Ergonomics: Do you feel lucky?

Do you remember your granny (or some other wise soul) telling you that "if it hurts it must be good for you"? Although this may be true when we are considering the benefits of, say, surgical spirit on a cut knee, it surely cannot apply to the modern working environment. In the new millennium it is clearly not acceptable for any aspect of an employee's work to cause him or her pain, let alone injury.

Purpose of ergonomics

Ergonomics seeks to remove short- and long-term health risks to employees and to improve working practices to make their lives more comfortable. More and more employers are realising that the benefits of ergonomics intervention extend well beyond improving conditions for their workers. Even the most hard-nosed company accountant will find it difficult to argue with the financial benefits of reduced absenteeism, improved productivity, efficiency, and quality, reduced compensation claims and lowered insurance costs - all of which are frequent results from ergonomic changes. (If you think this sounds a little ambitious, read some of our case studies).

There is a famous saying, "no man is an island" and the same goes for jobs. Any self-respecting manufacturing engineer will tell you that the success of a factory depends on the totality of the process, and not just how well each job is performed in isolation. Very often this is the same for ergonomics. Although simple workstation changes can, and frequently do, make an enormous improvement to the comfort and performance of the operator, it is also true that optimum performance often cannot be obtained without considering the working environment and process as a whole. It is no help to a worker to optimise the dimensions of his or her workstation, if the main problem is the flow of work from the batch process that precedes the operation. Similarly, a suggested ergonomic improvement may be rejected by a company because the best arrangement for one working area conflicts with the requirements of another. In a complex environment, an ergonomic analysis must consider the working system as a whole as well as considering the individual elements. A system comprises components interacting for a purpose:

• Components
  For example, technology, people, organisation, environment

• Interacting
  Note that all aspects are important

• Purpose
  Which resides in people and tasks

• Over a period of time

The very name of our company was chosen to emphasise the value we place on analysing the complete system.

Implementing change

So, making the ergonomic improvements your manufacturing environment needs may require more change than you anticipate, and a company asking for an ergonomist's help on one particular job may find that the best answer involves more than a simple physical adaptation. A revision of working practices, communications or job design may be required, for instance.

I can almost hear your screams of anticipated pain! Yes, certainly, implementing change that affects several areas is more difficult than making a simple workstation adjustment, but the long-term benefits surely outweigh the short-term disruption. Which is where Granny comes in. When it comes to making well considered, wide-ranging ergonomic improvements, then it may hurt, but it's definitely good for you (and your employees, and the bottom line...).

But don't let me scare you off - ergonomics has a valuable contribution to make at both an individual workstation level, and at the system (or process) level. I am certainly not suggesting that all ergonomics interventions are difficult, complex or lengthy. What I am proposing is that if a company is prepared to take a wider view of an issue, there are prizes to be had. If you have already identified a particular problem, such as high sickness absence or a quality issue, you may well be able to benefit from some ergonomics advice.

Many manufacturers are now facing increasing compensation claims from workers claiming that their health has been affected by their jobs. This means that insurance costs will climb and money must be put aside against future litigation. Once a claim has been successful, it may trigger a flood of identical claims from workers doing similar jobs. It is a brave employer that hopes that the situation will spontaneously right itself, or simply go away - and if either of these things does happen it will surely be luck rather than judgment. So, if I cannot exhort you with grandmotherly advice, let me paraphrase the famous Clint Eastwood character, Dirty Harry. Perhaps the relevant question for manufacturers hoping to avoid dealing with pain in the workplace is not "Will implementing the solution hurt?" but "Do I feel lucky?"

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Last updated: August, 2009

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