The Energy Wheel and MSDs

Dr Katie Welfare | CSRA

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Alright. We are, officially at the start time, and we we just wanna make sure that we make this the highest and best use of your time. We're so grateful to have you on this webinar today and just your commitment safety and the protection of people, ensuring that they can go home, not only safe, but whole, and that they can get to the end of their careers retiring strong. And that's what this conversation is really all about is how do we keep the workforce, safe and healthy I know so many of you are, have been exposed to the energy oil concepts, and many of you have probably participated in a lot of the development of, of this whole framework. And so I just wanna, give a shout out and, a real sense of gratitude to, people like the CSRA and, EEI, different groups who have really invested a lot of time in and thought into this process.

My name is Doctor Kevin. I'm the, CEO and co founder of Domosy.

Really grateful to be joined here today by Doctor. Katie Walfair, and Katie's gonna provide a little more background on her experience with the energy wheel and in safety. And so, without further ado, we'll we'll get things kicked, kicked off. And I'm gonna pass it over to Doctor.

Wall There we go.

I have too many screens open. I couldn't find the unmute button.

I see some familiar names on the registration list, so it's really cool to get to talk to a lot of you guys again. My name is Katie Wellfair. I have my doctorate in civil engineering and I have studied construction safety for the majority of my research and academic career. However, after I graduated from the University of Colorado, I went back to the, field and I worked in the field for almost a decade I worked as a field engineer and a project manager.

So I've been, you know, we did commercial construction. So I've been I've been out there. I haven't spent the thirty plus years. That's, I know some people on this call definitely have, but I have gotten my my feet dirty and my hands dirty and I enjoyed and loved working in the field and when given the to go back.

A lot of you know him. I'm sure on this call, but I was given the awesome opportunity to go back and work under Doctor. Matthew Hollowell. He's one of the energy wheels.

He's he's the guy. So if you're if you're working on the energy wheel or you're using it, you know Matt and I was given the opportunity to go back and get my doctorate under Matt Hollowell. So, I like to point that out because a lot of you are like Hey, this is like this is Matt's and and Matt is the one I learned this from. So really today, my my hope with you guys is just to give you a really you already are using the energy wheel, awesome.

The second half of Kevin and I's discussion today is really where you're gonna hopefully get some new information. If you don't use the energy wheel or something that you're considering using the beginning portion, I'm just gonna give you a really be brief background on where the energy wheel came from and why it's so awesome. And then I'll also hopefully give you some tools to learn more, or how to implement it. And then again, no matter where you are in your possible use of that energy wheel or your non use of it, the second half, we can really dive into making sure that MSDs are always considered as well, within the framework that already exists of the energy wheel.

So that's kind of what I want to make sure what we're focusing today, as a lot of you probably are like, Hey, we already use this. I think I know I saw Jared fromOSTec on the on the Register List.

And if he is on here, I know there's folks like him who will actually show a few examples of how they use the energy wheel.

But I hope that folks like him maybe can help contribute at the end of the conversation to how they possibly are already considering and making sure that MSDs are not falling to the wayside when we're implementing something like the energy wheel into practice.

So we can just dive right in to this background on the energy wheel and then we'll we'll get going unless anyone has anything right off the bat.

I know there's I don't know how many there's forty three folks on the call. So, you can do the raise hand thing as well on Zoom. I'm pretty sure. I think you can maybe. I don't know. But if not, you can just, you know, chime in as I'm talking. Feel free to interrupt, you know, having a discussion is sometimes better than me just talking and the end trying to circle back on things.

So the energy wheel is based on a ton of research not not to put it lightly, but, the background really stems back to situational awareness.

Situational awareness is the ability to identify process and understand what's happening in your surroundings. So it's just knowing what's going on around you. And one of the first steps in situational awareness is, well, the first step is hazard recognition.

That's understanding the risk and risk tolerance so that to help ensure that what we're that we're showing positive behaviors and that we're performing well.

Again, that has recognition is really just that ability to see the hazard. And all of this, led us led the research team, not us. I wasn't a part of it. I wish I was. But to go back to the original some research that was done many years ago on energy theory.

Energy theory is based on the observation that all injuries are the result of some unwanted contact between a person and one or more sources of energy.

