Health Network News

A chief executive once told me “I will pay anything to fix it but nothing to prevent it”. We were talking about staff getting health problems from working at computers all day. You wouldn’t think that being sat down, pounding a keyboard, and pushing a mouse is actually a life threatening activity but this kind of work is the direct cause of over half of all the people off sick in the UK today.

The perspective of the CEO was that the cost of the injuries over a year was considerably less than the cost of providing a better working environment. Apart from a lack of concern for the people who were working for him you have to wonder if the sums really add up.

The Health & Safety Executive, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists, and the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, all have research data which agrees that this is a growing and expensive problem. The problem is called Musculo Skeletal Disorders or MSDs and covers back pain, Repetitive Strain Injury RSI, whiplash, and a host of other conditions including, tendinitis, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, golfers elbow, tenosynovitis, De Quervain’s syndrome, to name but a few.

Paul Goddard, Education Officer at Keytools and well known RSI expert claims that the majority of these problems are easily preventable. He says “It’s a bit like seatbelts; they are far more effective before you crash than after. Many companies are happy to adopt preventative strategies in other situations.

These days, most organisations have a good programme of employee healthcare providing lots of good advice. Safety issues are taken seriously and every possible risk is minimised such as provision of fire extinguishers, safety training and so on. So why do workstations get ignored when clearly they are a major issue for the workforce and the company?

It seems that many organisations have totalled the costs and simply got the sums wrong. If you add up the wages, the extra work for colleagues and the lost opportunity it is not surprising that the bill for doing nothing finishes up a lot more than the prevention. For organisations like HP, E-Bay, and Visa, that have adopted a more proactive stance the reality is that bottom line savings and productivity improvements have been well worthwhile having effectively halved their costs of employee absence.

Case studies are now available that can demonstrate that organisations adopting a properly planned programme of office ergonomics, education, and the right equipment can expect an ROI within 2 years, a massive drop in problems with high-risk workers and a lot more money in the bank. For those better performing CEOs the statement is now “I paid to prevent it and now have no problem to fix!