Standing Desks – Should Employers Be Providing Them? - American Society of Employers - Kristen Cifolelli

Standing Desks – Should Employers Be Providing Them?

Several years ago, all the rage was the use of exercise balls to replace the traditional office chair.  The idea was that the unsteadiness of the exercise ball required the user to engage their core muscles to maintain a stable sitting position.  The result was supposed to be that the user burned more calories than they would sitting in a traditional office chair.  Virtually all later research showed that exercise balls as chairs caused more problems than solutions, and most experts recommended sticking to a traditional office chair.  Now that sitting is considered the new smoking, the latest fad is requests from employees for standing desks.   

 

According to a 2017 survey completed by SHRM, standing desks are the fastest growing benefit trend.  13% of employers subsidized standing desks in 2013, and 44% subsidized them in 2017.

 

There are many claims that a standing desk provides all sorts of health benefits including burning more calories and lowering the risk of obesity, reducing back pain, decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, improved mental health, improved mood and energy levels and increasing the user’s lifespan.  But what should employers consider doing for employees as a best practice for health reasons and what legally are employers required to accommodate?

 

When it comes to whether a standing desk can burn more calories, a study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health set out to answer that question.  The results showed that 80 calories were burned in an hour while sitting and that 88 calories (only 8 calories more) were burned while standing.  If you were to stand approximately three hours a day, it burns only an extra 24 calories, which is equivalent to the number of calories in a carrot.  In contrast, walking for 30 minutes during a lunch break could burn around 100 calories.  Ultimately the study suggests that that a standing desk is unlikely to help with weight loss or avoiding weight gain. 

 

On the flip side, a 2014 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that giving workers adjustable desks increased their sense of well-being and energy and decreased fatigue and appetite.  Another study found call center employees with sit-stand desks were almost 50% more productive than colleagues who only sat. 

 

While these studies have reported on some positive benefits of a standing desk, according to a recent NPR report, “there’s little evidence that workplace intervention like the sit-stand desk, or even the flashier pedaling or treadmill desks, will help you burn lots more calories or prevent or reverse the harm of sitting for hours on end.”  According to Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environment Analysis at Cornell University, the human brain performs some tasks, such as those that require fine motor skills, better sitting down.  “The brain works by processing things sequentially, so it becomes hard to do multiple things at once.  The key here is don’t throw everything away because we have really good chairs these days.” 

 

If sitting all day is simply being replaced by standing all day, that can bring its own list of health issues.  Standing all day can compress the spine and lead to lower back problems.  It can boost the risk for varicose veins, deep vein thrombosis, and other cardiovascular problems since the heart has to work against gravity to pump blood throughout the body.    In short, for standing desks to be more beneficial for cardiovascular health benefits, it should be used with a combination of sitting and standing.

 

When it comes to legal concerns, under the General Duty Clause in OSHA, employers have an obligation to keep their workplaces free from recognized serious hazards which would also include ergonomic hazards.  OSHA has cited employers for ergonomic issues where repetitive lifting or having an uncomfortable sitting position in front of a computer monitor has been alleged to cause musculoskeletal or other injuries.  There are no specific OSHA guidelines that address standing desks, and it isn’t clear whether a standing desk could prevent an ergonomic injury.

 

Employers should also be aware that they may have obligations to provide standing desks as a possible accommodation under the ADA.  If an employee provides a physician’s note that a standing desk will alleviate back pain or that a standing desk will provide health benefits due to a heart condition, then as long as the providing the desk doesn’t cause undue hardship, employers should makes the accommodation.  Employers need to engage the employee in the interactive process under the ADA, to determine whether the employee has a disability and whether it constitutes a reasonable request for accommodation.

 

Ultimately, employers are not required to provide standing desk for employees just because they want one, but before employers automatically deny the request, they should make sure there isn’t a requirement to accommodate under ADA or that it could prevent any sort of injury under OSHA.  Employers also should ensure they are using fair and consistent review processes to ensure there is no perceived discrimination when it comes to deciding who receives a standing desk. 

 

While questions regarding a standing desk’s overall health benefits are still somewhat unclear, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any.  There just haven’t been any studies that have conclusively validated their benefit.  Employers simply need to ensure that if they purchase standing desks, they are being used for the right kind of jobs and in the right kind of ways.  Before employers rush out and spend lots of money on standing desks for everyone, they might want to consider easier solutions such as encouraging employees to make phone calls while standing up and taking regular breaks to walk around the office.

 

 

Sources: Harvard Health Blog 9/23/2016; US News 12/4/2017

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