workers compensation

As an ergonomist, I am often asked what my opinion is on post-offer, pre-work (POPW) screens for new hires.  My first response is to ask why they are asking that question.  The normal answer is because they have a injury rate higher than what they’d like and wonder if it’s related to their workers’ fitness for work.  I have several follow up questions that help me understand the root cause of their injuries.  As much as possible work should be designed so that the majority of the population can perform the job.   This is becoming more and more important and imperative to organizations due t

Last month I attended the Ergonomics Applied to Retail and Distribution conference in Minneapolis.  It was my first conference I attended that was strictly devoted to this sector.  While I was attending I was thinking that there could almost be an ergonomics and human factors conference devoted to each industry and/or sub-sectors because there are enough unique work tasks, needs and nuances that could support what occurred at this conference—that was speakers specific to the industry presenting their current challenges, attempted changes and full or partial solutions to their issues.

Although sit-stand workstations have been around for several years their popularity has only recently grown.  This has been primarily due to research on the negative effects of prolonged sitting which has been labeled “Sitting Disease”.   To combat sitting disease in an office/computer work environment employers and employees should modify the work environment and tasks to allow for a reduction in the amount of time spent sitting and increase the amount of time spent standing and/or walking—hence the upsurge in demand for and use of sit-stand computer workstations.

I was at a business association meeting recently when I sat down at a table with 5 other attendees.

In my previous blog I described the how behavioral based safety and ergonomics are not the same and definitely do not utilize the same approach.  That being said, companies are really good at identifying “bad” employee behavior and using policy, observations and enforcement to correct it.  So the question becomes how do companies who aren’t versed in ergonomics learn how to change behavior through workplace design?  Let’s start with a simple framework on which built upon.

There are basically 7 steps to determining design solutions to change behavior.

It is becoming more and more apparent that shift work has a negative effect on workers’ performance, injury level, sleep quality and quantity and overall health.  In recent blogs I’ve shared studies and articles that showed the increased work-related injuries in shift work employees, and the negative effects caused by worker fatigue in general.  Another study, Job Stress and Work Schedules in Relation to Obesity was recently released in the Journal of Nursing Admi

If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard that ergonomics is “expensive” I wouldn’t be writing this blog but instead sitting on a beach somewhere.  The perception that ergonomics is expensive seems to be a widely held belief in many people I’ve talked to whether they are clients, potential clients or at people I’ve met at conferences, meetings or networking events.  I’ve seen this perception prevent the implementation of ergonomic programs at more companies that I’d care to admit.  The question that must be asked is, “Is the perception true or false?”  The answer is both, true and false, d

Continuing on with my blog series on the four common reasons why employees don’t do what they’ve been trained, I’m going to take a closer look at perception.  The scenario I’m going to use as the basis for this is one which is occurring in many hospitals and long term care facilities around the country:  caregivers not using safe patient handling (SPH) equipment to move patients.  This has become a source of frustration for many SPH program leaders.  As you will see, the lack of SPH equipment use could easily involve all 4 reasons but for this blog we’ll focus only on perception.

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.

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