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| Dr. Robert Goldberg |
Employee health is inextricably linked to productivity. Sun recently caught up with ergonomics expert Dr. Robert Goldberg, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, to understand how ergonomic and workplace issues affect the bottom line.
Q: What are the potential costs of poor ergonomics in the workplace?
Goldberg: The most conservative research estimates suggest that ergonomic problems in the United States are costing billions of dollars. It's important to understand what ergonomics is. It's more than just making a desk or computer screen comfortable for a user. It encompasses the entire interaction between workers and their workstations and environments.
Ergonomics is an important subset of workplace health. Environmental factors such as lighting and air conditioning play important roles in the state of general musculoskeletal health. Other things that contribute to ergonomic problems include repetition, force, and the pace of work.
Q: What's the correlation between workplace ergonomics and employee productivity?
Goldberg: Enlightened self-interest can go a long way when employers institute workplace health and ergonomics initiatives. Essentially, the research supports the supposition that a healthy and positive workplace tends to have higher levels of productivity — as well as less absenteeism and staff turnover.
Q: What are the new ergonomics complaints in today's workplace?
Goldberg: We still see a lot of long-standing issues in the hands and wrists, but now we see more problems centered in the upper body areas like the neck and shoulder regions. These upper body problems are often caused by working in front of a screen for long periods of time or by excessive use of the mouse. That's a problem because the upper body is already susceptible to strain because it's the region in the body where many people tense up because of stress.
To manage these problems, a properly adjusted workstation will help maintain proper postures and movements with the hands, arms, and neck. Employers should ask themselves whether it's always necessary for an employee to do the same task throughout the day. This is often unavoidable in the knowledge economy, but making sure that people stretch and take breaks can have a positive impact on employee health and productivity.
Q: Are there health and ergonomic advantages to working remotely?
Goldberg: Yes, there are a number of health and ergonomic advantages to working remotely — all of which can help employees be more productive. Many of these benefits are psychosocial. Remote workers are often less stressed because they don't have to fight traffic, and they can presumably work in a comfortable environment that provides the flexibility to take breaks. These factors can help decrease musculoskeletal disorders and help people perform their jobs better. There are recent studies that remote workers have greater job satisfaction and stay at their jobs longer.
Q: What are the ergonomic and health problems associated with working remotely?
Goldberg: One of the downsides of telecommuting can be found in situations where people get totally absorbed in their tasks and work continuously without taking breaks. This can create problems — if not immediately, then later down the road — by not giving the eyes, brain, psyche, and musculoskeletal system a chance to recover from the intensity of work.
I should also add that the psychosocial and ergonomic factors that affect a worker in the office are also likely to be found in the remote workplace. This can present more problems for the telecommuting worker because few companies provide their offsite employees with ergonomic assessments.
Q: What do you think about the Sun offsite ergonomics program, which uses digital photos and conference calls to assess remote workplaces?
Goldberg: It's fabulous. This means that Sun can do remote, Web-based ergonomic assessments without intruding into an employee's home. Presumably the Sun program helps remote employees stay healthy by setting up comfortable workstations. But most companies with remote workers do not go to these lengths to provide ergonomics oversight. I suspect this may change, though, with the advent of remote communications technologies.
Q: What are some of the best ergonomics practices in the traditional office workplace?
Goldberg: This may sound intuitive, but it's critical that new employees are given some basic training and education on ergonomics, along with instructions on how to set up and use their workstations. It also helps to encourage employees to report discomfort to their supervisors early so that an ergonomic assessment and early intervention at the workstation can be undertaken before the discomfort becomes a medical condition or an injury.
Q: What role does prevention play in workplace health and ergonomics?
Goldberg: What our mothers told us about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure is true when it comes to health in the workplace. Research evidence tells us that prevention — such as setting up workstations appropriately — usually pays for itself many times over.
That said, a person may still develop workplace-related injuries, regardless of how many preventative measures are taken. It's like driving: No matter how careful you are behind the wheel, statistically you will probably be in a car accident at least once in your life. The trick is to reduce the potential for risk.
About Dr. Robert Goldberg
Robert Goldberg, M.D., is the director of the occupational medicine and environmental medicine program at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine where he is a clinical professor of medicine. He has published numerous scholarly papers on occupational health and ergonomics, a field in which he has received several honors. Dr. Goldberg also is a member of various workplace health and safety associations.
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