By Krista Hoffmeister, PhD, AEP; Alyssa Gibbons, Ph.D.; Natalie Schwatka, Ph.D., AEP; and John Rosecrance, PhD, CPE

Researchers from Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Public Health recently found workplaces that value employees’ safety and well-being as much as company productivity yield the greatest rewards.

The study, “Ergonomics Climate Assessment: A measure of operational performance and employee well-being,” was recently published in the Applied Ergonomics journal. The study describes a new tool, the Ergonomics Climate Assessment, which measures employee perception of their workplace’s emphasis on the design and modification of work to maximize both employee performance and well-being.

Utilizing ergonomic principles can result in a “positive ergonomics climate” at a company and can lead to reduced physical and mental strain, lowered risk of work-related injuries and illnesses, and an improvement in work quality and efficiency. The researchers identified 40 questions that best describe an organization’s ergonomics climate. The questions represented four indicators of ergonomics climate: management commitment, employee involvement, job hazard analysis, and training and knowledge. With this information, they studied an organization’s Ergonomic Climate and its relationship to employees’ self-reported work-related musculoskeletal pain by surveying 706 employees over two years.

The researchers found that when an organization promoted productivity and employee well-being equally to their workers, and with a strong emphasis on...Click here to read the complete blog post.