A recent survey found that 86% of office workers describe their office furniture as uncomfortable.
86%. That means that when you walk into an office containing 10 people, there’s only one who isn’t experiencing some discomfort. Is it any wonder offices are sometimes stressful?
The same study reported that nearly a third of the workers said that they “would be more pleasant” if they had a better chair. Since three out of four people (in a different study) reported a difficult coworker as a primary source of stress, we can quickly calculate that better chairs would alleviate slightly more than half of all office stress.
Since office dissatisfaction and satisfaction have both been found to be contagious (we have the the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research to thank for this study), making the grumpy people more pleasant will benefit everyone. This study connected bad moods with increased turnover and decreased productivity.
The American Spine Society looked into the best chairs for back comfort. A good ergonomic office chair beat out the Swiss ball, backless stools, and non-ergonomic chairs. They didn’t get into brands, but U.S. Ergonomics gave the nod to the Steelcase Leap.
Lifehacker rated the Herman Miller Aeron at number one — they listed their idea of the five best chairs and opened it to a vote of their readers. Among their top five were not only the Aeron, starting at number one on the original list and the clear winner among readers, but also the Steelcase Leap. Read our point by point comparison of the two. We usually have both these winners in stock, as well as many more used office chairs and new office chairs as well.
Is it time to bring more comfortable furniture into your office? Especially with pre-owned chairs, it’s a small price to pay for a more pleasant workforce.