Specifically, the mediating influence of interruption perception as well as the moderating influence of the complexity of the primary task are examined.
The work interruptions of 492 office workers in Germany were collected by means of a one-day diary study. A mediation model and a conditional indirect effect model were calculated to examine the influence of interruption frequency on subjective workload, mediated by the individual perception of these interruptions as well as moderated by the complexity of the primary work tasks.
The analyses indicated a significant mediation and moderation. This implies that, on the one hand, the perception of work interruptions significantly mediates the relationship between the frequency of work interruptions and subjective workload. On the other hand, more complex primary work tasks seem to strengthen the positive relationship between interruption frequency and perceived interruption overload.
The study underlines that work interruptions need to be considered in a much more differentiated way than is currently the case. Both in research and in terms of intervention measures in the work context, the various influencing factors need to be identified for an assessment of the effects on the working person to be possible.
The natural preference refers to the human tendency to prefer natural substances over their synthetic counterparts, for example in the domains of food and medication. In four studies, we confirm that ...the natural preference is also operative in the domain of light. Study 1 confirmed that natural has a consistent meaning when people apply it to light, and that the source (e.g., daylight vs. electrical) and the transformation of the light (e.g., daylight through a blinded window) affects its naturalness. Studies 2 and 3 employed a classic forced-choice decision making paradigm. Study 2 did not confirm the natural preference hypothesis, probably because the artificial option had clear functional benefits over the natural one. Controlling for this confound, our hypothesis was confirmed in Study 3. In Study 4, three light sources were appraised in a randomized experiment. We confirmed that beliefs regarding the effects of light on health and concentration mediate the naturalness–attitude relationship; thus confirming instrumental motives behind the natural preference. Studies 2 and 4, however, suggest that the lower functionality of daylight-based systems may outweigh their perceived instrumental benefits. The weak and statistically non-significant correlations between connectedness to nature and light appraisals in Study 4 speak against an ideational basis for the natural preference as seen in earlier studies. Taken together, our studies provide evidence for a natural preference to be operative in the domain of light.
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The effects of indoor environment quality on productivity were reviewed. It could be concluded that there was a need to systematically and quantitatively measure the effect of indoor environment ...quality on office worker's productivity. An experiment was carried out in field laboratory to investigate the effect of indoor air temperature (17
°C, 21
°C, and 28
°C) on productivity with 21 participants (6 females and 15 males). Participants' performance was evaluated with 13 computerized neurobehavioral tests, which assessed different neurobehavioral functions including visual perception, working memory, reasoning, executive functions etc. Participants' emotion was assessed with the
Profile of Mood States (POMS), which consisted of six identifiable mood states: tension, depression, anger, vigor, fatigue, and confusion. Effort exerted on each neurobehavioral test was tapped with subjective questionnaires. The results revealed that more information could be provided when the subjective questionnaires were utilized together with the neurobehavioral performance measures. The POMS showed high reliability to investigate the relationship between thermal environment and occupant productivity. The performance of neurobehavioral tests decreased when the thermal environment deviated from neutral condition. Participants experienced more negative emotions and had to exert more effort to maintain their performance under moderately adverse (slightly warm or slightly cool) environmental conditions.
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Traditional methods for investigating work hours rely on an employee's physical presence at the worksite. However, accurately identifying break times at the worksite and distinguishing remote work ...outside the worksite poses challenges in work hour estimations. Machine learning has the potential to differentiate between human-smartphone interactions at work and off work.
In this study, we aimed to develop a novel approach called "probability in work mode," which leverages human-smartphone interaction patterns and corresponding GPS location data to estimate work hours.
To capture human-smartphone interactions and GPS locations, we used the "Staff Hours" app, developed by our team, to passively and continuously record participants' screen events, including timestamps of notifications, screen on or off occurrences, and app usage patterns. Extreme gradient boosted trees were used to transform these interaction patterns into a probability, while 1-dimensional convolutional neural networks generated successive probabilities based on previous sequence probabilities. The resulting probability in work mode allowed us to discern periods of office work, off-work, breaks at the worksite, and remote work.
Our study included 121 participants, contributing to a total of 5503 person-days (person-days represent the cumulative number of days across all participants on which data were collected and analyzed). The developed machine learning model exhibited an average prediction performance, measured by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, of 0.915 (SD 0.064). Work hours estimated using the probability in work mode (higher than 0.5) were significantly longer (mean 11.2, SD 2.8 hours per day) than the GPS-defined counterparts (mean 10.2, SD 2.3 hours per day; P<.001). This discrepancy was attributed to the higher remote work time of 111.6 (SD 106.4) minutes compared to the break time of 54.7 (SD 74.5) minutes.
