A wellness day is easy to agree to and surprisingly easy to run badly. The usual failure is not the massage; it is the queue. Twelve people are invited to drop in between ten and two, nine of them come at noon, and the ones who wanted it most go back to their desks.
Here is the arithmetic and the logistics, so you can plan one that runs to time.
How many people one therapist can see
Chair massage is priced in short blocks and worked through clothing, so the turnaround between people is a minute or two rather than ten.
| Session length | Per therapist, per hour | Over a four-hour visit |
|---|---|---|
| 15 minutes | Three | About twelve |
| 30 minutes | Just under two | About seven |
| 45 minutes | About one | About five |
Those figures leave a few minutes between people to change the chair over and for the next person to walk across. Two therapists double them and no more than double them, because the limiting factor in a badly run wellness day is the queue rather than the number of chairs.
Book a rota with named slots. Do not invite people to drop in. It is the difference between a day that runs to time and one where six people stand about at noon, and it is why our therapists arrive with a booking sheet.
What the space needs to be
Less than people expect. Corporate office massage is worked in a portable chair the therapist brings, through clothing, with no oil. There is no undressing, so there is no changing room to find and no private room with a door to book.
A corner of a meeting room works. So does a quiet end of an open-plan floor, though a little separation helps people relax — a breakout space or an unused meeting room is better than the middle of the floor, not because the treatment needs privacy but because being watched by your colleagues is not restful.
Pricing is ฿350 for fifteen minutes, ฿600 for thirty and ฿850 for forty-five, per person. The rate per minute falls as the session lengthens, which is worth knowing when you are choosing between seeing everybody briefly and seeing half the office properly.
Fifteen, thirty or forty-five minutes
This is the real decision, and it depends on what the day is for.
Fifteen minutes is a gesture and a good one. It covers the shoulders and the base of the neck, it fits between meetings, and it lets you reach a whole floor in an afternoon. Nobody will tell you it changed their week, but everybody gets something.
Thirty minutes is the one most companies settle on. It covers the shoulders, neck and upper back properly, which is the region desk work actually tightens, and it is long enough that people come back to their desks different.
Forty-five minutes adds the lower back and the forearms. It is the full desk-work pattern, and it is the right length if the day is aimed at a team with a real problem — a development team after a release, say — rather than at everybody.
For an individual with an established complaint rather than a team, office syndrome massage can also be delivered at a desk, at ฿900 for forty-five minutes. The difference is focus: a wellness day treats a floor, that treats a person.
Running the day itself
A few things that make the difference between a smooth day and a chaotic one:
- Circulate the rota the day before, with names against times. People who know their slot do not hover.
- Tell people it is through clothing. A surprising number of no-shows are people who assumed they would have to undress at work.
- Allow a buffer at the start. The therapist needs ten minutes to set the chair up and find the room.
- Put somebody in charge of the list. Not the therapist — they are working, and chasing a missing colleague is not their job.
We cover twelve Bangkok districts with no travel surcharge in any of them, and the service areas page gives an arrival estimate for each. For an office in the centre, mid-morning is the easiest arrival window to hit reliably.
One therapist or two
The rule of thumb: one therapist per twelve people for a half day, two beyond that. Below about eight people a second therapist is idle for part of the afternoon and you are paying for the same treatment in less elapsed time, which is rarely what anybody wanted.
Where two genuinely earn their place is when the window is fixed rather than the headcount — an afternoon between a stand-up and a client call, say, where everything has to happen between two and five. Two therapists turn a four-hour job into a two-hour one, and that is the thing worth buying.
Tell us the window and the headcount rather than asking for a number of therapists, and we will tell you what it needs. Guessing high is a common and expensive mistake.
What chair massage does, and what it does not
Worth being straight about this with whoever approves the budget, because overselling it is how a wellness day becomes a thing people roll their eyes at.
What it does: releases the upper back, shoulders and neck, which is where a desk-bound day concentrates. People come back to their desks noticeably more comfortable, and for most of them that lasts a few days.
What it does not do: change anything about the cause. If somebody's screen is at laptop height and they have been hunched over it since January, thirty minutes in a chair is relief rather than a fix, and the tightness will be back. The useful framing is that this is a good afternoon rather than a health intervention — and that an office which also sorted out its monitor heights would be doing more for the same people.
It is also not a treatment for a diagnosed problem. Anybody with numbness, tingling or weakness in an arm or hand, pain that wakes them at night, or a diagnosed neck or back condition should see a doctor or physiotherapist rather than join the rota, and they should say so rather than quietly taking a slot.
Booking it
Tell us the date, the hours you want covered, roughly how many people and the session length you have in mind, and we will tell you how many therapists that needs rather than guessing at it. The booking form has a box for a corporate request, and the corporate page sets out the arrangement in full.
If you are weighing an office day against sending people somewhere, hotel, condo or office compares the three settings, and a team of five is the small version of the same day. When you are ready, send a request and we will come back with a plan and a cost before anything is committed. The full treatment list is on the home page.
Frequently asked questions
How many therapists do we need?
Roughly one per twelve people for a half day, two beyond that. Below about eight people a second therapist is idle for part of the afternoon. Where two genuinely earn their place is when the window is fixed rather than the headcount, because they turn a four-hour job into a two-hour one. Tell us the window and the number of people rather than asking for a number of therapists.
What space do we need to provide?
Less than most people expect. The therapist brings the chair, the treatment is worked through clothing with no oil, and there is no undressing, so no changing room and no private room with a door are needed. A meeting room is ideal and a quiet corner of an open-plan floor works. A little separation helps, not for privacy but because being watched by colleagues is not restful.
How long should the sessions be?
Fifteen minutes covers the shoulders and the base of the neck and lets you reach a whole floor in an afternoon. Thirty covers the shoulders, neck and upper back properly and is what most companies choose. Forty-five adds the lower back and forearms, which is the full desk-work pattern and the right length for a team with a real problem rather than for everybody.
Does it need to be in a private room?
No. Nobody undresses, so there is nothing that requires privacy in a formal sense. A meeting room is still better than the middle of the floor, simply because people relax more when four colleagues are not watching. A breakout space or an unused meeting room is the usual answer.
Can one person have something longer instead?
Yes, and in most teams there is somebody whose neck has been a problem for months. Office syndrome massage at 900 baht for forty-five minutes or 1,200 for sixty is built around the desk-work pattern and can be delivered at a desk. Some companies run short chair sessions for the team and let that person book something longer.
