5 ergonomic mistakes companies make when planning an office
Ergolain
2026.10.26
An ergonomic office workplace starts at the planning stage. A new office is usually planned around what is easiest to measure: floor area, number of workstations and budget. How people will actually work in that space only becomes clear later, when the first employees start complaining about back pain, noise, or having nowhere to take a phone call in peace.
Such a workplace is not just a good chair or an expensive desk. It is a set of decisions: how furniture adapts to different people, how much the space allows people to move, where they can concentrate, and whether employees know how to use what has been bought for them.
According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), musculoskeletal disorders account for around 60% of all work-related health problems reported by EU workers. Some of them can be prevented while the office is still being designed. Below are the five most common mistakes and what can be done differently.
1. Same-height desks for everyone – a bad idea
A standard fixed-height desk is about 74 cm high. The European standard EN 527-1 sets 740 ± 20 mm for fixed-height office desks. This height is designed for the average person, and only some of the people in an office are actually “average”.
For a shorter employee, such a desk is too high: the shoulders rise and the neck and forearms tense up. A taller employee hunches and leans forward. After a few hours, both feel tired, even if the chair is properly adjusted. For height-adjustable sit-stand desks, the same standard specifies a much wider range – at least 650 to 1250 mm.
That is why more and more companies are choosing height-adjustable desks. When choosing one, it is also worth looking at the leg construction:
- Two-stage legs suit most offices – their height range is sufficient for everyday sitting and standing work.
- Three-stage legs offer a wider adjustment range: the desk can go lower and higher. They are especially useful when very tall or very short people work at the desks, or when workstations are shared.
You can check the right desk height for a specific person with the ERGOLAIN calculator: https://www.ergolain.lt/skaiciuokle/. It helps determine the correct height settings and is a good starting point when an ergonomic office workplace is being planned for the whole team.
2. Underestimating the need to move
Even a well-fitted workstation does not solve one problem – static posture. The body is not made to stay in one position for eight hours, whether sitting or standing.
An expert statement published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in 2015 recommends that office workers spend at least 2 hours a day standing or moving lightly during working hours, gradually progressing to 4 hours. At the same time, the experts warn that prolonged static standing may be as harmful as prolonged sitting. The key is variation, not replacing sitting with standing.
What this means when planning an office:
- A sit-stand rhythm. A height-adjustable desk only helps when it is used. In practice, a simple habit works well – change position after every call, meeting or longer task.
- Zones that invite people to stand. High tables for short meetings, standing workstations by the window, a coffee area set slightly away from the desks.
- Routes through the office. The printer, kitchenette and meeting rooms do not need to be two steps from every desk. A few extra steps are natural breaks from sitting.
3. Too few places to concentrate and take calls
Many office plans have two extremes: an open work area and meeting rooms. Intermediate options – quiet work zones, small rooms or phone booths – are missing or too few.
The consequences show quickly. Video calls take place right at the desk while colleagues around try to concentrate. Meeting rooms are booked from the morning because someone is working alone or on the phone in them. In the end, there is nowhere to sit down for quieter work just when it is needed most.
An analysis of 21 open-plan offices with 883 employees, carried out by Finnish researchers, showed that speech is the main source of noise in open-plan offices. What disturbs most is not the volume itself but the fact that colleagues’ conversations can be heard and understood – they naturally pull attention away.
When planning, it is worth including:
- a quiet work zone where phone calls are not taken;
- acoustic booths or small rooms for one or two people;
- acoustic solutions in the open space – acoustic ceilings, wall panels and screens between workstations.
That way, meeting rooms stay free for meetings, and the open space becomes calmer for everyone.
4. Furniture bought, but no one knows how to adjust it
Ergonomic chairs and height-adjustable desks are a considerable investment. Yet they often remain in their factory settings: the seat depth unchanged, the backrest tension too firm or too loose, the desk never raised. In that case, even well-designed furniture becomes ordinary furniture, and its ergonomic benefit goes unused.
The reason is rarely unwillingness. Most often, employees simply do not know which lever does what, which position is correct and why it matters.
What can be done:
- A short briefing when new furniture arrives. 10–15 minutes per team: how to adjust the chair, what height the desk should be, how and when to change position.
- A reminder card at the workstation. A small card with the key steps: feet flat on the floor, thighs roughly parallel to the floor, elbows level with the desk surface, top of the screen at or slightly below eye level.
- Individual settings. The calculator helps each employee find their own desk height, so there is no guessing on the first day or when sitting down at a different desk.
- A reminder after a few weeks. The first adjustment is rarely the final one – people get used to their workstation and notice what they would like to change.
When employees know how their furniture should be set up, they keep doing it. This is especially important in offices where workstations are shared.
5. Blind copying – every team is different
You saw a beautiful office at another company or in a magazine, and you want the same. But a solution that works well in one organisation may not suit another at all. The differences are clear even between teams within one company:
- Developers spend a lot of time at multiple monitors; they need quiet and a larger work surface.
- The sales team spends a lot of time on the phone or on video calls, so acoustic booths and good acoustics matter to them, so that conversations do not disturb others.
- The design team often works together and shares materials and sketches, so they need places for collaboration: larger tables where several people can sit together comfortably, and surfaces where sketches can be laid out or pinned up.
So before planning, it is worth:
- asking employees how they work and what gets in their way today;
- observing for a few weeks how the current space is used: which places are occupied, which stay empty, where people talk and where they hide from noise;
- agreeing the plan with team leaders, not only with administration.
An office planned around real working patterns serves longer than one that copies another company’s solutions.
Summary
Most ergonomic mistakes come not from bad furniture, but from planning that focuses on the space rather than the people in it. Before making decisions, it helps to answer a few questions:
- Does the desk height suit everyone who will work at them?
- Does the space encourage movement, or does it let people stay in their chairs all day?
- Where will people concentrate, and where will they take calls?
- Will employees know how to adjust their own workstation?
- Does the plan reflect how your teams actually work?
If you are planning a new office or refreshing an existing one, the ERGOLAIN team can help you work through these questions and choose office furniture that fits the way your people work. You can start with the desk height calculator: https://www.ergolain.lt/skaiciuokle/. That is how an ergonomic office workplace becomes part of everyday work, not just a feature of individual pieces of furniture.
Sources
EU-OSHA (2019). Work-related musculoskeletal disorders: prevalence, costs and demographics in the EU. https://osha.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Work_related_MSDs_prevalence_costs_and_demographics_in_EU_summary.pdf
Buckley, J. P. et al. (2015). The sedentary office: an expert statement on the growing case for change towards better health and productivity. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49(21), 1357–1362. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2015-094618
Hongisto, V. et al. (2017). Distraction distance and perceived disturbance by noise – an analysis of 21 open-plan offices. https://www.icben.org/2017/ICBEN%202017%20Papers/SubjectArea04_Hongisto_0412_4058.pdf
EN 527-1:2011. Office furniture – Work tables and desks – Part 1: Dimensions. European Committee for Standardization (CEN).
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