Corporate Wellness Blog

Other departments within a employer will likely focus on related areas of employee safety and injury prevention. Wellness activities are a natural partner to many other human resource, employee motivation, and safety programs. Body mechanics, ergonomics, and safe working practices are three areas which may be coordinated together.
• Soft Tissue Sprains & Strains: This injury category continues to remain the number one monetary loss for workers’ compensation. Many health insurance dollars are also invested on back pain, other sprains, and strains. Wellness and safety efforts can focus on:
• Warm up stretches before starting work or periodic stretching during work. These can do much to prevent soft tissue injury. Offer training to work groups so they may start a stretching program. These groups can then continue on their own.
• The Employee Wellness Program Committee might consider contracting a fitness professional to come in and conduct stretching “refreshers” for employee groups throughout the year.
• Provide body mechanics training on an yearly basis or more frequently if possible. These training sessions ought to focus on work related tasks and safety, as well as feature a segment on home tasks and body safety.
• Partner with your employer’s workers’ compensation carrier to support  in providing body mechanics training, job safety analysis, and other preventative services which can help employees work safer, smarter, and avoid injury.
• Begin a safety issues suggestion box. Encourage staff members to report safety and/or injury issues. Help upper management to establish policy to recognize and reward staff members who offer safety recommendations, provide tips, and solution ideas.
• A periodic presentation featuring a local medical provider addressing such subject matters as safe body mechanics, recovering from a back injury, appropriate spine care, etc.
• Partner with management and supervisor teams to recognize and reward work groups who are thriving with safety and injury prevention.
• The ergonomics of an employees’ workstation/work place design is important and applicable to every group.
• Offer ergonomic training opportunities to interested workers volunteers. These individuals can then help  other workers to assess their work areas for safety, comfort, and injury prevention.
• It is often more effective to have an observer evaluate employees for helpful and friendly comfort suggestions instead of it is for people to evaluate themselves.
• One suggestion is to have workers remind one another about correct posture, to take breaks, to stop and do quick mini stretches, etc.
• Take before and after photos of work areas as changes are made. This will help to confirm how small adjustment changes can often make large comfort changes.
• Partner with the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier to help develop ergonomic policies and practices and to support employee training.