How to Build a Successful, Sustainable Ergonomic Team

Over time, members will invariably join and leave your team. As is the case with any other position in your facility, it is the standardized recruiting and training procedures you put in place that allow for the most seamless transitions when new personnel are brought on. In fact, it is a good practice to continually identify and recruit prospective ergonomic team members from among your work force, even when there is not an immediate need for additional members. Having this practice in place ensures that there is a pool of candidates from which to select when the need arises.

A major factor in the initial and long-term effectiveness of an ergonomic team is how efficiently and how thoroughly the charter members, as well as future new members, can be trained to identify risk. Again, it is in the area of training the team leader and new members that contracting with outside consultants will help get your program up and running smoothly. After that, your team leader and core team become the trainers for new recruits and ensure they possess the necessary competencies to be effective risk assessors.

DATA MANAGEMENT

An ergonomic data management mechanism is needed for a number of reasons. Among them are the need to document your team's processes, to hold team members accountable to tasks, to record and store risk assessment findings and to document the effectiveness of the ergonomic solutions you put in place.

Furthermore, a comprehensive risk assessment tool that identifies both human and environmental factors is critical to the successful identification and mitigation of workplace risk. Because a thorough, in-depth risk assessment tool can be difficult to create on your own, using one from an outside consultant or vendor can be the easiest and most cost-effective way to get started.

To best manage your ergonomic data, there are a number of third-party software options available. In choosing software that will work best for you, look for a package that offers real-time reporting of “first reports” and risk issues as they arise, that allows for collaboration between your internal and external resources for standardization of procedures, that allows you to manage risk according to various risks' severity and that provides these capabilities in a secure, HIPAA-compliant fashion.

MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

Finally, for your ergonomic program to produce meaningful results, it must have the full support of upper management. Management must be willing to listen to the ergonomic team's findings and implement the suggested fixes whenever possible. Management's support is a clear demonstration to every employee that leadership is committed to reducing risk and to the safety and health of the work force.

When used in conjunction with the three other key elements of the BEEA+ paradigm, biophysics, education and awareness, a strong ergonomics program will be an integral part of your facility's overall risk reduction strategy. Establishing an ergonomics team is a great way to get employees from within your own ranks involved with and committed to workplace injury prevention. Employee involvement becomes infectious and it also goes a long way towards establishing and enhancing your facility's safety culture.

Benjamin Harris is a licensed physical therapist and a program director for InjuryFree Inc. InjuryFree is a national firm specializing in workplace risk reduction, providing jobsite employee maintenance centers, ergonomic training programs and ergonomic software solutions. To learn more about InjuryFree, visit http://www.injuryfree.com.