How to Find the Most Ergonomic Way to Do a Job
Ergonomic work strategies from experienced workers, injured employees, and others can make a huge difference in workplace efficiency.
- By Carrie Taylor
- Jan 30, 2025
“Ergonomics” involves fitting work to people, with the goal of minimizing the risk of strains and sprains as well as optimizing worker performance. Many people associate ergonomics with lifting training. Everyone has been told to bend the knees and keep the load close to the body, but workers will say that this advice doesn’t always apply. Neither suggestion will help remove the turkey from the bottom of the freezer. What is the best way to do a job? And why is it so important to know?
Let’s review how to identify and implement ergonomic work strategies that minimize strain, reduce injury risk and improve workplace efficiency. Whether a supervisor, safety professional or a worker is seeking to reduce strain and injury risks, they should understand how to make informed choices.
Supervisors who are responsible for accident investigation are forced to identify corrective actions for the same tasks, time after time. They usually know that the job is awkward, heavy or repetitive, but they don’t know how to fix it. So, they “re-instruct the worker.”
Are supervisors really the best people to advise workers about ergonomics? Most of them would rather not take on that responsibility. Supervisors typically have the same ergonomics training as the workers in their departments: “bend the knees and keep the load close.”
New workers tend to focus on successfully completing a task, rather than the nuanced techniques of working comfortably. In the first few weeks on a job, a worker can pick up bad habits that are hard to unlearn.
Consider hand use. A right-handed worker typically uses the dominant hand for everything to ensure that the task is done accurately and because the right hand is a bit stronger than the left. But a worker who learns to perform a task with either hand right off the bat will have an ergonomic advantage. When one hand is tired, the other hand can take over. This habit is easiest to adopt when the task is new.
So what is the most ergonomic way to do a specific task? Here are three suggestions to find out.
1. Learn from the Experts
No, not the ergonomists. Talk to them later.
Start by asking the experts on the job: workers who have been on the job for years. They develop tricks that allow them to do the job with the least amount of effort and strain. Workers who make a job look easy are not lazy; they’re efficient. Slight technique modifications like foot placement, grip orientation and the way a load is split between two hands can make a world of difference.
Let’s think about pushing a heavy cart over a bump on the floor. Most people would take a run at it or pull the cart back and try again, pushing harder. Demands like this can cause injuries when the effort required exceeds the worker’s strength. In fact, pushing a long-term care resident in a shower chair over the raised threshold to the shower can require more than 100 percent of a worker’s strength.
If help is not readily available, one solution is to use one foot to “boost” the chair over the bump on the floor. This ergo work strategy reduces the demands on the arms by over half, allowing workers to perform the task within their abilities without getting help. It also creates a much smoother ride for the resident.
People often assume that workers learn the best ways to do a job during the onboarding process. But many organizations do not routinely pair experienced employees with novice employees because the senior workers get promoted to jobs where they are not required to do field work anymore. This is true in manufacturing but also in more skilled work like paramedicine and utility service. This means that the most useful strategies never get passed on to new workers.
2. Learn from People who Learned the Hard Way
Workers who have experienced an injury and returned to work successfully have some special insights too. They’ve figured out just how to fit those two parts together without tweaking their back or how to adjust the workbench so that they don’t have to bend their necks to see how a part and jig align. This knowledge may be very injury-specific, but if the same injuries keep popping up on the same jobs, it’s worthwhile to identify some coping strategies.
3. Ask the Underdogs
As a small-statured woman, issues of size and strength are significant. They can never open a jar of sauce in straight from the pantry but certainly know about “the spoon trick.” The seal can be popped off by prying a spoon between the jar and the lid, allowing the lid to twist off easily. If small-statured folks in the workplace are safely performing tasks that their larger co-workers complain about, there’s a skill gap to be bridged.
Not all workers are willing to share their tricks and techniques, especially if they worry that they are cutting corners in some way. Some workers will need help even to identify their special techniques because the strategy has become the way they naturally perform the task. But it's almost certain that doing the same job for a few years leads to learning how to perform it without causing injury. And those tricks are worth harvesting and sharing with new workers.
How to Know If a Strategy Works
Naturally, some strategies are easier but not safe. So safety professionals always need to weigh in on proposed ergonomic work strategies. A “trick” that bypasses a safety measure should never be promoted.
Ergonomists use biomechanical analysis tools that can evaluate combinations of posture, effort (pushing, gripping, lifting) and frequency. They can objectively compare two techniques and provide evidence that one is better than another.
Some strategies apply only in specific situations or for specific people. These can still be valuable, but it’s important to clearly identify any constraints or cautions to be considered. For example, using a foot to boost the shower chair is not advisable if the worker is wearing smooth-soled footwear and the floor is wet and soapy.
Will Ergonomic Work Strategies Protect Workers From Injury?
Regarding ergonomic work strategies, these types of administrative controls are not going to solve all strain/sprain injury problems. More than just reinstructing workers, the jobs need to be fixed. It doesn’t matter what technique is used to carry a heavy box up stairs, the worker will still be at risk. But the promotion of ergonomic work strategies can be a reasonable interim measure while the organization works toward engineering controls. Ergonomic work strategies should be promoted during employee onboarding and can be useful tools in the supervisor’s toolkit, when it’s time to “re-instruct the worker”.
To reduce the demands of a high-risk job even by a little bit, fewer workers will be at a high risk of injury. So, while administrative controls get a bad rap, they do help chip away at the hazards.
How to Spread the Word
Ideally, the worker-experts will do appropriate modeling so that others can create visual aids to show how the common practice and ergo work strategy compare, side by side. The poster is the first step. It documents the strategy and helps to clearly show why a worker should do something a certain way. Be sure to note any limitations, including when not to use the strategy or how to ensure success.
Summary of Action Steps
- Interview experienced workers to document their ergonomic work strategies.
- Consult workers who’ve adapted after injuries for unique insights.
- Encourage new hires to adopt ergonomic work strategies.
- Partner with ergonomists to validate techniques with biomechanical analysis.
- Share ergonomic strategies using visual aids like posters or training sessions.