Corporate Wellness

More productivity from less people!

In times like these, the productivity and performance of staff becomes more important than ever before. Many businesses have the unenviable task of reducing staff numbers to cut costs while at the same time being required to meet high performance targets and standards. Companies large and small need their staff to pull together and work harder to achieve their goals and, as a result, many of them are looking at ways to keep their staff motivated and healthy.

One way to improve staff health is to look at how staff members interact with their working environment. When people are under pressure to generate a result, they often don’t pay attention to their environment and form bad habits. For example, not taking breaks or stretching, slouching at the desk, staring up or down at a monitor, over stretching to reach a keyboard; these are all common practices and can cause injuries that are serious enough to impact productivity. 8 out of 10 people who use a computer suffer some soft tissue injury as a result. The problem is that less than 2 of these injuries are ever reported. The rest go unnoticed and often untreated. The staff members with these issues such as back, neck, shoulder or wrist pain, headaches and eye strain simply continue working at a lower capacity or take time off work to recover. These injuries are entirely preventable.

In the past, the only real way to combat this hidden cost to your business was to have each staff member assessed by an ergonomic consultant. The difficulty in dealing with the problem in this way was that you were often assessing people who were at no risk. While this blanket ‘vaccination’ type approach works well, it can be disruptive and cost more than it really needs to. But how do you know who is at risk and who really needs to be assessed?

ErgoAssess

The answer is ErgoAssess. ErgoAssess is a software application that has been developed by a team of ergonomists and physiotherapists. For a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time, ErgoAssess can determine which staff members in your organisation are at the most risk of an injury. 

The application uses online surveys to question staff on their work practices and desk configuration. The survey takes less than ten minutes and can be done on home workstations as well as those in the office. As well as providing management with a comprehensive report of potential risks, the system provides low risk staff with educational materials in areas where they need some advice.

As an example, a staff member may be reported as low risk but their answers indicate that they have minor issues with glare. Following the survey, an email is automatically sent to this staff member with instructions on what they should do. All questions and instruction sets can be completely customised to your organisation. High risk staff members are also provided with educational materials automatically however the software will also mark them for further review. Further review might involve re-assessing them at a later stage or having them assessed again by a consultant.

Cost savings

The ErgoAssess software application has been written to minimise disruption to your staff members and save your organisation money. The application is simple to implement and manage. It runs over the internet so you will not need to buy software or equipment to run it. It can be customised and up and running for your business in just a few days. Rolling out company wide surveys takes a few minutes. Looking at the ‘dashboard’ view of the entire organisation and making decisions on the reports and actions required can also be carried out extremely quickly. Your organisation will save money because:

• There are no major internal resource requirements to set up or run the software.
• Assessing staff using software costs 70% less than the cost of conducting physical assessments.
• Only staff that absolutely need physical assessment will be provided with one further minimizing cost and staff disruption.
• Productivity will be improved through lower injury and sick leave rates.

Pain for them; pain for you

When it comes to the wellbeing of staff, there are many ways to motivate and encourage productivity. Higher pay, bonuses, shares, incentive schemes; they can all help to motivate staff and keep energy levels high. However, their usefulness is dampened dramatically if employees are suffering from recurring injuries, even those perceived as minor. Someone with a simple case of repetitive strain injury in their wrist for example, can spend an hour a day away from their computer trying to get relief.  If you add up all of the issues – the niggling joint pain, the severe back problem, the headaches – what might they be costing your business on a yearly basis? For more information on ErgoAssess, call 1300 374 696.