Why do many people feel pain when working from home?

How does your neck feel since you have been working from home?

In Switzerland where I live, March 16th, 2020 was the day when many office workers were asked to stay at home: thousands of people across dozens of professions, most of them without any IT equipment (sometimes not even a laptop, as their company was running on desktops only), nor a desk or a proper chair.
Prior to this day, musculoskeletal disorders (MSD: back pain, neck pain, etc.) were already a huge issue: all in all, almost 85% of the adults feel muscle and joint pain somewhere every year. Among my corporate clients, 53% of the employees felt lower back pain last year, and 70% of the women felt neck pain. Even more interestingly, 43% felt pain above 7 on a scale of 10, and 57% had pain in at least 3 regions!

Pain is a cumulative phenomenon resulting from a combination of biomechanical and psychological factors (incl. stress) over a prolonged period. To cut a long story short, your neck gets painful when the glass overflows: if it’s 99% full, you don’t feel anything; add just a drop and you get a stiff neck.

During the first lock-down, every indicator turned red: ergonomics worsened and workload increased whilst financial and personal stressors went through the roof (homeschooling the children, being 24/7 with the partner, etc.).

To make things worse, most of those who suffered did not consult, either because their therapist had closed or because they were afraid to be contaminated by the coronavirus. The accumulation just worsened…
 
What have employers done to help so far?

On 20th April 2021 at 4PM, Olivier Girard is invited by the NZZ FutureHealth Forum in Basel to give a webinar on the 3 Rules of Posture and their application to working from home.  The conference is free and open to the public! Click here to get the link.

Abstract: Much has been said on working from home and its impact on your lower back or your neck… but one question remains: how much have you learned that will help you protect your body on the long run? In this session, Olivier Girard will tell you about a simple yet universal framework called the 3 Rules of Posture. It applies to working from home, to working from the office, to manual handling and any other daily life activity, whether at work or at home. Adults should know about it, as well as children. White collar workers as well as blue collar workers. Join us for a truly empowering session in which you’ll learn how to use and protect your body, right now as well as in the future… Be ready to look at posture and ergonomics from a brand new angle!

Many of your are currently working from home, and many of your start having back and neck pain. To help you dealing with this new reality, we have updated our advice on office ergonomics, and added fresh content regarding ergonomics and posture at home.

Our method is distinctly global: we teach how to preserve and health our body by improving our posture and ergonomics at work as well as at home. Hence, both employers and employees are rewarded. 

To share with you the advice underlying his success, Olivier Girard has written a posture manual  for everybody and every day. Very illustrated and didactic, it describes a posture training road-map over 3 months. Each week, a daily goal and an exercise are suggested so that all themes of our daily life are discussed: how to sit, stand, walk, lift, carry, relax, sleep, breathe, choose ergonomic furniture, etc.

For the last 25 years, the Swiss association Citizen@Work-Swiss (a member of the European network Citizen@Work) has been organizing the Swiss Price "Santé-Entreprise" (health at work). The price has a double goal:

• to help companies that invest in Switzerland in the health, well-being and safety of their employees be better known
• to inspire society through the initiatives and experience of some.

The winners receive a check as well as a professional video clip. Hereunder is the clip that was offered to the city of Lausanne, winner in 2017.
Apply too until 30th October 2017 using the application documents!