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?

At the 50th Congress of the Nordic Ergonomic Society (25-28 August 2019), we will have the pleasure of presenting the OH'Seed approach, which makes it possible to better integrate occupational health into corporate strategy. The approach is detailed in the article and presentation below, also published in the conference proceedings.