This isn’t always the most wonderful time of the year. The number of workplace accidents resulting in workers’ compensation cases tends to increase around the holidays.
As Occupational Health & Safety magazine reports, ’tis the season for workplace injuries.
“As more inexperienced employees rush to fulfill consumer demands, many companies will experience a spike in musculoskeletal injuries caused by repetitive motions like picking and packing, lowering, lifting, carrying, stepping, and bending,” they say.
This isn’t only a threat to the health and wellbeing of the employee, it can also cut into the company’s productivity, slowing things down at one of the busiest times of the year.
“The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that one-third of the non-fatal injuries involving days away from work were incurred by workers with less than one year of service, and nearly one-quarter of those cases resulted in 31 or more days away from work,” the magazine says.
Is there something that employers can – and should – be doing to make the workplace safer?
“Many companies don’t know how to prepare [newly hired employees] for the physically demanding work that they are asked to do,” Occupational Health & Safety reports.
To help prevent workplace accidents that can lead to workers’ comp claims, the magazine recommends these strategies:
1 – Teach Proper Movement Tailored to Job-Specific Tasks
“The way that we move, the way that we use our bodies, the way that we interact with our environments, is going to impact whether or not someone gets hurt,” the magazine says. “So simply engineering the environment around them is never going to be enough.”
2 – Train Workers to Build Safe Habits over Time
The magazine compares the way winning athletes train to the way employees should be trained. Both have to move their bodies correctly to be effective.
3 – Learning to Move While on the Move
And they say that you need to make the needed training easily accessible to employees. “Micro-learning courses can be accessed via any internet-enabled device, whether that’s an in-cab tablet, a desktop or a mobile phone, enabling workers to practice safe movements wherever they are with minimal impact on operations.”
If your employer didn’t provide the necessary training and you were subsequently injured on the job, you may need to file a workers’ comp claim to ensure you get the care needed to make a full recovery.
If you have questions about the process, feel free to contact the offices of workers’ compensation attorney Nick Panebianco for a free consultation.
