Participatory Ergonomics for the Future
Table of Contents
- My name is Tania and I'll be moderating the session today and handling the...
- From Scandinavian studies countries have shown that there really wasn't a lot of...
- Evidence-based information but we also added vignettes that were told to us by...
- The most I would think well known of the participatory approaches and in this...
- Found that the feedback from individuals was that there was strong staff buy-in...
- University of Washington in st.
00:00
my name is Tania and I'll be moderating
the session today and handling the
qeshim Q&A session our speaker today is
Duane van oord Duane is an associate
scientist at the Institute for work and
health he's involved in clinical work
from 1992 2010 and has designed and
implemented rehabilitation and ergonomic
programs for injured workers the focus
of his research since 1997 has been on
00:30
the prevention of work-related
musculoskeletal disorders and he is
particularly interested in participatory
approaches to hazard reduction in the
workplace and so I will hand it over to
you now doing thank you thanks for
joining the webinar everyone and thank
you to the CI prd for hosting this so as
it appears i'm going to talk about
participatory economics today i'm going
01:00
to talk about it from a researcher
perspective but i hope and will try to
focus on sharing practical information
that that could be used to apply in the
implementation of the disparate
ergonomics in workplaces that's the
interest that i have in in my research
area as well Donald Cole and dr. Yvonne
stienstra or koken conspirators in
getting some of these slides together
and there's a people that I've been
01:31
doing research with regarding
participatory ergonomics Carrie boil and
Shannon also provided some slides for me
and I'd like to also just briefly thank
all the iwh prevention review teams
because I'm going to be presenting some
of the results of that work in this
presentation the funding sources I have
to mention the funding support from the
Ministry of Labor in Ontario the worker
safety and insurance board in ontario
and WorkSafeBC in british columbia the
02:05
institute for work in health operates
with the support of a province ontario
and the views expressed in this
presentation are mine
do not necessarily reflect those of the
province of Ontario so with that other
way what I'd like to talk about today
then is I'm going to start with some
definitions first of all with
work-related musculoskeletal disorders
and the reason I'm starting with the
definition of that is because there are
straw participatory approaches or
participate organ olmec approaches are
strongly linked with reducing the hazard
02:36
related to the physical hazards related
to most work-related musculoskeletal
orders so I want to start there and
throughout I'm going to present some
examples that that do touch on reducing
those hazards so I think we should all
be on the same page but what those
things are I'll also present some
definitions about participatory
economics or definitions of
participatory economics and the reason I
do that is also so that we're on the
same page as you can imagine any type of
activity that's called participatory
03:08
could have many different ways of going
about doing it so I'd like to provide at
least a starting point for us all to to
move forward from then I'll talk about
the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness
of PE programs from from a research
perspective I'll try not to be too
boring there touch then on the basic
elements of successful PE somewhat based
on based on the evidence from both the
scientific evidence literature as well
03:38
as practical experiential evidence and
then we'll go on and talk a little bit
about or I'll present some examples from
participatory economics project in the
utility sector so there's some really I
think interesting things to show and
share about how that project went as
well as the sustainability of that
project and then to wrap up I'll try to
talk about some things that are
relatively new in participatory
economics the the role of participatory
04:12
economics in return to work which not
exactly new but but a little bit new and
then finally wrap up with a little bit
of a presentation about participatory
ergonomics as organizational change and
also the stems from a recent research
project that I've been involved in so I
can share some some findings and some
practical insights from that as well so
starting off then the definition of
work-related musculoskeletal sorters are
basically they are a group of painful
04:44
disorders and muscles tendons and nerves
some of the more common names for these
disorders are carpal tunnel syndrome
tendonitis tension neck low back pain is
also a work-related musculoskeletal
disorder so I'm not going to make a
distinction about whether these are
caused by work or not if if one could
imagine that it that even if they aren't
caused by work they are work relevant in
05:15
that it's difficult to do your job well
if you have pain if you have a low back
pain or neck pain and that probably
extends to just about every type of job
that's available out there so I'm not
going to talk about ideology just going
to present this as a definition and part
of the reason I provide a definition and
talk about it this way is because there
are a myriad of names of their right
there's repetitive strain injury there's
community trial disorder even new names
05:47
being thought up now in the Netherlands
the name is consoled cans si ans
complaints of the arm neck and shoulders
so I'm not sure that all these names are
helpful because that means i have to
keep defining this every time i talk
about it but they are out there they
tend to mean the same thing sometimes
people label everything is carpal tunnel
syndrome which is also not helpful but
at least it's a diagnosis so we're
06:19
talking about a group of painful
disorders or the muscles tendons and
nerves as we move forward in this
presentation so to provide a definition
of participatory economics i think i
have to start with a definition of
ergonomics so I've chosen this one from
the international organized association
website it's in
important to start with that definition
because that's where participatory
ergonomic starts from and I think
