workplace safety

Have you ever seen an employee continue to do some “unsafe act” or not use the safety equipment provided to them just after they’ve been trained in the new policies and procedures?  If you have you’re certainly not alone.  Unfortunately, this is a common frustration of safety professionals everywhere.  I’ve personally experienced this on more than one occasion, especially early on in my career.  I’ve also had colleagues ask me if this has happened to me and what I’ve done about it.

In Part 1, I stated that successful ergonomics programs manage risk and optimize human performance and reviewed key elements of a successful program.  Now that we know ergonomics is not about safety, we need to convince the C-level and operations people that ergonomics truly is a worthwhile investment.

ROI Justification Models

There   review the top 3 ways that can be used to convince management to implement ergonomics programs.  Each model has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Reason #5: Absence of Continuous Improvement—Real Time Metrics

If the CEO came to your office and asked, “How is effective is our ergonomics program today?” what would be your answer?  Would you even be able to answer?  What would your answer be based on?  What metric or measure would you base it upon?

Often times we measure ergonomics and safety success based only on the numbers and costs related to worker injury.  Those numbers, whether are good or bad, do matter, but they only matter for yesterday.  They don’t tell you what is going on today.

Reason #4: Lack of Ergonomics(Safety) Standards Built into Job Descriptions and/or Performance Reviews at All Levels of the Organization

Have you looked at you job description lately?  How about your performance evaluation?  What performance expectations or knowledge base is required?  Does any of it relate to ergonomics or safety?  What about everyone else who works for the same company that you do?  Do any of their performance expectations or knowledge include ergonomics or safety?

Reason #2:  Failure to Tie Ergonomics Into the Mission and Strategic Initiatives of the Company

All too often I hear safety professionals lament that safety is compromised for increased productivity.  They tend to be dismayed by the fact that the focus of the operations managers and corporate level executives are to maximize efficiency and productivity as much as (humanly) possible.  For the safety professional, the focus is on employee health and safety.  It’s not the safety professionals don’t want profits and it’s not the corporate executives want injured employees, however if the corporate executives are forced to choose between safety and productivity the choice will almost alway

When I left the “comfort” of the my corporate position to start Kelby Ergo Design I was immediately struck by two things:  1) the majority of the people I met at business networking events hadn’t heard of my title, “ergonomist”, although most had heard the term ergonomics, and 2) they shared similar misconceptions of what ergonomics was and the impact it could have on business.  I thought I’d address the top three common “myths” that I see as an ergonomist.  There are definitely more than three but I’ll save those for other posts.

Myth #1—Ergonomics is just about safety

I had a conversation a few months ago with an employee health nurse who was telling me about her frustrations with a specific employee.  (Specific names and details about the job are purposefully left out to protect identify.) He was a “repeat offender” who happened to injure himself on a regular basis.  She could count on him being in her office every 3-4 months complaining of the work and how he hurt this or that.  The injuries typically resulted in a few lost work days and/or a few days in which he was restricted in what he could do.  She went on to sa

The debate on whether gait belts are safe lifting devices for caregivers to use with patients who require assistance has been going on since safe patient handling (SPH) became a focus issue for healthcare facilities and caregivers alike.  Just last week MNOSHA stated that they and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) do not consider gait belts as “lifting devices”(MNOSHA e-newsletter, Safety Lines, http://www.dli.mn.gov/OSHA/PDF/7

Are productivity and efficiency mutually exclusive of employee safety, comfort and zero injuries?  The answer is obviously no.  However how many meetings and projects occur between management, quality and employee health and safety departments?  This answer is almost never.  Why?