Therefore, Sorry. I've I was reading that sentence and was like wait that does that make sense but any source of energy can cause that could cause injury illness or death is a hazard. So knowing just there's a lot of research that's been done on energy theory, the energy wheel was not redoing that research. It was simply simply it was building off of existing research on this theory. And what was found can pop to the next slide.

Cool.

Is that even the most experienced construction safety professionals will only identify forty five percent of hazards on a given site. And that is huge that is a huge number That is the statistic that should really you know stick in your head as this doesn't seem quite right.

Identifying hazards is really a critical component of any safety program, and I don't need a preach to the choir. Everyone on this call already knows that. I'm not reinventing the wheel there by any means.

But based on natural limitations, even the most experienced folks will only identify those forty five percent of hazards.

But I don't have a this on the slide which I probably should have after introducing the energy wheel and the concept of energy based safety hazard recognition was shown to improve an average of thirty percent, which results in seventy five percent of hazards being identified.

And this was this was all this information I'm giving you. All this data, this forty five percent and the thirty percent. This is validated through years and years of research using scientific approaches such as brain scans, eye tracking, and extensive confirmation and observation with crews in the field. So know that and there's a I'll get to it later, but there's a lot more out there behind this than just a couple of slides that I'm showing you today. Years and years went into showing that, hey, this works and if we can improve this forty five percent in any way, shape, or form, Let's do it, especially when you see and if you already if you aren't already using it, when you see how easy it is, to start implementing the energy wheel into practice.

So the next slide, this is a picture that you've seen if you've been to any energy wheel presentations over the years. But this is, an image. And again, we have forty seven people on the call. So we'll see, if anyone's willing to speak up. If not, we can just kinda pop through. But when you are taking a look at this image, can anybody point out anywhere where they see possible hazards?

So the biggest one is gravity.

Oh, look. You're already using energy. What what do you see for gravity?

Just the different components that could be, falling for welding that pipe there.

Mhmm.

Well, since we're going into energies, when you're looking at this, if you don't already know the energy wheel, do you see oh, I see someone chemical inside pipes. Awesome. That's a that's a missed one oftentimes. And the one else want to speak up?

That's okay. We don't have to. If you go to the next slide, Kevin, so This slide simply, oh, solar energy. Look at that. Someone has solar energy. You guys are in motion. Very good.

Couple of motion. Sorry, I'm reading them as we're going so that we are on the same page. You guys were just weren't as quick as I wanted you to be, I guess, my apologies.

But on this slide, you can see we pointed out all of the different hazards that are shown. So, there's the the ones that jump out at you right away. Those the gravity. Somebody said that mechanical pulley system, the craned load. But then there's some like sun exposure, an exposure to insects and animals from what I understand, a lot of you folks are, in places where there's rattlesnakes and snakes bites can be something that should be considered.

Bee stings come up. I know with some of the Canadian companies, I've heard that more than I expected to over my my time working.

The vehicles in the background, the uneven work surfaces pressure from the pipe. I think someone said that over on that far right side, you see that unsupported soil. But if you go to the next slide, each one of those that we just real quickly ran through corresponds to an unwanted energy source, chemical biological pressure, gravity, motion, and and, you know, we can get into those, as we move forward in a little bit as well. So Really, there's there's a ton in this image. My group here only got maybe like, let's say, half of them, maybe seven of them. I know we're on a call, so not everyone's willing to speak up. But the hope is how can we make it so that there's maybe seventy five percent of those instead of forty five percent of those seen prior to beginning work on this job site?

And so I like to do and again, this is something that you've seen if you've, ever talked to Matt. I think this is one of the coolest things and I love I love it. I love showing it to folks. So take a peek, read this sentence if you're at a computer, if you're driving, or hopefully you're not driving, but if you're in your car and you can't see it, don't.

Read this sentence and let me know how many f's you see.

Put it in the chat or just kind of unmute and You can say the number.

Anyone?

Three.

About too long. Five seven.

Anyone else? Six six six.

Well, now they're typing it in the chat, so it's like we know the answer.

So studies show that construction workers this the reason I should we show this. Is studies show construction workers are two times more likely to suffer serious injuries and five five times more likely to be killed on the job than the average worker. And that man, that is That is something that we have got to fix. That's a huge number. And with those statistics, researchers are exploring all the different factors that are causing this trend and one of those again is how to So that's why we have you do this little this little drill here. If you go to the next slide, the answer is six. Now Most people fail to recognize the f's in the word of.

