Q. How seriously should I take OSH regulations in the office?
A. Tony Fenwick, health & safety manager of Pacific Steel, replies:
Employers may help to prevent or substantially reduce the costs of their ACC premiums by upgrading the workplace to satisfy OSH guidelines.
This can be as simple as ensuring employees' workstations
are set up correctly, that they manage their workload, take appropriate breaks and follow a healthy lifestyle.
Our company, Pacific Steel, recently went through this exact process. As we all know, the human body comes in many different sizes, shapes and weights; one size does not fit all.
Boise Office Solutions helped us with ensuring that we had equipped each employee with a correctly fitting workstation relating to the individual's daily tasks.
The areas we looked at for each workstation set up were: work surface, chair, keyboards and mice, wrist rests, visual requirements (such as visual display units and screen filters), and reading and writing tools such as copyholders and headsets.
We also stressed the importance in the prevention of OOS (Occupational Overuse Syndrome) to take regular micropauses and to change position often. Micropauses involve stopping what you are doing for 5 to 10 seconds every three minutes or so. Exercises include wrist turns, finger spreads and shoulder circles.
The result is our employees are more comfortable and happy in their place of work. Production has increased, sick leave has decreased and our employees see their health and safety as a priority.
Above all, we show that management at Pacific Steel does care about the health and safety of our employees.
The web is often a good place to start. I can recommend Boise; see their WorkScience page. Other useful sites are OSH and Workinfo.
Health and safety publications can be downloaded from OSH. See the section on health and safety publications.
The information in here provides you with simple checklists and can be downloaded as pdfs.
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Answers courtesy of Spring - A State of Mind for Business.