Our novel approach, the probability in work mode, harnessed human-smartphone interaction patterns and machine learning models to enhance the precision and accuracy of work hour investigation. By integrating human-smartphone interactions and GPS data, our method provides valuable insights into work patterns, including remote work and breaks, offering potential applications in optimizing work productivity and well-being.
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Introduction. The article discusses the history of the creation and organization of the activities of the Council of Kalmyk Administration, which carried out the administrative management of the ...Kalmyk steppe of the Astrakhan province in the period from 1836 to 1848. The Kalmyk Administration Council was guided in its work by the “Regulations on the Administration of the Kalmyk People” dated November 24, 1834, which regulated the structure of the governing body and the procedure for organizing work with documents. Studying the composition and content of documents created during the activities of the Council and stored in the archival fund I-3 “Council of the Astrakhan Kalmyk Administration” of the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmyk will allow for analysis and determination of the directions of its activities. The purpose of the article is to study the archival documents of the I-3 Foundation “Council of Kalmyk Administration” and to identify their source potential for studying the organization of activities of the body for governing the Kalmyk people, especially in the management of office work and document flow in pre-revolutionary Kalmykia. The purpose of the article is to study the archival documents of the I-3 Foundation “Council of Kalmyk Administration” and to identify their source potential for studying the organization of activities of the body for governing the Kalmyk people, especially in the management of office work and document flow in pre-revolutionary Kalmykia. Results. The documents created during the activities of the Kalmyk Administration Council are unique written sources for the study of the life of the Kalmyk people in pre-revolutionary Russia. In addition, these studies will allow us to study the procedure for organizing work with documents in Kalmykia and identify their compliance with all-Russian regulatory requirements in the field of office work and document management.
There are growing concerns over the health impacts of occupational sedentary behaviour on office-based workers and increasing workplace recognition of the need to increase physical activity at work. ...Social ecological models provide a holistic framework for increasing opportunities for physical activity at work. In this paper we propose a social ecological model of office-based physical activity and map it against the Capability Motivation Opportunity (COM-B) framework to highlight the mechanisms of behaviour change that can increase levels of physical activity of office-based workers.
The paper proposes a social ecological model of physical activity associated with office-based settings. The model considers opportunities for both incidental and discretionary activities, as well as macro and micro factors on both socio-cultural and physical dimensions. The COM-B framework for characterising behaviour change interventions is used to highlight the underlying mechanisms of behaviour change inherent in the model. The broad framework provided by social ecological models is important for understanding physical activity in office-based settings because of the non-discretionary nature of sedentary behaviour of office-based work. It is important for interventions not to rely on individual motivation for behaviour change alone but to incorporate changes to the broader social ecological and physical context to build capability and create opportunities for more sustainable change.
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This article contributes to a sensory equilibrium in studies of workplace life through a qualitative study of everyday smells in UK offices. Drawing on Csordas’ (2008) phenomenology of ...intercorporeality, we develop the concept of corporeal porosity as a way of articulating the negotiation of bodily integrity in organizational experience. We explore the corporeal porosity of workplace life through smell-orientated interview and diary-based methods and our findings highlight the interdependence of shared, personal, local and cultural elementals when experiencing smell in office-based work. Our analysis explores three elements of bodily integrity: ‘cultural permeability’; ‘locating smell in-between’; and ‘sensual signifiers’. This suggests that while the senses are part of the ephemeral, affective ‘glue’ that floats between and around working bodies, they also foreground the constantly active character of relationality in organizational life. Corporeal porosity, therefore, captures the entanglement of embodied traces and fragments – corporeal seeping and secretion that has hitherto taken a backseat in organizational studies of the body at work.
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Abstract Purpose Field study, cross-sectional study to measure the posture and sEMG of the lumbar spine during office work for a better understanding of the lumbar spine within such conditions. Scope ...There is high incidence of low back pain in office workers. Currently there is little information about lumbar posture and the activity of lumbar muscles during extended office work. Methods Thirteen volunteers were examined for around 2 h of their normal office work. Typical tasks were documented and synchronised to a portable long term measuring device for sEMG and posture examination. The correlation of lumbar spine posture and sEMG was tested statistically. Results The majority of time spent in office work was sedentary (82%). Only 5% of the measured time was undertaken in erect body position (standing or walking). The sEMG of the lumbar muscles under investigation was task dependent. A strong relation to lumbar spine posture was found within each task. The more the lumbar spine was flexed, the less there was activation of lumbar muscles ( P < .01). Periods of very low or no activation of lumbar muscles accounted for about 30% of relaxed sitting postures. Conclusion Because of very low activation of lumbar muscles while sitting, the load is transmitted by passive structures like ligaments and intervertebral discs. Due to the viscoelasticity of passive structures and low activation of lumbar muscles, the lumbar spine may incline into de-conditioning. This may be a reason for low back pain.
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