gsmsafety.ie

The Stress Factor

2010-10-27T03:00:00.000-07:00

€563m lost through absenteeism, says SFA

The Small Firms Association claims that small businesses in Ireland lose over €563m a year through absenteeism.

Back-pain/injury and stress are the most commonly cited problems on medical certs, according to SFA director Avine McNally.

'Employers should ensure that they are fulfilling their duty of care to their employees by including manual handling and stress when conducting risk assessments as part of their review of their health and safety statements,' she advises.

McNally added, “it is a concern that stress remains one of the high reasons for absenteeism, as aside from the employees’ absence, stress can lead to a less productive workforce, faulty decision-making, and ultimately the possibility of legal action being taken against the company for negligence or constructive dismissal.”

“With a contracting labour market some employees are being placed under additional pressure due to new and different responsibilities. Employers should be aware of the impact of their actions and consider the implementation of a specific policy on workplace stress. They should educate employees on stress management, while being receptive to the potential causes of stress and the early warning signs of stress. On a practical level, they should also ensure that their Employers Liability Insurance will protect them against any compensation awards that may arise from this area”, commented McNally.

Workstation Safety Tips 2010

2010-02-02T02:17:00.000-08:00

VDU Workstation Safety Tips

Most employees use Visual Display Units (VDUs) as part of their normal work routine. You should be aware that prolonged use of VDUs may have implications on your health. The most effective way to reduce these risks is to perform a VDU risk assessment as stated in the Safety Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007.

Both employers and employees have a responsibility with regards to VDU safety. It is often as a result of how the equipment is used rather than the equipment itself. An employee working at a comfortable and adjustable workstation is more productive and efficient.

The following are tips that you as an employee can follow to reduce the risk of injury and discomfort that may arise from your VDU work.

How you can help yourself

Getting comfortable

Adjust your chair and VDU to find a comfortable working position. As a rough guide your forearms should be approximately horizontal and your eyes level with the top of your display screen.
Make sure you have sufficient space at your desk for documents and equipment.
Position your display screen in such a manner to avoid glare and reflections.
Make sure there is sufficient space under your desk to move your legs freely.
Avoid excess pressure from the edge of your seat on the backs of your knees and legs.

Display Screen

Adjust the brightness and contrast of the screen to suit lighting conditions in the room.
Make sure your screen is clean.
Individual characters on the screen should be sharply focused and should not flicker.

Keyboard / Mouse

Adjust your keyboard so that you have a comfortable working position.
Try and keep wrists straight when typing. Type softly and don’t overstretch your fingers.
Keep the mouse within easy reach so that it can be used with a straight wrist.
Support your forearm on the desk and don’t grip the mouse too tightly.

Posture and Breaks

Do not sit in the same position for long periods
Avoid stretching for things you need. Keep them close to you.
Remember to take adequate breaks away form your VDU.

Incorrect use of VDUs can lead to the following health risks:

Eyesight problems, including headaches, caused by screen glare, straining to look at the VDU screen for long periods, and monitors incorrectly positioned i.e. too far away or too close for comfortable viewing.

Increased levels of stress are often reported by VDU users and this can be attributed to workload and increased pace of work.

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) is a commonly-used term that refers to aches, pains and disorders suffered as a result of prolonged use of badly adjusted VDU equipment.

Time to change painful relationship with computers

2009-12-01T05:54:00.000-08:00

Good ergonomics and workstation design can prevent a lot of work related injuries. Repetitive Strain Injuries are commonly associated with Visual Display Unit (VDU) work. But what is the real cost of such injuries and what will the future hold for good workplace practice?

As KARLIN LILLINGTON wrote in the Irish Times, 22 May 2009, “be sure to get your ergonomics right when seated at a computer”

Friday, 22 May 2009

NET RESULTS: Rise in Repetitive Strain Injury may lead to the development of speech-driven interfaces, writes KARLIN LILLINGTON

I’M SITTING in front of my laptop wearing a thingamajig on my right arm that takes me back to childhoods spent in summer camps in the States.

It’s a kind of fingerless glove with hard plastic rectangles that provide support on the back and the front of my arm. It resembles nothing so much as those forearm gauntlets worn for archery, so that you don’t get your arm whacked by the string on the bow.

But the reason I’m wearing this ugly black thing these days is not to relive those Robin Hood moments of summer camp, but to try and keep pain at bay. I’m one of the millions afflicted with RSI – repetitive strain injury – brought about from several decades of typewriter and then computer use.

I’ve got a lot of the typical problems – sore elbows and wrists and fingers, numbness and stiffness on and off in my hands; at its worst, shooting pains around my shoulder blades. Now and then, back problems.

It’s small consolation that many others are in the same uncomfortable boat. In the UK, surveys have pegged the number of RSI sufferers at about 500,000. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) said in 2000 that about half of all workers would experience RSI. Half!

This type of pain and disability still goes largely unrecognised in the workplace, perhaps because it isn’t obvious to anyone but the sufferer, and because for most of us it comes and goes.

Still the economic impact is staggering. Northrop-Grumman in the US did a study that concluded the average cost of RSI is $27,500 and leads to 12 lost work days.

