4 Tips to pick the right technical seat or stool for a laboratory technician

1.Take care of your health: choose an ergonomic technical seat

Take in consideration different aspects to the comfort and the posture respect for lab technicians:

• The lab technician seat must be height adjustable. Once again, you practice a sedentary profession, in a seated position. However, you may be mobile on the technical platform, you move from one bench to another. Every bench, every workplan may have a different height. Choose a seat that allows you to adapt all postures.
• The seat back must stay in permanent contact with your back to guarantee  a perfect support. It must be able to follow all your moves with a back-to-front balance system. The back pains due to repeated stretches, rotations, extended bent positions can be improved with a seat back perfectly adjusted (thus adjustable…).
• Not all lab mates are the same size. You can easily figure out  that in a seated position on the same seat, John’s  – 1m90 high- ’s feet and the Stefany’s  – 1m65 –ones  do not touch the floor at the same time ! The footrest is amandatory customization  and posture adjustment ad-on.

Ideally, on the technical seat, regardless one’s  body size, the lab tech must be able:

• Keep his heels flat on the floor
• Avooid compression points under his thighs
• Keep a back permanent contact with the seat to avoid low back pain
• Keep his heels anchored in the floor to effectively benefit all seat ergonomic

In short, the ergonomic technical seat for lab techs allows to reduce MSP (Musculoskeletal ’Problems) risks by adopting adapted postures for lab techs daily operations.

2. Take care of your safety: choose a seat that meets hygiene rules requirements

En réalité, en choisissant une assise en tissu enduit skaï, au piétement aluminium, vous optez souvent pour le choix de référence.

The laboratory is a work environment subject to BPF/GMP.

In this environment, every single equipment must contribute to the perfect hygiene, the analysis results reliability, and staff safety .

The ergonomic seat must play its role in  a perfectly clean environment.

The next criteria will satisfy the lab hygienists:

• A robust seat to avoid that the coating does not wear out in pieces, and with a base that does not rust.
• A stool, a sit-stand or a seat which is easy to clean, with coating, base, and accessories which resist perfectly to the frequent hard detergents use, notably in white room.
• Accessories that protect the elements you handle from electromagnetism.

By choosing a leatherette coated fabric seat, with aluminium base, you opt for  the reference choice.

3.Simplify your daily work by opting for useful accessories

Beyond ergonomic and hygiene criteria to choose the good lab technician seat, some options can improve work comfort:

• The self-locking casters will allow you to stabilize the chair when you are in a seated position. Thus, during delicate handling, you do not risk that your seat slips away.
• A seat equipped with a gas spring is an ideal option for adjusting the seat height with precision, easily with one hand, using a joystick.

4. Pimp  your work environment: choose aesthetics and design

Who said that a work environment should be sad and impersonal?

According to an OpinionWay survey, a good work environment improves the ability to stay focused. This is particularly the case for 92% of respondents. For 90% of employees, this also affects the way of working  hence their creativity (74%).

For a good work environment, interviewees mentioned:

• Personalization
• Color touch that would have a positive impact on the daily employee’s performance

Thus, quite unanimously, blue seems to stimulate the intellect, yellow creativity, and green, calm and balance.

An armchair is a perfect element to bring this color touch to your technical platform. Enjoy!