Omega's Ergonomic Training Programs have arisen from an ergonomic training strategy that has helped hundreds of companies reduce lost time work days and workers' compensation costs. Omega's team of highly trained professionals has honed its training programs while expanding the scope of the curriculum to effectively address all those factors that can contribute to a lost-time day cumulative trauma injury. Our classes do not simply discuss proper work station set-up and posture. We delve deeply into the myriad of issues that may contribute to lost-time day claims. Employee compliance, worker habits, supervisor/manager attitude, biomechanical risk factors, dangers of static postures, self-reliance in ergonomics all contribute to the incidence of cumulative trauma disorders. Our training programs deal effectively with these issues and many more.

Ergo Training for Managers
Get in the Game

"Ergo X's and O's™" - This four (or five - see below) hour session teaches your managers and supervisors about their responsibility in intervening in the multitude of factors which contribute to lost-time day claims. These factors can include attitudes of the work force and mangers, internal political considerations, anatomy and physiology of work-place injuries, warning signs of injuries, and management of the injured worker. Once the training is complete, the managers and supervisors will have a thorough understanding of all the factors which affect workplace injuries. They will also recognize strategies to deal with these factors appropriately within the confines of your existing claim management systems. The training session will encourage those currently on the sidelines to get in the game and be part of the solution.

If you choose to give your managers the tools to effectively coach behavioral change within the confines of your ergonomics program, the final 90 minutes of "Ergo X's and O's™" (the five hour version) serves as an introduction to "Just Call me Coach™" (see below). During this segment, your managers will take huge strides in becoming experts at motivating, reinforcing, and measuring behavioral change in their employees. This step is irreplaceable if you expect your employees to learn to alter their habits to reduce their risk of injury.

"Just Call Me Coach™" - These two ninety-minute coaching sessions are designed to create and instill a winning attitude towards injury prevention efforts for your managers and supervisors. The single most powerful tool in positively affecting worker health involves long-term behavioral change. In order to facilitate this process, your managers and supervisors must become effective coaches for their "industrial athletes." These segments provide the necessary framework for your managers and supervisors to do this.

Ergo Training for Employees

"Ergo Chalk-Talk™" - This brief, information packed, one-hour training session gives your employees the basic tools on how to live and work with healthy habits. The employees are given tools necessary for injury prevention at work and home.

Game-Time - This two-hour session gives your employees the tools they need to live and work with healthy habits day in and day out. It does not emphasize injury or dysfunction, but rather what the employees can do to keep themselves healthy for their job. The employees are made aware of the personal ramifications of a workplace injury and are given tools to help prevent them from happening. This motivational instruction program emphasizes the worker's responsibility as an "industrial athlete" to taking care of their bodies while on or off the job so that their bodies and minds can manage normal day to day stresses and strains without injuries.

Neck-Arm "Game-Time™"- Preventing Tendonitis and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a critical need in today's office/VDT (Visual Display Terminal) environment. The program goes beyond workstation design to address self-care of the working body, posture stress control, and personal ergonomics skills. The Neck-Arm "Game-Time™" is a comprehensive program designed to reduce injuries, costs, and claims. It seeks to address all aspects of the CTD claims problem. Workers are taught to accept themselves as professional "industrial athletes" who must properly use and care for the human body. Employee training avoids discussion of disease and symptoms, relying solely on "how to get through a day's work with a minimum of fatigue and discomfort."

Lower Back "Game-Time™" - This two-hour employee motivation class on back pain avoidance teaches responsibility for self-care of the working body and personal ergonomics work methods and posture. Back injury is the leading cause of missed work in America. Our program goes far beyond "proper lifting" training and addresses the realities of the workplace. It uses prevention tactics developed by ergonomic physical therapists in Europe, consistent with OSHA Ergonomic Guidelines. Employee training teaches the "Industrial Athlete" approach to self-protection and taking responsibility for the working body. The program is customized by written analysis and photographs of your workers doing their jobs. This maximizes worker compliance. Training includes up-to-date techniques. The definition of "proper lifting" has changed. Lifting with the pelvic tilt method is no longer acceptable.

The Lower Back "Game-Time™" teaches material handling techniques updated per current research. Lifting with lumbar lordosis, preventive exercise stretches and other strategies are presented and modified to fit specific work situations. Training includes actual practice. Workers will be skilled, safe and cooperative with injury avoidance techniques only with actual hands-on practice as part of the training program. This is done in a non-threatening, nurturing manner.

Game-Time Online - Your employee training can either take place in a classroom setting or online. Our online training program powered by IMPACC© software directly corresponds to Omega's "live" "Game-Time" training programs. The online training gives your employees and their department's flexibility in scheduling and attending training sessions. It also provides pre- and post-testing that is tabulated online for the employee to assist in retention of the material.