there's a couple things about this
definition that are important so if
ergonomics is the scientific discipline
06:50
concerns understanding interactions
among humans and a system and there's
also the profession that applies the
theory principles and datas and methods
to design that system to optimize human
wellbeing an overall system performance
the key things about the definition then
are that this is understanding the
interactions between humans in a system
and that the outcomes are to optimize
both human well-being and system
performance and often I think when
07:20
people think about or talk about
ergonomics they talk about the health
benefits reducing hazards for musculus
coulis orders etc and sometimes forget
about the overall system performance
which is part of the definition so the
definitions that I tend to use when I
talk about pedestrian omics are both
from 1997 and I think encompass the idea
of what participatory economics is very
07:53
well so the first ones from wayne's in
it wilson and haynes the involvement of
people in planning and controlling a
significant amount of their own work
activities with the sufficient knowledge
and power to influence both processes
and outcomes in order to achieve
desirable goals so some vague words in
here but in fact it's a very specific
definition the important parts of
definition are that you're involving
people who know their own work
08:22
activities and hopefully have enough
knowledge and power to have influence
that is in order to make change to the
way they do their work or to the tools
that they use a much more succinct way
to say that is practical ergonomics with
the participation of the necessary
actors and problem solving a lovely
succinct way to say that in fact so the
important thing there is the people that
are involved they should
08:52
no their work but also have some
opportunity to make changes so with
those definitions in mind I'll move on
now to talk about some of the evidence
from the scientific literature for
effectiveness of pedestrian onyx
programs justice like a very brief
summary then we found in a review that
we started in 2006 this article that you
09:23
see on slide seven is thrill from
published in 2008 in fact participatory
economic interventions can have a
positive effect on musculus little
symptoms reducing injuries and workers
compensation claims and reducing lost
days or sickness out absence so we found
some evidence of that more recent
studies since 2008 have not shown quite
as strong on evidence for these outcomes
some well-designed studies particularly
09:54
from Scandinavian studies countries have
shown that there really wasn't a lot of
impact from participatory interventions
now I say that because there is some
mixed evidence out there but we also
need to think about the intensity of the
intervention when we talk about evidence
so how well are these interventions put
into place when their studies and what
what we found in the literature
typically is that if there's a strong
10:24
study design a lot of times the intense
of the intervention suffers forth and
vice versa sometimes there's less
strength in the study design when the in
the intervention is implemented very
very well so need to keep both of those
things in mind when we talk about the
literature there's also some evidence
about the cost-effectiveness of
participatory economics bro so programs
my colleague Emil tompa's led a few
10:56
studies in this area and when he found
that ergonomic programs are cost
effective effective and tend to have the
strongest evidence in the
drink sector in one of the studies that
Emile's led he found a net benefit of
almost two thousand two hundred ninety
five thousand dollars with a benefit
ratio of 5.5 to one so to break that
down a little bit we found savings
11:27
basically in the number of first aid
only injuries also found savings by
cutting the number of injuries that
required modified duties bringing down
the number of absenteeism days drop the
number of long-term sickness absences
and basically also increase the quality
of production according to the number
right first time but in a weekly basis
so all of these things combined led to
12:00
almost three hundred thousand dollars
worth of savings and the study looked at
a period of four years I believe so a
pretty good indication of the
cost-effectiveness this is in a
manufacturing sector he's done some
other studies have shown that that can
affect other Manufacturing's or sorry
other sectors as well so we've got some
12:30
evidence that these things these PE
programs work there and that they're
cost-effective so they seem worth doing
but how do you that in fact implement
these programs typically from
practitioners as well as a scientific
literature these are the main features
of the PE program's first you formulate
a team the team typically includes
employees supervisors or managers or
13:02
ghana missed or some trainers health and
safety personnel and very often research
experts know partly that comes from the
fact that the scientific literature is
part of the source for this so there's
always research teams involved when when
you're looking at the sign
literature the team typically is then
trained once they've come together by an
expert an ergonomist usually to become
familiar with ergonomics principles once
the team is trained they use that new
13:33
knowledge to identify the hazards in
their workplace and develop there's the
solutions for those identified hazards
the important part about this is that
the team works together to improve those
workplace conditions through the
participation and and necessarily
through communication and a group some
sort of group problem solving approach
so when workers do become involved in
controlling their own work activities as
14:04
the definition that I used suggests it
typically also decreases hazards that
may arise from work organization and
some other psychosocial risk factors
people working together tend to have
less stress in the workplace they're
working towards a common goal so there's
a lot of benefits that can be had from
participatory economic programs both the
reduction of the hazards that are
targeted as well as the hazards that may
14:37
surround that if you will there are a
number of process plans out there one of
them is the ergonomic blueprint that dr.
