Ontario Municipal Human Resources Association

When organizations talk about ergonomics, the conversation often begins and revolves around injury statistics. Some commonly used metrics include incident reports, near-misses, injury frequency and severity, lost time injuries and compensation claims/costs. While important, these metrics are considered to be lagging indicators, as they are reactive in nature and can only be used to retroactively evaluate the effectiveness of your organization’s ergonomics program. By solely relying on injury statistics, organizations are not seeing the entire workplace injury prevention picture, inhibiting opportunities to identify risks and address inequalities in their workplace before injuries occur. To promote equity/accountability, reduce injury risks, and improve your overall ergonomics program, organizations should also look towards tracking leading indicator metrics that highlight risks before injuries occur.

Issues with Only Using Lagging Indicators (i.e., Injury Statistics)

As mentioned, lagging indicators reveal the harm that has already happened and reflect the consequences of an unsafe and/or inequitable workplace. Musculoskeletal disorders and injuries typically do not appear overnight; they often build up over time with the risks remaining hidden until an incident/injury occurs and is reported. Apart from being reactive in nature, there are a few key challenges with using lagging indicators to drive your ergonomics program.

1. Underreporting and Inaccuracy: Depending on the culture or stigma within the organization, workers may normalize feeling discomfort/pain as simply being “part of the job”. As a result, some incidents/injuries may never be reported, or by the time they are reported, it may be unclear as to which job/task factors have contributed to the feelings of discomfort/pain and cause of incident/injury report.
2. Misleading Data: Having a low incident/injury reporting rate may not always be indicative that certain departments/work areas are “safe” compared to others. The low reporting rate may be due to having a smaller workforce, inequitable pathways barriers to report incidents/injuries, or they may have just been “lucky” that an incident/injury hasn’t occurred yet, which all mask the actual exposure risks occurring in the workplace.
3. Response Time Lag: Often, there is a significant amount of time between when ergonomic risks are introduced to when an incident/injury is reported. This creates a time lag for any corrective action and may cause several workers to be exposed to the ergonomics risks.

Proactive Ergonomics Using Leading Indicators

Leading indicators are proactive metrics that act as “early warning signs” aiming to identify ergonomic risks and prevent incidents/injuries before they occur. Below are a few examples of leading indicators that you can incorporate into your ergonomics program.

1. Performing Ergonomic Risk Screening/Assessments: Identifying ergonomic risks is an essential step for reducing incident/injury rates in the workplace. Performing initial ergonomic risk screening and assessment and tracking results across all departments/work areas will allow you to identify the highest risk and prioritize interventions.
2. Engagement in Training/Education Programs: Tracking worker participation and engagement in ergonomics training and awareness programs can reveal any gaps and the overall impact of the ergonomic program across your workplace.
3. Proactive Discomfort Surveys: Routinely conducting worker discomfort surveys helps to identify any signs of discomfort and address concerns before it develops into long-term pain or injury.
4. Workstation Adjustment and Equipment Requests: Tracking how often workers request changes to their workstations and/or equipment can help identify potential “hot spots” where an ergonomic intervention may be needed.
5. New Equipment/Workstation Design Reviews: Incorporate policies/procedures where any new equipment or workstation is reviewed for ergonomic risks prior to being purchased and introduced into the workplace. This helps to identify and address any ergonomic concerns before they have the chance to impact worker well-being.

Combining Lagging/Leading Indicators to Drive Equity and Accountability

Leading indicators not only complete the workplace injury prevention picture, but together, along with lagging indicators, can also help drive equity and accountability in your workplace. Through regularly reviewing and tracking these indicators, organizations can identify potential inequalities in ergonomic resources/support across various departments/work areas and begin to take steps towards addressing these inequalities in their workplace. Furthermore, metrics from these indicators can be integrated into “ergonomic dashboards” that are a visual representation of ergonomic program progress and aides with holding your workforce accountable towards improving ergonomics risks in the workplace.

Altogether, organizations using data from both lagging and leading indicators will have a more comprehensive understanding of what is and is not working well within their ergonomics program and can move beyond reacting to incidents/injuries towards a healthier, more equitable, and more accountable workplace.

Written by: Dennis Larson, Ph.D., AE