Health-driven initiation
Motivated by the potential health benefits, six people appeared to commit to using the desks prior to installation:
I think I must have had a back ache at the time or something and I thought it sounded like a really great idea to be able to spend some time in the day standing rather than sitting the whole day.
Participant 11 (Group 3), manual desk, support/administrative role
I saw the articles, read the articles, talking about the amount of energy you exert standing as opposed [to sitting] and some of the sort of health benefits so I was quite excited about this thing.
Participant 18 (Group 2), electric & manual desks, teacher/manager role
According to their own accounts, those who reported to be motivated prior to installation for health reasons were also “early adopters”, and continued to be committed and enthusiastic users. One employee who had used sit-stand desks in a number of previous positions described his initiation elsewhere in such terms:
I got really interested with a small group of colleagues, middle aged men sitting around talking about our dodgy backs. And one of the guys had quite a serious injury and was recently returned from surgery and he had invested in one of these to help out with his recovery and to keep him at work. And, so I thought well I might have a look and I went around now I found some really cheap ones, so I got one to give it a go and really haven’t looked back. Within probably three months, I went out and purchased a whole stack more of them; wrangled some money out of our, found some money, and I got one and put them in each of the work units in my division.
Participant 20 (Group 2), manual desk, researcher role
Thus the potential health effects of providing an option for standing were a strong motivator for some employees.
Experimentation or external prompting
Among other staff members, raising their desk to standing height was described more as experimentation rather than as part of a health strategy. One employee trialed her desk because of the evaluation; others were prompted to use the stand option directly or indirectly by other staff in their work area using it:
I wasn’t using it, but I’ve got a bit of a bad back and bit of a shoulder injury as well. So, for some reason it just never occurred to me to actually wind it up and a colleague said to me you should give it a go, so I did.
Participant 1 (Group 2), manual & electric desks, support/administration role
Oh the two of us in the office that use it, like I started using it and then M started, she started using hers and now we use them quite regularly where the other two, N went ‘til her desk broke… R has never, she’s not even interested in trying so yeah but N seen us two using it and she’s gone ‘I might try it too’.
Participant 9 (Group 3), manual desk, support/administrative role
Without a specific motivation, however, widespread initiation appears to be left to happenstance and one participant believed this may lead to lower uptake across the workplace:
So in the first instance it’s a personal individual thing but if someone becomes enthusiastic about it and receives the benefits then it’s quite likely that that will impact other people in the workplace. Conversely, if no one in the workplace is trying it, it takes an individual to stand up to try it and if everyone else is not then that may also impact.
Participant 16 (Group 1), electric desk, teacher/manager role
Maintenance
A number of factors emerged strongly in discussion of maintenance of use of the standing option of the desks. These could be summarized as: health/physical impacts; productivity/mental impacts, office set-up/context.
Health/physical impacts
As with the initiation phase, health or physical impacts were a reason people gave as to why they continued to use the desk in the standing position. Impacts could be physical as with the following staff member:
Today I’ve got it up and I’ve a bad back anyway so it’s good you know to actually, when you stand it gets a bit easier.
Participant 11 (Group 3), manual desk, support/administrative role
Health impacts were also expressed in terms of energy as described by this employee in response to a question regarding whether standing at work reduced other physical activity:
I still have the same level of activeness, if not probably more. Actually I still feel pretty energised when I get home.
Participant 1 (Group 2), manual & electric desks, support/administration role
Similarly, a couple of users mentioned not only standing but moving more with a raised desk.
And I do tend to move around my office a lot more as well. So I will go over and get something or I’ll walk out where as if you have to get up and walk away from your chair. I’m probably less likely to do it I’ll save it as a group of things so I’ll only have to go down once.
Participant 1 (Group 2), manual & electric desks, support/administration role
…one of the other things … which may be significant is I use the voice recognition software and I find that I can pace or walk and talk like I can think about what I’m saying.
Participant 18 (Group 2), electric & manual desks, teacher/manager role
Others would need to put the desk down if tired, although this did not completely foreclose on using the desk but rather limited the time in the standing position.
I wish I could do it longer, I’d like to do it for longer but by about yeah, after about an hour and half oh I think I need to sit down.
Participant 13 (Group 3), electric & manual desks, support/administration role
For one employee, despite a willingness to use the desk, the exacerbation of a physical complaint precluded continued use of the standing option:
I can move sometimes with difficulty but standing in one spot is putting more pressure on my back, and automatically start after a while it just shoots pain down the legs… There is nothing wrong with the desk, it’s me.
Participant 12 (Group 1), electric desk, support/administration role
Hence, physical impacts affected people’s use of the standing option both positively and negatively.
Perceived work productivity/mental impacts
A second factor reported to affect maintaining use of the height adjustment was the degree to which the potential user felt the standing position assisted or not with their productivity. For example, the following quotes illustrate where employees felt more efficient and/or alert when standing:
In that in that email checking process, initially I thought it was a bit of myth, but I’m now convinced that I work through my emails, more efficiently, quicker than I do when I’m sitting down.
Participant 16 (Group 1), electric desk, teacher/manager role
I think you do associate sitting with relaxing where as when I’m standing I am definitely more alert and far more productive.
