What is participatory ergonomics?
It’s an improvement approach that involves the people who do the work in identifying problems, proposing solutions, and verifying results. Their input is especially valuable because they are familiar with variations, difficulties, and strategies that may not appear in a formal job description. This experience is combined with a technical analysis of the risks.
Ergonomics aims to adapt work to people. Participation helps make solutions usable, but it doesn’t replace expert evaluation when needed. Nor does it mean asking employees to solve design or organizational problems that are the company’s responsibility without resources.
Real participation and collection of suggestions
A suggestion box can be a useful channel, but it doesn’t constitute a participatory process on its own. Genuine participation allows for understanding the problem, discussing alternatives, and learning what decisions have been made. People must be able to influence relevant aspects, with sufficient information, and without their proposals disappearing without a response.
Consulting and involving workers requires considering existing representation and different groups. Selecting only those with more time or who work the main shift may exclude critical tasks. Language barriers, access issues, temporary employment status, or trust barriers that hinder the provision of information must also be identified.
Prepare the process
Preparation defines the scope, objectives, participants, and capacity to implement changes. It’s important to clarify which decisions the group can make and which must be escalated to management. Without this agreement, the process can produce a list of improvements that are never implemented and reduce trust in future consultations.
The team can include users, managers, maintenance, prevention, and other relevant departments. The composition depends on the problem. It’s important to set aside time to observe tasks and discuss solutions within the work organization. Participation shouldn’t become an additional task that people have to take on without resources or functional recognition.
Identify and prioritize problems
Identification combines conversations, observation, and available data on exposure or discomfort. You should examine the tasks actually performed, including their variations and times of peak demand. A difficulty may only appear with certain products, loading heights, or in situations of limited space; observing only a comfortable cycle may mask it.
Prioritization considers the risk and extent of exposure, as well as the feasibility of the measures. Choosing only easy improvements is unwise if more significant problems remain. Reports of discomfort help guide the analysis, but they do not replace a clinical diagnosis nor justify collecting unnecessary health information in work meetings.
Design and test solutions
Solutions must address the root causes: inadequate heights, excessive reach, force, repetitive motion, or lack of recovery time. Ergonomic workstation design allows the problem to be tackled at its source. Training can support the change, but it cannot, on its own, compensate for inadequate work geometry or a poor work pace.
Before implementing a solution, it can be helpful to test it under representative conditions. The test should include people with diverse characteristics, different products, and auxiliary tasks. It is necessary to check for unforeseen effects: a higher table might reduce trunk flexion and increase shoulder strain in another task. The group’s assessments are then compared with technical criteria.
Practical example
In an order picking area, raising the boxes is proposed to reduce torso bending. However, workers there point out that they also need to retrieve small items from the back and move containers of varying sizes. A fixed-height platform improves some of the work but makes other tasks more difficult.
The team tests an adjustable solution and modifies the arrangement of materials. Maintenance checks its stability and ease of adjustment; prevention reviews the risks; users evaluate its performance over several shifts. The final decision incorporates this evidence and defines how to maintain and adjust the solution. This example illustrates why consulting before purchasing can prevent passing the problem on to others.
Implementation and monitoring
Implementation requires assigning responsibilities, resources, and deadlines, as well as clear instructions regarding the changes. It must be verified that all affected individuals understand the new way of working and have the necessary tools to implement it. Initial difficulties are identified and addressed without assuming that any resistance stems from a lack of interest.
The monitoring compares pre- and post-implementation conditions against defined criteria. It can review exposure, actual usage, and reported problems. If job rotation is being considered, it should be analyzed whether the alternated tasks actually change the demands. Simply moving people between activities requiring the same effort does not demonstrate an ergonomic improvement.
Limits and continuity
Participatory ergonomics requires continuity so that learning translates into new purchases, process changes, and task organization. Documentation should record problems, alternatives, decisions, and results in sufficient detail. The process loses value when it is limited to a single campaign without follow-up.
INSST’s NTP 1137 develops this approach as a good practice for ergonomic risk management. Its guidelines do not replace the obligations for assessment and protection. Employer responsibility and technical support remain necessary; participation provides knowledge of the work and facilitates solutions that can be maintained under real-world conditions.