Richard wells and Donald Cole came up
with and if you look at the center part
of the diagram on slide 11 you'll see
essentially the the same group of
activities that I mentioned in the
previous slide if you start at the
number one slide identify opportunities
for improvement and then assess the
15:10
hazards and then you move through the
steps 3 which is building solutions
what's expanded in this particular
diagram is the plan do check act kind of
approach where you try something
implement it see if it works and then
either adopt it or riri plan rebuild
redevelop and then try it again
that is one of the key features of
participatory ergonomics is the
opportunity to try things out what I
15:40
like about dr. wells is ergonomic
blueprint is that he's placed at
economic or ergonomics process within
the broader health and safety process
that goes on in any organization or
workplace and you may say they've got
that it doesn't always work in
workplaces but there's some aspect of
Health and Safety that's going on in any
workplace and so he's trying to frame
that within all of those other things
that are are going on in a workplace so
16:10
it's a very useful blueprint although
some people find it challenging to
figure out at first once they get it
that's it works very well I think at
least that's the reports I've been
getting back from people however even
though these tools exist people don't
always find them so we were challenged
to also review the literature a little
bit more broadly and see what other
kinds of tools and things were out there
so we did another systematic review
based on stakeholder feedback that
16:42
really wanted to know how can we best
what are the best practices if you will
of implementing participatory economics
programs so we looked at both the
peer-reviewed literature the scientific
literature as well as what's called the
gray literature and simply put the grey
literature is anything that isn't
produced by commercial publishing so we
looked for documents that were basically
on shelves and in workplaces and as well
as government documents or or other
17:14
health association documents to see
who's talked about how to best do this
implement in the process of
participatory economics so with all of
that information and data we found that
there are or we summarized about six
elements of a successful participatory
going to make program implementation so
the keys that that arrived from all of
this evidence that we looked at is that
you need management and employee support
17:46
need sufficient resources committed to
the program and that means both the
running of the program as well as the
potential changes that are required you
need appropriate training and that
training has to be provided to to a key
number of people involved the team and
sometimes a little bit beyond the team
the team or participating amex team
sometimes called an ergonomic change
team must have the right people involved
18:17
they have to understand their
responsibilities and work together in a
in a consult of way to make the
decisions it's got to be a group
decision process that seems to be a key
factor in a successful program and that
requires good communication between the
team members but also between the team
and upper management as well as between
the team and individuals in the
workplace so you may have a wonderful
collaborative virg anomic change team
18:49
but if the the workers that they're
interacting with are not trusting or not
onboard not supporting the idea then
that may still be a barrier to a
successful but your program
implementation and the last thing that
was relatively unique from the
literature is that there should be some
training provided in how the
organization works in other words
basically how do you go through the
process of purchasing or how do you go
19:21
through the process of finding somebody
who can help redevelop part of your
programs that's internal and that was an
important part of the success of a
program is knowing how to make things
happen or who to talk to to make things
happen within your organization
so with that review and those particular
elements we went on to develop a
participatory ergonomics guide and this
guide again was based on the findings
from the review so we used
19:57
evidence-based information but we also
added vignettes that were told to us by
stakeholders who were implementing
programs such as this in workplaces so
that we tried to adhere to good
knowledge translation principles making
a short guide that's easy to read and
very applicable to practice we see this
as a companion guide if you will to the
blueprint that I presented earlier and
that most of the things that we talked
about here are about how to get started
20:28
how to initiate the program in a
workplace it's available on the iwh
website but it and it's been downloaded
quite a number of times so it seems to
be a good starting point it does not
answer all the questions it just gets
you started it get it seems to get down
break down the barriers for how to get
things started in a workplace so we
think that's been fairly successful and
in trying to get the evidence from both
practitioners and the literature into a
20:59
single place basically so now I'm going
to switch gears just a little bit and
talk about a particular study that we
did a number of years ago now in the
utility sector in Ontario and just to
start with a couple of examples of what
what you might consider hazard sometimes
hazards are relatively apparent so
working from Heights or being reliant on
21:31
other equipment sometimes it's apparent
in the way that that the environment is
