If any part of your business involves manual labour, you will be well aware of the risks that come with it, not least injuries that can stem from incorrectly lifting a heavy item.
For companies focused on construction, healthcare, warehousing or any industry that involves moving heavy loads, your health and safety protocol for lifting items will be detailed and stringent.
Despite this, injury can still occur, so there are a number of ways as a company you can stop accidents happening in the first place, as well as ensuring if something does occur you can help your people recover back to full health.
This is where DocHQ Physio comes in. The health and wellbeing provider offers an innovative physiotherapy service to your employees which, alongside DocHQ Fitness, will help them build strength by adhering to their exercise programme as well as aiding quicker recovery from injury if injury occurs.
How to avoid lifting-based work injuries
1. Ensure staff use proper lifting techniques
Adhering to simple guidance such as bending at the knees not at the hips, keeping the back and spine straight and lifting with the legs rather than back or arms aids in lowering the risk of injury when lifting. This technique reduces pressure on the back and spine and will help avoid injuries such as herniated discs, muscle sprains and tears, and sciatica.
2. Train employees on how to lift properly
As an employer, you are required to provide comprehensive training programmes on proper lifting techniques and safety protocols. This will ensure that all employees are aware of any potential risks and equipped with the necessary knowledge to prevent injuries.
3. Use the correct equipment
Ensure staff have access to safety equipment that will help prevent injury, such as safety gloves, the correct protective footwear, clothing and headwear, and back-support belts if required. This helps reduce the chance of the load slipping, snagging or people tripping, while lowering the chance of strained muscles. Mechanical lifting equipment should also be accessible and available to use if the load requires it.
4. Provide employees access to DocHQ Physio
DocHQ’s innovative AI-based body-mapping software has two benefits for manual labour staff: it helps increase their strength to prevent injuries occurring, and also aids in recovering from injury or strains if they occur.
By offering the service as part of your employee benefits package, your staff will have access to a charted physiotherapist for a virtual appointment, where they will receive a full assessment and be provided with an exercise programme.
This programme uses AI tech to track users’ movements via the computer’s camera which maps 111 points on the user’s body as they do the exercises, providing instant feedback to help ensure they’re doing them with the correct form. If they are not, it can instantly suggest ways to improve, such as bending the knees more or doing a deeper squat.
The physiotherapist tracks this data and makes amends to the programme to help the user get more from the exercises, push themselves harder, increase adherence and recover more quickly.
The result is a stronger and fitter manual workforce that can lift safely, and if they do suffer injury will recover quickly, returning to work in a shorter time than if they had to follow a traditional physio programme where no one is tracking their progress and motivation to adhere to the exercises is low.
To find out more about how DocHQ can help your manual workforce via our bespoke physiotherapy service, get in touch with Amit Arora at amit.arora@dochq.co.uk
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