Health and Wellness Leads : Employee Health Promotion Program Ideas: Safety and Wellness

Other departments within a business 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 monetary loss for workers’ compensation. Many healthcare insurance dollars are also invested on back pain, other sprains, and strains. Wellness and safety efforts can focus on:
• Warm up stretches before starting work or periodic stretching during work. These can do much to prevent soft tissue injury. Give training to work groups so they may begin a stretching program. These groups can then continue on their own.
• The Company Health Promotion 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 should 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 support  in offering body mechanics training, job safety analysis, and other preventative services which can help employees work safer, smarter, and avert injury.
• Start a safety issues suggestion box. Urge staff members to report safety and/or injury issues. Help senior staff to establish policy to recognize and reward staff members who offer safety ideas, provide tips, and solution ideas.
• A periodic presentation featuring a local medical provider discussing such topics as safe body mechanics, recovering from a back injury, appropriate spine care, etc.
• Partner with management and supervisor teams to recognize and reward work groups who are thriving with safety and injury prevention.
• The ergonomics of an employees’ workstation/work place design is important and applicable to every group.
• Offer ergonomic training opportunities to interested staff members volunteers. These individuals can then support  other staff members to assess their work areas for safety, comfort, and injury prevention.
• It is frequently more effective to have an observer evaluate staff members for helpful and friendly comfort ideas instead of it is for people to evaluate 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 show how small adjustment changes can frequently make large comfort changes.
• Partner with the employer’s workers’ compensation carrier to help develop ergonomic policies and practices and to support employee training.