A recommended chair that never arrives
An employer asks your service to handle workstation assessments for staff reporting discomfort, including home workers. The employee fills in a self-assessment. Some need a follow-up call or visit with one of your advisers, who recommends a change: a different chair, a monitor riser, a split keyboard, a referral if symptoms continue. The recommendation goes to the line manager in a report.
Three months later the employee is referred to occupational health for back pain. The chair was never ordered. Nobody on either side was tracking whether it was.
Why recommendations stall
Your service makes the recommendation; the employer has to act on it. Between the two there is usually a PDF report and a manager who is also doing their day job.
- Self-assessments are on paper or a generic form with no triage.
- Recommendations are written in a report rather than as separate actions.
- The person who orders equipment, often facilities or procurement, never sees the report.
- Nobody checks back with the employee after the change is made, or not made.
- Home workers are harder to reach and easier to forget.
There is also no shared language. Your adviser writes 'consider a fully adjustable chair with lumbar support'. The facilities manager needs a product and a budget code. The line manager is not sure whether that sentence is an instruction or a suggestion, so it sits in their inbox.
What lost follow-ups cost
Employees with a simple, fixable problem end up as management referrals. The employer pays for an assessment whose recommendations were never implemented. Your advisers repeat assessments for the same people. And the employer may not be able to show that recommendations were acted on.
The irony is that workstation work is some of the most preventable in occupational health. The fix is usually cheap and known; the process between the recommendation and the delivery van is what fails.
Home and hybrid working has made this harder. An adviser may assess someone over a video call, recommend a monitor arm and a laptop stand, and have no idea whether the employer has a process for sending equipment to a home address at all.
| Step | Owner | What is tracked |
|---|---|---|
| Self-assessment | Employee | Completed, triage result |
| Adviser follow-up | Your service | Call or visit, recommendations as actions |
| Equipment or change | Employer contact | Accepted, ordered, delivered |
| Check back | Employee, then your service | Resolved, or escalated for review |
How we build the workstation flow
- An online self-assessment per employer, completed on any device, including by home workers.
- Triage rules your advisers write sort responses into self-help guidance, adviser follow-up or priority follow-up.
- Advisers record recommendations as separate actions, each with a type, such as equipment, layout change or referral.
- Each action is sent to the right employer contact, such as the line manager or facilities, with a simple way to mark it accepted, ordered or delivered.
- Overdue actions are chased and reported to the employer's HR contact.
- After delivery, the employee is asked whether the problem has improved, and those still reporting problems go back to an adviser.
- Employers get a summary of assessments, actions and outcomes by department.
What joined-up follow-up gives you
Recommendations turn into actions with owners, and the employer can see what is outstanding. Employees are checked on, and those still struggling are picked up before they become a referral. Your advisers spend their time on the people who need them. And your service can show the employer that its advice was acted on.
The data is useful at renewal too. A summary showing which departments generate the most workstation problems, and how quickly recommendations are acted on, gives the employer something practical to improve, and gives your account manager a reason to discuss more than price.
Is this your workstation service?
- Workstation recommendations are sent as a report and not tracked.
- Employees come back as referrals with the same problem.
- Facilities teams never see the recommendations.
- Home workers' assessments are harder to follow up.
- Nobody checks whether a change helped.