As we approach the end of the year, many safety leaders are planning initiatives and budgets for 2025. In most organizations, strains and sprains are the leading type of injury, and therefore many safety leaders are thinking about how to focus on these next year. At Taylor’d Ergo, we’ve pledged that next year will be the year we start publishing the impact of our ergonomic efforts—not just on safety, but on productivity, quality, and engagement, too. We’ve started to routinely ask employee survey questions that capture baseline and follow-up data to quantify the benefits of ergonomics on various outcomes. This data is beginning to reveal promising insights.
Quantifying Ergonomics: Preliminary Findings
Last week, while preparing for a presentation, I pulled the data from the first 50 office ergo pre-assessment surveys that we’ve gathered since we started to collect this information. Respondents had asked for an office ergonomics assessment, so they were currently experiencing significant discomfort at work. According to these baseline survey responses, these employees believed that reducing their discomfort could:
- improve their productivity by 18%
- improve their work quality by 17%
- reduce the likelihood of them voluntarily leaving their jobs by 30%
Though these findings are very preliminary, they offer a promising glimpse into ergonomics’ potential. We don’t have follow up survey data yet, to explore how the assessment process affected discomfort, but I’m encouraged by what these first surveys are suggesting. And we’re using this type of survey for other “non-office” interventions, too.
The Safety Case for Ergonomics
Most of our clients focus mainly on reducing strain/sprain injury risk – we are typically brought in through the “safety” door. This November, we’re encouraging clients to expand their view: to see ergonomics not only as a tool to reduce injuries but as a comprehensive approach to enhance productivity, quality, engagement, and safety.
Steps for Integrating Ergonomics with Safety Initiatives in 2025
To identify 2025 goals that will help the entire organization:
Step 1: Review 2024 incident reports
Analyze 2024 incident reports to identify tasks where strain/sprain injury risks have been recorded. By targeting ergonomics interventions where injuries are most frequent, we help to meet the goals of the safety department, our client!
Step 2: Engage supervisors in conversations
Meet with managers and supervisors in departments with high incident rates. Find out which tasks create the biggest production headaches for them. (I wrote about some questions you can ask supervisors, here.) The goal is NOT to talk about ergonomics and strain/sprain injuries, but rather to focus on production.
Step 3: Collaborate with the Quality Manager
Identify tasks with high error rates due to human mistakes. These mistakes might be captured as re-work, scrap, waste, extra inspection, failed inspections, or other metrics. People make more mistakes when they are tired or sore. Again, the goal is to focus on quality metrics, not ergonomics, at this point.
Step 4: Gather HR data on absenteeism and turnover
Check in with Human Resources to find out which jobs, teams, or departments are linked with high turnover and absenteeism rates. Absenteeism and turnover often correlate with discomfort and fatigue.
Step 5: Survey employees for insights on discomfort
Where practical, survey employees to understand which tasks they associate with discomfort, and how it affects their performance. External consultants can help ensure confidentiality, encouraging honest responses that reveal pain points impacting both safety and productivity, quality, and engagement.
Step 6: Make your 2025 hit list
After collecting this information, review the data to pinpoint tasks or jobs highlighted by multiple sources. This process creates champions for “ergo” changes in departments across the organization. Implementing those “ergo” recommendations will help the organization to thrive, by improving safety, productivity, quality, and engagement. You may learn that other departments have identified goals for 2025 that clearly overlap with yours; support them with their projects, for a win-win!
Join us on our mission to prove the value of ergonomics, in 2025! Need some help? Contact carrie@taylordergo.com. We’d love to help you get started, and we’d love to guide you along the way!