Desk workers rejoice! ‘Standing breaks’ now required at offices

Call center agents of a business process outsourcing firm (AFP FILE PHOTO)

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has issued an order requiring employers to provide standing breaks for their workers whose jobs require sitting for long period of time.

In Department Order No. 184, the labor department has set and enforce mandatory occupational safety and health standards in all workplaces in order to eliminate health risks related to sedentary work or sitting while working for long hours.

Under the DO, employers are required to provide workers with regular five-minute breaks every two hours from sitting time.

“Employers should encourage workers to reduce sedentary work by interrupting sitting and substituting it with standing or walking,” the DOLE said.

Employers should also ensure that workstations are appropriately designed for work, it added.

“Redesign work tasks, if possible, to enable greater variability in mobility or posture,” the labor department said in its order.

“The employers, in consultation with its workers, may adopt other measures to address the occupational safety and health problems of workers who have to spend long hours sitting at work,” it added.

The DOLE said the order shall apply to workers involved in computer, administrative, and clerical works; those working in highly mechanized establishments; those working in the field of transportation, toll booths, information technology and business process management; and all other processes and industries where sedentary work is observed.

The DO, issued on Oct 18, 2017, shall be effective 15 days after its publication in newspapers.