New | The Hong Kong pioneers who work at their desks standing up
Interior design consultant Henning Voss has desks where he can sit and stand in both his offices, one with a treadmill; Amy Tsang rigged up hers using the box her Mac came in. Both have embraced 'active working', and say more of us should get off our rear ends
Years beyond counting ago, my friend Graeme Baldwin stood up. Not seismically eventful, you might think: but we were midway through a maths O-Level exam. Bemused and amused glances zipped around the examination hall, but Baldwin, concentration evidently fierce, remained oblivious. And remained standing. He passed the exam, by the way.
No witnesses knew it, but Baldwin was way ahead of today's thinking on the subjects of ergonomics and desk-bound working practices. Standing while working, it seems, brings a host of benefits denied us when we take a seat - and that's the view of swelling numbers of expert commentators.
Some belong to British organisation Active Working, which calls itself "a partnership of workplace experts" aiming to show employers "the optimum active working solution". Others are part of government body Public Health England, whose remit is to "protect and improve the nation's health". An advisory panel recently convened by both authorities recommended immediate action to promote a daily two hours of work done while standing.
As Active Working director Gavin Bradley told The Washington Post: "However you do it, the point is to get off your rear end," with simple-to-introduce changes including "taking your calls standing. Walking around. Holding standing meetings. Walking meetings. Walking to a colleague's desk instead of sending an email. Using the stairs instead of the lift."
In an increasingly sedentary world of office work, computer games and television, Active Working also advocates a switch to sit-stand or standing desks. And Hong Kong has not been slow to embrace the associated benefits. One enthusiastic convert is German native Henning Voss, by weekday a sales and marketing regional director, by weekend and evening the power behind Vivid Living, which he calls, "an interior design consultancy and property developer focusing on creating healthy living spaces".
In home or office, the company aims to create the healthiest possible environment, says Voss, a mandate that embraces air and water purification, sustainable building materials, mood lighting, ergonomic design and more, including standing desks. In the workplace at least though, employers are likely to be interested in little but the bottom line - a problem that fails to derail Voss.