Audits

Ergonomic Audits Do you know where your ergonomic risks are? Begin by answering some of the following questions: are you purchasing the right equipment, using appropriate workstations, is the environment suitable for staff comfort and performance, are work tasks designed to allow optimum performance with minimal physical impact and minimisation of injury, do managers and staff understand and implement appropriate ergonomic standards. Many of these can be responded to with appropriate ergonomic solutions.

Audits provide useful indicators on how your business is performing. An ergonomics audit addresses an area that is sometimes overlooked, that is, how well your organisation manages your staff requirements. An audit provides an opportunity to benchmark performance over time and against other companies. An audit can introduce a baseline to identify strengths and strategies for improving weak areas.

An ergonomics audit establishes your performance in managing human factors by assessing performance of the following:

Policies for managing ergonomic factors
Procedures for managing ergonomic factors
Practices for managing ergonomic factors
Programmes for managing ergonomic factors

The audit will identify areas that you should be targeting including:

Methods for identifying ergonomic failings (accidents, incidents, lost time, health risks and injuries)
Developing policies and procedures to address ergonomic factors
Management strategies to address ergonomic factors
Actual and planned methods for addressing ergonomic factors

At the end of the audit your organisation will have a coherent approach to managing ergonomic risks.