Workplace Injury Research Round Up | Part 4

How can you best support your staff?

Consider MSD risk factors in your management planning and processes

This will vary depending on the exact makeup of your organisation, but could include:

Creating a clear pathway for raising concerns

Reporting potentially harmful tasks, or areas of improvement, will allow your workforce to be your on-the-ground information scouts. They are experts in what they do, so making space for that expertise to reach you is vital in continually improving the safety of your workforce.

Adding a manual handling/physical risk assessment to your planning

If you have multiple back-to-back projects involving the same task or intensity, see if you can create rest-weeks of lighter duties in between. Rotating between different teams, different tasks, and different intensities can allow your workforce time to rest and recover between spells of hard manual labour.

Reducing lone or solo working

From healthcare to agriculture, an extra pair of hands can reduce the physical toll a task or job takes on your team.

Running a consultation on the most physically demanding or potentially risky tasks

This allows you to prioritise where you mechanise, reduce, or remove tasks. Open dialogue about what is/isn’t possible will maintain open communication and allow your team to feel heard and supported by you.

Thinking outside the box!

Your business may have opportunities for improvement that aren’t listed here. Injuries and pain are not the natural consequence of any job, and your innovative thinking can go a long way in supporting your staff.

For more, read part 5!