Specification Sheet
360steelcase.com Leap Productivity and Health Impact Study °4
ERGONOMIC STUDY FALL 2010
STUDY RESULTS*
The Leap chair-with-training group showed
signicant improvements in both health
status and productivity.
HEALTH STATUS RESULTS
The employees who received a Leap chair
and ergonomic training reported signicantly
lower pain and discomfort in their symptom
surveys and in their Work Environment and
Health Questionnaires. Their overall musculo-
skeletal symptoms were lower than the other
two groups. But that’s not all. Researchers
made another interesting nding.
You can normally expect people to feel more
discomfort at the end of a day of sitting,
compared to how they felt in the morning. For
both the control group and the training-only
group, the data showed this was certainly
true. However, for the people receiving a
Leap chair-with-training, any discomfort at
the end of the day was only a slight increase
compared to the morning. So not only were
the people who received a Leap chair-with-
training more comfortable overall, they were
comfortable for longer.
PRODUCTIVITY RESULTS
The study results also showed an increase
in productivity. After one year, the Leap
chair-with-training group achieved up to a
17.8% increase in productivity in the public
sector company. This number reects the
increase in taxes collected per hour worked,
which was an average increase of $6,250
collected per month, per employee. The
private sector company achieved up to a
8.3% productivity increase in calls per hour
and a signicant increase in the quality of
claims processed in the group that received
Leap chairs and ofce ergonomics training.
“In contrast,” reported Kelly DeRango, the
researcher who led the productivity portion
of the study, “the training-only and the
control group did not show any signicant
increase in productivity.”
“It’s not surprising that workers do a better
job when they experience fewer aches and
pains while sitting in front of the computer.
What is remarkable is not just the size of
the effects but the fact that improvements
were found in different work settings in two
different companies,” said Kelly DeRango.
“Most importantly, the ndings of this study
suggest that companies may benet by
improving the seating of their ofce workers
in conjunction with a training program in ofce
ergonomic practices,” Kelly continues. “Based
on the ndings of this study, we believe it
makes good business sense for companies to
provide Leap chairs to their employees.”
MUSCULOSKELETAL SYMPTOM
GROWTH OVER TIME
(FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR COMPANY)
“The productivity benets shown by the Leap
chair-with-training group were quite large
compared with the program’s costs. In contrast,
the training-only group did not show any statisti-
cally signicant changes in productivity.”— Kelly DeRango
“The Leap chair-with-training group experienced
a signicant reduction in symptom growth over
the course of the work day, compared to both the
training-only group and the control group.” — Ben Amick
* Individual customer results may vary from those in this study.