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Why The Future of Work Depends on Ergonomic Assessments

Inspiration
The Goldfish Principle Article Image

Sarah was always off sick on Mondays. Every Monday, like clockwork.

Her manager was baffled. The rest of the week she was fine — engaged, productive, no complaints. But come Monday morning, another sick call. It looked like Monday blues or weekend extension tactics until Ross Nichols, Head of Assessments at OE Group, figured out the real pattern.

Sarah’s role was split between sedentary spreadsheet work early in the week and more active duties later — trips to the post room, collecting deliveries. Her workstation was so poorly set up that by Friday afternoon, her body had recovered enough to function. But after a weekend of rest, Monday’s return to that punishing desk setup was unbearable.

One proper ergonomic assessment later, Sarah’s Monday absences became a thing of the past.

The £1,000 Chair Question

Ross Nichols has been in ergonomics for 18 years, and he gets asked the same question constantly: “I’ve got a really bad back — what £1,000 chair should I buy?”

His answer surprises people: “I never tell them what to buy for £1,000. My first question is: how often do you move? If they say ‘I hardly ever move,’ I say ‘treat your family to a £1,000 holiday and start moving.’”

It’s a blunt way of making his point, but Ross has seen too many people throw money at equipment while ignoring the basics. Since 2018, he’s built OE Group’s nationwide assessment team from a small division to over 20 assessors handling thousands of cases annually across the UK and Northern Ireland. When companies finally admit their “one-size-fits-all chair” strategy isn’t working, Ross is who they call.

Man racing a chair on track

“DSE and ergonomic assessments in Britain typically fall down the reactive side of things,” he says. “We’ve waited for a problem or we’ve lived with a problem for a while. We get introduced as an assessor ultimately at a too late stage.”

ross nichols OE Group

Ross Nichols

Head of Assessments at OE Group

What DSE Actually Means

In health and safety language, DSE stands for Display Screen Equipment — the law that says if you’re staring at a screen for more than an hour a day, your employer has to make sure you’re not slowly destroying your body while doing it.

Which, given that most of us spend eight hours plus hunched over laptops, seems fairly relevant.

The trouble is, most companies treat DSE compliance as a tick box. Send round a self-assessment form, maybe buy a bulk order of “ergonomic” chairs, call it done. Meanwhile, half the office is nursing chronic neck pain and the other half is squinting at screens positioned somewhere near their ankles.

“Compliance is the floor, not the ceiling,” Ross says. “People think a DSE assessment is about equipment. But equipment is just one piece.”

The regulations date back to 2002, when “screen work” meant a beige desktop in an office. They don’t account for laptops at kitchen tables, hybrid schedules, or the back-to-back Teams meetings that define modern work.

“Management are seeing gaps in diaries and they’re essentially filling them,” Ross explains. “So people aren’t even having the ability to stand up or move away from the workstation. We used to have natural movement breaks walking between meeting rooms. Now it’s screen to screen to screen.”

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Split concept showing one half working in office the other from home

The Human Behind the Workstation

A proper assessment starts with the person, not the furniture. Ross takes what he calls “a friendly, professional approach” — understanding the individual, their tasks, their challenges, even their personality.

“Character absolutely plays a part,” he says. “Getting to know them on a personal level allows us to provide stronger solutions. The more information they can tell you about them as an individual, the better recommendations we can make.”

That means observing how people actually work, taking anthropometric measurements, checking lighting and noise levels, examining posture and biomechanics. The fixes are often smaller than people expect.

Team measuring a chair

One client couldn’t sit long enough to conduct interviews — a core part of their job. After Ross assessed their setup and provided the right chair with proper tension control, they could fulfil that role again. Another case involved a woman with severe carpal tunnel who had tried multiple pieces of equipment. The solution? Removing the wrist rests that were keeping her in the wrong position.

“Sometimes it’s not about recommending products,” Ross says. “It’s about the removal of equipment or a simple repositioning of equipment.”

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Goldfish Don’t Walk

Ross has a way of cutting through complexity with analogies that stick, delivered in the kind of straightforward Newcastle manner that leaves no room for corporate waffle:

“I use a goldfish analogy. You wouldn’t dream of going to the pet shop, buying a goldfish, and then taking it for a walk around the park. Sounds very stupid. The goldfish is not designed to walk around the park. Humans aren’t designed to sit still.”

Yet that’s exactly what modern work demands. And sometimes when companies do try to help, they often get it spectacularly wrong.

Man walking a goldfish concept

Take the case of the sliding footrest. A manager had dutifully provided ergonomic equipment for their employee, ticking the health and safety box. The woman was very unhappy – she kept complaining that her footrest “slips and slides all over the shop” and wouldn’t stay put.

When Ross arrived for the assessment, he watched her struggling with what she’d been told was faulty equipment. It took him about three seconds to spot the problem.

“Let me show you where that footrest should be placed,” he said, picking up the offending item and putting it on top of her desk. “It’s a document slope.”

