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The Mobile Generation
Last week I attended a revealing seminar about the rise of the mobile generation, and the ensuing health impacts this is already having, and will increasingly have, within our working environments.
Today, through necessity, I find myself hand-writing this article and remembering what it was like when pens were king! How nice the feel of a Parker pen over soft, cushioned notepaper! But then my fingers started hurting, and my neck pain followed suit….
I don’t suppose there will ever be an easy way to stop aches and pains no matter how we find ourselves working. We work too long in the same positions in our ‘ergonomic chairs’, without variation in postures. We work to too many deadlines in this age of lightening fast computers, instant messaging and the ability to work wherever and whenever we choose. We aren’t ever truly ‘away from the office’ – I am sure many of you have checked your emails on the beach, cocktails in one hand, phone or tablet in the other!
This need for connectivity is not only adding to the ever increasing epidemic of back pain and related musckuloskeletal issues, it has enormous impact on our overall well-being. In particular our stress levels – a major contributor to sickness absence at a cost of billions to the UK economy.
Yet this connectivity is a necessity. For ‘Generation Z’ it is a lifestyle. Those born in the last 20 years, and now entering the workforce, have been raised on, educated, and entertained by information technology all their lives! To take it away, or reduce the reliance on it, is unthinkable.
So how do we accommodate it? What steps can we take to embrace this modern revolution?
We have to adapt the workplace to accept mobile working in every sense. Breakout areas are no longer the domain of gamers, gossipers and daydreamers, they are increasingly used as a shared workspace.
You can take your work anywhere…So let’s make ‘anywhere’ more comfortable. And Fun!
Away from the desk…
