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Originally Posted by LinkF1
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Originally Posted by classyfast
Some good points definitely, and 100% agree with QC improvement.....but let me expand on worker wellness programs from my view and from my particular industry, which is not automotive, but hear me out.
I'm a regional director of environmental health and safety for the 4th largest privately held company in this country. We employ about 15k warehouse workers whose primary function is to pick and lift 20-30,000lbs of product daily and their work is incentive based. Highly repetitive work. Good safety behaviors, good quality and good performance can make you 50-80k a year depending on what you do vs our engineered labor standards. That's 50-80k a year with a highschool diploma only.
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We are in similar industries, and in addition to having a masters with a focus on Human Factors and Ergonomics, I am currently responsible for the safety of roughly 400 workers. I can tell you that you will continue to have repetitive stress injuries without removing some of the load on your workers. Incentive based work such as what you describe tends to encourage employees to ignore their injuries until they significantly affect their output.
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We invest heavily in preventative stretching programs, self massage techniques, trigger point self applied therapy, heavy duty nutrition programs and we typically have stretching/gym space at all locations ran by what we call "motion coaches". Aside from the occasionally bad material handling equipment injuries, we had lots of ergonomic injuries over my last 9 years there. So we tried support belts, they don't work and they weaken your core/back/abs. We tried corrective ergo devices that don't allow you to lift without using your legs, the concept is great but they wear quickly and become ineffective after they're broken in. We've tried skeletal support devices to "ramp-up" folks that have been injured and they too don't work. These assistant devices, which support, supplement or add to workers abilities have one thing in common....they lessen the workers physical output. However you chose to look at that, you must acknowledge that this deconditions the human operating that apparatus.
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None of that is good ergonomic practice. It is stuff that people who are not trained in Ergonomics think would help people lift. Stretching before exercise has been shown to increase injury rates, there needs to be light exercise beforehand to see positive results. There is no evidence in any literature that support belts help with lifting. Forcing someone to lift with their legs does not lead to fewer injuries, allowing them to lift with no limitations in technique does. Depending on the injury, orthopedic support devices can help recovery, but each situation is different. For most injuries the right answer is strength training with the affected muscle group, it will have the quickest results and the lowest resulting pain.
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What I've found is that for my industry the repetitive motion and the fact that folks stay in motion strengthens the muscles and keeps our folks active and relatively healthy. Our proactive health programs have by far been our best ROI. Now in my world , folks are paid to stretch pre-shift and typically paid time to have our "motion" coaches work with them so they have to participate. Easy as that. In 5 years we have saved over 50m in insurance, incurred medical and workmans comp claims dollars doing this. We are also 7x's safer than the industry average for occupational rate of injury in warehousing nation-wide so that works for us.
The guy that mentioned this can be used for disabled folks is spot on, that's probably the best application for stuff like this.
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You have had great results, I don't want to take any focus away from that. I would recommend that you get a Board Certified Professional Ergonomist in to look at what you can do to further improve your workplace. With a good one you will see increased productivity from your workforce with a side effect of less injuries to have to deal with. |
I really want to pick your brain as my degrees are more towards environmental compliance side than the physical ergo! I like what you're saying and literally will use your points to knock my industrial fitness specialist or "motion coach" down a few notches. They swear dynamic stretching and compound movements is what will make the difference. My argument for a couple years has been to allow a pre-shift workout time in our gyms (but all facilities don't have gyms like we do up here).
I want to know what you meant by allowing somebody to lift without physical limitations- I believe you said-- let me know.
Wish you were closer to New England, may have had a career for you!! (If you were looking!)
Feel free to PM me to shoot the shit.