This is the first thing anyone needs to remember and possibly one of the reasons why many companies found it easier to ignore ergonomics. There’s no one correct position in ergonomics and one person’s equipment can’t always be adjusted to suit someone else.

Otherwise, it’s important to make sure the staff know about ergonomics. It’s a two way street, you need to provide the equipment but they need to use it properly, the equipment alone will not solve everything.

You do have to look at it both ways, new eqipment costs money and it will mount up. You can minimise this to an extent; go for an adjustable monitor arm instead of a fixed one, adjustable chairs etc but if an employee needs new equipment, it’s best to bite the bullet. It will cost less than that employee going off sick with a bad back or RSI.

And stretching is definitely a good thing. People do feel self-conscious about doing it or feel like they’re going to be dressed down for wasting time but taking a few minutes to stretch your limbs never killed anyone and it can make a world of difference. We’ve actually got a scheme in place at the moment where we make everyone stand up at the same time regularly and stretch. There’s been a fair amount of grumbling about it but I think it will address the issue of self-consciousness.