Step 5: Evaluate Your Ergonomic Program
Follow up on your intervention
Follow up on your interventions to ensure the controls you implemented reduce or eliminate the WMSD risk factors. Ensure that no new WMSD risk factors were created. Since workers may be sore from doing their jobs differently and using new muscle groups, check with workers after one week and again after one month following an implementation. Adjusting to work is also important for new and return-to-work employees, particularly for tasks that are highly repetitive, such as paced work on a fast conveyor line or picking items with a time standard. New employees need about two weeks to condition their muscles. During the adjustment period it is not unusual for new hires or employees returning from a long absence to report muscle soreness.
Determine the effectiveness of your intervention
You can use a variety of techniques to measure the effectiveness and benefits of your ergonomic program. Compare the following data before and after the intervention:
- job analyses
- checklists
- symptom surveys
- OSHA form 300 logs
- employee absentee rates
- turnover rates
- workers’ compensation costs
- productivity indicators
- quality of products and services
- savings
Remember that workers will not experience the benefits of your ergonomic program immediately. It can take months for old MSD symptoms to disappear, and you will need to modify your intervention if new MSD symptoms appear.
For more assistance with insurance policies and requirements, view the following Department of Health and Human Services’ publication Workers’ Compensation Insurance: A Primer for Public Healthpdf icon
Learn More on Resources for Cost Estimators & Evaluating Program:
- Cornell Return On Investment Estimatorexternal icon
- OSHA direct cost estimatorexternal icon
- Guide to Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Work Injuriespdf icon
- Does it Really Work? How to Evaluate Safety and Health Changes in the Workplacepdf icon
- OSHA’s Business Case for Safety & Health external icon
- Health & Safety Ontariopdf iconexternal icon
- The business case for safety and health at work: Cost-benefit analyses of interventions in small and medium-sized enterprisesexternal icon
- Safety & Health add Valueexternal icon
- NSC Journey to Safety excellencepdf iconexternal icon