Canadian Occupational Safety

February/March 2013 21 into the habit of taking a walk a er getting home. Walking serves as a corrective to the inactivity of the day and has lasting health benefi ts. "It's not easy, but you have to look at it as part of your workday and get home and walk. It's something that can last you for the ages," he says. "Walking is great, and it's convenient. Something dynamic — that's the key word." Height requirement Adjusting workstations according to workers' diff erent heights, espe- cially on assembly lines, also helps reduce some of the strain of stand- ing, Harnett says. e height of the workstation is set to suit the tallest person. en, platforms are brought in to raise the shorter people up. e end result is everyone is working at the same angle. "You don't have some bending over and wrecking their back, and other people reaching up with their arms and wrecking their neck and shoulders," she says. The type of work should also help deter- mine the height of a workstation, says Borwankar. For example, if a person is handling small components, as in electronics manufacturing, the desk should be higher than usual to allow the worker to see the items without having to stoop. With heavier work, however, a lower surface is better, he adds. It allows a worker to use gravity to apply more force. Moreover, the workstation should be organized to avoid awkward and frequent reaching, Borwankar says. Keep commonly used items close by and less needed items farther away. "You want to avoid reaching above the shoulder or reaching behind your shoulder line — if you were to make a horizontal line through your shoul- ders. You don't want to reach behind you," he says. Sit or stand Some employers put a seat rest in each workstation, allowing for a real change in position, Borwankar says. If attached to a wall, a worker can easily fl ip it down when there's a break in production. ere should be enough space for knees and feet. "Prolonged sitting in one position is bad, too. So if you can mix them, it's the best of the situa- tion," he says. Adding a footrest or foot rail is another eff ective ergonomic modifi - cation, he adds. e worker can take pressure off one leg, then the other, and the legs get some rest. For workers on assembly lines, who o en have little chance to move or sit, Harnett recommends a "sit-stand" stool be incorporated at each station. e stool, which has a tilted seat pan, is designed for perching, rather than sitting. It keeps the back in an upright posture and takes weight off the lower body. "Seventy per cent of body weight is resting on your hips and down through your legs. So, if we can take some of that weight off , it's going to go a long way to keeping the lower limbs healthy and to take a lot of stress off the back," she says. Footwear Floors made of corkwood or rubber are much easier on the body than those made of cement or metal, Bor- wankar says. In many warehouses, cement floors are covered with anti-fatigue matting, which reduces muscular fatigue. Carpeting should be thick enough to provide some shock absorption or cushioning. But if too thick or so , it can actually increase leg fatigue. Proper shoes can also reduce the bad eff ects of prolonged standing. Borwankar suggests workers shop for shoes a er they have been stand- ing for a while. By trying footwear on when feet are swollen, they can make sure their shoes fi t properly all day long. Wearing high heels, of course, should be avoided, he says, but completely fl at shoes are not a good alterna- tive — shoes should provide good arch support. They should also allow for the movement of the toes. Laces are preferable to Velcro straps because they allow a person to adjust the tightness of the whole shoe. Putting insulating insoles into shoes will provide support and also help keep feet warm — especially important if the fl oor is cement, metal or some other hard surface, Harnett says. "And if they're standing on concrete without insoles, their feet will collapse a bit sooner. So you want good com- pressible insoles," he points out. Jim Wright, national representative with United Food and Commercial Workers Canada, says proper shoes can be so expensive that the union o en tries to negotiate them into con- tracts, requiring an employer either to supply them or pay an amount of money towards them. "It should be up to the employer to supply that type of footwear, in a situ- ation where a person has to deal with prolonged standing in one place," he says. Wright believes employers need to pay more attention to the ill-health eff ects of prolonged standing. ey tend to neglect the problem, he says, because other health and safety issues, such as accidents, are always in the forefront. "Yet, repetitive strain and musculo- skeletal injuries from repetitive work are the vast majority of the claims that are being dealt with through the workers' compensation boards across the country," he says. e tendency to underestimate the damage that prolonged standing can cause makes it more important for workers to speak up. If they have a problem with their workstation, for instance, they need to raise it with someone who can take action, Mijato- vic says, preferably a health and safety committee. Linda Johnson is a freelance writer based in Toronto. 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