Health Handouts : Corporate Health Promotion Program Ideas: Safety and Wellness

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 on the job practices are three areas which may be coordinated together.
• Soft Tissue Sprains & Strains: This injury category continues to remain the number one financial loss for workers’ compensation. Many health care insurance dollars are also invested on back pain, other sprains, and strains. Wellness and safety efforts can focus on:
• Warm up stretches before beginning 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 Company Wellness Program Committee might consider contracting a fitness professional to come in and conduct stretching “refreshers” for employee groups throughout the year.
• Offer 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 assist  in offering body mechanics training, job safety analysis, and other preventative services which can help staff members work safer, smarter, and avert injury.
• Start a safety problems suggestion box. Urge workers to report safety and/or injury problems. Help management to establish policy to recognize and reward workers who offer safety suggestions, offer tips, and solution ideas.
• A periodic presentation featuring a local medical provider approaching such topics as safe body mechanics, recovering from a back injury, appropriate spine care, etc.
• Partner with senior staff and supervisor teams to recognize and reward work groups who are successful with safety and injury prevention.
• The ergonomics of an employees’ workstation/work place design is important and applicable to every group.
• Provide ergonomic training opportunities to interested employees volunteers. These people can then help  other employees to assess their work areas for safety, comfort, and injury prevention.
• It is often more effective to have an observer evaluate staff members for helpful and friendly comfort recommendations rather than it is for individuals to assess 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 corroborate how small adjustment changes can frequently make large comfort changes.
• Partner with the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier to help cultivate ergonomic policies and practices and to provide employee training.