with a door open or equipment leaning
against a truck sometimes it's not
apparent and a little more subtle and
that it could be related to postures or
interaction with others and
Tranzit can be very subtle that that
small changes in in tools or equipment
could help alleviate some of the
22:03
pressures or forces or or other physical
hazards that might arise from the
equipment use so this is all all of
these things are examples of the systems
that humans need to interact with so the
participatory approach then and some of
the solutions that this team came up
with over a number of years I'll just
present them now just as a as a way to
show what what kind of things can happen
22:34
so this is very specific to obviously to
the electrical utilities side of things
but they I think these examples can be
extended to other other areas as well so
one of the things that they found or the
actually the ergonomic change team found
important to do was to reduce the forces
that were required to pull a certain
length or amount of wire off for for a
day's work or for a jobs work and in the
23:06
example in this picture and slide 16
there is a lot of force required to pull
the wire through just because of the way
it's being routed through the different
slots and then the angles and the way it
has to be pulled so that the team
thought about this for quite some time
and had to come up with that and tried
to come up with a solution how to reduce
the forces but and they came up with
this basically on slide 17 their
innovation was to create a mobile wire
23:38
stand where the spools of wire are much
easier or don't have as much resistance
on there on the spindles and the where
the wire passage is now a very wide area
so that can be pulled through very
easily but the interesting thing about
it and and why the change team was so
proud of it is that they addressed a
bunch of other issues at the same time
they made this portable so it could be
moved in different areas
which they felt was important for
24:11
workflow within the room that they were
using but they realize it had to also be
storable so they have a retractable arm
something that can be folded down and
put back into place they recognized that
if it was on wheels and you pulled it it
was going to be a problem so the Wheels
lock so that they were very innovative
in covering off a lot of different
concerns that they had about something
that could cause muscles little
24:41
disorders some other solutions that came
up during this project were much simpler
in fact in one team they decided to
change the wooden handles of some of the
tools that they were using with more
shock absorbing material composite
materials tend to do that so they move
forward relatively quickly with that
that was a again a relatively
inexpensive change as well and one of my
favorite stories from this study was the
25:14
idea of cross arm storage and I had the
pleasure of presenting this in the
United in the southern United States
were where they kind of wondered what
the problem was with all that white
stuff but cross arms are used out in the
field and they are used to hold up wires
when they're doing replacing poles and
other wire hangers I think so they but
at the end of a job there often just
thrown off the truck on the ground and
25:46
when they had to be used again for the
next job it was a challenge some time
for the forklift driver to pick away at
the ice and and and pull these out of
there a lot of back strain because the
forklift couldn't do it all so there was
always somebody trying to pick them up
and the team took a while to come up
with a solution but they just came up
with a simple stand so they placed the
stand in the same location in the yard
that that pile of cross arms might be
26:18
but now the forklift could drive up pick
up
put them on the truck and the the
removal of the cross arms was also less
time-consuming because there was a spot
for them they could actually just put
them on so it's very simple solution but
it took a no change team to come
together to figure that out other
solutions perhaps a little bit more
26:49
innovative was the design of tool
supports so tool support for a tool that
would help cut down the hydro poles was
a an innovative design and it was tested
in the field so that the users could
figure out that it was easy to use it it
was easy to install quickly so that it
didn't take the time to install it
didn't take longer than the actual
cutting job which is often a barrier to
27:21
people using tools they won't often use
them if it takes more time so in this
case they tested that showed how easy it
was to put it on how quick it was and
how easy it was then to do the job
required with that tool as well and the
last thing about that particular project
that I'd like to share with you is that
there's a there is some indication of
program sustainability so and this is
something that participated nomics
27:52
sometimes gets a bad name about is that
once the ergonomist has left the
building there's a suggestion that the
program's fade away or sometimes stop
immediately after after the trainer or
the ergonomics is gone but this
utilities project that I was speaking
about which we initiated I think in 2008
is still going today there's a recent
article in TD world transmission and
28:23
distribution world that talks about this
program basically the the program that
the research started which is still
going today and there's still some
sharing of information across the
different utilities by their verga
nomics change teams so it's possible to
have a program a participatory program
