The surge in home working triggered by COVID-19 has sparked plenty of debate about the relative merits of flexible working arrangements.

But behind all the discussions about whether people should or will return to the office full time, the work-from-home trend has triggered a largely hidden secondary pandemic - a big spike in injuries associated with sitting in front of a screen all day with scant regard to posture, comfort and ergonomics.

We shouldn’t really be surprised. For how many of us has the ‘home office’ been the sofa, the dining table, the breakfast bar or even our bed? When the first stay-at-home orders were issued early in 2020, most people thought home working would be a novel interlude that would last a few weeks at most. No one worried unduly about roughing it for such a short period of time.

But fast forward through months of lockdown and home working orders, and those less-than-optimal workspace arrangements have taken their toll.

Home working risks

According to one snap survey carried out by the American Chiropractic Association, 92% of chiropractors in the US reported a rise in referrals for neck pain, back pain and other issues.

The link between home working and increased risk of musculoskeletal injuries and home working are nothing new. Back in 2017, one the UK’s leading private healthcare specialists BUPA, carried out a study that found that half of home workers reported injuries, aches and pains associated with long hours sitting in front of a laptop - 10% more than people working full time in a traditional office.

The causes of this discrepancy were hardly a mystery. Half of respondents to the BUPA survey reported that they sat ‘hunched over’ their computer as they worked from home, while 40% said they regularly worked from their sofa or bed. Not only that, but 47% said they worked longer hours from home.

The links between how your workspace is set up and the risks of neck pain, back pain, repetitive strain injury (RSI) in your wrists and hands, carpal tunnel syndrome and more are well established.

Employers now have an obligation under health and safety legislation to ensure desks and chairs are ergonomically set up to support good posture and minimise musculoskeletal strain. It’s no different to the responsibilities firms have to protect staff from any other kind of work-related injury.

Unfortunately, when it comes to home working, that all too often goes out of the window. Employers have a duty to support home workers with ergonomic setups. But if you don’t have the space in your home for a proper office desk, if by choice you tend to switch from kitchen table to sofa to bed and back round again when working from home, the standard options for minimising musculoskeletal injuries are limited. A dangerous ‘make do’ culture has arisen which has led to the spike in work-related injuries in the home.

Laptop Risers: A Simple, Flexible Solution

One thing that can make a big difference in any home working environment is a laptop riser. Simple and affordable, laptop risers like the Leitz Ergo Cosy range are nonetheless very effective at helping to avoid the stresses and strains your body is put under when you are sat in an awkward position for hours at a time.

The big benefit of a laptop stand is that it lifts your screen up to eye level, which makes a huge difference in relieving strain placed on your back and neck. If you sit with your head tilted downwards at any kind of angle to look at a screen, your neck muscles have to support the weight of your head. Eventually this will become uncomfortable, so you hunch over to compensate, bending your lower back and pushing your shoulders forward, creating strain on those, too.

By positioning your screen at eye level, it means you don’t need to tilt your neck at all. In an upright position, your neck muscles are under minimum strain. To make sure you can always have your screen at eye level even if you move around working from different places, choose a height-adjustable laptop riser.

It is also a good idea to choose a laptop riser that tilts the in-built keyboard so it can’t be used and you have to connect an external keyboard. If this sounds like a strange benefit, consider this. Laptop keyboards are notoriously bad for wrist position when typing, and the scroll pads that substitute for a mouse are even worse. Although we do not recommend this as a permanent solution, the option to change your typing angle for short periods may prove beneficial.

With an external, ergonomically designed keyboard and mouse, plus a comfortable and adjustable wrist rest for your keyboard and mouse pad, you can significantly reduce the risk of developing conditions like RSI and carpal tunnel syndrome, which can make working on a laptop extremely uncomfortable.

Finally, although there are heavy duty adjustable laptop stands available on the market which promise an advanced level of height and position control, consider your preferred way of working while you are at home. If you like to switch around places or even head out to a local cafe to do a couple of hours in a different environment, a heavy laptop riser designed to be left on your desk will limit your options.

Small, lightweight and easy to store at the end of the working day, laptop risers like the Leitz Ergo Cosy range can be easily taken with you wherever you choose to work, providing ultimate flexibility and peace of mind that you are working safely at all times.