Employers everywhere spend a ton of money every year on programs and procedures designed to increase the safety of their workplace. Despite the high number of rules and regulations designed to limit risk and keep employees injury-free, every year thousands of workers are injured, costing employers millions of lost man-hours and billions of dollars in injury claims. Certain types of injuries are more common than others, and paying careful attention to these types of injuries could help prevent them from happening in the future.
Here are the ten most common on-the-job injury causes.
10. On the Job Violence – Work is stressful, but for some people, that stress can boil over and manifest itself as violence. When violence breaks out, physical injuries can happen, leading to not only major expenses, but lots of employee tension. Be sure to keep an eye out for employee behavior and institute a culture that encourages people to report those who they suspect may be about to lose their cool.
9. Repetitive Motion – These may be less obvious, but are often more harmful in the long run than a sudden, acute condition. Repetitive motions can lead to lasting and extremely painful damage, even for supposedly simple tasks. Many jobs today now revolve around computer use, which means back pain, vision problems, and carpal tunnel syndrome are all now common repetitive motion issues.
8. Machine Entanglement – If you work in a factory or facility that operates heavy machinery, then you’re probably well aware of just how imminent the threat of machine entanglement can be. Clothes, hair, shoes, and other things are often caught in machines, resulting in potentially serious and possibly permanent injuries.
7. Vehicle Accidents – Driving is a pretty normal part of many different jobs in a variety of industries. The more you drive, the more likely it is you’ll be involved in an auto accident at some point. Safe-driving classes and rules against cell phone use can help combat this problem.
6. Walking Into Things – We’ve all laughed when someone on their phone walks into a door or pole they didn’t see in front of them. However, people walking into things like concrete walls, tables, doors, chairs, heavy furniture, and other obstacles have been found to be a fairly common cause of back, knee, head, and foot injuries.
5. Falling Objects – Whenever you store something off the ground, you run the risk of it falling off its storage spot and landing on someone. This is a particularly large threat in warehouses and retail establishments, where elevated storage is fairly common, and has been found to cause head and neck injuries fairly often.
4. Reaction Injuries – Have you ever slipped on something but managed to save yourself from falling? You might feel pretty cool, but your muscles, joints, and tendons might not feel the same way a few hours later. Slipping or tripping without falling often causes a lot of strain on other parts of the body, resulting in workers’ compensation claims.
3. Falling from Heights – Those who work in situations where they have to bring their feet off the ground are at the risk of falling from height, which causes an abundance of serious injuries every year. While some of these accidents are from faulty equipment, many are from the failure to use proper safety procedures or correct safety gear.
2. Slipping/Tripping – Uncleaned spills, freshly polished floors, and loose extension cords all share a common risk: trip or slip hazards that cause someone to fall. These are extremely common when it comes to workplace injuries, and many of them come from something being left on the floor. The injuries these incidents can cause include broken bones, concussions, lacerations, and many more.
1. Overexertion – These are perhaps the most common type of injury people think about when they think of a workplace hazard: pushing, pulling, lifting, holding, carrying, and other actions which cause someone to pull a muscle or sprain a joint. This is consistently the most common workplace injury, and also by far the most expensive for employers.
