Whistle while you work? How about walking as well?
Steelcase Inc. has unveiled the Walkstation, a workstation-treadmill combination that allows usually sedentary office workers to get a little exercise as they go about their daily routines.
The Walkstation, which will be available this month, is the first product in the FitWork category of products. In a press release touting the new product, Steelcase says it worked with a Mayo Clinic expert, Dr. James Levine, to create the workstation, which is designed to operate at speeds from 0.5 mph to 2 mph.
“The Walkstation is not intended to provide a gym-style workout in the office; its purpose is not to cause users to raise their heart rates or work up a sweat,” Levine says in the release. “For office workers, the majority of the workday is spent sitting in front of a computer. The premise of this Walkstation is simply to increase movement while working, and for users to enjoy the health benefits of that movement.”
Tune in to Weather Channel tunes. If all that walking has you wound up, here’s something that might help you relax. The Weather Channel is jumping into the music business, offering a CD of the smooth-jazz tracks that provide the background for its local weather forecasts.
“The music we play during local forecasts has such a big following that people have been writing in for years to ask how to get some of the songs,” said Shari Pace, vice president of licensing and merchandising for the Weather Channel.
Selections on “Weather Channel Presents: Best of Smooth Jazz” include “Shakin Up the Shack” by Dave Koz, “Windows” by Chick Corea, “Ocean View” by Pieces of a Dream and “Sidewayz” by Najee.
Since its Oct. 15 release, the CD has moved into a top-selling spot in ‘s jazz category and clinched the No. 3 spot on Billboard’s list of smooth-jazz collections. The Weather Channel plans to release additional compilations in the future.
“Psychological recession” hitting U.S. workers? As the market shimmies and shakes with fears of impending recession, corporations start looking to cut costs – including employees. In the past few months, for instance, Bank of America, Countrywide and Boston Scientific have announced plans to fire thousands of U.S. workers.
American workers, hardened by more than 20 years of mass layoffs, are more likely today to be victims of a “psychological recession,” said Judith Bardwick, an expert on workplace psychology.
Many workers today feel they are living in a chaotic world of job insecurity, she says in her book “One Foot Out the Door.”
Relying on questionnaire data, primarily from 1998 to 2005, she writes that those workers are no longer committed to their companies or their work responsibilities.
“On average, 80 percent of the people in many companies are not engaged in the work that they do,” she said, citing a Gallup Poll of 12.5 million people from 2003 to 2005. “Uninvolved people take no interest in their work – they do just enough not to get fired and are content to keep doing the same thing over and over.”
To shore up employee motivation and investment in the corporation, management should work to build trust with its workforce and be open to ideas issuing from the rank and file, she said.
Workers’ pet peeves. In staffing firm Randstad USA’s survey of employee pet peeves, office gossip was the top vote-getter, with 60 percent of respondents citing it as their primary irritant.
Office workers were also vexed by co-workers’ poor time management, with 54 percent naming that most annoying, while 45 percent cited messy common areas.
Other annoyances:
Randstad’s unscientific survey was conducted by Harris Interactive in July. Respondents were U.S. adults who agreed to participate in the online panel.
