About Us

“What’s your SIT-uation”

If you stop and think about it, in the 24 hours in a day, on average  you spend approximately 8 hours a day in your bed while sleeping, and after that, the next greatest amount of time would be spent in your office chair. If you follow that logic, then as important as it is to have a comfortable mattress that is supportive and built to fit your comfort needs, then so must your chair be comfortable for you, and actually fit you properly.

An analogy I heard recently from Richard Weiss, at Altitude Resource Group, summarized this quite well. Richard offered the following, "Say the ten of us were to be in a teambuilding event, and we wanted to go out and get a shirt to represent our team. If I went out and bought ten medium t-shirts, and handed them out, how would that work out for all of us? Not very well, correct? Some may need a small, some might need a large, some an extra-large, and so forth."

The point was, if we wouldn’t buy 10 shirts all the same size, then why would we assume that it is fine to buy 10 of the exact same size, and featured chairs, when 10 people may have a few different needs, especially  knowing how important this piece of furniture is in our daily lives.

Over the years, I have worked closely with a number of ergonomists to try to fully understand how to choose the correct chair for a client, and make sure that it is the correct choice considering the person, the need, and of course, the budget. One such ergonomist is Craig Chasen,CEES, author of the textbook “Safety Manager’s Guide to Office Ergonomics”   Both Craig and Richard offer this advice when choosing an office chair.  “ Be sure to ask questions, and learn about the client, to make an educated decision on which chair features will provide optimal support as they work. Adjustability is the answer for proper alignment to the spine. “ Questions such as below are crucial.

1. How tall is the client ?
2. How much ( approx) do they weigh ?  ( A fun question to ask ) If we have a person that weighs 270 pounds, are we going to give them the same chair as a person that weighs 120 pounds ?
3. What is their general build ?  ( Long legs….wide hips…..narrow shoulders….etc )
4. Are they currently having any pain or discomfort?
5. Have they had any surgeries you need to know about?  Tailbone injuries ?
6. How much time do they spend in their chair each day?

Additionally, I feel that it is also important to ask these questions:

1. What do you want the chair to look like?  Modern, contemporary, wood frame or steel , fabric, mesh etc…..
2. Are we matching any other chairs in your office?
3. High back – low back, Executive, Management, Task oriented
4. Budget ?
5. Is warranty important ?

Once we determine, through this Q&A exercise, we can proceed to fit a person in the chair that best suits their needs. This is a process that looks to make sure the client “fits”properly  in the chair, and provides the support and comfort throughout the day.

Craig would add these guidelines for us:

1. Make sure the client is seated back in the chair, with back and shoulders  supported by the back of the chair. The client should not be leaning forward, “reaching” for his or her work.
2. Once seated back in the chair, adjust the height of the chair so the feet are placed flat on the floor, with roughly a 90 degree bend in the knees.
3. Now, using your hand, judge the distance between the back of your knee and the front edge of the seat of the chair. There should be roughly 2 to 3 fingers of distance there.  If the distance is more or less than this, use the seat slider mechanism to adjust to get that 2 to 3 fingers distance.
4. After that, adjust the arms up or down, and in and out, so as to provide optimal arm support.

In general, that covers the basics of chair selection. If you need additional help or information on selecting seating for you or your staff, please contact your Source Account Manager for help. We have over 50 chairs in our demo program, and would be happy to assist you in making the best choice for a comfortable and productive workplace.

What’s YOUR  SIT – uation   ????