training

Continued from Improve the Effectiveness of Employee Training by Apply Lean & Human Factors Principles Part 1

/HF Techniques For Training

Every employer provides some type of employee training.  The effectiveness of that training is often circumspect.  Did you ever have employees attend a training and afterwards you would swear that despite your ability to verify they were there physically, you questioned whether they really learned anything as nothing changed—not their skills, retention of information and/or actions.  Why is this and what can be done? 

Part 2:  The Challenges of Sit-to-Stand Workstations (SSW)

Simply changing a workstation from predominately sitting to the ability to alternate between sitting and standing may not eliminate the root cause of staying in a static position for extended periods of time.  This is especially true if workers shift from prolonged sitting to prolonged standing.  This raises the potential of shifting the same chronic, static experience from one posture (sitting) to another (standing).

Does Discomfort Really Decrease?

Patient falls in healthcare settings has long been a problem that despite many attempts to solve still continues to happen all too frequently.  The solution most hospitals and long term care facililities have implemented in recent years are bed and chair alarms.

What is the age that you use to define for an “older” worker?  Is it 45, 50, 55 or 65?  Employers across the nation are seeing the average age of their work force getting older each year as people are delaying retirement more than ever before.  This is a trend that has employers concerned for several reasons with two being the most impactful—potential injury/safety ramifications and upcoming knowledge loss.  The “common wisdom” has been that older workers don’t get hurt often but when they do the expenses are very high.  Is this “common wisdom” true?  A

Many companies devote time to training their employees on back safety in which they teach the basics of back anatomy and safe lifting techniques.  The question I have had on this training “Is the time and money spent on back injury prevention worth it?”  Of course, this question (“Is it worth it?”) should be asked of any training.  After all, training takes time, takes employees away from their jobs and therefore is a significant investment by the company in their personnel as well as financially.

The challenge for balancing productivity and safety exists for all industries but especially in the tree care industry where there are many variables that impact both.  Tree care companies experience costs related to incidences involving damage to their own property and/or that of the client as well as employee injuries.  Often times these incidences are accepted as the normal cost of doing business.  The bills are paid and business continues as usual.  However, these costs have a significant impact on the amount of extra business a company has to bring in in order to cover these costs.  Th