The benefits of using Wellnomics WorkPace & Risk Management

Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises (WorkPace) has been shown to increase productivity and significantly reduce complaints amongst office workers. These results have been corroborated in a number of published scientific studies and over 60 pilot studies in organisations implementing Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises (WorkPace) in North America, Europe and Australasia1.

Reduced complaints

The micropauses, breaks and exercises provided by Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises have produced statistically significant reductions in complaints in a range of independent studies using the software.

“After 6 months there was a 56% reduction in pain and discomfort levels and a 54% reduction in eyestrain compared to baseline. Significant improvements were found in all body areas.”
Fortune 500 North American Aerospace Corporation

This study covered 500 users across 10 different sites and measured discomfort levels at baseline, 6 weeks and 6 months. Significant improvements were found after just 6 weeks, and these improvements were not only sustained, but further increased after 6 months. Some of the results from this study are shown below:

Improvements in discomfort in other studies using Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises (WorkPace) have also been found:

“The number of users in nearly every category of discomfort was decreased after Wellnomics WorkPace was installed, with a 24% reduction.”
Dana Brown, Industrial Hygienist, Eli Lilly Clinton Laboratories²

“Compared to the controls, more subjects in the experimental groups reported more recovery (55% vs. 34%) from their complaints and fewer reported deterioration (4% vs. 20%).”
Swenne van den Heuvel, TNO Scientific Research Institute³

In implementations in over 60 organisations 70% of office workers surveyed said that existing complaints had either Improved or Much Improved since using the Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises software.

Improved productivity

Popular belief is that introducing breaks and exercises will reduce productivity by interrupting the work. In practice, studies show quite the opposite – productivity doesn’t reduce, but can in fact increase.

A study by the internationally respected Netherlands TNO Research Institute on 240 office workers using Wellnomics WorkPace³ found a 13%-21% increase in keystrokes and a 2% increase in typing accuracy compared to a control group. Results were statistically significant.

The studies author, van de Heuvel, concluded:

“When people take more breaks it can be expected that the productivity of these people will decrease, as their working time is shorter. However, the results of this study, and comparable results from other studies (Sauter & Swanson 1991; Thompson 1990; Henning et al. 1993; Galinsky et al. 2000 and Dababneh et al. 2001) suggest this appears to be a misunderstanding. No negative effects on productivity were found. On the contrary, the number of key strokes and the accuracy rate were even higher in the experimental groups than in the control group.”

High employee satisfaction

The user acceptance of breaks and exercise software is very important to its success. Responses from pilot studies conducted in 60 different organisations show 83% of users rate Wellnomics WorkPace Breaks & Exercises as beneficial or very beneficial with 84% recommending the product be implemented in their organisation.

In the TNO Scientific Research Institute study³ referred to above 91% of users said they were either neutral, satisfied, or very satisfied with using Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises.

Overall, the user acceptance and benefits of the Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises software are very high, presenting a strong case for implementing this type of intervention for all office workers who use computers.

More research

For more on the extensive science behind breaks see Wellnomics White Papers.

¹See Wellnomics White Paper Scientific evidence for the benefits of Wellnomics WorkPace break software

²Brown, Dana, 2000, Prevention of Cumulative Trauma through the use of Wellnomics WorkPace™ break reminder software, Field Research Project HLTH 629. Ergonomics – Computer Issues, Papers 96-102

³Van den Heuvel, S.G., de Looze, M.P., Hildebrandt, V.H. and Kiem, H. (2002) The effects on work-related neck and upper limb disorders of software programs that stimulate regular breaks and exercises – a randomized controlled trial, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands: TNO Work and Employment.