Osha says that RSI is the most common and costly worker affliction in the US, costing $20 billion annually. To put that in perspective, that’s about four times what the Bank of America is expected to repay to the US Treasury each year as part of the bank bailout across the water.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics noted back in 2000 that nearly two-thirds of all occupational illnesses reported were caused by repetitive strain and trauma to the upper body – the wrists, elbows, backs or shoulders of workers.

A lot of that must be due to typing at keyboards, something most of us now do whatever our occupation. Consider that if you type a relatively modest 40 words a minute, you tap 12,000 keys per hour or 96,000 keys per eight-hour day.

Typing is also an activity that transfers after-hours to the home as people play computer games, send e-mails, surf the net and use various electronic devices. No wonder so many of us are aching.

The names of RSI afflictions pinpoint the guilt of our digital addictions: stylus finger (from using touchscreen devices), Blackberry thumb, gamer’s thumb (from using gamepads and consoles).

A Microsoft UK study last year noted that repetitive strain injuries in Britain had surged by 30 per cent in 2008, at a cost of about €350 million per year in lost working hours. That’s a lot of worker productivity down the tubes.

For stationary workers, computer workstations can invite the likelihood of pain in any number of ways – keyboards and monitors positioned too low or too high, seating that is the wrong height or angle, poor hand position for typing, raising wrists too high with incorrect wrist support, poor posture when seated (leaning forward or backward).

Most of the problems, in other words, are caused by poor ergonomics, body positions that are subtle and go unnoticed. For example, a quick survey of any office will show that a lot of people choose to keep their computer to one side of the desk and turn slightly to one side to type.

I know the cumulative effect of that seemingly innocuous desk arrangement. To make room for my mouse on the too-small pullout keyboard shelf on my new desk, I had apparently rotated my body ever so minutely to the left to type.

About a year and a half later, I was in the doctor’s after my back went out. The resulting pain was centred exactly at the lower left of the base of my spine. Only then did I notice that I had a tiny rotation to the left when seated at my desk, and that rotation produced a definite twinge at the point where my back pain was located. Though minuscule, enough pressure on that area of the spine to cause serious back pain over time.

Given that small children are using gaming devices and keyboards from toddlerhood onward, and kids’ mania for texting on top of computer use and gaming, you have to wonder whether early-onset arthritis will become a leading affliction for those under 30, who’ve had this intense exposure longest.

We need different ways of interacting with devices.

Personally, I think mass incidence of pain is going to drive renewed development of speech-driven computer interfaces. In the meantime, be sure to get your ergonomics right when seated at a computer – and consider sacrificing style for comfort and embrace those ugly wrist protectors.

VDU (Visual Display Unit) Ergonomics

2009-09-10T06:52:00.000-07:00

This video represents smart ergonomics in the workplace, good postural techniques and positioning.

Cutting corners with workplace safety will cost money in the long run

2009-09-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

GsmSafety - ensuring the health and safety of employees will lead to higher productivity and reduce costs associated with workplace injury.

As the HSA marked the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, chief executive Martin O’Halloran expressed his views that mirror our objectives.

Cutting corners with workplace safety will cost money in the long run. HSA marks World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Tuesday 28th April

“Cutting corners when it comes to employee safety, health and welfare is counter-productive and will cost businesses money in the long run,” according to Martin O’Halloran, Chief Executive of the Health and Safety Authority, marking today’s (Tuesday 28th April) World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Speaking about the demanding circumstances facing all employers and employees in the current economic climate O’Halloran said, “The Health and Safety Authority understands the difficult challenges that businesses are facing but any employer who decides to take risks and shortcuts with worker safety is laying the foundation for potentially serious implications.”

Ignoring health and safety responsibilities can lead to increased costs in areas such as lost production, greater employee absence and higher insurance premiums. This is obviously something that most business will want to avoid. According to O’Halloran, “A key aim of the Health and Safety Authority is to show employers that allocating resources to the safety, health and welfare of their workers is a good investment in the long-term future of their business. Obviously employers have a legal and moral duty to protect their workers but it also makes good business sense.”

http://www.hsa.ie/eng/News_and_Events/Press_Releases_/Cutting_corners_with_workplace_safety_will_cost_.html

HSA new initiative targeting Financial Services

2009-09-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

Health and Safety in the workplace is crucial to the success of any organizations. In the past the law focused on “dangerous” working environments such as construction sites, factories and other industries. With recent improvements in health and safety legislation, employees in all business sectors are now protected by law, and the onus on employers to provide a safe place of work has increased

Financial Services
This programme was a new initiative for the Authority in 2008, with 233 inspections conducted in the financial services sector. The initiative generated a significant heightening of awareness within the sector. As well as assessments of general safety and health management, attention was given to procedures for dealing with stress issues and evidenceof an anti-bullying policy.

Display screen equipment assessment was reviewed in 145 places of work. Only 45% of sites provided evidence that individual workstation assessments were completed, but 70% of sites provided evidence that an eye and eyesight test were made available. Inspectors found that 48% of sites provided evidence that safetyinformation and training was given to employees.

http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Publications_and_Forms/Publications/Corporate/annual%20report%202008.pdf