provided by: 
Complete this sentence: my job is ______________________.
Hopefully neither you nor your employees answered "a pain in the neck."
However if you did, you're certainly not alone, especially not if you have the aspirin bills to prove it.
Ergonomic injuries such as strained backs or necks are a common occupational hazard in the warehousing profession. In fact, they represent one of the largest single threats to your employees' health and comfort.
The question is do your logistics safety initiatives acknowledge this? Or have you fallen into the trap of believing one of the following common ergonomic safety myths just because ergonomic safety concerns have been around so long?
Myth number one: You can't afford an ergonomic awareness program.
Too often, people think of ergonomic training as a luxury they can't afford.
If you're one of them, take a close look at your company's workers' compensation and other related expenses, because the ergonomic contribution to them may be far higher than you imagine.
Last year, the average cost per ergonomic injury ran into thousands of dollars for our company—even with an aggressive safety initiative and a safety record that is arguably one of the industry's best. And that's just the cost for the average injury.
When you consider how much surgery and physical therapy can cost—not to mention how much time off work people have to miss while recovering—it's not difficult to understand why some companies can wind up paying substantial sums just to satisfy a single ergonomic injury claim.
Myth number two: Ergonomics is for offices, not for distribution centers.
Contrary to what you might have heard, ergonomics doesn't begin and end at the computer keyboard. Instead, it applies to how people physically interact with any job setting—whether that setting is a loading dock, a pick line or a phone station.
In fact, when you look at all the activities that take place within warehouses, you may actually find more ergonomic risks than you would at the typical desk.
Common distribution activities, such as removing shrink-wrap from pallets and unloading trucks with non-palletized cargo, create plenty of chances for people to strain their necks or shoulders or to make a sudden twisting movement they'll remember for weeks to come. Heavy boxes are just waiting to be improperly lifted. And pick lines can most certainly give computer terminals a run for their money in terms of contributing to repetitive motion injuries.
All of these things make an ergonomic awareness program in the warehouse that much more important.
Myth number three: Ergonomic injuries are rarely serious.
On the surface, muscle strains of the shoulder, neck or back may sound like minor complaints, especially when they're compared with life-and-limb threatening accidents such as forklift crashes.
But try telling that to someone who has to spend six months flat on his back, or to someone who can no longer sleep at night because of the constant pain in her shoulder. Or try explaining that to a senior manager who's just paid out a large claim on an injury that started off as "just a muscle strain."
Although it is essential for every company to focus on major safety topics, such as proper forklift operation and truck driving, you are not fully protecting your employees if you ignore the seemingly smaller, misunderstood and unsafe ergonomic behaviors in which they engage. Those behaviors also have enormous potential to turn into chronic conditions that can change their lives—and your facilities' productivity—for the worse.
Myth number four: Repetitive motion is all about rapid, constant movement.
Activities like typing or working on product pick lines are classic examples of repetitive motion activities that can lead to carpal-tunnel syndrome and similar injuries. However, a person doesn't have to perform an activity thousands of times a day for it to be considered repetitive. Any activity someone performs over a period of many years, such as picking up boxes or hauling cardboard to the trash area, is also a repetitive motion, and, as such, carries its own measure of cumulative risk.
For example, consider how often you or someone you know has experienced a muscle pull by bending down to pick up something light. The cause of the injury was most likely not that one very lightweight item. Instead, it was the cumulative effect of high-risk lifts performed over a period of time.
With that in mind, make sure your company takes a whole-body approach to dealing with repetitive motion exposure.
Myth Number five: It requires a lot of money and a complete overhaul of equipment to create a more ergonomically safe workplace environment.
It's tempting to blame the lack of an ergonomic initiative on lack of funds to redesign your facilities, equipment and furniture, but it's also misguided. Many ergonomic solutions aren't dramatic or expensive.
Simple changes to work processes, like having people rotate jobs during the day, can significantly reduce your employees' risk for repetitive motion injuries. Behavioral changes, such as requiring people to take breaks, can give your employees' backs, wrists and necks the rest they need to minimize strain. And physical process changes, like teaching your employees how to bend, lift and move more safely, can make all the difference in the world.
In addition, there are many small improvements you can make to work stations and other areas of your facilities without breaking the bank. The addition of step stools at one of our facilities reduced ergonomically risky overhead lifting to a minimum at that facility (although, needless to say, we also provided safety training about the proper use of step stools.) Creating work tables from unused pallets shrink-wrapped together to increase the lifting height of a table at another facility reduced the need for workers at that table to bend into unnatural positions.
So, if you're looking for a good reason to avoid investing in ergonomic safety, this isn't it.
Myth number six: Ergonomic injuries are inevitable, especially in an industry such as logistics, where there's a lot of heavy lifting and repetitive motion.
All companies employ human beings, and human beings occasionally make mistakes, which is how many injuries happen. However, if your company considers ergonomic injuries to be a fait accompli, you are engaging in one of the most ergonomically unsafe behaviors.
To keep your employees as safe as possible, you cannot foster an environment that accepts injury as part of a day's work, because if you do, you are essentially embracing the possibility of further injuries and encouraging more ergonomically unsafe shortcuts and other behaviors that lead to injury. Just as important, you are preventing your employees and your company from the benefits that come from identifying and correcting areas of ergonomic risk.
So if you hear one of your employees say, "it's just part of the job," be wary, because an attitude like that could lead to any number of uncomfortable situations.
Myth number seven: Ergonomics begins and ends at work.
Although ergonomics is often defined as the science of work, you're putting your head in the sand if you believe it refers solely to the work people do in a professional capacity. Any repetitive motion in which people engage—be it knitting, tennis or surfing the Internet—can leave them susceptible to repetitive motion injuries.
Any unnatural position, such as cradling the phone while talking to friends after work, can cause muscles to seize up and spasm. And any sudden motion they make while doing yard work or unsafely lifting a baby can leave them reaching for a heating pad.
It's important to make your employees aware of these risks so that they'll be careful to watch their backs both on and off the job.
In conclusion: Whether you have bought into one of these myths or all seven of them, it is never too late to make some positive ergonomic changes that will help both you and your employees feel more comfortable throughout their day. Myths will always exist, but so will the opportunity to dispel them through simple, consistent messages and truly concerned and caring front-line programs.
Brock is head of safety, APL Logistics, Oakland, Calif.
author: By Dixie Brock