Ergonomic Safety Training
If you mention on-the-job injuries, people are likely to think of accidents that involve traumatic injuries, such as fractures, burns or other clearly visible damage to the human body.
But in fact, the fastest-growing category of workplace injury involves damage that is much harder to see: injury caused by repetitive motion and stress.
In today’s highly complex, rapidly changing business environment, people in all types of work are at greater risk for these types of injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports of these injuries have quadrupled in the United States since 1981. Today, an estimated 70% of occupational injuries are due to repetitive motion and stress, costing companies approximately $20 billion a year. These injuries are called Musculoskeletal Disorders, or MSDs.
Workplaces traditionally have been designed to move products or support machines efficiently. Since people have always seemed so adaptable, how they fit into the workplace has received less attention. But because of the increasing number of MSDs, ergonomics has become a critical factor in workplace safety.
Ergonomics is the science that seeks to adapt tasks and tools to fit the person. It’s a way of looking at the designs of tasks, tools, equipment and workplace layouts and the overall organization of work to fit the job to the person, rather than the person to the job.
A solid ergonomics program can provide several benefits to your organization:
- Reduced number of MSDs
- Reduced severity of the MSDs that do occur
- Reduced costs of workers’ compensation, medical bills and lost workdays
- Increased productivity and quality
- Improved morale
- Improved work conditions
The Blueprints for Safety© Elements of Ergonomics Program is designed to provide a step-by-step approach to developing an ergonomics program for your company. This program will help you analyze and adapt jobs to make them safer and train employees to understand how to work in ways that protect themselves from injury.
The outcomes of your ergonomics program will be:
- Identification of the potential MSD risk factors in your workplace
- Creation and implementation of work practices to minimize the risks for MSDs
- Well-trained employees who know how to work safely
By creating a program for ergonomics in the workplace, you can help everyone understand the importance of working in ways that reduce the risks for MSDs, control the costs associated with these injuries and increase everyone’s safety.
