5 Most Common Reasons Ergonomics (fill in the blank) Programs Fail: Part 1
How many times has your company started new programs only for them to fail within months to a couple years? How many initiatives are you able to count that have come and gone within the past 5-10 years? Does your company roll out new initiatives every year that in essence focus on the same thing, i.e. customer service, increased sales, improved safety, etc.? Does it feel like these programs are trying to reinvent the wheel over and over again?
There is a specific reason that part of the title “fill in the blank”. It’s because almost all programs and initiatives fail for similar reasons. I will focus on ergonomics as that’s my background but one could easily substitute ergonomics for safety, process improvement, customer service, sales, etc. For next five weeks my blog will be devoted to each reason. That’s not to say that there are only 5 reasons for programs to fail. This could easily be a top 10, top 20 or for that matter a top 100 list. However the five that I’m going to mention seem to plague programs that a best have become stagnant and at worst have failed and disappeared altogether.
So before we dive into the first of the top five reasons, we need to understand what common components of an ergonomics programs are and then define typical outcomes of a successful and not-so-successful ergonomics “program” (more about why I put program in quotes in my next blog).
The most common components or elements of an ergonomics program are the following:
- Budget
- Overall program policy and procedures
- Coordinator—person assigned to lead it
- Training
- Committee
- “Superusers” or “Leads”
- Risk or hazards are defined
- New construction/remodeling/new equipment provisions
- Equipment and tools (including software)
The outcomes of an ergonomics program can be successful or not-so-successful. Below is how I would briefly define them:
Successful
- Injuires reduced
- Equipment utilized
- Workflow and efficiencies improved
- Staff Buy-In and “Happy”
- CFO “Happy”
Not-So-Successful
- No significant change in injuires
- Equipment under-utilized
- No significant change in workflow and efficiencies
- Staff “Happy” with status quo
- CFO NOT “Happy”
Now that we’ve laid the ground work for ergonomics programs and their outcomes, we can start to discuss the reasons why ergonomics (fill in the blank) programs fail.
Do you know what the #1 reason for failure is? If you have an idea, please comment.