The woman went bright red. What she’d been trying to rest her feet on was actually designed to hold papers at the right angle for reading. No wonder her feet kept sliding.

“We had a chuckle about it,” Ross says. “But on the serious side, that was just a lack of education. Someone with very limited understanding had tried to provide a solution without knowing what the equipment was actually designed for.”

The Modern Workplace Reality

The pandemic changed everything, but not always for the better. Hybrid working brought flexibility, but it also brought kitchen table workstations and bedroom offices. Hot-desking promised efficiency but often delivers one-size-fits-none misery.

“Hot-desking is often poorly set up,” Ross says. “Four, five, six banks of desks, standard chairs and equipment. There’s absolutely no adjustability or very limited adjustability.”

lady working from bed

At home, it’s improvisation central. Ross has assessed people working from beds, sofas, even using vanity tables as desks. “For homeworkers, we often deal with space restrictions and makeshift setups,” he says. “That’s where low-cost, high-impact fixes — laptop risers, portable cushions — can transform comfort.”

Ross practices what he preaches. When he travels, he carries his own compact keyboard, mouse, and laptop stand. “Even when I’m sitting working in a hotel, I try to set up the fundamentals right.”

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The £2 Billion Problem

Behind every workplace health statistic is someone working in pain. 7.8 million working days were lost to musculoskeletal disorders in 2023/24, according to the HSE. That’s equivalent to shutting down a company of 30,000 people for an entire year.

But the visible absence is just part of the problem. 65% of UK employers report presenteeism as a growing issue – staff showing up but operating at half-capacity because they’re working in discomfort. Someone hunched over a laptop, nursing a stiff neck through another Teams call. A manager whose wrist pain makes typing an ordeal but who powers through anyway.

Research shows every £1 spent on workplace health returns £2-£4 in productivity gains and reduced costs. Yet most businesses wait until the damage is done before they act.

“People say assessments are too expensive,” Ross says. “In reality, they’re often low cost compared to the expense of injuries, absenteeism and turnover. We’re introduced at the point where there’s already pain, already a challenge. Can you come and fix it now? Yes, we can fix some things, but wouldn’t it be good to introduce the importance of ergonomics a lot earlier?”

One manager told Ross their team hadn’t lost a single day to sick leave since their assessments. Another reported that productivity increased simply because people could focus on tasks rather than pain.

The maths is brutal but simple: ignoring ergonomics costs more than addressing it.

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The AI Challenge Ahead

Ross sees changes coming that will reshape workplace ergonomics entirely. AI and automation may reduce some physical strain, but they’re creating new problems.

“AI software is becoming more common across workforces,” he says. “That could lead to bigger complaints, but changing from a physical aspect to more mental fatigue. When you can get through tasks faster and see answers coming, you get task-engaged, engrossed. You think ‘I’ll just do the next task, I’ll just do the next task.’ We’re going to be absorbed by AI task completion.”

Concept showing man having too many things to do with 12 arms holding equipment

The result? People spending even longer in sedentary positions because the work becomes more engaging, not less.
“We need to manage that accordingly,” Ross warns. “And hybrid work will continue to rise, requiring closer collaboration across HR, IT, and Health & Safety. They really need to be streamlined.”

Beyond Compliance

The real point of ergonomics isn’t ticking regulatory boxes — it’s about human dignity at work. Everyone deserves to work without pain, and that’s not a luxury, it’s the baseline.

“One size fits all doesn’t work,” Ross says. “Every worker and every workspace is different. We’re not just looking at physical aspects, but cognitive load, environmental factors, accessibility. It’s about designing the whole work system.”

The approach works. Teams with chronic neck pain find relief with simple monitor arm adjustments. Individual cases of severe pain get resolved with targeted interventions. Small fixes, big returns.

But perhaps most importantly, proper assessments change how people think about their own wellbeing at work.

man sitting at desk ergonomic chair in office space
lady working sitstand ergonomic chair
man sitting at desk ergonomic chair headset monitor arm

Your Best Posture Is Your Next Posture

Ross gets asked for the one piece of advice that applies to everyone. His answer is always the same:
“Movement beats products every time. Your best posture is always your next posture.”

It’s not about finding the perfect position and staying there. It’s about variation, about remembering that humans are designed to move.

“We don’t do it from a survival aspect anymore,” Ross says. “But humans were designed to move, hunt and survive. Yes, the world has come on leaps and bounds, but humans still like to move.”

DSE might sound like dusty regulation, but it touches almost everyone with a screen. The law may care about compliance, but the real point is comfort, health, and keeping people able to do their jobs without destroying their bodies in the process.

Sarah’s Monday absences stopped with one assessment. Imagine what could change if we stopped waiting for problems to manifest and started preventing them instead.

The future of work isn’t just about technology or flexibility — it’s about designing workplaces that work for humans, not despite them.

If you’re still working from a kitchen chair or running a hot-desk jungle, maybe it’s time to bring in the experts before Monday mornings become a write-off →

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