'Counting your steps': The use of wearable technology to promote employees’ health and wellbeing

Abstract

The intersection between workplace productivity and health is complex, often leaving the worker to balance the seesaw of simultaneously trying to improve performance and health. Digital platforms, email, smartphones and laptops, and increased connectivity have made it increasingly easy to work from anywhere, especially in white-collar industries. Yet it seems many still work from the same analog spot: their desk chair. But clocking hours in the chair seems to be doing workers' health no favors. Sedentary behaviors are an important risk factor for poor health and mortality and office work significantly contributes to the overall sedentary exposure of office workers (Parry & Straker, 2013). All the technologies that make working easier and more productive also seem to contribute to increasingly sedentary lifestyles (Borodulin, Laatikainen, Juolevi, & Jousilahti, 2007; Matthews et al., 2008). Paradoxically, technology may also be a solution to improve the health and wellbeing of employees.