A paraphrase of a John Lennon lyric is “aging is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”.
People seem to be extremely busy living life nowadays. We work, manage families and households, we tackle problems that life deals us, we play, and even relax from time to time.
We get on our “treadmill of living” and before you know it, well, we are called an “aging worker”. “Experienced” employees are extremely valuable to organizations but they also tend to become injured more often so workers’ comp and production are affected.
A recent blog post that I wrote focused on the role of pain on a “quality of life” scale. The more pain leads to less happiness. Pain affects employee morale and production. Injuries such as back and shoulder injuries cost companies across the US billions of dollars each year and studies show that too many of those claims are attributable to the aging workforce.
What can management do to help maintain production and morale with the inevitable aging workforce?
Your aging workers don’t want pain; they want more energy; and want to feel younger. Who doesn’t?! It would be nice if we were selling water from the Fountain of Youth that could turn back the clocks of our bodies to more youthful times. I only wish!
However, FIT does provide a solution to pain and work place injuries.
What if you could provide employees with real, practical solutions for their pain? It is a false belief that age causes our aches and pains. It is actually a convenient cop-out. We assign all sorts of maladies to getting old. Well many 40, 50, 60 and 70 year olds have “disagreed” with that mindset and remain extremely active and vital.
Back, shoulder and other sprain/strain injury and discomfort most often is the result of Cumulative Micro Trauma (CMT). CMT is highly preventable. Injury data from our clients have proven that when employees are properly educated on how to perform their job duties specifically and how to mitigate muscle tension through job based stretching, injuries and lost work days significantly decrease.
The process is amazing to behold. Just recently a manager of airline mechanics observed workers going through the Backsafe® workshop and couldn’t believe that they were eagerly participating and appreciating learning skills that could be applied to their lives immediately.
The aging workers enthusiastically buy-in because of the immediate physical benefits.
Aging isn’t the reason for all aches, pains and injury. Many of our clients’ employees have discovered that and we want your employees to know it too.
If the idea of preventing back and shoulder injuries interests you, please contact us.
Dennis Downing, CEO
Future Industrial Technologies, Inc.
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