Participant 1 (Group 2), electric, support/administration role
Equally, another staff member felt that standing was more of a distraction than facilitating her productivity:
Maybe you for sitting, maybe that impacts whether or not you use the desk or not, ‘cause I really can’t, I don’t feel focused at all when I’m standing. I’m shuffling from foot to foot and I’m usually just reading a document but the screen is too close or too it’s far away or my arms are too funny or whatever it might be. It’s just not comfortable…I don’t feel in the zone as it were.
Participant 15 (Group 2), electric desk, researcher role
Reflecting the quantitative findings reported above, the desk position felt to best serve productivity across the interviewees was not wholly determined by the particular task being performed as the following quotes show:
I think probably my usage has increased, so now I don’t really go to the low mode unless maybe some reading or some other activities which I find I just want to sit.
Participant 18 (Group 2), electric & manual desk, teacher/manager role
But also I guess typing it’s not a natural thing for me to stand and type I suppose. I’m happy reading so I’m almost the opposite to [Participant 18] really, happy reading, but I couldn’t type whilst I was there.
Participant 15 (Group 2), electric, researcher role
Interviewer: And what sort of tasks would you do standing?
All the tasks I do sitting, basically. emails, you know, writing documents, reading documents, phone calls, so everything.
Participant 11 (Group 3), manual desk, support/administrative role
A number of staff instead linked their preferences and productivity whilst sitting or standing to their habitual styles and past modes of working. For example, one felt he was more productive standing because he was previously in the military where decisions were literally made by thinking “on your feet”; another remarked he was \used to carrying out administrative tasks standing as he had worked in retail. Similarly, the employee quoted directly above attributed her better thinking when seated to her background as a student when she studied sitting down.
Desk/office set-up/context
Maintenance and extent of use of the desk in standing mode was also reportedly affected by the degree to which the desk set-up accommodated height adjustment.
And so the way that the desks were installed is that they’re down quite low so they’re at seated height but then as soon as you wind it up it hits the pin board and it won’t go any further, so we actually had to pull it out so we could get it up.
Participant 1 (Group 2), manual & electric desks, support/administration role
Yeah I think people, maybe people would actually wind them up if the cables went nicely up with the computer…[so] the screen doesn’t fly off the desk.
Participant 3 (Group 1), manual, support/administration role
Other issues related to the broader context of the office space:
…Unfortunately my desk has become a storage space in itself. So the usefulness of the desk is limited by, or is affected by the storage space that I have around me. .. so, for me it is some of the other furniture issues which affects the usefulness of the stand-up desk.
Participant 19 (Group 1), manual, researcher role
‘Cause I think some of the stand up desks, it’s a lot of stuff in people’s offices … aren’t oriented to that height. So unless you sort of have a holistic view and say, I actually reckon …I’ll pop all those things up or I’ll put my bookcase up and I’ll stack it from the half to the top … or my whiteboard is going to be at that standing level where I don’t have to crouch, then I think you’d probably get a better feel for whether you know that whole working at height thing rather than just standing behind a desk at height.
Participant 18 (Group 2), electric & manual desks, teacher/manager role
The majority of the participants felt that there was a need for getting instruction, not so much to operate the desk as this was straightforward, but how it may best be setup not to cause injury and support use of the height adjustability. The following sentiment was typical in response to a question on whether they received any instruction:
Absolutely nothing… We got nothing from the manufacturers, just like well here’s your desk. Well, it’s just there, so we had to set up we had to set up a computer, whatever way it was, so there may be a way of actually doing it properly, I don’t know.
Participant 16 (Group 1), electric desk, teacher/manager role
Although not totally precluding use of the desk, there was a sense that the more ambivalent user may be less likely to develop the habit of transitioning between sitting and standing when such obstructions arose. As one interviewee concluded:
So information like that would have been quite useful maybe would have let me certainly to set up my office so that I might have actually [used the desk] a bit more than I have.
Participant 15 (Group 2), electric desk, researcher role
Electric versus manual
Most of the factors described above did not vary by whether the desk was manual or electric. However, often mentioned was the longer time (a few minutes according to the interviewees) to change the desk between sitting and standing height with the manual adjustment mechanism which was thought by a couple of participants to influence initiation, for example:
Some adopted much earlier than others but I’ve heard that it, because it takes a couple of minutes to actually wind the desk up and down for the manual one, that people obviously prefer to have the electric one.
Participant 21 (Group 3), manual desk, teacher/management role
But I share my office with someone who’s got a manual desk, she was equally interested in the standing but she hasn’t used it and I think it’s ‘cause it’s manual.
Participant 13 (Group 3), electric & manual desk, support/administration role
Further, maintenance and extent of use of the height adjustability was also reportedly influenced by desk type:
I think I’m probably standing a good six hours and in fact my laziness is probably working to my advantage because once I wound it up, I haven’t wound it back down.
Participant 1 (Group 2), manual & electric desks, support/administration role
Yeah, yeah, they do it a lot more up and down during the day if it’s electric. I would do mine at least twice a day so yeah and it’s so easy.
Key informant, electric & manual desks, management role
Having a manual desk may deter trialling the desk, prolong being in either the sitting or standing position or completely discourage standing; that is the number of transitions may be lower among users of a wind-up rather than electric desk.
The key informant, amongst others, agreed in hindsight that it may have been better to have installed only electrically operated desks to encourage use and not foster resentment (albeit mild).
So if you had to go through this whole process again is there something that you might do differently do you think?
Yeah we’d probably, probably push for the electric adjustment everywhere. Because it really is the icing on the cake, it really makes the benefit accessible to everybody.
Key informant, electric & manual desks, management role