It's it's sometimes tricky in this situation where you you have a little bit of background first but our brains are predisposed to complete the task. In this case, it was reading without recognizing all the items that are not necessarily obvious to us.

So forty two percent of incidents were actually linked, with inadequate hazard recognition.

So with this in mind, we really wanna strive toward a better better hazard recognition that reduces the number of incidents we have. So if you go to the next slide or that one. Yep. You're on the right one now. So oh, yeah.

Well, if we ask you to count the f's again, the chances are you will sec successfully count that there are nine f's this time.

You are likely looking at the whole word instead of skimming the sentence, and that's part of what we call this skill development. So when you see the entire picture as well as all the parts that make up the picture, we'll work through you you and your team, if you implement the energy wheel, you can work through different methods to help recognize potential hazards. One of those is introducing the energy wheel, which is on the next slide. So you've either seen this and you're like, yeah, this is literally the one from the paper. But or you've never seen it and you're like, this looks like a lot. So the actual energy wheel is on the right hand side, and it's simply uh-uh a pneumonic. It's an image to help facilitate something you're already doing.

So let me explain a series of lab experiments showed that regardless of culture, experience, industry, trade, etcetera, Human beings have the same tendency to focus on certain types of hazards and often are blind to other hazards.

Until they're prompted, So energy based hazard recognition involves using this energy wheel to guide pre job safety meetings and scanning of dangerous work environments. The wheel is really intended just to be used as a prompt to help kind of poke the brain to consider some hazards that maybe would otherwise go unnoticed. So You're already doing pre job safety meetings, tail boards, whatever you call them. You're doing some sort of meeting before you start a job, before you start your work day or both, in whatever case, and this is simply a tool to supplement what you're already doing.

And I like to really point that out and I've talked a lot to Dana and Kevin about this because if there's one thing we've heard, it's we don't want more checklist. We don't want more paperwork, but the energy wheel is not meant to add work it's simply meant to take what you're doing and improve it. So you go out to your site and you're starting your morning, your your meeting and you take this energy wheel and you go through gravity, motion, mechanical, electrical pressure, sound, radiation, biological, chemical, and temperature. And you go through each one of those energy sources and you look at your site and you figure out, are there any hazards that are related to all these different energy sources?

And a couple might come up that maybe wouldn't have found had you not been prompted to think about chemical or by law that day, or even temperature, some exposure, that example I showed you previously.

On the left hand side, you can see there's all the definitions, which I don't need to go through I think that most people can kind of understand what those are again. We're not really trying to deep dive into the all the all the information today we have a lot to talk about. But these are these are the energy sources. There are other energy sources, for sure, but what this processed and what the research that was done did was that did not that sentence was terrible.

What the research that was completed found was that these energy sources on the energy wheel are the ones that are the most important for us to look at in this case. So if you go to the next slide, This is a really cool, slide that just shows you the percent of hazards identified by type. Instinctively, we are really good at recognizing hazards related to gravity and motion. Those don't really require experiences to recall from.

Whereas the remaining energy sources, those take longer to see and are harder to recognize if you don't have life experiences to really see that perceived risk. For example, I have no life experiences with chemicals at all. And so when I look at that first image, my brain will never go to the are there chemical hazards in this in this case? Because I'm not predisposed to to think that.

Some folks are for sure. I see I raised hand from Andrew.

Sorry. I was just gonna ask, is is this with the energy wheel that this is the percentage identified or without this is what we predeterminely.

This is this is before.

Before.

This is just on average percent of hazards identified by type.

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Yep.

So that was during their initial field assessment.

So it, yeah, that kind of would be cool to maybe look at the difference. I don't have that data but I'm sure it exists.

But if you think about it, even that first image, the very first thing everyone looked at was motion, and and gravity usually is is right right there after. And the cool thing about this conversation today is MSDs tend to fall in the gravity motion of mechanical categories. So when we're saying, Hey, MSDs are super important too, especially with long health and long term well-being, they fall into the category of the highest identified hazards.

