What can companies do to help prevent back injuries?
There are a couple of key issues that employers should talk about: posture, safe lifting and overall fitness.
Every employer should adopt a back injury prevention program. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s something you really want to think through; it’s not just printing off a policy and sticking it in an employee handbook.
You need to think about the mechanics of the jobs at your workplace and what employees are encountering. Talk about stretching, training and understanding of how the back works.
It’s an education process that starts at the very top and becomes ingrained into the culture of the company.
Back injuries are typically cumulative. Something as simple as bending down to pick up a pen may have been the trigger, but it’s never really the cause of the injury. People think that one thing caused it, but it could have been years and years of not treating the back properly — picking up that pen was just the trigger.
What should be included in a workplace back injury prevention program?
A back injury prevention program should encompass four things: Procedures for identifying back injury hazards in the workplace, methods for preventing those injuries, employee training and recordkeeping procedures.
The first step is to target the back injury problems. Review claims from your OSHA logs or workers’ compensation claims, inspect the workplace and, most important, interview employees and supervisors. Then you’ll have a true understanding of what occurred and what could occur.
Next, go through workplace improvements. What can be done to make things easier? If employees are bending down and lifting things off the floor, you could have those things elevated or have a lift installed so they are working at a more appropriate level for their backs. You can also use simple techniques like bridging — if you are going to reach for something, you can use one arm to help support the angle of the back.
Another key component is to create a stretching or warm-up program. People think this will take too much time away from work, but it doesn’t take much time to have an effect. Even five minutes of stretching can help prevent injury.
Someone who stands a lot at work should do four main stretches: the hamstring stretch, the lower back stretch, side stretches and the quad stretch. Just hold those stretches for 12 to 15 seconds, two or three times — it’s less than five minutes, but these simple stretches can greatly reduce the chance of an accident.
Even someone sitting at a computer should be taught how to do neck and back stretches to prepare for the day. It’s a great morale booster for employees, and they feel a sense of appreciation and understanding.
Jonathan Theders, CPIA, is president of Clark-Theders Insurance Agency Inc. Reach him at (513) 779-2800 or [email protected].
