If you are one of the employees in your office who has been assigned a laptop rather than a desktop, and given the flexibility of a dynamic workspace instead of a fixed workstation, it is probably not wise to be immediately gleeful.

‘Laptops are not ergonomic’ is the unanimous opinion of experts in the field of office design and occupational health and safety.

Ergonomics studies the relationship between human beings and work environment. Occupational health and safety experts, who one will imagine would concern themselves with factories, manufacturing equipment and labourers, have discovered that white-collar executives need their attention too.

It is in keeping with this interest that ergonomic design of office spaces is gaining focus. For postural health, which includes health of the cervical and lumbar vertebrae and your wrists, workstations and cubicles need to accommodate employees, who are already coping with the unfamiliar action of spending all their working time on computers.

“We sit differently from our previous generations. Needless to say, we move lesser than them, and our limbs have resigned to this form of bodily action from our teens,” says Dr S Sunder, a physical medicine practitioner in Chennai. “When these teens become working professionals, their bodies are easily affected by repetitive actions and continuous pressure points involved in sedentary office work.”

It was in the mid-90s that his clinic started noticing that the average age of patients started falling and hovered between 25-30, compared with the 45-55 of the 80s. “Even in the 80s, urban residents mainly had desk jobs, But, the time they spent at their offices and their lifestyle outside work were drastically different,” Sunder says. Young patients primarily complain of back, shoulder and neck pain.

The growing importance for ergonomics in the workplace prompted Sunder to foray into this speciality. He now conducts ergonomic training sessions at office environments, which comprises meetings with working professionals on how to set their workstations – tables, chairs and computers – in such a way so as to suit a employee’s build and work actions. Contrary to fun offices, which offer beanbags for workstations or flexi-spaces, mainstream IT companies seem to be taking ergonomics as serious business.

Says Verizon Data Services India’s general manager and chief financial officer Ramakrishnan Sundaresan, “Because of the nature of work we do, VDS India does not have telecommuting now. The idea is that our people should feel like coming back to their space every day. So we consider ergonomics as a hygiene factor and not a differentiator contributing to employee retention.”

But, in order to conduct such training, employee-friendly workstations need to be designed accordingly. That is where consultants like B R Chaitanya of Ergo Works, Bangalore, came in. “The foremost aspect is the height of our tables and chairs, which are all set to western standards. Indian employees have an average of 5-foot-2-inch to 5-foot-7-inch height and one needs to design tables with maximum height a good inch lower than western standards.”

Manohar Gopal, director of Featherlite, a furniture vendor, says, “Armrests need to be in line with the table, which means chairs have to be high enough. But, at the same time, seat pads have to be low enough for the worker’s feet to touch the ground.”

Rule one of ergonomics is that each employee is different and there is no one design that fits all. “That is why modular design takes into account individual needs,” Gopal says. “Rather than designing special furniture for specific people, we believe that office design itself is becoming progressively ergonomic.”

There are special designs and aiding equipment provided in some offices, including laptop rests, wristpad, footrest, neck roll, and document holders, among others. Puneet Jetli, vice-president of people functions at MindTree Consultancy Services, which has been implementing ergonomic design in its office, says, “We have been spending about Rs 25 lakh per year on ergonomics at the office, which is quite a minuscule fraction of our overall human resources budget. When we construct new offices, we proactively engage consultants for specific ergonomic advice. This definitely reflects in employee well-being and productivity.”