Not to say the others aren't important, but it's a MSDs make up a really large portion, and I think Kevin gets into those details later, but a really large portion of injuries. And so if there are also falling into the category of the most identified hazards, it seems like there should be a way to control them.

So that's what we really wanna look at today is how to focus on those and make sure we're we're taking those into consideration.

So if you go to the next one, so really this is just a summary of what we just talked about. The energy wheel, the goal is to help strengthen our hack hazard recognition efforts. It's been scientifically proven to be more effective than any traditional hazard assessment and recognition approach and those findings were also consistent regardless of work type work type and locations and demographics.

That's the one cool thing about this is it doesn't matter if you're a GC or if you're a painter in a residential project, or utility company or whatever you may be, the energy wheel can be applied and it can it was shown to be a positive outcome from implementing it. Go to the next slide.

So application, I did talk about this earlier. If you're already using the energy wheel, one thing that we really wanna start focusing on a bit here is, okay, so we know we know MSDs often fall into gravity, motion, and mechanical. But what are the common causes of MSDs and how can we create a way to make sure that those are always included? Because sometimes it's hard to include the the smaller stuff when there's much bigger stuff. The energy wheel is a great way to make sure we're not letting stuff slip through the cracks. If you're not using the energy wheel, step one would be okay let's get this energy wheel going and then from there we can kinda jump to that other step where we start making sure we're including and and focusing on some of those MSDs.

So, Jared, I don't know if you're on the call, but if you are, I am showing off all your good stuff. So this is just an example of what I have dubbed a super user of the energy wheel.

Mossech and they use energy wheel to its fullest capacity and our firm believers in it. You can see just on these examples. I think there's this slide and actually one more slide after. The energy wheel is a huge part of their their safety program.

It lives all over. So it's not just a, okay, like, put it on your hard hat as a sticker. It's a how can we really like live and breathe this because it does it is useful and it is a great tool. And again, there are there are a large organization that's shown its success.

But it can be used on Your job briefings, it can be used on signage, it can be used in letters, it can be used in reports. However, it can be implemented to really act provide, you know, true value. It's it's almost like a low hanging fruit in terms of the ease with which It can be implemented, but a high hanging fruit in terms of the awesome power that it can have on improving your safety program that already exists.

And then the next slide. So I talked for just a few minutes and the energy wheel has years and years of research with a very, very, very reputable team that created it. So there's a ton more information out there is what I'm getting to. There are virtual training sessions.

There's thirty minute short courses you can take, or there's a three hour long full course that you can, you know, have folks from your organization sit through to really get the buy in. Sometimes that's necessary. Those are awesome trainings that exist. And then the construction safety research alliance, I know there's a lot of you on the call that or a few of you at least that I I used to work with when I was at the CSRA and I realized I never mentioned that, but I worked for many years at the Construction Safety Research Alliance and oh man, do I do I love that group?

They they're so much good stuff and I actually still visit their website frequently, which I link we linked here.

There are meetings, monthly that they offer that are free and there's industry leaders worldwide that present on those. I highly recommend checking those out if you don't already. But the other cool thing is you saw all those examples that I provided from MossTech.

On the CSRA's website, there is a database full of energy wheel stuff.

There are documents, there are presentations, there are There's the energy balance Spanish. There's just tons of information. If an organization is like, hey, this really worked well for us and we wanna share it, they can upload their stuff to that site. So if you're like, I don't even know where to start, that's a good place to go and poke around.

And then there's a paper that was published more recently in professional safety journal. So if you look that one up, it's a great paper because it's it's not too heavy academic it's definitely an academic paper, but it's it's written in such a tangible way that you know people who don't have a ton of free time will be able to to bite bite into that and really kinda buy in on the whole idea of the energy wheel if they aren't already. Plus, that's where all the science is. So if you're like, I want more.

I wanna know more. Like, how is this built and how does it work? And she'll prove it to me. Right?

This is a great paper you can read.

And I think I don't know if James is on the call, but I usually I've quoted James Upton loosely quoted.

In terms of the energy wheel and the implementation of the energy wheel. And here's the big thing that that I learned from folks like him, or others that use it is It doesn't have to be a huge rollout process. You don't need months and months of of training and and tons of education and Oh, how can we it's just just use it. Printile the energy wheel one day and take it to a pre job meeting and apply it and see how it goes.

