The purpose of an ergonomic assessment is to help you understand the connection between people and their work environment. The assessment can help improve work quality, productivity, and profitability by triggering the change of certain processes and work practices.
Ergonomic assessments are valuable when a problem has been recognized and the company is willing to solve it. Some of the common reasons a firm may benefit from an ergonomic assessment include having injured or symptomatic workers or reports of employees having difficulties when performing a particular job task. An ergonomic assessment may also be useful if a company is planning a large equipment purchase or workspace redesign.
Having a detailed Job Demands Analysis (JDA) for each type of position within your organization is valuable because of its many applications. Here is a list of some of the applications of a JDA.
A JDA is conducted through observing the job at hand and informal interviews with the worker. The analysis covers all of the demands on the worker, including essential duties and non-essential duties, physical demands, cognitive demands, perceptual demands, shift work issues, environmental impact, equipment interaction, workstation/work parameters, and social interactions.
Safety meetings are ad-hoc presentations that are customized to a specific firm’s needs. They are generally developed and delivered as an inhouse presentation by the local health and safety consultant. They usually last a maximum of two hours. These meetings are specific to transportation-related safety issues such as vehicle inspection overviews, safe winter driving, or logbook overviews.
IHSA receives funding from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). If your company pays premiums to the WSIB, you are a member of IHSA. That means that our standard consulting services are available to you at no extra charge. You have paid for them through your WSIB premiums.
Our consultants are experienced health and safety professionals who can show you how to apply best practices and world-class prevention strategies to your operations, no matter what your company’s size. Once they have worked with you to develop and implement an effective health and safety policy and program, you will have a clear plan in place. At this point, your consultant will remain available for specific training requests or to help with a particular issue.
Your work with your consultant is completely confidential. IHSA’s role is to educate and assist. The goal is to improve health and safety across the six sectors we serve, not to assign blame. Our staff do not have any law-enforcement power.
Symptoms Surveys are designed to gain a better understanding of any pain or discomfort that workers may experience during their workday. This type of information can help an organization identify potential problem work areas before lost-time, medical, or first-aid claims develop. It also helps identify workstations or job tasks that may need changes. If conducted before and after, Symptoms Surveys can help an organization evaluate the success of any new implementations.
IHSA consultants also offer health and safety auditing services. For more info, visit the Auditing page.
