The perfect solution

Every manufacturer or supplier is looking for the perfect solution. An amazing product that helps employees be healthy and vital behind their desks. The product that blows away competitions and opens up the world to you!

Other than the fact that the above statement is applicable in pretty much every branch it is also applicable to the mindset of manufacturers and suppliers in ergonomics. Office furnishers, or popular known as project furnishers, suppliers of office furniture and ergonomic products; they all want the golden egg. The egg which helps every facilitating employee convince the company to furnish the office. There are some very cool products available. Exoskeletons, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence are all very cool developments to help enhance and enjoy our life as an employee.

standup desk
Clark Young

But they all forget one thing. And to be honest, when you hear a futurist, an entrepreneur or an inventor talk I think everybody forgot about it. In our push to make things better, faster and more beautiful most people forget the most important part. And that’s the part which it all revolves around.

All the fancy offices, those nice desks that allow for standing, sitting or even lying down, those creative spaces for the best ideas, standup meetings and quiet workplaces are designed to facilitate work. Work that needs to be done by humans.

Humans you say? Yes! Sounds weird huh?

The question is if all those solutions are really helping productivity soar and improve the health of the employee or is it the Hawthorne effect? The Hawthorne effect says the attention that the research gives employees is the reason productivity rises, not the solutions that are implemented.

I don’t believe in the golden egg. The perfect solution doesn’t exist.

And the reason is very simple: very few people are equal. We are all different, different height, different size, different muscle groups, etc., etc., etc. Someone has longer arms than another or legs! There are dozens of variables that help determine if some does or does not feel good and delivers above par work. Most people will say: “duh!”. If we know this; how is it possible that all desks and chairs in an office come from the same supplier? And why would those specific items help productivity rise when whoever uses the product is not fit for it. Maybe the productivity will on average rise, but it can differ on an individual level.

standup desk
Andreas Klassen

And maybe productivity will rise and employees will be happier. But is it the Hawthorne effect or did we really accomplish it? We don’t know, because it doesn’t get measured.

I do have a presumption. Just like you get used to a new car, tv or wife, you get used to new office furniture.

I know the Dynamup isn’t the perfect solution. But I don’t want entire office buildings filled with Dynamup’s and everybody standing up behind its desk with my solution. I’m not a project furnisher. I want to help people. If that is 1 person in an office of 1000, I’m happy. As long as we watch if it helps the individual.