lean

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?

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

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?