that is effective cost effective and
sustainable and can continue on because
28:55
workers will adopt this in a continuous
or plan do check act approach okay so
switching gears again I'd like to talk a
little bit then about what we might
think it was the future of PE or or some
different applications of participatory
economics one in return to work and then
I'll talk a little bit about this idea
29:28
of including it in organizational change
in return to work it that this is not
particularly new it's been around for a
little while but it's starting to come
into its own and and there are research
studies that I know of that are taking
it beyond the traditional participatory
approach so it's some it is something
that I think is continuing and probably
is a good future aspect of participatory
approaches the the sherbrooke model is
29:59
the most I would think well known of the
participatory approaches and in this
model essentially there's an
occupational physician or attending
physician or general physician a family
physician that that needs to work with
an ergonomist assessment at a job site
and then give appropriate
recommendations for the return to work
in the study that's how set up the
participating companies had a trained
30:31
team that was ready to deal with return
to work issues the team included
employees and management representatives
and the study showed that the workers
that received the sherbrooke
intervention returned to work about two
times faster than those compared to
those that
not receive the participatory part of
the intervention and this was compared
to political simple sort of clinical
interventions as well as like treatment
31:02
as usual eyes which could be a number of
different things that happened the
interesting thing about that study from
the sherba from Sherbrooke Quebec to was
that was replicated number times in the
Netherlands with similar results there
was a very positive aspect to the return
to work sorry yet to the return to work
from the participatory approach and dr.
Yvonne stienstra who is a colleague of
mine at the Institute now was was
involved in many of those studies in the
31:33
Netherlands so he's shared with me some
of the interesting things that that that
have happened in there the to implement
participatory economics in return to
work the key things that are required
are proper support which again not just
similar to the things that are required
for for participatory economics in
general and the support needs to come
from both management and workers as I
mentioned previously again there can be
resistance from either one of those
32:05
sides resources have to be there both
for the time that it takes to do the
evaluations checking hazards but also
for the solutions that may arise
communication is paramount and there has
to be some access to the workplace and
that happens usually it's best if that
happens early on so before or worker
returns to work sometimes that's just a
matter of checking out the hazards and
32:36
sometimes it's just a matter of having
that communications basically set up
early within the teams that are set up
for return to work at clearly defined
responsibilities there's an indication
that prior approval for solutions so
those those kinds of solutions that
people know will can be helpful should
be approved before they even get to the
point of
coming up with the particular hazards
for some individuals and then adherence
33:08
to timelines is important in this
because of the the whole framework of
disability management and return to work
one of the interesting things that
doctors jayne's just shared with me is
it in in some of the replications and
the Netherlands they found it wasn't
statistically significant but they found
that the participatory approaches worked
better with older workers than with
younger workers and there's some
suggestion that that may be because they
know their jobs better maybe understand
33:41
a bit better what it is about their work
that was aggravating their injuries so
as we move towards a an aging workforce
that might be an important part to keep
in mind that participatory approaches
can be a very valuable way of moving
forward both with reducing hazardous
work places but also in the return to
work process okay and lastly the thing I
wanted to talk about was a participative
34:12
approach to organize organizational
change and in this study which was done
in the last couple of years we looked in
the long-term care sector so trying to
present some results from from from the
different sectors that I've looked at
long-term care is classified as high
hazard work and typically the people who
are doing most of the high hazard work
can be considered vulnerable workers
personal support workers are one
34:43
category tend to have lower education
sometimes English as a Second Language
and don't always have the opportunity to
change things in their jobs so we've
been working very closely with the
public services health and safety
association in Ontario who developed a
participatory approach which we are
calling organizational change
35:16
so in this approach which is nicknamed
epic which is the employees
participating in change program what's
unique about this approach is in inside
26 I'm showing the whole cycle basically
starting at the top with preimplantation
process management commitment
establishing program foundation and at
the bottom there I have program
implementation what I talked about
before as the steps to a successful PE
35:46
program Lex basically fit in that bottom
square the program implementation square
and maybe extend over a little bit into
