Creating a safe, productive work environment for your staff comes with many responsibilities. You’ve likely heard the term “ergonomics,” but do you truly understand how this practice can protect your team from harm?
If you’re wondering, “What is the primary purpose of ergonomics in the workplace?” you’ve come to the right place. Below, our team from WorkSafe will explain how these healthy work practices can prevent injury while boosting satisfaction and productivity. If you need an office ergonomics assessment, call us today.
Defining Ergonomics and Its Purpose in the Workplace
Ergonomics is a scientific discipline that looks at the efficiency of how a person interacts with their working environment. In more practical terms, when implemented, you focus on fitting a person to their job to make them more productive, efficient, and safe. This eliminates the one-size-fits-all approach in the workplace, ensuring workers receive more customized equipment and training for their positions.
For example, this might involve adjusting desk settings or PPE fittings so the worker doesn’t need to strain their posture and can enjoy ideal comfort and safety during the day. Beyond this, the approach engages employees in their training so they understand the proper way to perform their jobs without injury or excessive strain.
What Industries Should Be Teaching Ergonomic Principles?
Ergonomic principles remain valuable for any job that requires repetitive movements, strain, or specific postures. While manufacturing and construction positions may come to mind first, office workers often enjoy equal benefits from learning how to position themselves at their desks throughout the day.
Let’s look at different industries that can benefit from the empowerment to move comfortably and freely at work:
- Manufacturing: Facility workers often suffer muscle strains and repetitive movement injuries that can be prevented by learning new posture techniques or improving their workstations.
- Healthcare: Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals often must bend and lift in awkward positions when tending to patients, which can result in numerous musculoskeletal disorders. Learning proper lifting positions and the right ways to adjust their patient-transfer devices can prevent this.
- Construction: Construction workers face an array of hazards in the physically demanding industry. Something as simple as learning to implement new lighting or PPE could reduce risks.
- Offices: Office workers often experience neck or back pain and repetitive strain issues from long periods of sitting at a desk. With proper posture training and station adjustments, they can optimize their comfort.
Key Benefits of Ergonomics
What is the primary purpose of ergonomics in the workplace? It protects employee well-being while fostering a more efficient environment. This can benefit your employees and your business, offering the following advantages:
- Enhanced workplace health: Proper postural techniques, equipment fitting, and device settings empower employees to be more efficient in their roles, reducing the daily pains and potential mental health issues that affect your team.
- Increased productivity: Healthy, pain-free employees have clear minds, empowering them to focus on the task at hand rather than the cramp in their wrist or nerve pain in their elbow. Your business can see better quality and higher production rates when you invest in your team.
- Minimized hazards: You don’t want your business to be liable for an injury, so prevention is always the best option. Upfront training teaches workers how to position themselves correctly for optimal safety.
- Reduced employee absenteeism and higher satisfaction: When workers learn how to perform their jobs in pain-free manners, you’ll see reduced call-outs and better satisfaction rates, meaning you’ll be able to rely on a longer-term, committed workforce.
- Potentially lower insurance rates: When you follow all of the latest OSHA training protocols, you may qualify for lower insurance premiums.
What Are Your Duties As an Employer?
How do you actually teach these principles? According to OSHA, employer responsibilities include the following:
- Providing managerial support by defining clear objectives and communicating them clearly with your staff
- Involving your workers in the ergonomic approach so they can understand hazards and voice their concerns
- Delivering clear training
- Identifying problems in your workplace and addressing them
- Encouraging your staff to report early symptoms of MSDs
- Creating solutions to any site hazards so you can eliminate future injuries
- Evaluating your progress and optimizing accordingly
Fostering a Healthy Workplace With WorkSafe
What is the primary purpose of ergonomics in the workplace? To ensure employees can perform their tasks safely and comfortably. When you’re ready to train your team on ergonomics 101, call WorkSafe in Wichita at (316) 262-8800.