Workplace Ergonomics Assessment, Guidance & Consultation

Often undervalued, workplace ergonomics is important because it reduces on-the-job injuries, increases quality production, improves safety and results in happier and healthier employees. It relates to how employees interact with their workplace environment, the tools they use, the actions they perform and their movement and posture. Repetitive movements, poor posture, lifting heavy items, reaching overhead, pushing and pulling heavy objects and bending can result in workplace musculoskeletal disorders. These include lower back strain, tendonitis and carpel tunnel. The result is often increased sick leave, additional Worker’s Compensation claims and a high employee turnover. To optimise the health, safety and well-being of employees, employers need to conduct an ergonomic risk assessment; the workplace should not pose a serious threat to your employee’s health, safety and welfare.

The solution is to change some of your work practices, modify equipment and purchase ergonomic devices, tools and furniture. When you eliminate unnecessary movements and reduce physical demands in the workplace, you reduce your company’s injury rate, compensation costs and attrition.

Poor ergonomics in the workplace results in tired and frustrated employees who don’t perform their best work. Highly repetitive tasks, work that requires excessive force or imposes awkward postures on employees essentially make work more difficult and physically taxing. These issues often result in a lack of adherence to training procedures when performing certain tasks, often as a means to reduce their risk of injury. The results are a rise in faults and errors and a decrease in the quality of your products.

However, if you reduce or eliminate many of the ergonomic risk factors from the workplace, you not only increase efficiency but also the quality of your products. With few ergonomic risks in the workplace, employees perform their tasks as trained, resulting in fewer injuries, and better health and well-being. With fewer errors and faults and all tasks and processes completed correctly, the quality of your products attains optimal levels.

Prioritising ergonomics in the workplace, whether an office, factory, restaurant or retail store is essential to maximising the quality of your products. That’s because employees who are not tired or frustrated due to poor workplace ergonomics perform better and consistently complete more accurate work. Reducing fatigue and increasing accuracy are two key elements in optimising quality in the workplace.

For better or worse, workplace culture drives employee behaviour and it’s these behaviours that influence the safety of your employees. Whether in an office, retail store, health practice, factory or warehouse, a poor safety culture leads to a higher rate of workplace injuries, compensation and attrition.

Many of these workplace injuries are a direct result of highly repetitive tasks, forceful actions and uncomfortable postures. It’s well known that poor ergonomics is a major contributor to both acute and chronic workplace injuries, many of which are easily preventable.

Incorporating ergonomic practices into the workplace ensures employee safety and well-being are prioritised. Using ergonomic concepts, you can ensure that the methods, processes and systems used by employees are an appropriate fit for their tasks and capabilities.

Good ergonomic practices are essential for ensuring worker safety and for creating a better safety culture in the workplace. It should be a core value of your company.

A proactive workplace ergonomics policy helps to boost productivity and lower costs. These results are achieved easily when employees are happy at their work, engaged with management and comfortable in their tasks. Good ergonomic practices not only achieve these results but also create more efficient and safe processes with fewer mistakes, faults and errors.

When ergonomic practices are incorporated into your company’s culture you remove the barriers to productivity and make tasks easier and faster to complete. Awkward postures are eliminated allowing employees to work faster and more accurately. Tasks that require excessive force are replaced with equipment, machinery and workstations that reduce the strain and effort required to perform a task. Highly repetitive tasks are replaced with automated equipment that eliminates the need for these actions.

An ergonomically designed workplace with a focus on employee safety demonstrates that one of the company’s core values is the safety of its workforce. This focus on worker health, safety and well-being can have a profound effect on employee motivation and loyalty leading to higher retention rates. The result is a happy and healthy workforce with decreased turnover, fewer workplace injuries, increased productivity and lower costs.