the next one in program evaluation
what's unique about the epic program is
this pre implementation program and the
emphasis on getting management
commitment and having the organization
ready to implement a change program
basically or a participatory program the
pre implementation process and
36:17
establishing the program foundation are
focused on getting an organization ready
to do implementation it doesn't work to
try to implement things if an
organization can't can't handle a new
approach so this is based on internal
responsibility system and the basics of
Health and Safety so having a good joint
health and safety committee in place so
those foundation elements have to be
36:48
there before you start thinking about
program implementation this is also goes
back to what I mentioned earlier about
the intensity of the implementation or
intensity of the program if an
organization is not ready or can't
handle a new program it would be
difficult for them to fully implement
participatory approach so then the
program implementation which I'll talk
about in a moment happens the the other
side of the circle there were innovation
37:20
and sustainability come into places that
they're there the program is already
thinking about how to keep things going
so they have a very nice setup in terms
of the contact with the trainers and the
ergonomists and how to move away from
regular contacts so that the
organization can take on all of those
things and keep it going so we can see a
sustainable program happen so we did a
little bit of research in this area the
37:51
actual program implementation does not
differ greatly from what I mentioned
before you start with selecting a
champion and then format the team so you
have a steering committee team as well
as a change team that's not all that
different from what I mentioned before
because most of the time the two
different parts of a change team might
function that way then you go on to do
the training and coaching both from the
point of view of the ergonomist training
38:23
the hazard identification and developing
solutions but also training how to do
things within an organization and then
together with the pre-implementation
things as you develop the management
systems so that you can be accountable
and and support this change process
through the entire organization the
interesting thing about this particular
project is it was truly participatory so
some of the hazards that we note in the
38:55
photographs on slide 28 are both slip
trips and fall hazards as well as
hazards for musculoskeletal disorders
and the reason that both of those are
are highlighted in our photos is that
the organization could choose which
hazards they wish to address so it's a
truly participatory approach in the
sense that they could choose the the
hazards that they may feel are most
important for their organization or
their facility or their location to
39:26
address first so here in these photos
you can see that there are significant
hazards hopefully you can see that
there's a couple of instances of water
on the floor and then on the other side
there's some bending
shoes carrying pulling dragging and
lifting stuff that could lead to
musculoskeletal disorders so as we move
through the program implementation which
was a big focus of our research we we
39:57
found that the feedback from individuals
was that there was strong staff buy-in
there was improved communication at all
levels of the organization and both the
management and the employees considered
this to be a win-win program so they
they were able to implement it and and
felt very strongly that it was a
positive approach from the point of view
of implementation we noted from a
research perspective that the change
40:28
process varied across the different
locations that this was implemented and
perhaps not surprisingly that's that
should be the case in a participatory
approach because there's infinite number
of ways to do things the intervention
process the feedback from the
individuals was was considered front
heavy and much of that was due to the
amount of training that that was part of
this program so we're taking that into
advisement and thinking about how how
that program could be changed to reduce
41:00
the amount of front heaviness the
overall awareness about the epic program
in the individual facilities was very
good so people knew what was going on
even if they weren't in a department
that was having changed process going on
there was lots of awareness and overall
there was improvements in working
relationship so so some of the the
theoretical constructs that I threw it
at the beginning and the things that
were found in the literature were we
were finding in this particular research
41:32
program looking at a more organizational
approach so we we looked at some of the
changes as well and I've on slide 30th
thrown up the hazard identification
cycle that that the
at the workplace used to drive there
their approach basically so they they
went back to the cycle and and when we
42:04
talked to them after the program had
been implemented they referred to this
very specifically so they talked about
this concept just a simplified of plan
do check act basically some of the
changes that came into place at the
various facilities were things like
having shorter garbage bin lids to
reduce the impact on shoulders as you're
trying to lift up heavy lids to dump in
garbage that's compounded by again the
Canadian winter component where
42:35
sometimes there's a lot of ice around
those garbage bins and so even to get a
good footing hole to lift up the lids
was difficult there's quite the story
