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Office Ergonomics

Office Ergonomics and the Proper Way to Arrange Your Workstation

Office ergonomics is a routinely overlooked hazard that workers face today. Often times even the workers themselves are unaware of the hazards they are dealing with when it comes to a full-time office job. Everyone gets aches and pains, and they are often disregarded and ignored until they go away. What if they do not go away?

Knowledge is power when it comes to protecting yourself or your fellow office members from the strains of office ergonomics. Working in an office full-time can lead to minor injuries such as muscle strains and sprains all the way to Tendinitis and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

There are many ways to alleviate the risk of these jobs and it all starts with awareness of the issue and willingness to participate in making your workstation safer. For example:

Desk Workers: Find your natural posture. Find the position to where your back is straight, arms relax naturally, and head can rest facing forward. You should not be reaching, bending or leaning over or looking up or down at your monitor.

This can be done by raising or lowering your monitor, using monitor stands or lowering or raising your chair. Place your mouse and keyboard in a manner to promote relaxation.

Monitors that are too close or too far can lead to a form of leaning or bending over creating tension and soreness in the back muscles. The back is the foundation to proper posture and reduction of ergonomic risk. If the back can maintain proper posture, then the head/neck and arm are easy to maintain.

Adjust your chair to the proper height where your arms can utilize the keyboard and mouse properly without unnatural displacement as well as monitor alignment with your natural view.

Tension is the leading cause of muscle tightness and aching which could lead to a strain or sprain when exerted. When a workstation is not set up properly, this leads to tension when reaching, leaning or slouching.

Overall, adjust your workstation and adapt it to your needs and natural comfort, do not adjust yourself to meet the setup of your desk. You must maintain a conscious commitment to your proper posture until your muscle memory takes control.

One of the biggest ways to make the workplace safer and obtain ergonomically friendly equipment is to get your management team involved. This can be done by pitching to management from the worker position on how important it is to implement an office ergonomic initiative to increase worker safety, productivity and morale.

Provide proper training to personnel on a routine basis and encourage early reporting of symptoms so actions can be taken to alleviate the issues prior to a major injury occurring.

Reference: www.OSHA.gov

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work. They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.

Implementing Post Offer Pre-Employment Testing (POET)

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Implementing Post Offer Pre-Employment Testing (POET)

Too often workers are hired into positions that require heavy or strenuous tasks that they are not physically able to perform safely. This puts both themselves, and others around them, at risk of injury or worse. To combat this, testing should be done on the employee that is being considered for a physically demanding job to ensure the candidates ability to perform that job safely upon starting work. This is what Post Offer Pre-Employment Testing is for.

What is a Post Offer Pre-Employment Test? A POET is a test that is built using an in depth Job Demands Analysis that identifies the essential and strenuous task an employee must be able to perform to do his or her job. These tasks are examined to measure the weight or force behind the task and the frequency an employee must perform this task. Using all of these tasks, a test is developed to put the candidate through a physical exam where they will demonstrate their ability, or lack of ability, to perform these essential job functions safely.

This test has been implemented by hundreds of employers nationally and all show extraordinary results in reduction of injuries in the workplace, reduction of workers compensations claims, and increase in productivity. One of the largest automotive seat fabricators conducted a study at two of their locations. These locations were identical in their job functions, personnel assigned, and geographically similar. In one location they implemented the POET’s and the other they did not. The results of the study were very clear on the impact of the POET testing:

Location 1 implemented the POETS and measured a 1% injury rate over a 1 year period in new hires. 104 tests were performed and of these tests 29.8% were unable to pass the POET. That figures out to be about 31 potential candidates that were at risk of injury.

Location 2 did not implement the POET testing and measured a 21% injury rate in new hires in the 1 year period. The number of injured workers nearly equaled the number of candidates that could not pass the POET test at location 1.

Location 1 avoided an estimated 2.07 million dollars in injury costs, a success directly related to the implementation of POETS.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work. They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.

Overexertion in the Work Center

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Overexertion in the Work Center

Overexertion is well known in the labor field as being the #1 leading cause of injury in workers compensation. Overexertion includes heavy lifting, pushing/pulling, or holding/carrying heavy objects. Overexertion is well known and well-regulated as far as policies and programs employers are required to have, yet is still the leading cause of injury nationwide.

Armed with the knowledge there are many steps you can take to prevent yourself from adding to that statistic and more importantly, saving yourself from a lot of pain.

The first step you must take in protecting yourself and the co-workers around you is to first realize that there is risk of injury from overexertion in all fields of work. Overexertion is not limited to the labor intensive jobs. A worker can strain him/her self by simply moving a box of paper in the copy room. Even bending over to pick up a dropped pen to quickly can cause the muscles in your back to retract rapidly to counteract your movement and has the potential to strain.

Education is the most effective tool in any situation. You can educate yourself on the proper ways to lift heavy or even moderately heavy objects. Do not be ashamed to ask someone to assist you if something is a little too heavy for your comfort. Asking for help to lift an object or lifting with a proper technique is a lot easier and a lot less painful than a trip to the hospital with a sprained back.

• Do not lift with your back by leaning over the weighted object. Instead keep your face up, squat in front of the weighted object grab firmly and lift with your legs. This prevents strains in your arms, back and neck.

• Do not lift a weighted object over your shoulders unassisted. Lifting these objects over your shoulders uses a set of muscles not particularly conditioned to handle such weight in that position and is highly dangerous.

• Avoid turning or twisting your back while supporting a weighted object. Doing so compromises the control and stability of the muscles causing strain on weaker parts of the muscle groups.

• Ask a co-worker for assistance in lifting anything over 50 pounds. The risk of injury radically reduces when two people are co-lifting a weighted object.

The biggest way to make the workplace safer is to get your whole team involved in this education. This can be done by suggesting a co-worker read up on proper lifting or teaching them yourself.

A ProgressiveHealth Prevention Specialist is a health care professional who has the expertise to support and promote a safer approach to work. They are skilled specifically in the detection, assessment and care of musculoskeletal discomforts and cross-trained to provide a variety of comprehensive preventive solutions including job assessments, ergonomic analyses, functional testing, work conditioning, and more. For more information, contact ProgressiveHealth at info@ProgressiveHealthUS.com.