CorpComms Magazine

Are you sitting comfortably, then I'll begin...the BBC has appointed a 'chair champion'.

A chair champion! Is that like the prize you give to the sports day participant who isn't able to win anything on their own merits but deserves to be recognised?

Not exactly. All staff moving to the BBC's new MediaCity headquarters in Salford Quay are being given the choice of three types of swivel chairs. The chair champion will then show them how to sit properly.

Are you trying to tell me that BBC employees don't know how to sit? I'm sure the teams on Have I Got News For You have been sitting during broadcasts for years. Have they had advance training? Or is Ian Hislop actually standing behind that desk?

No, he's sitting, but I don't think he's using one of these new swivel chairs. The BBC claim that 'chair adjustment' is part of an induction process, which occurs when staff move into a new building and are faced with different facilities. They claim that health and safety training is standard procedure for any organisation moving into new premises.

Next they'll be offering lessons on how to use the knives and forks in the new staff canteen! Surely, sitting is as natural as standing for grown ups! My niece is nine months and even she's mastered it.

It's all to do with posture and ergonomics. The BBC is only being a considerate employer. It has been estimated that as many as 13 million working days are lost each year as a result of back ache, which admittedly is not all down to sitting incorrectly but it is a contributory factor.

But nobody has ever died from sitting the wrong way on a chair...

...tell that to Plymstock based Mel Williams. Her 13 month old cat Sheba curled up to sleep in the footrest of her electric chair and, sadly, got accidentally pushed into the mechanism when her mother sat down on the chair and retracted the footrest.

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