On the London trading floor of one of the big US banks, a few of the senior staff have taken to raising up their desks so they can stand up to work. Rumour has it, the first desk-raiser at the bank had a bad back. Those on the floor who followed him simply mistook this injury-motivated furniture re-arrangement for profit-hungry machismo.
Whatever the real reason, there is little surprise that this trend has come from the US, or that it should make its way to the UK via a US company in London. Yet there is also talk of a string of senior lawyers opting for these convertible desks at one of the UK's largest law firms. So why then are some in the Square Mile standing up to work? And more worryingly, does this mean we will all have to get on our feet sooner or later?
It beggars belief why any office worker without a painful back, knee or hip injury would elect to spend the whole day on his or her feet, but there are some convincing arguments for adopting the practice. Besides the health benefits, work is likely to be completed much quicker when standing up, since there is motivation not to waste time with idle chit-chat or reading the BBC website (the recent stat that suggests about 60% of British business conversation is spent trying to be funny tells its own story here). One of the rewards for these vertical workers is hopefully getting to leave the office earlier at the end of the day.
Being upright is surely better for productivity, as well. If films like Boiler Room and Wall Street have taught us anything, traders spend most of their working days on the phone and they close their biggest deals while standing up and shouting a lot (although even Gordon Gecko had a sit down desk in his Wall Street office). Corporate trainers, meanwhile, will tell you that standing up while on the phone makes the voice come across as more assertive and energetic; hence it projects a stronger image to the person on the other end of the line.
All of that being so, we humans are essentially lazy creatures who really enjoy sitting down, so where is this sudden burst of energy coming from? Fans of the epic US political TV series The West Wing could be excused for believing that the backroom staff at the White House invented this working-while-standing-up initiative. During most episodes, Toby, Josh, CJ et al are constantly seen pounding the corridors of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, holding meetings on the move and making all the important decisions on the hoof. But dynamic as it may seem, most of this acitivity is likely to have come from the penmanship of Aaron Sorkin, the masterful creator of the show, rather than the day-to-day reality of the White House.
A competing origin for this trend can be found in the sleepy village of Westerham in Kent. On the second floor of Chartwell, the private home of Winston Churchill turned museum, there is a room displaying all of the former prime minister's ceremonial uniforms. One of these feathery attires used to be Churchill's get-up for meetings of the Privy Council – a senior group of advisers to the British monarch, which can trace its roots back to at least Elizabethan times.
Next to the uniform, there is plaque that explains how meetings of the Privy Council would be held standing up so as to limit the amount of time wasted on discussing the issues of the day (subsequently verified by Wikipedia). These Privy Council meetings would traditionally have the king or queen present, so known wafflers and time wasters either had to become pithy and to the point or keep the monarch on his or her gilded feet for longer than required and run the risk of being sent to the gallows.
Modern day businesses leaders should take note of this and consider a company wide roll-out of these convertible desks (particularly those at the sharp end of the UK's productivity puzzle). As for the rest of us, next time we settle into a chair at the beginning of a meeting, pour a glass of water and ponder the best time to raise a point or introduce a topic, we should all be thinking to ourselves: would I say this if I was standing up?
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.
