Workers in various industries play crucial roles in manufacturing goods. Their tasks often involve repetitive actions, operating machinery, and handling heavy or awkward materials. They commonly lift, carry, and manipulate objects, operate machinery, and stand for extended periods, engaging in repetitive motions, bending, or stooping, and using various tools. 

Ensuring that workstations are ergonomically optimized to minimize strain and fatigue is vital. This might entail using anti-fatigue mats, providing supportive seating, and adjusting reaching and lifting heights and weights to maintain proper ergonomics. Investing in employees by setting them up for success, prioritizing ergonomics and safety, and implementing workplace stretching and strengthening programs can significantly reduce the risk of workplace injuries. 

Here’s how you can take care of your employees while saving money in the process:

1. Set your new hires up for success, and make sure your employees are ready to return to work:

   With Advanced's hiring solutions, you can reduce the strain of the onboarding process and improve employee retention. Not all workers have the strength, flexibility, or proper body mechanics and ergonomics knowledge to perform the job well. So why wait until something happens or they get injured on the job to take action?

   • Job Site Analysis/ Physical Demands Analysis: Measuring the physical forces of the job ensures that you have compliant job descriptions. It also gives us the basis to build and develop a validated testing program (post-offer, return-to-work, fit-for-duty, job matching, etc.)

   • Post-offer Pre-employment Testing: This validated test ensures that applicants can safely perform all job duties and tasks before hiring. This testing program also helps identify employees we may need to follow up with for body mechanics training, a specific stretching/strengthening program, and/or additional support as they onboard and settle into their roles.*

   • Job matching tests allow us to measure workers' physical abilities and match them with jobs where they can perform well.

   • Fit-for-duty testing, return-to-work testing, Physical Abilities Testing, and FCE are all measures that should be taken to ensure the employee's safety when returning to work from an injury. They can also determine if employees can perform their duties safely and return to work that day.*

     *Our rigorous validation ensures legal compliance and has held up to litigation.

   2. Prevent injuries with company-specific programs:

   Company-wide stretch and flex programs take your injury prevention measures to the next level. Using the job site analysis, we can create programs specific to suit the needs of your employees and company. Notice we said stretch AND flex. At Advanced, we believe that a program incorporating stretching and strengthening is far superior to one with only stretching.

   3. Provide next-level care for your Employees:

   • 24-7 musculoskeletal injury prevention and triage with Advanced On Demand. We also have options for additional support for telephone calls and live chat if you’d prefer direct contact with a human.

   • Early Intervention: It is essential to take care of the whole person. At Advanced, we believe in caring for personal injuries and the family unit (including spouses and dependents) with onsite or near-site physical therapy, occupational therapy, and/or athletic training services. We also have options for baseline concussion testing and care, as they are more common in the industrial setting than you think.

   • OSHA First Aid: Let’s prevent reportable injuries from becoming recordable with OSHA First Aid. Under OSHA First Aid, we provide your employees with several approved interventions to address their reportable musculoskeletal discomforts and injuries. This may include job coaching, ergonomic analysis and training, job site analysis, soft tissue massage, KT taping, and education using company-wide resources.

   • Workers’ Compensation: Despite our best preventative measures, workplace injuries may happen. When they do, we aim to minimize days lost and money spent to get the employee back to work safely and efficiently. We work with a network of specialist physicians who manage workplace injuries. We can assist with coordinating with them to ensure that your employees are seen promptly and provided with a clear plan of action to manage their injuries. We then offer high-quality Physical and/or Occupational Therapy onsite or near-site to ensure a successful recovery.

   • Ergonomics: workplace ergonomics and industrial body mechanics training are the cornerstones of our prevention program. Addressing ergonomics, work-station setup, and employee interaction within the workstation place is crucial for long-term success.

     • Trucker/ Fork Truck Ergonomics: Personalized assessment and education for each driver and their cab setup can help decrease injury and protect them from injury.

   • Education: Our goal is to educate and empower employees to take action. We utilize psychologically informed strategies to manage acute aches and pains, improve sleep/recovery, address mental health/trauma, improve nutrition to fuel their workday, and more.

   • Psychological Safety: Stress, fatigue, and mental health issues are vital components to acknowledge when discussing employee safety, satisfaction, and overall well-being. Our providers are trained to identify, address, and connect employees with the necessary resources.

   • Support: We know changing behavior takes time and multiple touchpoints and interactions before it is fully ingrained. Rounding, walking the floor, and working with your supervisors to coach the employee are very effective measures to reinforce body mechanics, ergonomics, and safety initiatives.

Our programs are designed to suit your needs and budget. We want to work with you to establish a program at the lowest possible cost for your company. We’d love to connect and learn more about your company and its needs.

*Several programs can be supported virtually or by telehealth, onsite at your facility, and/or near-site at ours.