Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Office
Companies that have gone electronic discover a host of environmental problems. You may be sitting on one, reading under another, and have your feet up on a third.
It was supposed to solve many problems and make life easier and more efficient for many people, but, at a small ($20 million) company in the Northeast, word processing has become, literally, a pain in the neck. The problem didn't arise because the 32 Atex terminals didn't perform as promised but because, before they were installed, no one thought enough about the offices in which they would go.
"Well, I can stand the pain," says a pert, 22-year-old secretary mustering a stiff upper lip, but the remark -- more common than most chief executive officers or office managers realize -- is hardly a glowing endorsement of the new electronic office.
After spending a few hours entering manuscripts into the system, the secretary finds that her eyesight gets "blurry," pains develop in her back and neck, and her arms grow weak. Her only recourse is to sneak away from the terminal for a short while. The reason for her predicament is that, while management gave her a new $2,500 tool, it didn't spend one cent preparing her work space for it.
Another employee for the same company notes that she had asked management to consider the environmental factor before introducing the terminals, but that management had failed to do so, now, five months after the system went on line, management has finally put in an order for a few new chairs. The employee, who sometimes spends an entire eight-hour day "hunched over" her keyboard, doesn't expect the Band-Aid approach to solve what has become a "really uncomfortable" work situation.
"There's a gigantic mismatch between the existing office environment and the new office technologies," says Jon Ryburg, of Facility Management Institute (FMI), a consulting, research, and educational firm in Ann Arbor, Mich. Lights, desks, chairs, heating and air-conditioning systems, and electrical systems -- all generally designed for the "paper office" -- may offset the electronic advantage and occasionally create problems that cut productivity.
Beyond the issue of efficiency -- compromised when employees grow uncomfortable in a mismatched environment -- lies the question of shortand long-term health hazards. The long list of ills that have been attributed to cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) ranges from fatigue and eyestrain to cataracts and problem pregnancies.
The problems have not gone unnoticed. In 1979, United Nations workers struck because of an apparently abnormal miscarriage rate among CRT operators. And, in 1980, 1,000 clerical employees struck Blue Shield of California, complaining, among other things, of CRT glare, bad lighting, and poor ventilation. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and 9to5, the National Association of Working Women, have both issued CRT guidelines. And the United Auto Workers, which regards CRT safety as "a hot issue," has recently drafted sample contract language on the use of CRTs, stipulating CRT support furniture.
Dan LacLeod, an industrial hygienist with the UAW, notes that, given the explosive growth in the number of CRTs -- one study concluded that, by 1990, 75% of all office jobs will involve them -- the issue may soon "catch fire."
Responsibility for the mismatch problem is most often laid at the feet of the computer manufacturers who, in their rush to develop and introduce products that excelled at a given task, often ignored the needs of the performers of the task. "Their thinking stopped at the screen and keyboard," says one office designer. And, after problems appeared, vendors hesitated to tell customers that they might have to spend 10% to 30% more for new lighting, desks, chairs, and other items suited to CRTs.
It was not until the mid-1970s that the troubles were openly acknowledged. "Our industry began addressing the issue about five years ago, " observes Stephen D. Channer, executive director of the Business & Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association, "and we've been actively involved in the production of furniture for the electronic office for the past two to three years." Such furniture -- frequently referred to as ergonomic (altering working conditions to fit the worker) or systems furniture -- now accounts for 30% of industry sales and is the fastest-growing segment of the market.
The demand has led a number of giants -- among them IBM, Burroughs, Xerox, National Cash Register, and 3M -- to enter the furniture business, eager, no doubt, to correct their earlier oversights
"People are the key element in any office, past, present or future," says a representative for Steelcase Inc., of Grand Rapids, Mich., the largest manufacturer of office furniture in the world (1981 revenue, $800 million). "And, if people aren't considered first, the new technologies will . never pay off as promised."
THE TERMINAL
Whether it is called a CRT, a VDT (video display terminal), or a VDU (visual display unit), the terminal is where most of the problems originate and where many of them can most easily be eliminated. Approximately 5 million of the units are already in place (roughly one for every 10 white-collar workers in the United States), and the number is expected to double by 1985.
A powerful and versatile tool, the CRT is also demanding and sometimes dangerous. Its screen produces an image that is significantly harder to read than printed material, it generates heat and low levels of radiation, and it frequently requires an operator to sit for extended periods in uncomfortable positions. The result is a list of complaints: eyestrain, stiff neck and shoulders, irritability, back pain, fatigue, blurred vision, skin rash, stomachaches, loss of feeling in fingers and wrists. The symptoms occur 20% to 30% more frequently among CRT users, according to NIOSH, than among nonusers. (The role of radiation in the development of cataracts and problem pregnancies is still unclear.) NIOSH also found that CRT operators displayed higher stress ratings than any group of workers ever tested, including air traffic controllers.
