According to the BBC's website, a study performed in 2008 found that the most common reason for a missed day of work was musculoskeletal pain, followed by minor illness, and stress related illness. Every year businesses lose a ton of money due to absent workers. Is this your company? If this sounds like your company or employees rest assured there are things that you can do to prevent these injuries and illnesses.
The first thing you can do is create a better ergonomic environment for your employees. A big trigger for neck pain and/or headaches is sitting at a desk all day. The muscles in the front of your neck are responsible for bringing your head into a forward flexed position. This is an important thing to understand but what is more important to know is that the back of your neck muscles must constantly contract to hold your head in that position. So, when you are looking down to type, to write and fill out reports, and to read all of the faxed memos, your neck muscles are in a constant state of contraction to hold your head in place. Now picture your employee answering the phone and multitasking. What is the position that most people put their neck in? They tilt their head to the side and pin the phone between their cheek and their shoulder. This causes them to put their neck into the position of being forward flexed, laterally bent, and slightly rotated while they try to talk on the phone as well as type on their computer. It is no wonder we come home with bad headaches and tons of stress in our shoulder and neck.
So how do we help this? What do we do to prevent these injuries? It all has to do with what stresses we put on our neck and how to avoid putting those stresses on our neck. First of all, buy a headset for the phone. This is a simple and cost effective way to prevent some of our neck injuries. This will allow the employee to multitask while on the phone without injuring themselves. Secondly, raise the computer screen to eye level. In doing this, when you type and read all your e-mails, it will prevent you from having to be in a forward flexed position for long periods of time. This helps to prevent the muscle fatigue that leads to neck pain. Lastly, plan a five minute break to be taken every hour. I know this seems like a lot of wasted work time and you may be correct, however, the sick days you will save by giving your employees time to change positions and de-stress, will more than make up for the few minutes every hour you will lose. By providing a time period that your employees can take to get away from the stresses of work, you will see an increase in production.
I know this sounds simple and it is, but it really does work. The happier your employees are the healthier and more productive they will be. This will make you happier in the long run. What will also make you happier is the money you will save by implementing these simple things into the workplace. The happier the boss is, the happier the employees will be!
If you would like more tips on how to improve your workplace please check back in the future as I will post more information on things to implement to improve your workplace environment. If you are interested in implementing a wellness program at your office, please contact me directly to set that up.