It shouldn't be something that adds a ton of a ton of effort or a ton of time or money. It should be something that you're like, okay, I stand behind this. I understand the research. I believe in it.

Now let's just start using and he said something once on the call, like, you just gotta go out there and do it. And there if I if he's on the call, then he knows that he's, you know, I'm quoting him, but, if he's not I saw him on the guest list earlier.

Anyway, I I love energy wheel. I think it's such an awesome tool. And seeing the proof and the success of it is really pretty great. So again, I just gave you like this little tiny bite.

If you wanna learn more, there's options out there. But where we are today is saying, okay, it exists. The research has been has been done. The science is behind it.

But we're still seeing enough issues with MSDs and those are really important for long term health and long term safety and know, having guys retire and still feel like they can use their bodies. Like, how can we use the energy wheel to make sure that stuff like that is not being missed. And so with that, I'm pretty sure I'm just I'll we can ask questions right now. We can take a little break or we can pass it over to Kevin and just kinda keep keep going whatever you guys want.

Katie, thank you so much. We really appreciate your perspective.

All the work that you put into that.

Again, you mentioned so many, people who have contributed and created these awesome, open source resources, the CSRA, we're so grateful for your contribution. It's it's literally transformed, the lives of probably millions of people around the world who've been able to implement this framework.

Are there any immediate questions before we jump into the next portion of the conversational?

Give it just one second.

And I see a note from Roger Hall about the a lot of the folks have been to match training, which is awesome. And I mentioned right at the beginning that, you know, I wasn't today was not a training by any means. It was a a intro to the energy wheel and the hope is that Hopefully, those folks stuck around because the second half, is really focused on stuff that is, is the mocities it's Kevin and and Dana's stuff. So hope those folks stuck around because I think that there's some really good stuff coming up here, related to MSDs more specifically and how they can be implemented in the energy wheel.

And I did see one question in the chat just asking about some follow-up resources. So we are actually gonna send out we're recording this webinar will be sending that out to everyone who provided an email, their email to register for this along with some additional resources. So We definitely will have some fall resources that we can send out, but definitely please reach out if there's anything specific that you wanna make sure that, we can get to you.

Alright. Well, I'll jump in again. Just like Katie mentioned, dialogue and conversation is always so much more powerful than just listening to someone present, but, I'm I'm grateful for this opportunity. We were first introduced to to the energy wheels several years ago.

And it just it really struck me as being such a great framework to, to positively impact people's life. A little bit of, background on myself. So I spent fifteen years working in sports medicine. I was really fortunate to work with the United States Olympic swim team as part of their sports medicine stuff, for over ten years.

This is a picture from the two thousand sixteen Olympics. So I remember when we first, met Katie a few years ago, and started working with her on some of these components.

I was so struck by that, statistic where she said, that, you know, initially people can only recognize about forty five percent of the hazards in a job site. But then once they have a little bit more knowledge that increases, by thirty percent. And so I spent most of my career living in the world of how do we optimize people, like, by one percent? Because, you know, if if I'm a professional swimmer, the chances of making it to the Olympics or not making to the Olympics is literally hundreds of a second. And so every single advantage, is important.

And so, just putting on my sports medicine hat and and thinking about how humans perform and how to optimize performance. I I definitely saw some opportunity where we could, enter this conversation and think about this integration between musculoskeletal injuries and how those, may impact hazard recognition.

So, a couple things that I'm gonna be talking about during this, is number one how do we optimize hazard recognition?

And so that, people when they're on the job, when they're present, when they're doing those pre job briefings, they can operate at their full capacity.

But number two, how do we help people become more resilient, in the process?

So that, you know, their bodies are also performing at the highest level.

I feel really strongly that, you know, we wanna avoid serious injuries and fatalities number one, a hundred percent.

But what I saw over the course of my career, because I also had a private practice where I saw a lot of people in the workforce, is I saw that musculoskeletal injuries actually could be life altering injuries.

So many people, that I saw had been injured on the job or had just lived with this mindset that you know, you should get to the end of your your career expecting to be broken down because the physical toll from, the work was hard, and that's just what you should expect and and I obviously have a very different perspective because I also saw, things that people could do to incorporate into their day ways that people could start to see their body, as an opportunity to invest in in their health. And I What I observed when I first started working with industrial athletes is that, you know, we don't give people a really good framework for how to take care of their muscle and joint health.

