Safety Knights

I do it. When asked by my customers. Goes back to my many years as a HR/OHS Manager. I had Health and Safety but in HR also had Workers Comp at my facility. I found Ergo and Ergo Training a key tool to obtain "Zero-Injuries" for two years out of five, and for all five lowering my DART from 18 to >1.0. this was in a heavy machining and assembly facility of 400 employees. Since we were in a huge corporation we were self-insured so had no "Mod Rate" a key WC metric for smaller companies. We lowered our WC Metric of $WC Cost/ Labor Hour from $.75 / hr (terrible) to under the Corporate Goal of $.05 / hr for those five years (my last year $.01). Then I retired and became a consultant.
I used Ergo Assessments for sending info on the employee's job to determine if an injury was "work-related" to doctors and sometimes IMEs for WC, making job descriptions in HR, designing work cells and processes, Work-rounding, injury prevention, WC remediation in cases that their was doubt on by us (the company), and on and on....

I always divided my "Practical" Ergo Programs into 3 categories: #1 Lifting, #2 MSDs, and #3 Office Ergo. Since we had only a very few office employees we concentrated on 1 & 2. We had an active Ergo Team where employees received training and actually did Ergo Assessments! A low hanging fruit of all this was Lifting Training & Re-Training for all employees and management. We created a Lifting Lab where employees were trained how to lift. We enforced (managed) our lifting procedures. We lowered our annual back injuries from about 12 to 0! One of most expensive WC injures to 0!

I also learned that Ergo is not for the inpatient or frugal minded. Ergo takes patience, resources, people, and most of all COMMITTMET BY EVERYONE! Take baby steps and get the ball moving downhill!

If you need assistance let me no, "Been there and done that!" My $.02.

While I'm not in this position anymore, YES!!! I think it's important to do because while I knew the basics such as fire extinguishers, MSDSs (I know I just aged myself here), heavy equipment, and the basic ergonomics and slips trips and falls, I know I'm not in their job day to day. It's important that the employees FEEL safe too. Within reason, of course... The one request that a cotton candy machine would increase their mental health, therefore making them more alert was a cleaver one...

Yes, I have participated in ergo assessments that were conducted in this way. Overall, this accomplishes so much in many ways. It makes the employees feel empowered and part of any changes that may be coming and gives you a lot of insight to things you may not have thought about given you are not doing the job every day. The implementation part is where I see the issue unfortunately. If you are going to do this initiative and get employees involved, you have to make sure there is follow through otherwise it can actually have a negative effect on employee morale and how they feel they are valued and if "management" actually listens and cares.

We have a specific kind of audit that requires you actively communicate with your team members about their job, hazards, what they believe is the biggest hazard, etc. We have seen some pretty fruitful feedback from these audits and when they're completed by the area leadership it tends to go further than just the EHS team asking questions.

As a custom anti-fatigue mat manufacturer, every day we're asked about ergo mat inspection, about how to assess ergonomic support, about measuring firmness with durometers, about how this mat compares to that mat... There IS a science to it all and it can be complex.

But it can also be really simple, and should always start in the same place. This is where we start and where we encourage every who asks to start:

Ask the people who use the mats every day.

➡What would you change about the mat you're working on?

➡How do you feel when you go home at night?

➡Do you feel safe and physically supported?

➡Do you have any pains you can't connect to an impact injury?

When safety leaders ask how they can do inspections on their own, we say the same: Go to your people!

Go down to the plant level, ask the questions above. stand on the mats yourself, and watch operators work over 30-60 minutes to really understand how they navigate their work, to see if the mat is big enough, if it slides, if they have to shift on/off the mat constantly, or if it's causing any trip and fall risks.

A bit verbose, but it all goes back to your original point -- the value of having leadership actually walk the production floor, ask questions, really and truly actively listen. It helps improve safety and health, but it also supports morale and culture, retention and buy-in, and ultimately better, more informed decision making.

Whether ergo mats, insoles, height adjusted desks, lifting practices, whatever, if every effort started by asking the people with boots on the ground every day, the benefits filter upwards and can have a really lasting impact.

Great work, Jerry! Thanks for sharing.