Modern Workstyles and Sedentary Behaviour? analyzes data from sensors installed at Zurich Insurance's offices to track employee movement and activity levels. The data showed that while most sedentary episodes were short, a significant portion of employee time was spent in prolonged episodes of over 30 minutes, which can increase health risks. However, the dynamic workspace layout with flexible and mobile workspaces was found to support less sedentary workstyles compared to traditional offices. While the workplace influences behavior, individual workstyles, technology use, and management also impact sedentary time. Overall, business value and health benefits can both be achieved through more dynamic work environments and support for varied individual workstyles.

1. Modern Workstyles and Sedentary Behaviour?
Chris Lees,
Zurich Insurance CRE&FM
William Fawcett,
University of Cambridge & CAR
Workplace Trends – The Healthy Workplace, March 26th 2015, London
PEMBROKE
COLLEGE
CAMBRIDGE

2. Zurich Offices Whiteley, Pre- and Post-Dynamic
Working (2012 change)
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Within-workplace mobility: wifi, soft boundaries
for several large neighbourhoods, sit-anywhere
desking, plus introduction of new “shared
commons” featuring pods, benches, café style
seating, social/ work areas, deliberate blurred
edges. Plus retreats.
Sedentary work blend? – shaped
by fixed PC, no follow-me phones,
and meeting rooms predominantly
requiring pre-booking, or for
exclusive use.
Nominally 120-130 people, peaks of around
160 inc Zurich and outsourcer nomads

3. The work context
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Finance Ops (tax, financial controlling, expenses, capital management)
Other Central Operations (sourcing & procurement, CRE&FM)
9 distinct workstyles, but generally stable with standardised processes & protocols
Complex processes involving negotiation and handovers/ decision points, problem
solving, authorisation, inter and intra team resolutions, information sharing, team
performance management, and global co-working by geographically/ temporally
dispersed teams.
All functions are part of globalised functions, plus there have been some changes
in size of teams, neighbourhood location, leaders and in/outsource balance.

4. The intervention – how and why
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Survey carried out over 4 months, summer 2014
694 PIR sensors covering meeting rooms, DW team and desk zones
Staff consulted about sensor installations

5. Building B, 2/F, East Wing
What we did and what we found…
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6. Data from sensors at 1 minute intervals – approx. 1m datapoints per day
Data aggregated to 10 min intervals, 6 per hour
1 = person detected, 0 = no-one detected
Similar to clipboard survey of use, but at much finer granularity
Work Episodes
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7. Data from sensors at 1 minute intervals – approx. 1m datapoints per day
Data aggregated to 10 min intervals, 6 per hour
1 = person detected, 0 = no-one detected
Consecutive sequence of 1’s indicates a sedentary episode
Work Episodes
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8. Meeting Rooms, Team Zones, and Desks
Diagram shows 8 weeks of data aggregated into 2 hour blocks
Depth of shading = number of 10 min intervals occupied in the 2 hr block
Seat Occupancy
8Building B, 2/F, East Wing
In meeting rooms, vertical dark bar represents many seats in use = meeting!
At a desk, horizontal dark bar represents continuous occupancy = sedentary episode

9. Every episode has a start time and a stop time
Diagram shows average incidence of episode starts and stops in each 10 min
interval over 82 working days
Strong hourly peaks, and weaker half-hourly peaks, are probably due to meetings
Q: Lotus Notes diary default settings as the pacemaker, or as a synchronising aide,
helping optimise serendipity and takt time across multiple blended work patterns?
Work Episode Starts & Stops across Daily Cycle
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Q: A dynamic office?

10. Basic Episode Data
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Episodes per sensor location per day
Most locations have 1 to 5 episodes per day
Episodes lengths
Most episodes are very short

11. Time Spent in Episodes
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Meeting rooms
average length 28.3 min (SD 30.83)
Workplaces
average length 47.4 min (SD 57.95)
Team areas
average length 27.3 min (SD 41.70)
The majority of episodes are short, but long episodes take up more of
employee’s time
Episodes at workplaces tend to be longer
Significant proportion of employees’
time in episodes of length >30 mins
Prior research has shown that both the
proportion of time in sedentary
episodes, and the occurrence of
prolonged sedentary episodes beyond 30
mins, are contributors to health risk
(papers by Healy et al)

12. Other Comparable Studies
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• Generally accepted that the level of physical activity of many office-based
workers is too low, causing health risks
• 30 mins suggested as threshold value for increased health risks
• Surveys using accelerometers/inclinometers all show that about three-
quarters of office workers’ work time is spent in sedentary activities; and
there are more short sedentary episodes than long ones
• Considerable variation between survey findings, due to differences in:
(A) workstyles, (B) monitoring systems, (C) time granularity – or all three
Survey % time av. length % sed. time % sed. time
sedentary sed. episode <30 mins >30 mins
Zurich n/a 34.3 mins 31% 69%
2014
Parry et al 81.8% – 49% 51%
2013
Toomingas et al 76% 11.4 mins 61% 39%
2012
Thorp et al 77% – 72% 28%
2012

13. Keypoints from Zurich Survey
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• Survey shows predominance of short episodes, but significant proportion
of employees’ sedentary time in episodes of >30mins
• Health implications have not been evaluated
• Mitigating measures to reduce prolonged sedentary episodes have not
(yet) been considered
• Zurich survey was a significant undertaking, both for data collection and
data analysis
• Other surveys show varying results – not safe to assume that other results
would apply to Zurich’s offices; and not safe to assume that the Zurich
findings would apply to other offices
• Survey focused on sedentary behaviour – it is important but only one
aspect of workplace health

14. • 21st century ways of working at Zurich appear to be notably less sedentary
than in our legacy offices
• DW workplace does free people to work in a less sedentary manner
• Whilst workplaces matter, so do workstyles, technology and management
attitudes, plus how people vary their personal workstyles
• Business value and health benefits converge in a win-win
So, what does this all mean?
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Workplaces are but one driver of sedentary work behaviour

15. This presentation has been prepared by the author and the opinions expressed therein are those of author at the
date of writing and are subject to change without notice.
This publication has been produced solely for informational purposes. The analysis contained and opinions
expressed herein are based on numerous assumptions. Different assumptions could result in materially different
conclusions. All information contained in this publication have been compiled and obtained from sources
believed to be reliable and credible but no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made by the author
or by Zurich Insurance Group Ltd or any of its subsidiaries (the ‘Group’) as to their accuracy or completeness.
This publication is not intended to be legal, underwriting, financial, investment or any other type of professional
advice. Persons requiring advice should consult an independent adviser. The Group disclaims any and all liability
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forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements that are predictions of or indicate future
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because, by their nature, they are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and can be affected by
other factors that could cause actual results, developments and plans and objectives to differ materially from
those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.
The subject matter of this publication is also not tied to any specific insurance product nor will it ensure coverage
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