"Ergo Water Break™" - This is the most brief employee training session offered. It is fully customizable to meet your individual needs. This typically occurs at one of your company's luncheons for employees where a brief ergonomic topic is covered with a question and answer session. You provide the nourishment and we provide the answers to your employees' questions. The "Ergo Water Break™" is a fantastic way to introduce new components of your program, keep ergonomics fresh in the minds of your employees and management, or simply allow your company to become acquainted with your ergonomics agenda in a friendly, social atmosphere.

Ergonomic Team Training

The ERGO Machine™ - This advanced training program assembles your "Ergonomics Machine." It provides a group of employees, supervisors, engineers, safety, labor leaders and health staff in a specific business unit or area detailed training on how to perform ongoing Ergonomic Work Risk Analysis, hazard correction, and assure aggressive long-term success of your investment in the ergonomics program. The ERGO Machine© members should attend the Ergo Training for Managers.

ERGO Machine™ training is a 6-12 hour seminar for your select Ergonomics Team, plus supportive handout materials.

Training includes:
· OSHA Ergonomics Guidelines and how to implement them
· Review of Back Injury Prevention Principles: risks, injury mechanisms, prevention tactics
· Review of Neck-Arm Injury Prevention Principles: risk, diseases, prevention tactics
· ERGO Machine structure, mission, procedures, dynamics, politics
· How to perform injury trends analysis, ErgoProfiles, Ergonomic Risk Analysis
· Ergonomic problem-solving and implementing corrective actions
· Onsite analysis and problem solving drills
· Assuring success of the company's injury prevention program

When the ERGO Machine™ has completed training, the team members will meet regularly to discuss issues relating to implementing and maintaining the ergonomics program in their business unit. Such issues include:
· Advertisement of the existence of the team
· Information to Managers and Supervisors about team activities/functions
· Correspondence with employees to stimulate interest in the ergonomics program
· Team Structure
· Results of OnSite/Online evaluations performed by team members/employees
· Progress of team members in implementing ergonomic modifications
· Organizational issues helping/hindering progress

Once up and running, the ERGO Machine™ continues to operate autonomously to maintain your company's efforts in ergonomics and injury prevention long after Omega leaves your campus.

Behavioral Modification Module for the ERGO Machine™

Omega's strategy in controlling ergonomic risks stems from an awareness that ergonomic risks arise not only from work station design, but also habits of the worker. Many experts purport, in fact, that 80% of the risk of injury can be traced to the habits of the workers as opposed to their individual work station set-up. As a decision maker in your ergonomics initiative, you may have observed evidence of this. It is most commonly seen when providing new "ergonomically designed" equipment. The expectation in providing the equipment is that the worker will use it correctly and their injury risk will diminish. This, of course, does not always occur. The habits of the worker must be serially identified, measured, modified appropriately, and repeatedly reinforced before the benefit of expensive ergonomic equipment can be realized.

The Behavioral Modification Module for the ERGO Machine™ is structured to give your ergonomics program administrators concrete strategies to observe, measure, track, monitor and improve behavioral habits in employees. An effective and non-threatening strategy to track worker ergonomic behavior will be the cornerstone of the ERGO Machine's behavioral modification effort. The behaviors that will be measured will necessarily represent the antecedent behaviors to cumulative trauma disorders. By identifying, observing, measuring, coaching, and reinforcing these antecedent behaviors, you will be able to generate data that actually predicts the likelihood of cumulative trauma disorders. This predictive quality of our behavioral based program separates our product from solely reactive, engineering-based programs.

Not only will the ERGO Machine™ be qualified to measure and coach safe ergonomic behavior, they will also be given guidance on how to effectively induce behavioral change by utilizing positive reinforcement techniques taught in the module. Your company can be provided not only the training modules, but also the data collection and management systems necessary to track behavioral modification. The forms and databases used to collect and track this data will be customized for your company as necessary, however a template for forms and their corresponding electronic counterparts have already been created.

This two hour training module should be used in conjunction with the "Just Call Me Coach™" training module for managers. The vehicle by which the measured behavior will change is by constructive and appropriate coaching techniques. These coaching techniques are reviewed for the managers and supervisors on the team. The rank and file employees in the ERGO Machine™ should attend a "Just Call Me Coach™" Session so that they, too will be able to effectively engage their colleagues with effective coaching techniques and induce positive behavioral change.

The ERGO Machine™ will generate metrics for your company to use in tracking its success in modifying worker behaviors and reducing ergonomic risk. Omega offers a complete electronic data management system to assist in tracking these important parameters.