Paying attention to ergonomics could help your bottom line

One buzzword that can strike panic in the heart of an employer today is ergonomics. But what does it mean and why does it cause such panic?

At the end of 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued federal regulations for ergonomics, defined as an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely. One of the first acts of Congress under the Bush Administration was to rescind those regulations in early 2001 under the Congressional Review Act.

There is only one rule remaining—OSHA regulation 5A1—a general duty clause that states that an employer must provide a safe and healthy place for its employees to work.

Most employers can rest assured that, unless they are getting complaints from employees or labor unions, they most likely will not get cited by OSHA for ergonomics violations, according to David Alexander, president of Auburn Engineers, in Auburn, Ala.

And he should know. His company has contracted with OSHA to write the ergonomic guidelines for nursing homes, retail/supermarkets and poultry processing plants.

About half of all states in the United States have ergonomics statues that follow federal OSHA regulations, according to Alexander, who also has written seven books on ergonomics, including "Applied Ergonomics," a series of case studies that he co-edited with Ray Rabourn.

A few states, including California and Washington, have issued their own ergonomics regulations that mention more specific requirements than the general duty clause in the federal regulation.

"Employers have to realize that if they have a presence in that state, they must play by that state's regulations," says Alexander, an industrial engineer with an advanced degree in ergonomics. Most of the Canadian provinces also have ergonomics regulations.

"What we're seeing is that about 50 percent to 60 percent of all workers' compensation claims are attributed to ergonomic issues, including carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, bursitis, muscular skeletal disorders and other overuse injuries," says Alexander.

"When we analyze workers' compensation expenditures, ergonomics is the leading problem."

Alexander suggests that employers identify those employees who have claimed workers' comp injuries and conduct research to find out what may be causing the problems and take steps to eliminate the causes.

"If your warehouse workers are having a lot of back injuries, you may want to put in a scissors lift or a roller conveyor. It may cost you up front, but the return on investment (ROI) and the substantial boost in productivity is tremendous. The American Industrial Hygiene Conference reported that employers who invest in ergonomics see a ROI of five to 50 times the cost of the expenditure.

"We've also found that implementing ergonomic solutions, particularly at production operations, can have a positive impact on product quality," says Alexander.

For example, an employee on an assembly line using an automatic screwdriver that has a kick when the screw sets, may develop a sore wrist and not take that screw all the way in to avoid the kick from aggravating an already sore wrist.

"That can have a negative impact on product quality. But if the employer implements an ergonomic solution for that kick, the employee will be more likely to assemble the product correctly."

Alexander says that one line of defense against overuse injuries is if employees listen to their bodies. "We want people to recognize when the injury becomes a problem but, more importantly, we want to design the job so they don't have the problem in the first place." e