The Evidence for the Effectiveness of Wellnomics^® Breaks & Exercise

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.

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.

This 2004 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:

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.

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 2001 study on 240 office workers using Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises 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.”

For information on other studies showing the productivity benefits of breaks regimes for officer workers see www.wellnomics.com/research

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 Breaks & Exercises as beneficial or very beneficial with 84% recommending the product be implemented in their organisation.

In the 2001 TNO Scientific Research Institute study 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.

For a more information on studies done using Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises see Wellnomics White Paper Research on Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises (WorkPace) Software Benefits www.wellnomics.com/research/wwp-rbsb.pdf

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¹See Wellnomics White Paper Research on Wellnomics Breaks & Exercises (WorkPace) Software Benefits

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.