:: Evidence of Benefits

Laboratory Ergonomics Assessment and Intervention Success

An ergonomic assessment was completed in January 2006 in a small laboratory environment.  The assessment was done as a result of high complaints of pain and discomfort from all 5 employees in this department.  Results of Body Comfort Surveys and Ergonomic surveys completed by employees indicated that 100% of employees had pain in their neck, right shoulder, and right wrist, while 60-80% of employees had pain in their left shoulder, upper and lower back, forearms, elbows and hand/fingers.  After completion of the ergonomic assessment and implementation of recommendations, 80% of employees had reduced their overall discomfort by between 70-98% while one employee reduced overall discomfort by 27%.

An ergonomic assessment was completed in January 2006 in a small laboratory environment.  The assessment was done as a result of high complaints of pain and discomfort from all 5 employees in this department.  During the ergonomic assessment, employees were taught about proper body positioning and were educated on the ergonomic risk factors in their workplace.  Some simple changes were made immediately.  Upon completion of the assessment, further recommendations were made to reduce or eliminate the hazards to improve the comfort of employees working in this area.

Follow up Analysis

A follow up assessment was done in March 2007 (14 months later) to determine the success of the ergonomic assessment and implementation of recommendations.  Four of the same employees were still working in the area and were used in the follow up analysis. Almost every recommendation had been implemented and the comfort levels of employees had increased so dramatically that most employees have very little to no discomfort anymore.  The following sections indicate the measures used to determine success of the implementation of recommendations.

Subjective Measures

The subjective changes were measured by having employees complete the Body Comfort Survey and a Subjective Ergonomic Survey again. The scores from 2006 to 2007 indicate significant improvement in the employees overall body comfort.  This improvement is shown in the charts below.

Chart 1: Percentage of Respondents Reporting Pain/Discomfort by Body Part

Chart 2: Total Overall Body Percentage Reduction in Pain / Discomfort – 2007 compared to 2006

NB: The data for this chart is the overall % reduction in pain/discomfort for each of the 4 employees who were working in the area in January 2006 and still working there in March 2007. 

Objective Measures:

Objective changes included reduced forces for using pipettes, and improved and more neutral angles for neck, shoulder, wrist, and back positioning.

Discussion:

The Ergonomic assessments in this department can be considered a tremendous success.  Prior to the assessments, all employees experienced high levels of discomfort and were losing time from work for physiotherapy and other therapy treatments for their pain.  Through education of proper body postures specifically tuned to their job tasks, as well as engineering changes to reduce the ergonomic risk factors, there was an average of 73% reduction in discomfort per employee.

The cost for implementing all of the recommendations was approximately $1600 per employee, compared to potentially tens of thousands of dollars as the cost for one employee being off work or less-able to work due to a work-related injury (including the losses in productivity, retraining, additional strain on remaining employees, etc).   The reduction in discomfort related directly to the ergonomic assessment in this area more than justifies the costs associated with it and relates to an overall increase in productivity, employee well-being, and employee morale, as well as a reduction in the potential for WCB claims.