
Are you working too comfortably?
Over the last two years, we've experienced a lot of change to the way we work. A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh are interested in finding new ways to help us move more whilst working from home, and they'd like to hear your views.
Over the past year and a half we’ve experienced some really big changes to our lives. For many of us, one of the biggest changes has been the shift from spending most of the week in an office to now spending the working week at home. Be it at the kitchen table, in a dedicated home office, or perhaps you’re more likely to be found on the sofa, chances are you are one of the many people whose working environment has changed for the long term.
While there are many positives of working from home, like more family time and increased leisure time, there are also some negatives. The one that we’re really interested in is prolonged sitting. Spending too much time sitting can have significant impact on our physical and mental wellbeing – both in the short and long term, and if we’re going to continue working from home, even in a hybrid office-home scenario, we need to find ways to break up the time we spend sitting. Our recent study of university employees showed us that we are sitting for up to 89% of the working day, that’s an increase from previous research indicating that when in the office we sit between 58-78% of the day.
There’s an urgent need to find a solution! And we need your help to develop it. We’d like to invite you to join one of our focus groups to learn more about your views on the time you spend sitting while you are working at home, and consider what would support you to make small changes over the course of the work day. We are recruiting from two groups to include both employees and employers/managers in the work place.
If you work in the administrative, clerical or customer service sector, are employed full time and working from home for more than 50% of your working week, or manage staff who work from home for more than 50% of the working week, please get in touch with Dr Sarah Morton at Sarah.Morton@ed.ac.uk for more information.