with the garbage bin and I'll tell you
in a moment there's there were changes
in pill crushers slip tripping vol
changes that involved just taking care
of the housekeeping basically park
parking lot paving there were also
changes to dishwashing approaches with
43:08
sink lifts there were changes to feeding
stools in dining rooms that typically in
dining rooms that were there were a few
facilities that had wheels on the
feedings tools so that they could move
around to different clients quickly but
in fact they tried about five different
types of wheels and ended up with no
wheels because that reduced the hazard
more effectively and didn't increase the
burden of moving around so that was an
interesting story that we were told
43:38
about how that process went there were
other more broad ranging things like
promotional campaigns and campaigns and
education sessions changes to practices
sometimes very simple changes to with it
with with respect to equipment like
moving from the older style mops to more
disposable style mops and things like
that
now to come back to the garbagemen story
there was a very interesting way of
going through this where the management
44:11
and employees were working together to
try to figure out solutions and they
tried a number of different solutions
getting in different companies to trial
things they tried plastic lids rather
than metal lids they tried shorter
garbage bins but the lids in fact for
the shorter bins were even heavier than
the ones that were taller and it was
usually because of the angle that was
there so they eventually tried out about
44:42
four or five different options in in
mostly in the wintertime because there
they tried putting steps beside the lids
and and evaluating all of these things
coming up with ideas that new ideas
because they things just weren't working
and eventually they changed over their
whole garbage company to a different
provider who provided a compactor where
the the chute or the the area to put the
garbage in was just lower because it was
45:12
on the side but the whole process was a
an organization-wide collaborative
effort with workers you know putting in
their input as to why this would work or
why it wouldn't work and management
trying out different things it really
brought a lot of people together in that
facility so it was very gratifying part
of that that program all right so I'm
going to end on a high there with that
45:42
piece of the program and I'll just recap
then I think I've talked about some
work-related musculoskeletal disorders
definition touched on the definition of
participatory ergonomics and then talked
about the evidence basically so we
touched on the evidence related to
effectiveness cost-effectiveness how to
do participatory economics both from the
evidence of practice as well as the
evidence of the literature then went
46:16
through some of the basic elements of a
successful program
talked about some examples from a
research project that I'm familiar with
and then we touched on participatory
economics in return to work as well as
in an organizational change process
which were continuing to work with and
hopefully develop into a stronger and
even more sustainable program so with
that I'll wrap up I'll say please check
46:46
out I WH for more evidence based
practice information follow us on
twitter linkedin and then i'll open it
up for questions and and tanya will take
over I guess I hope yes I will thank you
very much doing that was a really great
presentation um let's see we have one
question ah what's the best way to
encourage employers to implement
47:16
participatory economics is it is the
reducing MSD hazards in the workplace a
good place to start and do you have
other resources that can be provided to
employers I think the most often it has
to be to two-pronged approach so
certainly talking about the MSD and
reducing the hazard or physical hazards
47:48
side of things is important to mention
but very often it's also important to
talk about the bottom line so there's
there's a savings in cost that comes
with addressing the physical hazards so
in a meal study showed that there were
decreases in the costs of first aid
sickness absence and those things I
think the other side of it that should
always be mentioned is there's always
the idea or the possibility of
increasing the productivity of an
48:21
individual and this can be in any in any
sector basically so I think both of
those things should go hand in hand I
have some colleagues
I ergonomists who would suggest that you
only mentioned the productivity side of
things to start with and then the you
know come back to the health side of
things but I think together those are
the things to work with as far as tools
or resources beyond the PE guide that we
developed there's there's not a lot out
48:53
there I think there are other
organizations that have similar guides
I've come across in the grey literature
some what are called white papers that
show some of the economic benefits of
herg anomic interventions but it it
comes down to if you're a practitioner
your own experience your own the
evidence that you've gained over time
and I think emphasizing the the cost
savings both from the injury prevention
49:22
side as well as the production side
alright and then um there were two
different um I guess sectors that people
have asked about as far as participatory
organ amex and that would be
construction and retail that you didn't
know very much about and curious what
types of like just participatory
economics affect those mm-hmm so from
construction point of view there's a
group of researchers from the u.s.
