There are a multitude of considerations when considering which task chairs to select for your teams. Of course, budget will be right up there but also, how the design fits in with the overall theme and feel of your work place but what about the aspects that will have the biggest impact on your employees. Task chairs can have a significant impact on your employees health, wellbeing and, directly linked to those elements, their productivity and effectiveness. This article wont focus on budget (largely as that is an objective consideration) but we will look at the some of the subjective parts that will help you make the best selection possible. Have you got your employees back? One of the most common losses of productivity and absence from employees almost the world over concerns back complaints. Doctors themselves find it tricky to treat back complaints as the symptoms are often invisible to the physician and any treatment based mostly on the communication from the patient. The best way to tackle this is by having chairs with the right support for the back. The chair back rest should be able to cater for the many different sizes and shapes of your employees with the ability to adapt for height, lumber support and rake (recline). Imagine a soothing Waterfall A surprising number of complaints of discomfort come from the seat itself (the ‘shelf’ on which the user will actually sit). The front of the seat should not have a sharp edge that can dig into or even restrict circulation behind the knee and should gently flow in a curving form like a cascading waterfall. The seat itself must be able to distribute the weight of the user evenly so the right level of padding is a must. With Task chairs, right angles are the right angles To maintain healthy and relaxed joints in a sitting position, the joints of your limbs should rest at 90 degree angles. That means your thigh should be parallel to the floor and the shin perpendicular to it making a 90 degree angle at the knee. Your feet should rest flat on the floor with a right angle at the ankle. To achieve this, your task chairs will need to have fully adjustable seat heights and, where possible, adjustable seat length to give the required support to the bum and thigh. This will deliver optimal comfort and circulation. Don’t forget to think of the neck and shoulders. Although you will be sitting, the arm rests should also be adjustable to enable your shoulders and neck to relax (consider also height adjustable desks to get the perfect position). Please, let me breathe Take care in choosing the fabric for your chairs, A balance between the hard wearing (but often scratchy or uncomfortable) and the fully breathable soft plush fabrics needs to be struck. You will want your chairs to last but, please remember that if you need your employees to spend significant time sitting, their butts will need to breath freely (no pun intended) as well as be gently caressed and cushioned. Engineers not required All these adjustable options should be at the users finger tips with easy operation. An absolute must is to insist that no tools are required to make these regular adjustments. Not only will a user want to make minor adjustments throughout the day, in a modern efficient business, there are likely to be multiple elements of inter office movement where individuals will move around the work place to work at the most appropriate area specific for the task in hand. This in turn means your chairs are very likely to cater to multiple users in any given day. These hints are intended to wet the appetite to consider more than just the colour and look of your task chairs and begin to consider them as genuine tools and enablers of productivity. Take the time to speak to the industry thought leaders from Xworks and explore what more task chairs can deliver for you and, believe it or, how they might even deliver a tangible return on investment.