Depending on where you live, the first snowfall of the year has probably already hit your area. Many of us actually look forward to the first blanket of snow, covering trees, lawns, driveways, and the leaves we never got around to raking. However, after weeks or months of snow, heavy snow, blowing snow, snow blizzards, snowdrifts … your outlook may become a little different. Enough already!
Did you know in some parts of the United States the average snowfall approaches 10 feet? That’s a lot of snow. As someone who grew up in Maine, this comes as no surprise. I’ve shoveled quite a bit of snow in my day. Even though Dad had a snow blower, I wasn’t allowed to use it, and I had to have the driveway and steps cleared by the time he came home from work. My back hurts just thinking about it.
If you lift an average shovel, loaded with 16 pounds of snow, about 12 times a minute, you will have moved 192 pounds of snow. Keep this up for 10 minutes, and you’ve just lifted almost 1 TON of snow! It’s not surprising to learn that almost half of the winter back injuries are related to shoveling snow.
It’s almost impossible to go into a hardware, grocery, or department store without seeing the latest display of new ergonomic shovels, designed to make the manual process of snow removal easier on the masses. The snow shovel marketers have done a good job of educating us on proper equipment and procedures for snow removal.
What IS surprising is the fact that many companies still expect employees to manually lift boxes, parts, containers, and totes, often weighing up to 50 pounds, on a repetitive schedule. Even the lightest of loads, if lifted improperly or awkwardly, over time can cause fatigue, lost productivity, and ultimately lead to muscle and back strain. Manual lifting is identified as the cause in over 30% of all workplace injuries.
So why is it that we expect the assistance of ergonomic lifting tools in some applications like shoveling snow, but will use our bare hands and fragile bodies to lift a 50 pound box, as if we have no other choice? How can we get customers to realize that they don’t have to accept the strains, cramps, and tension in their backs as if there was no better way?
Now that I have my own snow blower, I definitely plan to teach my kids how to safely use it when they’re a little older. They can still shovel the steps though.
Do you share OSHA statistics, medical research, or just best practices from other solutions you’ve used before? Do you use calculations to analyze manual lifting operations? Would you find these reference materials valuable as an educational tool? Please share your thoughts with us!
Use the force, Jeff……..use the force