Most people know more about how to take care of their tools, their vehicles, or the equipment that they're, repairing than they do their own body. And so that's really again, where where I really am passionate about in terms of helping the workforce is giving them a framework for how to take care of their muscle and their joint help so that they don't have to break down.

And so why focus on, musculoskeletal pain? So MSK stands for musculoskeletal.

It's the most common and costly injury in the utility industry. So soft tissue injuries typically, consists of about forty to sixty percent of all workplace injuries in energy and utility and construction. And so it's definitely that low hanging fruit in terms of an area that we can, impact people But here's where that one percent optimization, I think it really comes into play as it relates to the energy wheel, and that relates to pain because when people are in pain, their their cognition is clouded. They can't think clearly, oftentimes when there's a lot of research that shows when people are in pain, their decision making capabilities are, limited.

People will take shortcuts because they wanna just try to get something done. We also know that people who are in pain are more irritable. And literally, they they start to go into, like tunnel vision, and they can't necessarily even see the things around us. And so if you're entering a situation where, it's a high hazard situation, and you have back pain.

The research would suggest that your ability to identify the high risk hazards is lower. And so that's where if we can give people tools and a framework, to prevent pain, create a more resilient body, that's a huge win in terms of their ability to to perform better hazard recognition. But ultimately, this also comes back to quality of life. And when people are in chronic pain, it it not only impacts them in the way that they think, but it can create depression. It can create, just less of a quality of life than they deserve. And so, really, I see an opportunity for us to have an impact by focusing on this area on the whole person, as well as the job site and the other workers who might be at risk, if hazard recognition is is not optimized.

We did a a study a couple years ago where we surveyed a hundred and twenty two linemen from two utilities And just asking them a few questions about how often they feel pain, how pain impacts their day to day activities And one of the things that was very interesting is that, we found that sixty one percent of people self reported that they experienced, musculoskeletal pain at least once a month. And the average level of pain was four out of ten on a scale. So not super high, but also not insignificant. Especially when it comes to impact and quality of life. We know that, anything that is over three can have a negative impact on the way that somebody operates and functions.

And so we've also done other studies, with different groups that were more mixed work groups. So it included, like, substation employees, gas techs, linemen, And what we found is it was several of those surveys that, had several hundred people is that the pain in some of those cases was ties eighty percent. So, I mean, the the takeaway is that we know that a majority of people are probably walking around on a daily basis with some discomfort in their body.

And the reason why that has an impact beyond just cognitive function is that pain is literally the body's, fire alarm going off saying, hey, there's something going on, there's something wrong, and you need to do something about it. But oftentimes, and we kinda live in this culture where, we just, you know, hope is our our biggest strategy oftentimes when it comes to pain, we just hope that it goes away.

We hope that the ibuprofen will will dim it. We hope that, you know, there could be a lot of different things that people do to to chase away pain. But if people are living in pain on a daily basis, what we know is that physiologically, it actually changes the health and resilience of soft tissues. And so it actually makes us, at higher risk for injuries.

And so there's this equation that we oftentimes talk about in sports medicine. Sometimes we call it, the durability equation, but basically the load if the load is greater than the capacity of the tissues or, you know, could be ligament, tendons, muscle, bone, whatever that is. If the load is greater than the capacity, it leads to an injury. And so what's interesting is there's a huge spectrum in terms of the capacity of individuals.

So for instance, take, an NFL running back. They can carry the ball twenty eight times and get tackled by a three hundred and eighty five pound defensive lineman and pop up. And, it's it's no big deal. They just do it over and over again. That's because that individual literally trains every single day to make their body more resilient, to make their body be able to bounce back quicker and handle those high loads.

I know that if I were to carry the ball probably one time, and get hit by a three hundred and eighty five pound, defensive lineman. It would probably cause a serious injury or fatality for me. I mean, it's that's incredible amount of load. And so, what we need to what we can all do, and this is that I think the the big opportunity is when we're talking about our workforce, it's how do we give them the tools, the resources, the knowledge, and the time to build capacity so that they're more resilient to injury.

