What’s So Important About Dispatch Center Console Furniture?

What’s so important about dispatch center console furniture? We’re so glad you asked! If you are designing, building, or retrofitting a dispatch center, don’t forget about the furniture. It’s easy to get caught up in the technology and infrastructure of your control room, but the key to success is the productivity and effectiveness of your technicians and operators. Here’s what you need to know about the furniture and why it’s such a critical piece of the design puzzle.

The Importance of Ergonomics

Integrating people and technology is a key factor when designing dispatch center console furniture, and ergonomics should be the focus. When we think about safety in a workplace like a dispatch center, our minds often go to things like loose or folded carpet that can be a trip hazard, faulty wiring that can cause fires, and spills on hard floors that can cause slipping.

What we often fail to consider is the hazard of poorly designed furniture and workstations and what that can mean for the employees who use them. Ergonomic risk factors include poor posture, awkward and repetitive motions and movements, constant vibration, and having to reach beyond a certain threshold.

Studies have shown that lack of ergonomic design in workspaces such as a dispatch center – where operators sit and work for extended periods of time, and where focus is critical to the success of the individual and the organization – can be detrimental at best. Poor focus, physical discomfort and pain, fatigue, poor work quality, repetitive motion injuries, lack of job satisfaction, and absenteeism are all potential results of poorly designed workstations.

Benefits of an Ergonomic Dispatch Center

Ergonomics is about more than just a comfy chair. Here are the primary benefits you’ll find in your organization when you invest in the right console furniture:

• Reduced worker’s comp expenses
• Increased operator productivity
• Improved operator response time
• Improved employee engagement
• Increased job satisfaction
• Reduced employee fatigue, both mental and physical

Elements of Ergonomic Console Furniture

Consider carefully things such as work tasks, body parts needed for job function, the reach required for tasks, what sight lines are necessary, and the amount of movement required by techs and operators. Everything should be within arms’ reach. If more than one operator uses each workstation, flexibility and the ability to adjust is critical. This will help when designing and choosing not only your console but also the chairs, monitors, articulated monitor arms, video displays, and auxiliary furniture.

Investing in workplace comfort and safety can result in a significant return on your investment simply by reducing occupational complaints and accidents resulting from poorly designed workstations. To find and plan the dispatch center console furniture you need to keep your team happy and healthy, contact our team of experts at Fountainhead Control Rooms.