Most UK places of work weren’t designed with motion in thoughts. They have been designed to suit as many individuals as potential right into a given area, maintain overheads manageable and guarantee everybody had someplace to plug in a laptop computer. In line with the British Medical Bulletin, UK workplace employees spend as much as three quarters of their day sitting. Scientific Studies places it extra exactly, between 68 % and 82 % of the working day is spent seated, the best proportion of any occupation.
What’s much less anticipated is how this compares to working from residence. Our survey of two,015 UK desk employees discovered that office-based employees are much less more likely to take common breaks than these working solely from residence. Regardless of the pull of office integration and a bigger footprint than a house workplace simply 41.4 % of workplace employees take at the least one break per hour, in opposition to 44.9 % of distant employees.
The structure of most places of work reinforces sedentary behaviour. Rows of desks going through screens. Assembly rooms are formal and faraway from the place day-to-day work occurs. The most typical method UK employees get to the workplace is by automotive, in keeping with the ONS. Strolling from the automotive park to a desk and sitting down for the remainder of the day is, for many individuals, the complete extent of their bodily exercise. Nothing within the office setting asks individuals for normal motion, and workload strain means most is not going to select to.
The 2024 ASICS International State of Thoughts research discovered that two hours of uninterrupted desk time produced a measurable decline in psychological well being. 4 steady hours was related to an 18 % enhance in stress ranges. Most UK workplace employees exceed each thresholds on a typical day.
Almost a 3rd of employees go for 3 hours or extra with out a break, and it is a worrying statistic. Inactivity contributes to elevated danger of persistent ailments and psychological well being points. This knowledge underscores the pressing have to prioritise office wellbeing initiatives. These statistics describe a workforce behaving in precisely the best way most standard workplaces exist and anticipate. Conventional workplace layouts are constructed round headcount and area effectivity.
Why workplace employees transfer lower than residence employees
The explanations workplace employees transfer much less are deeply embedded in how workplace life works. Office tradition is the largest issue. In most places of work, being seen at your desk remains to be equated with being productive. Stepping away carries an unstated price, notably in open-plan environments the place absence is seen. Distant employees don’t face the identical strain. They’re judged on output, not presence, which makes taking a break a extra pure act.
Longer hours compound the issue. Workplace-based employees persistently log extra hours than home-based counterparts, leaving much less time and vitality for motion. Comfort works in opposition to exercise too. When every part wanted for the day is inside a number of metres, and lunch might be ordered to the desk, there may be little that bodily requires anybody to stand up.
Who’s sitting longest?
The survey knowledge reveals precisely the place these discovered habits are rooted. Staff aged 25 to 34 are the least doubtless of any age group to take hourly breaks, with solely 31.6 % doing so. That is the demographic most workplaces are at the moment redesigning to draw, investing in collaboration zones, new facilities and versatile layouts. The bodily setting could also be altering. The motion habits usually are not.
By career, journey brokers have been the more than likely to take common breaks at 66.7 %. The pure rhythm of a customer-facing, task-based function builds in interruptions that the common open-plan display based mostly function doesn’t.
What works?
The simplest interventions are constructed into the setting, not left to particular person selection. A NIHR research of 756 workplace employees discovered that offering a sit-stand desk diminished sitting time by over an hour a day in comparison with those that modified nothing. Ground plans that place shared amenities away from workstations, staircases which are a real various to lifts, and furnishings that encourages posture modifications all through the day all cut back sitting time with out asking individuals to make a aware determination to maneuver.
The important thing to higher office well being is to have motion often dispersed all through the day. Frequent desk breaks are only one ingredient of this, and doubtless the simplest to implement, with far-reaching advantages for psychological well being and efficacy.
Tradition performs an equally vital function alongside the bodily setting. In our personal UK workplace, the Scandinavian custom of fika, a set every day break the place the entire staff steps away from their desks collectively, places that into follow. When motion is collective and timetabled, it doesn’t depend on particular person willpower.
What wants to alter?
The controversy round workplace attendance has targeted on productiveness, collaboration and tradition. The sedentary knowledge raises one thing that has had far much less consideration: whether or not the workplace, as at the moment designed and managed, is sweet for the well being of the individuals utilizing it each day.
Office interventions to scale back sedentary behaviour have been proven within the NIHR survey to be cost-effective, delivering well being features alongside measurable productiveness enhancements. The proof is nicely established. The design response throughout a lot of the UK’s office environments is but to catch up.
Helen Beebe is MD at AJ Merchandise UK and Ambassador for Happiness at Work
