Vocational & Contact Lens Solutions

WRITER Alycia Coupe

Vocational lenses and contact lenses are now essential tools for managing visual demands in modern workplaces, from office based screen use to dynamic trade, health and industrial roles. When dispensed thoughtfully, they can significantly reduce eye strain, improve posture, and enhance productivity across a wide range of professions.

Workers are now navigating far more visually complex environments than even a few years ago. Todd Spencer, General Manager at CR Labs, notes that hybrid work has created “greater variation in physical and ergonomic setups; different desks, chairs, lighting conditions, screen heights, and viewing distances”, with people juggling multiple screens or windows for extended periods. This combination typically leads to “eye strain, difficulty switching focus between distances, postural discomfort, reduced visual stamina… and increased reliance on compensatory habits like leaning forward or lifting the chin to maintain clarity”.

Dean Psarakis, Professional Services Manager at ZEISS Vision Care ANZ, similarly describes prolonged near and mid range viewing as placing “constant strain on the visual system”, especially when clear mid range fields are too narrow for comfortable, sustained work, pushing many workers into awkward postures that contribute to neck and back pain as well as visual fatigue.

WHAT ARE VOCATIONAL LENSES?

Vocational, occupational and ‘office’ lenses are task specific designs that prioritise near and intermediate vision, rather than full distance performance. They typically incorporate wider, more stable intermediate zones and generous near areas, making them ideal for desktops, laptops and detailed close work across the workday. Unlike general progressives, vocational designs often omit full distance power, which allows the corridor to be much wider and makes the ergonomics feel more natural for screen based tasks. Designs range from short range degressive lenses for 40–70 cm through to longer intra room designs that offer clear vision out to several metres, enabling comfortable viewing of monitors, colleagues, and surrounding office space.

The Key Attributes of Office Lenses

Well designed occupational lenses deliver optimised optics at the wearer’s primary working distances, placing intermediate power at eye level so patients are not forced into a chin up posture to find clarity. Wider intermediate fields reduce unnecessary head and eye movements, lowering the risk of neck and shoulder discomfort commonly reported with standard progressives used for computer work. In ZEISS Office lenses, for example, Mr Psarakis explained that intermediate and near zones are distributed over the entire lens area and the maximum intermediate distance can be specified using Maximum Intermediate Distance (MID) technology, which helps minimise unwanted astigmatism and peripheral distortion while supporting a more natural posture through the day.

Other important attributes include customisable working distances, degression options, and indoor depth of field, allowing dispensers to work alongside laboratories to tailor the usable range precisely to each task. Coupled with premium anti reflection coatings to further improve visual comfort by reducing surface reflections, these design elements respond directly to the visual and ergonomic challenges described by Mr. Spencer and Mr Psarakis, giving dispensers powerful tools to address real world workplace symptoms rather than relying on ‘one size fits all’ lenses.

REDUCING EYE STRAIN AND FATIGUE AT WORK

Computer vision syndrome and broader digital eye strain are recognised consequences of prolonged screen use, often presenting as tired eyes, blur, dry eye, headaches and neck or shoulder pain. Key modifiable contributors include uncorrected refractive error, poorly chosen lens designs, suboptimal working distances, reflections and poor posture.1,2 Occupational spectacle lenses address many of these drivers by providing clear vision at the actual working distance, wider intermediate zones, and more natural head posture. For contact lens wearers, precise refraction (including subtle hyperopic or astigmatic corrections), appropriate lens choice, and proactive ocular surface care, are equally important in minimising visual fatigue.3

NEWER VOCATIONAL AND DIGITAL DESIGNS

Manufacturers continue to invest heavily in workplace focussed designs, giving dispensers a strong toolkit when matching lenses to real world work environments. ZEISS has expanded its Office portfolio with the Office Lens Superb series, which uses MID technology to specify the maximum viewing distance between 100 and 400 cm, delivering exceptionally wide fields of clear intermediate and near vision tailored to the wearer’s workspace.4

HOYA’s Hoyalux iD WorkStyle 3 is a premium indoor vocational family designed to improve visual comfort and posture by matching the optics to actual working distances and device use. Sales consultant Godlief Otti Priyono explained that the design provides “unobstructive intermediate and generous near zones to support personalised / individual working and wearing conditions, while offering improved vision comfort and ergonomic posture at near and intermediate distances”. There are three task specific designs: Close, Screen, and Space, covering focal lengths of roughly 1 m, 2 m, and 6 m. Features such as AdaptEase, 3D Binocular Vision, Binocular Harmonization, and position of wear customisation, work together to provide wider visual fields, ease focussing effort, and promote more ergonomic positioning.5

