In today's working environment, many people, especially those in the office or working from home, are familiar with the typical health complaints associated with their job and a lack of ergonomic work equipment (keyword: working at the dining table in the home office): Headaches, dry eyes, the so-called "mouse arm" as well as shoulder and neck pain are unfortunately part of everyday life for many VDU workers. In Germany, more than 17 million people work in jobs that require them to sit permanently at desks in front of screens. The importance of ergonomics in the workplace should therefore not be underestimated. In this blog post, we want to explain how an ergonomically designed working environment can prevent the aforementioned complaints and what contribution our project time recording software can make to ergonomics at your workplace.
Where does the term ergonomics come from? Well, this term is made up of the Greek words "ergon" (work) and "nomos" (law/rule). This means that ergonomics can be defined in the broadest sense as "work rules". What does this mean for the world of work? In short: working conditions should be adapted to people and not the other way round! The aim of ergonomics is to create a comprehensive and positive working environment for your employees and to optimise working conditions in such a way that there are few health risks in the workplace. This is crucial, as your employees can only achieve their full potential if they feel comfortable in a working environment and, above all, stay healthy!
The legal basis for ergonomics in the workplace in Germany can be found above all in the Workplace Ordinance (ArbStättV) - always with reference to occupational health and safety. Specifically, for example, it states § Section 3 (1) ArbStättV"When assessing the working conditions according to § Section 5 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act the employer must first determine whether employees are or may be exposed to hazards when setting up and operating workplaces. If this is the case, the employer must assess all possible risks to the safety and health of employees, taking into account the effects of work organisation and work processes in the workplace. In the risk assessment, he must take into account the physical and mental stresses and, in the case of VDU workstations, in particular the strain on the eyes or the risk to the employees' eyesight. [...]"
As an employer, you can do a lot to improve ergonomics in the workplace. This includes encouraging your employees to move around as much as possible and to organise their work processes in a varied way - both standing and sitting. The selection of ergonomic work equipment is also crucial.
Legislation has clear guidelines on ergonomics in the workplace, which primarily serve the purpose of occupational health and safety. Ergonomic specifications are particularly important for VDU workstations. Here are a few examples:
As you can see, ergonomics is far more than just an office fad. It is the science behind workplace design that aims to improve the health and efficiency of your employees. After all, an ergonomic working environment promotes the health and general well-being of your employees. This in turn has a direct impact on productivity and helps to prevent physical complaints. Those who feel good and are free of physical complaints can work more efficiently and with less stress. The right posture and the right work equipment are the key to increasing productivity. The the right balance between work and breakswhich is promoted by ergonomic working conditions, can help to prevent burnout. A healthy mind lives in a healthy body! Not only do "hardware" components such as chairs, screens etc. play a role here, but also a user-friendly software environment - especially when it comes to project time recording.
Project time recording software - such as ZEP - is a powerful tool for companies and freelancers. It not only enables the pure recording of working and project times, but also digitalises business processes from quotation preparation to invoice management. Why is project time recording indispensable in modern day-to-day project work? It's simple: by recording your project times, you can find out how much time is needed for certain projects. This helps you and your team to work more efficiently and meet tight deadlines - and, above all, to minimise stress in day-to-day project work. In addition, software such as ZEP helps you to fully cover your project management, track the progress of projects precisely and plan resources more effectively. And your customers also benefit from using project time tracking software. After all, customers appreciate transparency when it comes to invoicing. Accuracy in project time tracking strengthens trust, as your customers can see exactly what they are paying for.
Both workplace ergonomics and project time tracking software aim to promote the health and well-being of your employees. An ergonomically designed work environment that offers comfortable furniture, ergonomic accessories and good lighting helps to minimise physical strain and muscle tension. At the same time, our ZEP software solution can help to improve the work-life balance of your employees by making working and project times more transparent and making it easier to keep track of overtime, for example. After all, stress is one of the biggest triggers for burnout, along with the haptic design of the workplace. With software like ZEP, absence and holiday planning can easily be done digitally. With our Overtime, Absences & Holidays add-on module your employees can conveniently apply for all absence requests via the calendar and always have an overview of how many remaining days of leave are still available. Your HR department will probably be very grateful for the reduced effort. Stress and overwork are now a thing of the past. And if too much overtime should ever accrue, it can be compensated directly in ZEP with the absence reason "compensatory time off".
Both concepts are aimed at increasing work performance. An ergonomic working environment reduces distractions and inconveniences that could impair concentration. Modern project time tracking software solutions such as ZEP enable your employees to document their working hours for various projects transparently and accurately. This transparency promotes clarity and allows employees to better organise their work. This allows them to create more realistic schedules and better distribute workloads. With ZEP, for example, you have the option of Working hours, project times and Travel expenses in real time to record. This means you always have an up-to-date overview of the project status in the cloud. This is a decisive step towards increasing productivity and efficiency.
Ergonomics in the workplace primarily focuses on the prevention of health problems that can be caused by repetitive strain or poor posture. On the other hand, project time tracking software supports the prevention of burnout and stress by helping to set realistic work goals and balance the workload through skilful allocation of resources. This is because project and resource planning can help to reduce the work overload of your employees by scheduling each employee on a project-specific basis and thus only utilising them to the extent that their working hours allow. With the Resource planning module you plan your projects with foresight and always have an overview of which tasks are due next. This way, ambiguities don't stand a chance!
In a world where millions of people work in front of screens every day, the importance of ergonomics in the workplace is becoming increasingly clear. Ergonomics not only fulfils legal requirements, but also has a direct impact on the health and productivity of your employees. An ergonomic working environment minimises physical strain and increases well-being, while modern project time recording software such as ZEP promotes efficiency and transparency in everyday working life.
The link between ergonomics and project time tracking may seem unusual at first glance, but they complement each other perfectly. Both concepts make a significant contribution to reducing stress and overwork, setting realistic work targets and protecting the health of your workforce. After all, only a healthy team is a productive team!
If you want to increase the health and productivity of your employees and at the same time promote efficiency in your company, you should consider using project time recording software in addition to ergonomic workplace design. You can use ZEP Test free of charge and without obligationto experience the positive effect on your day-to-day project work for yourself. Take the opportunity to optimise your working environment and offer your employees a healthy and efficient working environment. Another advantage: in addition to fulfilling occupational health and safety requirements in terms of ergonomics, with ZEP you fulfil all the requirements for data protection-compliant and legally compliant software for project time recording. And with our helpful tutorials will certainly make it even easier for you to get started with project time recording.
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