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Productivity and Ergonomics | E3

May 24, 2023
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Productivity and Ergonomics

Episode 3: Show Notes

Ergonomic interventions align posture, fatigue awareness, and productivity for a healthier and happier workplace. During this episode, Dr. Alan Hedge, Professor Emeritus in Human Centered Design at Cornell University, returns to the podcast to explore the interrelated nature of these factors, offering relevant considerations for concerned companies. He begins the conversation with the essential assertion that a steady output is an impossibility for human beings, going on to provide a historical overview of human fatigue starting at the end of the First World War.

This episode serves as a detailed examination of the impact of muscle activity in the head, neck, and back, exploring the impact of posture on injury and efficiency. Dr. Hedge illustrates the effects of poor posture and offers a description of safe alternatives to protect and preserve the body. He goes on to consider the coaching role of an ergonomist to equip employees to adjust their behavior for optimal safety and sustainability. This conversation also touches on risk-benefit analysis to incentivize corporate leadership to invest in ergonomic support and guidance. Dr. Hedge also explains the essential influence of skill level on protection from injury and, ultimately, productivity. Thanks for listening!

Key Points From This Episode:

The interrelated nature of posture, fatigue, efficiency, and lost time disability.

Maintaining a steady output is simply not possible for humans; by definition, we are fatigue machines. You really have to look at optimizing work to minimize fatigue, maximize performance, and optimize productivity.

Historical context for our modern understanding of fatigue.

Fatigue, as we know it, began to occur at the end of World War I. As transport grew in sophistication, munitions developed, and shift work was introduced, fatigue became a factor that had to be considered.

Neck and head posture and overt behavior.



Muscle activity guides our overt behavior, which has to be done at a certain pace, which depends on the posture. The head needs to be in the most neutral position possible to avoid negative effects, bearing in mind that movement becomes important to support blood flow.

Safe ways of lifting to protect the back.

Lifting a safe load in an unsafe way can still create a risk of injury. Always bring the load close to the body and lift with a straight back and bent legs. The posture you are in to do work is critical to whether that work will increase or decrease the risk of injury.

Exploring the concept of the ergonomist as a coach.

Companies need to think beyond defects and cycle times to build the skill which will eliminate both. When a company is looking to implement an ergonomics program, they need to look at how the most skilled employee does the job. A good ergonomist will adjust the technique.



Risk-benefit analysis to incentivize these behaviors.



Part of the benefit of having an ergonomist is identifying what needs to change. You have to be able to look at what people are doing, how they’re doing it, how often they do it, and how much rest and recovery time they need.

Skill level and the brain-body relationship.


The brain must talk to the muscles and tell them what to do. Skilled workers work in what seems to be an effortless way, and they don’t tend to get injured. Skill is critical.

Longer Quotes:

“There are going to be certain times of the day when your brain is much sharper than other times of the day. There are going to be certain times of the day when, if you’re a surgeon, your operation is going to go much smoother than other times of the day. Especially, if you’re doing a lot of operations and now you’re really fatigued, you’ll start to make more mistakes. There’s this trade-off between how often you do something, how long you do it, how fast you do it, what you use to do it, and what time of day you do it.” — Dr. Alan Hedge [0:17:32]

“When we look at people doing manual work, we look at the position of the hands. We use posture-targeting tools to look at that because doing the same work in a poor posture is much more injurious than doing it in a good posture. Again, we have to coach people to get them into good postures. It’s also much more fatiguing because [of how hard] the muscles have to work compared to being in a neutral posture.” — Dr. Alan Hedge [0:26:41]

“The posture you’re in to do work is critical to whether that work will increase or decrease the risk of an injury. That’s why posture-targeting techniques are so important. People often say, ‘All you’re doing is looking at where bits of the body are. How can that possibly relate to risk?’ It relates because where bits of the body are tells you how those bits are going to work over time when you repeat that movement.” — Dr. Alan Hedge [0:29:17]

Links & Resources Mentioned in Today’s Episode:


Dr. Alan Hedge on LinkedIn

Human Centered Design

Cornell University

'Lucy and the Chocolate Factory'

Matt Jeffs on LinkedIn

TuMeke Ergonomics

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