Carrie Taylor

Familiar games like Jenga, Operation, and Kerplunk draw people into lively conversations, and foster friendly competition. Have you ever considered integrating games into your ergonomics training? This presentation demonstrates how integrating games into hands-on practical training can help employees to appreciate the value of ergonomics, not only in improving comfort and MSD prevention, but also in optimizing performance and employee engagement.

We've been trying to teach workers to lift with their legs bent for 40 years or more, and yet we have back injuries. Maybe we need to look at work techniques differently. To identify truly "ergonomic" strategies, we need to understand what's wrong with the common practice, what advantage is provided by the promoted practice, and what factors limit the use of this preferred method. This presentation reviews an objective method that was developed to identify ergonomic work strategies in physical work, and how we train workers to use them.

First, the good news...aging workers are a wealth of experience that can be tapped to provide mentorship for younger workers. But not everything about aging is good. This presentation reviews the physical, cognitive, and social changes that occur as workers age, and suggests methods to help fit work to these workers.