Column: Facilitating a healthy workforce
Frank Grispino MOT, OTR/L, CHT
As a hand (wrist, elbow, shoulder) therapist, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many injured workers over the years. I haven’t done formal research to back this up, but it seems a greater proportion of workers sustain arm and hand injuries compared to other parts of the body. It makes sense this might be the case. The interaction between worker and job is the arm and hand. Hands get put in spinning, grinding, crushing and cutting tools for many reasons when working in production activities. Its not hard to imagine why flesh and bone loses when compared to steel in these situations.
A big focus on population health in the general community is prevention. In industry, wire screens, guards, body mechanics education and automation can decrease the traumatic injury rates. Are there other ways to engage in a prevention culture in the industrial community? You can probably guess I wouldn’t have asked that if I didn’t have an answer I wanted to share. So here we go. The answer is yes.
The first step is to objectively analyze a company’s jobs. By analyze, I mean look at distances that must be traveled, heights and weights that must be lifted, time spent standing, sitting, crawling and climbing. These are just a few examples of the things that must be accurately assessed to determine what physical skills are needed to do a specific job.
From this data, a very detailed functional job description can be created. This allows the job to be categorized into a specific physical demand category. The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) divides jobs into physical demand categories of sedentary, light, medium, heavy and very heavy. Examples of a “sedentary” job would be a data entry specialist using a computer. A “very heavy” job example could be a manufacturing job that required physical handling of steel at a good pace all day long. Regardless of OSHA category, a good job analysis defines very specific tasks that a job requires, as well as the frequency throughout the day.
A common cause of work injury is when an employee doesn’t have the physical capabilities that a job requires to be performed safely. A non-match puts the employee at risk for injury. A work injury is not good for the employee or the company. A good match between employee and job doesn’t eliminate work injuries, but it certainly decreases work injuries. A win-win.
How do we match employees to jobs? You may have already surmised that if you know what the job demands of a person, you need to test the person to see if they meet or exceed the physical demands of the job. From the functional job description described above, a pre-work screen can be developed. When a person accepts a job, it can be conditional upon successful completion of a pre-work screen. We can test to see if the candidate employee can physically perform each physical task that a job entails. Again a win-win.
If a person does become injured, or even sick, the pre-work screen can be used to develop fit-for-duty testing. There’s not as much leeway in testing people that are already employed. Testing to see if they are still a physical match for the job after injury or illness is perfectly legal, If an appropriate functional job analysis has been used to develop the fit-for-duty test, same as pre-work screens. It’s actually the same physical performance testing done for the pre-work screen.
With appropriate fit for duty testing, it takes the guesswork out of when an injured worker can return safely and without restriction. An injured worker returning to a job is more likely to be reinjured. This system reduces reinjury. The system commonly supports itself by the money saved by the company with a work comp claim. It saves the employee money and time down the line by ensuring they are a physical match with what the job requires and can return when ready. Often this return to work is quicker when using the tools presented to decide when this is possible. Workers, doctors, therapists and employers all benefit from this approach to workforce wellness. Once again, a win for all involved.
There’s a lot that goes on inside the walls of industry. I have great respect for the workers that are doing a job that requires physical performance at consistent levels for success. That usually means the job isn’t physically easy. They are actually a type of professional industrial athlete. Also, hats off to the employers that care about their people and their physical and emotional well-being enough to implement these programs. It isn’t free, but if we do our job right, their costs will be recouped in the moderate and long terms.