And, again, the other end of the spectrum, from a capacity standpoint, as you see some people who step out of their vehicle. And when they step wrong, they term meniscus, or they're walking on a sloped bank and their Achilles pops, or they're just wrenching lightly, and their arm is in the wrong spot, and they tear biceps tendon. Like, all of those, different scenarios, I mean, those are pretty low impact, you know, examples, but what it does does give us a little bit of insight terms, the capacity of that individual to absorb that load. So, again, the opportunity here is what can we do as safety professionals as leaders within organizations to ensure that when people show up to work, we have tools and resources for them.

To help them become more resilient when it comes to injuries.

I'm gonna hit pause there and see if, there are any immediate questions.

Oh, looks like No no immediate, questions in the chat. So I'll keep going. So, identified here seven different attributes of things that we can do to either for ourselves or for our workforce, help increase capacity.

I know a lot of companies that we, have worked with or talked to, a major strategy for preventing musculoskeletal injuries is stretch and flex and, you know, proper ergonomics. And those are both super powerful but I think it's it's one part of the equation. So, number one here, physical capacity.

There are a few different attributes of how our bodies function that we wanted to cover here. So mobility is basically our ability for a joint to move through a full range of motion. For instance, if I have limited mobility in my shoulder and I do overhead work, I'm gonna twist my lower back to try to compensate to gain more motion. And that's gonna cause issues in other areas of my body. Flexibility is the ability for soft tissues to have, you know, like, the motion. So if if I go to stretch my hamstrings, that's a measure of flexibility.

Soft tissue resilience is the ability for my muscles to actually again absorb load and do that well and be able to recover so an example might be rolling out your muscles with, with a foam roller can actually increase the blood flow and the oxygen to the soft tissue, which helps it heal, but it also improves the flexibility of the muscles, which then allows the joints to move through a better range of motion. So one example of how you can incorporate, that component but then we also have balance, strength, and endurance.

And I'm a huge proponent. It's it's I mean, I would say a lot of the workforce if you talk to them about things like strength and endurance, like, man, I exercise all day long. I'm I'm moving constantly at work.

I'm a big proponent that, if we can help people move better and perform their job tasks in the right body position It's no different than lifting weights at the gym. Lifting weights at the gym is essentially putting our body in the best position and then exerting force and that's training our body to become stronger. So, I think that if we can approach work doing it the right way, It actually can make us stronger than breaking us down. And so physical capacities, number one, number two is physical preparedness. And so that's the warm up portion of maybe a work day. So that could be, like I said, a stretch and flex or some type of activity to get the body prepared for activity.

But one of the things that I noticed is that, you know, oftentimes people will do that warm up at the yard, and then they'll drive forty five minutes sitting traffic, and then everything gets shut down. And we know that within about twenty minutes of somebody being in a seated position, muscles don't fire, neurologically in the same way. And so there are things that people can do to activate, their muscles and get that brain, muscle connection firing better before they perform those job tests. The other thing too is micro breaks.

So things like, taking a break again using a foam roller on muscles, especially if you've been holding position for a long period of time, we're working in an awkward angle helps, give that tissue a chance to to relax and to recover And then I I think the greatest opportunity, that people have is recovery at the end of the day. And so that again, could look like stretching at the end of the day, the hydration, nutrition, sleep, all those different things that allow the body to recover And, you know, every athlete will tell you that recovery is more important than training. If you aren't recovering, your body starts to fall into a breakdown mode.

So Again, helping people have the tools, resources, and the knowledge so that when they do get home, they can start to incorporate things that are gonna prepare them for the next day, is really, really important.

Number three is a discomfort management, and this is, again, that low hanging fruit.

One of the things that I observed is that is that with physical discomfort, a lot of people just don't even know where to start when it comes to, dealing with tension, tightness, pain, things like that. And so if people have that framework for how to deal with things when it's just, an irritation, they can oftentimes prevent it from turning into something bigger. And so again, going back to the energy wheel, This is one of the greatest opportunities. If people can recognize maybe they're a stiffer store, that's gonna heighten their awareness of, you know, the situation in front of them if they can deal with pain, that's gonna allow them to be more present when they're at work. And so, again, giving people those tools and resources, I think is really, really important, especially when goes back to this whole energy wheel and hazard air condition.

