How Investing in Worker Safety Leads to Success

The importance of ergonomics in the workplace has frequently been both overlooked and undervalued by owners, managers, and supervisors as well as employees themselves. The good news is that workplaces are getting safer. However, serious workplace injuries still cost business more than $58 million per year!* That amounts to a lot of lost time and lost production for businesses and possibly unrecovered wages for those injured employees.

So, let’s look at the role that ergonomics plays in the workplace.

Overexertion injuries related to lifting, pushing, pulling, holding, carrying, and throwing cost businesses $13.7 billion per year.*

What Is Ergonomics?

According to Merriam-Webster, ergonomics is “an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely.” In other words, ergonomics is “the study of work.”

Workplace ergonomics applies to how a worker interacts with their environment and with other objects during the workday, including posture and movements. Ergonomics applies to four primary workplace situations.
• Objects handled by workers
• How workers move objects
• Processes or functions performed
• Surrounding spaces in the workplace

Same-level falls, such as slipping on a wet floor, cost businesses $11.2 billion per year.*

Why Is Ergonomics Important in the Workplace?

Many business owners are so focused on how every dollar is spent and reacting to the things that affect their business every day, they may not think of ergonomics as important in the workplace or as a necessary part of the annual budget. However, because people spend as much as one-third of their lives at work, an injury is most likely to occur within the workplace.

Regularly scheduled ergonomics assessments provide many benefits.
• Fewer on-the-job injuries
• Higher-quality production
• Happier, healthier employees
• A commitment to safety

The health and safety of both office and industrial workers are key to a business’s success or failure. Each employee performs a vital function, whether it’s assembling a product on a production line or managing the accounts receivable of a business. When an employee’s health or well-being is at risk, when they are sick, or when they are injured, the business will inevitably suffer.

Repetitive motion injuries from repeating motions or micro-tasks cost businesses $1.5 billion per year.*

The truth is that poor ergonomics is a large contributor to both sudden and gradual workplace injuries. And these injuries result in lost time (e.g., doctor visits, pain, and injury recovery) and lost production. And as is the case in most any industry, time is money. When your best employees are not available to work, then your business is at an immediate disadvantage.

Ergonomic Planning = Business Success

By incorporating ergonomics as an everyday practice, businesses and corporations can minimize downtime and maximize efficiency. In the end, employers that focus on employee health and wellness tend to have the happiest and most productive staff, and thus, the most successful and profitable workplaces.

In fact, proper ergonomics is great for business and great for employees. The bottom line is that practicing good ergonomics in the workplace can help office employees and staff avoid injuries at work and help workers to be more efficient and productive. In addition, you can promote a better safety culture, boost morale, and strengthen both company loyalty and a team mentality. That’s a win-win for everyone.

Safeguard your employees from harm & help ensure business profitability.
Call McClure Ergonomics Consulting TODAY for your first consultation!

*Statistics per the annual Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, based on information from Liberty Mutual, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the National Academy of Social Insurance.