As a consultant, I find myself asking people their beliefs about ergonomics and find their responses to be quite interesting. It tells me that most have a very limited view of what ergonomics is and where it belongs within their company.
One of my recent clients that had me analyze the design of their products also asked to me assess the human factors of the brand and associated marketing and instructional material. What was very interesting for me was to learn about the process they undertook when developing a brand campaign for their products. That experience serves as part of the basis for this blog. There is much to be learned and can be applied from an external customer focused branding/marketing campaign to an internal project branding/marketing campaign. The framework and phases involved serve as the foundation o
“Image Is Everything!” That was the branding/marketing message for Canon cameras back in the early 90s. Tennis star Andre Agassi was their spokesman for TV and print ads. In writing this second part of my blog series on branding this branding message immediately came to mind. Why? Because more often than not the approval and success of a project depends on its image—whether inside or outside an organization.
Brands. All organizations have them. Every product has one. Nearly every service has one. Even some people have them (think Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey). I’ve worked in some companies and some of their customer service and wellness programs have them. But rarely, if ever, do ergonomics projects have them. Why is that and why is it important?
What is ergonomics? What is human factors? How can human factors and ergonomics (HF/E) help my business?
“Safety is an attitude. How’s yours?” That tagline was one I created for one of my clients as a way to get the staff and management excited and bought into the new injury prevention system that I was assisting in design and implementation. Attitude is vitally important to success whether it’s in regards to safety, sales, marketing or performance. A company’s attitude towards employee health, wellness and safety will go a long way into attaining zero work-related injuries.
“It was just an accident.” “S/he made a bad judgment.” “S/he behaved unsafely.”
Do any of those causes sound familiar to you? We’ve all heard these or similar reasons for why an injury occurred. However, are they the true root cause? The “cause” for injuries or accidents is typically attributed in some way to “human error”.
Do you think it’s possible to eliminate work-related injuries (in your company)? Is your (company) goal to have zero work-related injuries? I frequently ask these two questions to my clients. The answers (and looks on their faces) are quite varied. There are those who immediately answer the first one by saying it’s “impossible” to have no injuries. I’ve sometimes gotten the sense that they think I’m nuts for even asking the question and thinking that it is possible. With the given response to the first question, their obvious answer to the second question is “No”.
Have you ever thought about the products you use each day and how and why you use them? Consumer products are a huge category to tackle so I’m going to focus in on an item that most of use and/or interact in some way: the car. The “never event” for a car is pretty easy to see—accidents can cause serious injury and/or death. The design of cars has significant HF/E involved in them—good and bad.
Have you ever had an experience with a product or a machine in which you said to yourself, “This is a poor design”? Or, have you ever walked into a space (office, store, restaurant, etc.) find yourself saying, “Why is this here and not over there?” or “What were they thinking (when they designed this)”?
