Whether in an office setting or on a production floor, companies are facing challenging ergonomics risks that tend to affect productivity and contribute to rising workers’ compensation claims. In fact, musculoskeletal disorders account for more than one-third of all lost workday cases in most industries and all regions of the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and for many companies have become the leading cost driver for workers’ compensation claims.

Many organizations lack an informed methodology to assess their exposures. Marsh’s Workplace Productivity and Ergonomics Practice can help. Our consultants can analyze worksites and assist you in developing cost-effective strategies to avoid or mitigate workers’ compensation claims and lost productivity through the following ergonomics services.

Exposure Mapping

The goal of Marsh’s proprietary ergonomics exposure mapping (EEM) tool is to rank potential exposure by combining professionally observed job/task risks and applicable loss history. The EEM tool provides a cost-effective methodology to prioritize ergonomics activities on high-risk areas.

To determine the relative risk of various tasks performed, our consultants: conduct a brief professional assessment to identify and quantify potential injury risk factors; analyze your loss experience to assign a risk rating based on past musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) cases for the job tasks reviewed; interview employees and supervisors to determine their perceptions of the work environment; and consider other pertinent factors (such as productivity, quality, or employee turnover) that may indicate the level of total risk.

Job Analysis

Marsh consultants complete an in-depth ergonomics job analysis of specific jobs or tasks that are driving workers’ compensation claims costs or present a high degree of potential for injury as identified by Marsh’s ergonomics exposure mapping tool.

Our consultants analyze current work methods to evaluate risk factors including required forces, awkward postures and motions, and repetition and duration. Other workstation design features, including material flow, layout considerations, and tools provided, would also be evaluated. The job analysis includes task observations, videotaping, informal on-the-job interviewing employees and other stakeholders, workstation measurement, cycle time measurements, and exposure documentation.

We work with you to develop a broad range of ergonomics solutions, including engineering, work method and administrative controls. The loss control solutions introduced often yield the added benefit of productivity, efficiency, and/or quality gains. In addition, functional job descriptions can be developed during the analysis to assist with employee placements in transitional duty work, a critical element of an organization’s return-to-work policy.

Ergonomics Management Process Design

The design of a practical process for managing ergonomics exposures and medical management practices enables you to implement an effective and consistent management system. Marsh can tailor the process to reflect your operations, management style and culture, and strengths of your organization. The end product is a written ergonomics management process that is measurable, sustainable, and efficient.

Marsh will use a team of ergonomics, claims management, and medical management consultants to design the critical elements of this program. You would be asked to form a multidisciplinary advisory team with representation from human resources, facilities, engineering, and training within your facility. Your team would meet with the Marsh consultant(s) to discuss the essential policies and activities for your ergonomics management process and how to effectively integrate them within your existing management systems.

The ergonomics and medical management programs typically include a management policy statement, exposure prioritization, the ergonomics job analysis process, employee feedback systems, the ergonomics training process, MSD treatment protocols, MSD reporting and tracking, MSD return-to-work systems, MSD claims management process, and program metrics and feedback.

Gap Analysis

The ergonomics gap analysis is a structured audit process that is designed to identify gaps in your ergonomics management process that affect overall effectiveness and outcomes. It compares your current practices with a set of rating criteria, evaluating your ergonomics management systems by applying key performance indicators (KPIs) that have been drawn from recognized best practices in ergonomics.
 

Lean Ergonomics

The strong growth of lean manufacturing initiatives has led to a source of emerging production risks. Risk control processes must evolve to anticipate and effectively manage increases in the MSD risk factors of repetition, duration, and pace in the lean environment. Core lean values such as waste reduction and value creation have helped many employers improve operating efficiencies, retain manufacturing jobs in the United States, and create competitive input factor advantages.

Lean manufacturing processes typically result in increased throughput or reduced labor costs through systematic waste reduction and increased value added time. This benefit to productivity can lead to in increased repetition for individual employees and reduced “non-value-added” rest time. Unfortunately, when ergonomics control measures are not integrated within these lean process improvement initiatives, the risks from other exposures (awkward postures and motions, required forces, etc.) may become amplified. In the long run, the financial savings from the productivity gains and quality improvements may be eroded by the higher cost of MSD claims and the loss of experienced personnel to injury.

A higher incidence of MSDs is not inevitable. Our ergonomists can help companies integrate ergonomics into their lean processes by identifying the natural connection points within systems and training staff on the skills they need to successfully identify risks, implement appropriate control measures, and measure their impact. Lean ergonomics utilizes continuous improvement principles to transform your risk factors into improvement enablers and competitive advantage sustainability.

Behavioral Ergonomics

Behavioral ergonomics blends engineering solutions with behavioral safety. In recent years, many companies have used behavior safety programs to achieve significant reductions in employee injuries and associated workers’ compensation costs. Not every company, however, experiences success in launching a behavior safety program. Inferior workstation and workflow design may be an obstacle, as even the best behavior safety program will not be effective if the workplace is not designed to promote safe behaviors.

Marsh’s behavioral ergonomics process begins by identifying the key safety issues at a given facility. Careful analysis of the trends and day-to-day operations typically uncovers at-risk behaviors that drive costly injuries, property damage, and production errors. Creating an inventory of these behaviors is the first step in the process.

The next step is to determine the root causes of the at-risk behaviors. Key activities in this process include: observing the workstations, work methods, and material flow through the operation; interviewing employees and supervisors in the area to learn about physical and operational obstacles that drive unsafe behavior; defining the variances in products, materials, and work methods used; and determining the key maintenance issues for the workstation and equipment.

During this process, Marsh ergonomists focus on workflow, material delivery and orientation, employee pathways, and maintenance issues that affect behaviors. They then work with your staff to develop engineered solutions that make the safe behavior easier to perform, increasing the likelihood that the correct procedures will be used. Using a behavior safety process to positively reinforce the correct procedures provides the long-term motivation to maintain the proper behaviors.

Call Intake and Resolution System

The call intake and resolution system tracks each safety/ergonomics concern or issue generated by an employee or manager, automatically generates an action plan, and then monitors each concern or issue through resolution and subsequent follow-up. The system is well-suited for distributed populations of workers, providing a central communication entry point.

With consistent and prompt response to employee safety/ergonomics concerns, the system can help you cut costs by identifying issues early, thus reducing medical and indemnity costs. For example, in an office ergonomics evaluation scenario, information is sent to the employees with suggested workstation adjustments for ergonomics-related issues. Initially, information is sent to the employees with suggested workstation adjustments for ergonomics-related issues. The diary system helps ensure that there is a telephonic follow-up made to determine whether the issue was resolved. Telephonic and on-site evaluation time can be efficiently focused on those problems that were not self-corrected.

Ergonomics Training

Education and training systems are the keys to effective implementation of any management program, and the ergonomics program is no exception. Marsh’s management consultants can design training systems that reflect your organizational structure and staff capabilities. Effective training targets the specific roles and operational environment.

The training presented to managers and supervisors should be different from the training presented to production employees, since the supervisors must be prepared to respond to questions and concerns from their staff. Office employees should receive different training than the production staff, since their exposures and solutions are quite different. We also provide training for your engineering staff to enable key staff members to incorporate ergonomics design concepts into future workstations and production lines.