Effect of ergonomic training on productivity and exposure to ergonomic risk factors

Ergonomic trainings does not cost much in comparison to other interventions, such as changing work procedures, using new technologies and also redesigning workstations. The aim of this study was to investigate effect of continuous ergonomic training on productivity and exposure to ergonomic risk factors.

 In this study, 51 employees of one of Tehran's food industry in year 2018 were selected by random sampling method. Demographic and productivity data respectively were collected by Demographic and Achieve questionnaires. The exposure to ergonomic risk factors evaluated by Quick Exposure Check (QEC) method. This information was re-collected after a four-month ergonomic audio-visual training course. Then, by using the paired t-test, the effectiveness of this training course was evaluated.

Data indicated that almost half of the workers were in the worst possible posture; The number of people in this group did not change before and after the training, also two thirds of the samples had a moderate productivity score that training couldn’t change number of this group too. However, despite the lack of significant changes in the categories of exposure to risk factors of ergonomics and productivity, the changes in scores within these two groups were significant. It means that this was not significant in the way that the levels of these two variables in the studied samples Change.

This study has shown that continuous ergonomic training could reduce the QEC score and also could be a reason for increasing productivity in the workplace.