I bet you didn't know that standing desks have long been used by both Americans and Europeans. And not just any Americans and Europeans but Benjamin Franklin Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway to name a few. The trend has been popularized in recent years by Silicon Valley IT companies like Google and Facebook. And even more recently the movement has been catching on with our South Korean friends as well.
Kakao South Korea's most popular mobile instant messenger application service offered to buy standing desks for any interested employees. According to workers this has led to improved workplace efficiency and health benefits. Today over 20% of the workers of Kakao have a height adjustable desk.
"The presence of more standing desks in the office encouraged employees to stand up during team meetings" employee Linsey Hwang shared. "We found that meetings didn't take as long and this improved efficiency." Hwang was motivated to invest in a stand up desk after visiting her doctor recently. "He said I was in danger of harming my spine if I continued to work in a sedentary position. So I ordered a standing desk like my colleagues. As a result my back pain was gone within a week. As a bonus it is much easier to concentrate on my work." If ditching back pain and finding workplace productivity wasn't enough studies have also shown that standing for part of the workday burns calories faster and improves muscle activity.
Amore Pacific the country's leading cosmetics company also invested in standing desks. One of their managers says that standing desks improve...you guessed it... work efficiency. "During team meetings some participants used to get distracted easily after a while. When we meet at standing desks we find that people concentrate better on the subject at hand." A U.S. study published in June 2014 backed up this claim. In a paper entitled "Get Up Stand Up: The Effects of a Non-Sedentary Workspace on Information Elaboration and Group Performance" researchers Andrew Knight and Markus Baer found that standing during meetings increased creativity and problem-solving. Yet another reason to invest in an awesome desk like our UpWrite or PowerUp.
Does holding a meeting while walking or standing sound familiar? Does it sound like we've said that standing desks improves productivity and overall workplace efficiency before? It's because it is and we have. We've been preaching on this for a while now actually. And it sounds like with more and more companies understanding the health benefits that standing desks provide it's only a matter of time before this trend spreads to other countries as well. Forget being office trendsetters - we're global trendsetters now.
Standing desks improve concentration efficiency and health. They enable workers to function more efficiently. So really...what are you waiting for? Contact UpDesk today to purchase your very own height adjustable desk.
