Thirty years of experience has taught us that the most successful organizations have five primary characteristics that empower their success in ergonomics and overall injury prevention efforts.

Characteristic #1 – Ergonomics is implemented as part of a comprehensive approach

We’ve long believed that the only way to guarantee safer, healthier work performance is to implement a full range of controls. Control measures recommended and practiced by ErgoPlus are based on the NIOSH Total Worker Health hierarchy of controls adapted specifically for musculoskeletal health.

This total approach is advocated by the NIOSH Total Worker Health initiative:

“Today, emerging evidence recognizes that both work-related factors and health factors beyond the workplace jointly contribute to many health and safety problems that confront today’s workers and their families.

Traditionally, workplace health and safety programs have been compartmentalized. Health protection programs have focused squarely on safety, reducing worker exposures to risk factors arising in the work environment itself. And most workplace health promotion programs have focused exclusively on lifestyle factors off-the-job that place workers at risk.

A growing body of science supports the effectiveness of combining these efforts through workplace interventions that integrate health protection and health promotion programs.”

Characteristic #2 – Ergonomics is managed as a continuous improvement process

Ergonomics should be tied to an established management system that makes sense for your organization. Examples include ISO 45001, OHSAS 18001, Six Sigma, the Toyota Production System, and many others.

These management systems are based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) concept of continuous improvement rooted in the scientific method and pioneered by Walter Shewhart.

According to ISO 45001 documentation:

“The PDCA concept is an iterative process used by organizations to achieve continual improvement. It can be applied to a management system and to each of its individual elements, as follows:
a) Plan: determine and assess OH&S risks, OH&S opportunities and other risks and other opportunities, establish OH&S objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the organization’s OH&S policy;

b) Do: implement the processes as planned;

c) Check: monitor and measure activities and processes with regard to the OH&S policy and OH&S objectives, and report the results;

d) Act: take actions to continually improve the OH&S performance to achieve the intended outcomes.”

It is a best practice to apply your continuous improvement model at both the overall ergonomics process management level and the job improvement process itself. Without a management system in place at both levels, your ergonomics process becomes less sustainable and is usually reliant on heroic efforts by a few truly committed stakeholders.

Ergonomics Process Continuous Improvement Process

Job Improvement Process Continuous Improvement Model

Characteristic #3 – Ergonomics is given the support and resources it needs to succeed

Like anything else, genuine leadership and support is needed to give an ergonomics process a real opportunity to succeed.

An ergonomics process without adequate resources is symptomatic of an organization that wants to simply say they are “doing” ergonomics. Maybe they want to reach the lowest bar of basic compliance requirements or maybe they are skeptical of the impact ergonomics can bring to their organization. Either way, this is a sure sign of impending failure.

When establishing your ergonomics process, it is imperative you back up your words with deeds and stakeholders are all held accountable for accomplishing the agreed upon goals and objectives.

Characteristic #4 – Ergonomics is managed with technology to drive maximum impact

Using domain-specific software empowers your team to be more productive and reliably scale solutions across one worksite or a hundred.

Stop wasting time on administration

Automate routine tasks and streamline the administration portion of ergonomics process management with ergonomics software. Spend less time hassling with spreadsheets, PDFs, and Word Docs and more time improving the workplace.

Create a single source of truth

Managing your ergonomics data in one system empowers you to create a single source of truth about the MSD risk factors at your worksite or across your enterprise and then communicate the right information to the right people at the right time.

One tool, one process

When using the right ergonomics software, you’ll always land on a single, streamlined view of your ergonomics process. It gives clarity, and gets your team on the same page.

Know what to work on next

The ergonomics software tool you use should help you prioritize your efforts so you always know where you are and what you need to do next.

Characteristic #5 – Ergonomics engages the organization top-down and bottom-up

Engaging your entire workforce in the process to build a better workplace is necessary to get a high performing ergonomics process that drives the most value for your organization.

Roles and responsibilities should be assigned and communicated to people at all levels of the organization:

Management Commitment

We touched on this earlier, but it is imperative management is committed to sustain the ergonomics process by implementing an ergonomics management system, providing the tools and resources to empower everyone in the organization to meet their responsibilities, and holding all stakeholders accountable for results.

Worker Participation

Studies show that engaging your entire employee population drives better ergonomics performance. If you engage your team members in the ergonomics process, you will:

Heighten ergonomics awareness: An engagement process around ergonomics will heighten the awareness of the program and bring ergonomics top of mind.

Generate improvement ideas: Because ergonomics will be top of mind more often (and team members will be trained in ergonomics), more improvement opportunities will be identified and brought to your attention. More ideas and opportunities will lead to more ergonomic improvement projects.

Build a positive safety culture: Engaging team members in ergonomics is a perfect opportunity to shape the safety culture of your organization. The ergonomics process is about lessening fatigue and discomfort for your team members. It’s an action you can take to improve their work and life, and actions shape culture faster than any safety slogan ever can.

Ensure team members will embrace improvements: By engaging team members in ergonomics from the beginning, you greatly improve the chances they will embrace improvements when they’re made.