Psychosocial factors are present in every job; however, they are commonly overlooked as a contributor or cause of low performance or injuries in workers. Employers that ignore them can miss the root or adjoining cause of productivity and safety issues. Psychosocial factors can include:
The CDC’s statistics regarding obesity in America is sobering when one considers the impact on our healthcare system and for employers who need to provide jobs that accommodate the physical characteristics that occur with obesity. According to the CDC, the percentage of Americans adults over age 20 who are obese is 35.9%. The percentage essentially doubles if t
“We started off well but things have fallen by the wayside”. “Employees were trained, they were enthusiastic and then things just started slipping away…” The previous two statements are ones I’ve heard from companies who wanted to do ergonomics that then proceeded to get a program together and implemented who currently find themselves with a program “in name only”. Common reasons given for demise of the program were that other priorities came up that took precedence or people just got tired of doing it. There can be numerous reasons given for program failure but with a closer look can b
Last week ErgoWeb published an article title “Stretching and Ergonomics”. Although the article was written in 2004 I believe the key points cited in the article are still very true today, notably:
The last two blogs have focused on why employees, despite knowing policies and processes and even paying attention to them most of the time still consciously choose to take risks. The next question that should be considered looks at the flip side, “Why companies/CEOs/directors/managers, even if there’s great evidence that safety solutions are cost effective, will lead to more productivity and profitability, consciously decide to ignore those solutions and continue to permit risky situations?”
Why employees, even when they know the safety policy, they’ve been properly trained in the policy and even paid attention to it, still might consciously choose to take risks? Part 2
In the Kelby Ergo Design Ergo Advantage March 2013 newsletter the title of the feature article was “Safety is #1”: Why Employees Don’t Believe It”. In it we covered the most common reasons why employees don’t believe safety truly is a priority for management despite what the fact that management says they do. There are two additional questions that should be asked and answered that pertain to this topic. The first question is the title to this blog, “Why
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.
In this part two of my blog series on obesity and driving. In Part 1 of this blog series I discussed a study (1) that examined normal weight and obese truck drivers based on BMI. The study showed that severely obese drivers were 43% to 55% more likely to crash than were drivers with a normal BMI. This is a striking correlation between weight and driving accidents. Reading this study caused me to do a little more research on obesity and driving which is how I came across this second study: Driver obesity and the risk of fatal injury during traffic collisions (2).
