St. John’s-based Cyno, whose online platform helps physiotherapists work with patients, has signed a service agreement with ecommerce giant Shopify to provide ergonomic services to corporations.

Cyno issued a press release Monday announcing the deal with Shopify, the Ottawa-based company that offers ecommerce services to more than 1 million businesses in more than 175 countries.

Together, they will allow corporations to assess the ergonomic environment for their workforce in a cost-efficient manner with the goal of improving employee health and productivity.

“We noticed that corporations are starting to cultivate a large global workforce and they’re facing challenges to ensure that all employees are working in an ergonomically safe environment,” said Cyno Founder and CEO Peter Barbour in the statement. “With the growing trend of global and remote workforces, there is a massive need for a workplace ergonomics solution that is easy to roll out on a global scale.”

The Cyno statement said ergonomic assessments and other office health and safety services are now only offered in-person in most work environments. This requires a provider to physically travel to each workspace to conduct the work. “We realized that up to 50 percent of the service costs and delivery wait times was due to the barrier of travel,” said Barbour.

With the growing trend of flexible work, many companies have employees who work from home or in remote locations. This can present challenges in arranging for a provider to come on-site to complete assessments. Cyno said its solution eliminates the travel component and can offer ergonomic services faster and more cost-effectively anywhere in the world.

The Cyno platform uses encrypted live-stream video to connect employees with ergonomists so a full visual assessment of the workstation can take place. Using other secure features such as photo and video sharing, chat messaging and document transfer, an ergonomic specialist can create a report and, if necessary, recommend equipment. Once the equipment is approved by the company, Cyno will ship the equipment directly to the employee’s location.

Cyno was founded in 2017 in St. John’s and works out of Genesis, the city’s tech incubator. Cyno helps physiotherapists to work with the patients outside of their clinics and outside of office hours. It has developed a digital platform that includes a secure video link and additional functionality so physios can connect with their patients anywhere and anytime.

Last September, the company closed a $600,000 funding round from local investors and an additional commitment of $450,000 from Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. 

“We’re excited to see what the next year will bring,” said Barbour. “We have gone to great lengths to ensure that our platform meets the global privacy and security standards so we can service any company that has a global workforce. The sky is the limit.”