Rodenstock’s Multigressive Ergo 2 integrates DNEye biometric measurements to widen intermediate zones and smooth corridor transitions for heavy digital device users, while Shamir Ultra Occupational introduces smoother transitions between near and intermediate zones plus advanced anti fatigue features for visually intensive roles.6 On the contact lens side, technologies such as CooperVision’s Digital Zone Optics and DigitalBoost are designed to reduce accommodative stress and eye tiredness associated with prolonged digital device use, particularly in office and hybrid workers. These contact lenses sit neatly alongside modern occupational lenses in tailored spectacle plus contact solutions.

VR DRIVEN CUSTOMISATION CR

Labs’ Australis VR Office demonstrates how far vocational design has evolved. According to Mr Spencer, by using a virtual reality environment with six different workstation simulations – from dual monitor stations to mixed laptop and document setups – the lens can be built around how the wearer actually works, rather than from a theoretical template. Performance data from these simulations, combined with global post order user feedback and artificial intelligence driven modelling, are used to refine corridor profiles, intermediate regions, and near vision zones so they better match real world gaze behaviour. For dispensers, this VR based approach reduces guesswork around occupational needs and helps translate a patient’s visual behaviour into an optical design that truly fits their job. For patients, it can mean improved comfort, faster adaptation and more stable intermediate and near vision in dynamic office settings.

CONTACT LENSES IN THE WORKPLACE

Contact lenses offer clear advantages for workers who require freedom of movement, compatibility with safety eyewear, or unrestricted peripheral vision. For many in trades, healthcare, first response, and sport related occupations, contact lenses combine well with prescription or plano safety eyewear to meet safety standards while maintaining clear vision. However, prolonged digital device use can exacerbate contact lens discomfort through reduced blink rate, increased tear film instability, and dry eye. This can lead to fatigue, blur, and headaches. Material choice, surface wetting, replacement schedule, and lens design all play a role in comfort. For heavy screen users, daily disposable or frequently replaced lenses with high oxygen transmissibility and enhanced wettability help support the ocular surface in drying office conditions, and small power adjustments or multifocal designs can improve clarity at monitor distance. Management should always be multifactorial, pairing lens optimisation with advice on blink awareness, regular breaks, and sound ergonomics. For many patients, a dual modality approach – contact lenses for mobility plus vocational spectacles for prolonged near and intermediate work – works particularly well.7

ASSESSING WORKPLACE NEEDS

A robust, occupation centred history underpins any vocational solution. Useful questions cover primary tasks, number and type of digital devices, typical working distances, hours on screen, use of personal protective equipment, and whether the patient needs to interact with colleagues or customers at varying ranges. Exploring lifestyle factors such as hybrid work patterns and screen based hobbies helps identify visual demands that extend beyond traditional office hours. From there, dispensers can start mapping visual zones to specific distances and tasks, identifying where the current correction is falling short, and creating a clear clinical rationale for recommending a purpose designed occupational lens or contact lens strategy, rather than treating vocational products as optional extras.8

UNDER UTILISED POTENTIAL AND EVERYDAY PRACTICE

Despite advances in lens technology, vocational lenses remain under utilised in many visually intensive professions such as finance, design, engineering, coding, education, and clinical support, where workers often default to general purpose progressives or single vision distance lenses. Historical positioning of occupational lenses as a second pair option, limited awareness of their benefits, and assumptions about cost, all contribute to this gap. Reframing vocational optics as essential ‘work tools’ rather than luxuries is crucial; patients readily understand that just as an ergonomic chair or keyboard protects their body at work, dedicated lenses protect their eyes and posture.7

Successful practices treat vocational lenses and workplace appropriate contact lenses as standard elements of contemporary eye care, not niche add ons. Building a brief ‘work and screen habits’ section into every history form, training the whole team to recognise occupational visual demands, and normalising multi pair or dual modality recommendations all help integrate these products into everyday dispensing – and ultimately allow patients to see, move, and work more comfortably in an increasingly screen saturated world.

Alycia Coupe is a qualified optical dispenser who joined the industry in 2018. Ms Coupe is an Optical Trainer with ACOD (Australasian College of Optical Dispensing) and the Member Services Supervisor of ODA (Optical Dispensers Australia).

References available at mivision.com.au.