Good Offices Pay Off In Dollars, Smiles
Issue date: 05/15/2000 Focus	By Karen Gavin Staff Writer, Providence Business News
Sometimes, said Kirk P. Williams, a vice president of the Colorado facilities planning and design firm Bechta Group, Ltd., he feels more like a therapist than he does an interior designer. "People will spill their guts to you," in an unleashing of secret thoughts and feelings that can have less to do with environmental constraints than with accoutrements like the latest in electronic gizmos and stock options. In this new, high-flung economy, "we're spoiled," Williams said, laughing, "and I'm no different." Still, when it comes to ergonomically correct office design business owners realize, especially now as new federal work space standards are imminent from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, that keeping office workers healthy and happy is the only way to go. Audrey Lochiatto, president of Custom Image Interiors in Exeter - also known as "The Furniture Lady" - has had a multitude of clients in her dozen years as a designer, from doctors offices to small realty companies to large universities to government offices at the state Department of Environmental Management. With furniture her specialty, it's no surprise she's a stickler about providing the right chair. It's "the most important element," Lochiatto said, using her palms to outline a virtual workstation the way a photographer might set up a picture. Ergonomics, or "human engineering," is about "work managing," Williams said, matching the physical requirements of the job to an employee's physical capabilities. Potentially litigious health issues like carpal tunnel, a nerve injury caused by repetitive movements of the wrist, "can be prevented with the appropriate chair," Lochiatto said, a chair that has not only seat adjustments but height adjustments for its arms. Knee space is also important, "getting things out from under your desk," to protect a worker's patellas as well as her psyche. And height adjustable keyboard drawers are also critical - so typists can keep their fingers and wrists ergonomically correct and parallel to the floor. Now, with furniture even being designed with height adjustable legs for flexibility, it's easier than ever. In fact, the whole mindset about office design and ergonomics has changed drastically, Lochiatto said. "Think about it," she said - five years ago, maybe one in five office chairs had a pneumatic lift and today, it's only maybe one in 10 that doesn't. It's been only in the last five years that facilities planning has lost its afterthought status, and come to be recognized by employers "as something that needed to be planned," said Williams, who in the early 80s was one of the first interior designers for a Fortune 500 company. Employers "used to think facilities was ground maintenance," he said, but now, with Americans working longer hours than ever, even those who once considered interior design a frivolous expenditure have come to realize its positive effects on making money. "We are more productive," he said. "That necessitates a better environment." Although OSHA has long instilled the thought in business owner's minds about the rights of manufacturing workers or those with physical jobs, there's been a one-size-fits-all attitude toward those who toil in an office, Lochiatto said. "They figure, well, you sit on your butt, you've got an easy job, [but] that's not true, it all hurts your body." Consider one case she worked on, designing an office for a vice-president at a huge local firm who had developed a slight curvature of the spine before he was given an appropriate, ergonomically designed workstation (in his case, it was an executive office). Design may cost money, but businesses don't need to spend thousands of dollars to protect themselves and employees. "You can do the same thing with style and have the exact same functionality" for a third of the price, Lochiatto said, never mind that by protecting their employees "they'll get more for their money in the long run." Although executive suites of wood and leather can go for $3,000 and up, those on a budget can install a height adjustable keyboard drawer and ergonomic chair at about $400 a workstation. "I usually can work within the budget of the client," Lochiatto said, with options like refurbishing existing furniture or trading it out for used rather than buying new. "It's fun to go into a situation, [find] what's wrong with it [esthetically and functionally] and then fix it." After ergonomics, the most critical factor in workplace design is space, and as Williams puts it, "we're not trying to cram, the emphasis has gone away from jamming." In designing an office, Lochiatto considers the amount of space, how many people have to use it, and their functions and the office hierarchy. Mazes of "cubes" are out - current trends include "step-down" partitions that can be lowered for visibility and the use of glass paneled partitions, "so people don't feel so isolated." Another issue for workers is privacy, Williams said. "If they can get an office with a door, they're happy." Windows are also a perk, one he believes is often "wasted" on the big executives who don't really need the visual benefits of having something to focus on greater than 20 feet. "They want bigger," he said, "whether they need it or not." Rob Gray, associate architect for Munroe & Associates Architects in Wakefield, agreed space is a primary consideration. "All the time. No one can afford too much space," he said, although his personal feeling is that the "functional flow of people is the most important." He said a well-designed office ensures that commonly used areas and equipment are established with maximum efficiency in mind, even though coffee or water machine gatherings are "a healthy part of office life." Still, Gray said, "you want people to waste as little time as possible." He also cited lighting, devising ways to reduce glare, especially for offices that are highly computerized, and finally flexibility, the ability to change and adapt an interior's space, more critical than ever, as "the pace of business [has] gotten faster."
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