Employee Health and Safety. Paper Example

Many organizations strive to provide their workers with the working environment that is friendly and safe for them to be productive. However, most fail to design and deliver a working environment that accommodates the capabilities and limitations of their employees hence, ergonomics. Organizations must strive to provide a safe workplace that does not leave their workers fatigued, frustrated and hurting. Failure to achieve this, often leave workers with work-related musculoskeletal disorders such as those of knee, hip and lower back pains as is Amy's case. Repeated eight-hour shifts with extensive four-hour overtimes require Amy to use a great deal of force to perform. It is a risk factor that is most likely to develop into a musculoskeletal injury.

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To manage the ergonomic challenges faced by Amy at work, an ergonomic team has been put in place the following roles:

Observe Amy's workplace and activities to identify potential ergonomic issues. Ergonomic problems typically cut across several organizational units. Therefore to come up with a critical way to assess the risks and point the sources, the team has to do a careful observation of what Amy's work as a cashier entails that is; does she stand or sit, what is the posture of sitting and for how long does she stand on her feet. What is the policy of the box store?

Conduct formal ergonomic risk assessments to identify and document sources of risk. In this case, the team then has to perform reviews, establish standard ergonomic assessment methods, engage the employees and gather actual date to analyze the data. This will enable the team to come up with practical solutions to the issues.

Find potential solutions. After making observations and assessments, the group now brings the subjective data, objective data, and overall evaluation back to brainstorm additional solutions and improvement opportunities. At this point, the team should be able to generate several improvement scenarios. Choose the best solution and create an improvement plan moving forward.

The team needs to help Amy with a systematic ergonomics improvement process that removes the risks she is facing at work that leads to musculoskeletal injuries and allow for improved performance. They will remove barriers to maximum safe work performance and capture Amy's body capabilities and limitations.

They need to prioritize the jobs for analysis and conduct a review. The assessment will help them come up with an ergonomic opportunity list that prioritizes the box store resources to reduce the risk by putting appropriate controls in place effectively.

Putting basic commands in place will provide the best solution to solving Amy's work station ergonomic issues. The box store could give more attention to employee convenience during work hours and avoid straining workers with long overtimes. This will ensure that Amy does not stay long on her feet or lift heavy boxes longer than her muscles can handle.

It is crucial for the ergonomics team to put in action an initiatives that take into consideration possible discriminatory perception. This is because the box store may be discriminating against Amy by frequently adding her longer overtime that results in musculoskeletal injuries and could lead to a disability issue if this persists. To ensure that this does not happen to any other employee in the store, a plan that holds the store responsible for its employee's health and safety is thus essential.

References

Stack, T., Ostrom, L. T., & Wilhelmsen, C. A. (2016). Occupational ergonomics: A practical approach. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley