Could you put a cart with wheels in that area for packages to be delivered on?

You ask a great question, but my answer would be much longer than I can give in this forum. As far as actual devices there are several that come to mind. The office environment complicates things a little. An example of something they might suggest to you is “lifting tables”. However, with lifting tables you still mist get the objects on to the table. There are also lifting hoists and vacuum systems, but I do not know how appropriate they are for an office. I would start with a conversation with a good Material Handling vendor. I would strongly suggest you look at teaching your employees good time-proved lifting techniques. My experience it that most lifting back injuries are caused by poor lifting technique. This starts with basic training on body mechanics. A resource to use here is a good S&H Consultant with and ergonomic background. A local Occupational Health Department, Physical & Occupational Therapy Departments (both usually from a Hospital), or a regional Ergonomic Consultant are also excellent resources. Nationally resources would be a large consulting ergo consulting company like HumanTech and NIOSH. An excellent movie on the topic you can buy is, “PowerLift – Lifting Techniques for a Healthy Back!” Here is one source for the movie: https://www.americantrainingresources.com/ptv-327.aspx

Least expensive would be a small lift cart although this may not be usable in smaller office spaces but they do make fairly short carts. On the more expensive side would be an exoskeleton! Some of these are very low profile, some even making use of soft flexible materials that stiffen under load or in certain positions. The office space can be very difficult to work around for lifting.

I have faced these issues in the past and found there are a lot of options to keep the employee and the company safe in lifting restrictions. If you get a ergonomic lift table you can have the delivery placed on the lifter and it is easy for the employee to raise to a comfortable level. Look this site over for some ideas.

https://www.kmhsystems.com/products-solutions/ergonomics-lift-tables/

This is a picture of an ideal fix:
https://www.kmhsystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/mobile-lifts.jpg

Hope this helps,
Susanne Taylor

Thanks, Everyone, for the valuable feedback.

Practical answer.
(a) Employee with 10-lb restriction lifts nothing. I’ve been there. Just have to accept that lifting won’t happen.
(b) Someone on staff has to have “able to lift 30-40 items” in their job description. Train them to lift properly. This is a fact of life that can’t be avoided.

Some of the comments people have made already are great.

I have a couple of questions - is this a permanent or temporary restriction for the employee?

If it is a temporary restriction can someone else perform this task until the restriction has been removed? I ask it that way as if another individual is asked to do it for a prolonged period of time, a judge may view this task as not being essential to the employee in question. (Always keep in mind that if you keep an employee in prolonged modified duty, that modified duty may be determined to be full duty for them by a judge).

What is in the boxes that is being delivered and how many boxes are being delivered? Can these boxes be broken down by contents and moved that way or do the boxes need to stay intact with all contents contained within the box? Do any of the contents individually weigh more that 10 pounds? If there are a significant number of boxes/individual contents, does this make the task become a frequent task (is the 10 pound restriction listed as 10 pounds occasional or 10 pounds frequent)?

Does the employee have any postural restrictions that might cause an issue with this process - are the boxes left on the floor, requiring kneeling, bending, or squatting, to get them (or their contents) from floor to cart height?