49:58
University of Washington in st. Louis
and Marie Dale and she's done some very
innovative work and also in Boston I
think where they've adapted the
participatory approach to the smaller
teams so in one shin they were looking
at flooring so floor layers and and
engaging those groups of people to learn
about the hazards and change their
50:28
change things about their own job so
that so they and that's really key in
construction because construction crews
may change over time so you may be in a
bigger crew on one project and then only
some people move to another project or
you might be
only with a crew for a day so having the
individual opportunity to control your
hazards was really important so she's
done some very good research in that
area and it does seem to work the
51:00
challenges of the challenges of doing
the research are almost more of an issue
than the actual challenges of keeping
the participatory approaches going
because once they once the individuals
learn about it they do they do close
that they do continue on with that end
does get sustainable in the retail
sector I'm not aware of as much research
51:30
in that area but I do know that that
there have been in in Scandinavia
there's been some studies that have
looked at participatory approaches in
more of the I would say the retail
sector so it's possible again because
you're just protecting amex is so
adaptable it's it's possible to adapt it
to whatever environment the challenge is
I think are when they're small groups
are when groups move or or when they're
not all in one place at any given time
52:02
and so in the literature you see it a
lot more office based or manufacturing
based studies because it's just easier
to have big groups of people stay where
there and work in the same place that's
it doesn't mean it's not doable another
so I I'm now keying on the the challenge
of doing the research more than actually
doing the participatory approaches
they're out there we know a little bit
less about them but they are out there
and then and it does seem to work I hope
52:33
that answers a question I had a come-up
was around new technology and handheld
computers or I mean handheld devices and
whether that is something that you've
seen addressed in examples with the
participatory ergonomics mmm that's a
great question I
I haven't seen it studied as let's say
is um let's say let mobile or tablet
53:05
tool use I haven't seen it approached as
hazards I have seen approaches where
mobile devices are used as data
collection for studies and I think
increasingly in in some businesses some
sectors handheld devices are used more
and more in the workplace or in the
field if you will as well so there's
there's a there has been some I don't
53:37
know how participatory approaches but
they have been approaches about how to
best mount mobile devices in vehicles
for those industries where people are
out on calls and then I have to come
back to their truck either to enter
billing information or data or things
like that I think that's on the wane
because people are carrying things with
them a lot more so I think we're
starting to see some of that come into
the literature but it's it's nothing
54:09
that I've seen that shows or Satori that
that has really examined those things as
hazards that could be addressed with
participatory approaches at least not
yet all right and then um there's
another question from someone for more
of an employee perspective of if you're
approaching a potential employer or
you're working for an employer and you
have some physical limitations about
addressing and bringing up these types
54:40
of issues Oh from the point of view of
this raising yeah and like ways of I
guess using participatory ergonomics
types of thinking as an employee instead
of as an employer right yeah we em in
the in the the PE guide some of the
early study we we actually
try to reach employees in a survey and
55:15
we did fairly well and it seems that
they are useful so one thing to do is to
find a resource like the P guide or
something that you could bring with you
to your employer or to your joint health
and safety committee so it's a it's
usually a tool or sometimes it's a
website but you use the leverage of
finding something external to your
workplace that you can use to say is
this an idea that we can move forward I
55:45
think if you're advocating for yourself
that that you should approach as many
different people in the organization you
need probably well you don't need it
would be helpful to have as many
champions as possible to help make
changes from an accommodation point of
view there's also the legal side of
things that should be on your side so if
if you're dealing with a disability then
56:16
that's also another way to leverage
change I think if you're open to a
participatory approach that I think the
idea would be to propose it as a group
of people working on the problem and if
it has impact larger than yourself then
then that's another way to get traction
so if it impacts a more individuals then
that's another way to get traction I've
not seen I've seen some participatory
56:47
action research some some employer
employees or workers who've lead
projects that are participatory in
nature so I know that they exist but I
haven't personally been involved in that
particular type of research all right
and then I'm kind of a similar a little
bit of a similar vein is a
self-assessment tool for office
employees been deemed an effective tool
especially in measuring their own setup
57:18
before and after doing their workstation
adjustments
yeah that's a great question I it's it
it does not seem that there is any
agreement about any particular office
ergonomics assessment tool at this point
it's a there's been lots of attempts and
I know I have colleagues have been
involved in some of those attempts as
well to try to come up with a one way of
57:49
doing it but so far that's that seems
elusive so I don't think there's one
approach I think there are certain it
sit there being developed all the time
as far as i can tell i think there's a
relatively new approach that's now
developed as a nap so i think they're
out there it would be nice if there was
agreement and that we could all begin to
use a similar or very same tool to do
58:21
that but at this point to my knowledge
that that does not yet exist so there's
there's a lot of different ways to do it
which means there's a lot of different
opinions and a lot of different issues
with the measurement of an office set up
okay um and then one last question um
someone asked if there have been
systematic reviews that address gender
differences in PE program implementation
and outcomes particularly in healthcare
58:55
occupations that's a great question no
not that I'm aware of I'm it's sometimes
difficult to look at even individual
studies to know whether they've done
anything in terms of a gendered analysis
but the reviews that I'm aware of have
not not necessarily picked up on looking
at the differences in gender certainly
healthcare has a predominance of females
so that there's certainly some some
59:28
benefit to doing that probably but um
and certainly there might be in other
occupations as well I know there are
individual studies that have looked at
some gender differences and some
researchers Catherine lip powell in
canada i think has done some interesting
research in that area but i'm not aware
of a systematic review or a review of
literature broadly that that looks at
the broader picture of that all right
59:59
very good um I think we're going to go
ahead and end there um Duane thank you
so much for your presentation it's
really interesting and we had really
great interaction on it so thank you
very much for that right thank you