Again, body mechanics, number four, is putting your body in the right position when you're performing tasks so you can leverage your strength.

It also, again, goes back to some of those high energy tasks. Katie mentioned that, motion in mechanics and gravity are all significant factors that can lead to serious injuries and fatalities. And so having that as part of your mindset also will allow you to best position your body when you're performing those job tasks in anticipate the risks that might be associated with it.

Number five is, mental stress management. So, again, recognizing and addressing mental stressors and I've been so impressed with, the construction and utility industry, identifying just how prevalent, mental issues are the stress, that comes along with the work and things outside of work that, are entering people's mind. And so there have been so many resources that I've seen offered to employees, so that they have that support. And so, again, something that I think that there's still opportunity, but it's been really encouraging to see this be something that's talked about. I was just at American Clean Power Operations and maintenance and safety conference, two weeks ago at San Diego, and three of the lectures just focused on this aspect. So, again, a lot of work to be done, but, super encouraging. And again, this this all goes back to that hazard recognition as well.

And then getting down to the last two here. So fatigue management, awareness and recognition of fatigue. Is absolutely critical as well. Because, again, when we're fatigued, our heads not in the game, we can't make those critical decisions identify the risks.

And we also know that the body actually doesn't function as well when we're fatigued. If you look at the signs of when the most injuries happen in sport, it's usually the fourth quarter. It's it into the game when muscles are fatigued, and we start to, have it, decline in our coordination, in our strength. And so just being aware of that and providing, resources for your team members to if they do recognize that they are fatigued and they need rest being able to take, take that break because that will, definitely protect them. And then finally, the the last component is hydration and nutrition preparedness. So, we know that if there's even a two percent decline, in, or two percent of dehydration, cognitive performance, stress to decline. And so again, people will make less sound decisions, they'll become irritated.

Same thing if people are hungry.

So all these things, again, ladder up to the individual having that, that state of optimization where they're fit to be able to perform that job. And, man, if we can get people from going from forty five percent of the hazards recognized to seventy five percent, and then maybe ninety percent that that could be huge and it could really, impact people. So this is an area that, I know that we're really hoping that we can continue to contribute to the larger conversation, provide more perspective and resources, that would help companies and and people actually be able to implement some of these components into their safety program.

Any questions about any of these seven factors before I wrap things up here.

Alright.

Let's go ahead and talk about, some action steps that people can do. I know that those seven things, it's hard to to consume all that. And it's like, wow, that's so much information.

So the way that I think sometimes it is helpful to to bucket this just so that it's more consumable is just thinking about first bucket being in Movement Health. What are we doing to give people the tools, that are gonna really help create that durability within the individual's body. Number two, how can we think about the biome mechanics and ergonomics that are gonna put that individual in the safest position? Also help them become stronger during the day versus, breaking down. And then what are the things from a performance optimization, the recovery, the sleep, the nutrition, the hydration, they're again gonna help support those people. And these this approach really is a holistic approach that will, I think, address some of those major concerns.

So, one of the things that we've worked with doctor welfare on, as it relates to SIP prevention and working with some of our customers that leverage the energy wheel, talking about MSD injury prevention programs is that, there's research actually supports three major, attributes to any type of, initiative that would be focused on trying to drive down these type of injuries And so number one is that upper management is engaged.

And, I think you all have probably had experiences where you've seen the impact when, you know, that upper management is saying that this isn't just a a priority. It's it's a value. It's it's what we do, and we're gonna incorporate this. And I know Katie talked about Nasdaq and the way that they have embraced us and incorporated that into their infrastructure.

Like, the people who work, at a place like that, just by showing up to work, they have this framework that's gonna help them be more accessible and safe for on a daily basis. And so that upper management is key. Number two is that it's embedded into the workday and so that it's it's easy to perform. Like, someone who, goes to job site, they don't even have to really think about it because it's just part of the way that that work is done.

And so I'll give some examples on this next side of how how we've seen best practices in really successful companies. Embed things into their work day. And number threes that new hires are onboarded, to the initiative, whatever that is. And so that, again, the first experience that somebody has is, that this is how we, identify higher hazard risks.

This is the framework that we use. And this is how we invest in taking care of people's bodies.

And again, if that's the first expir exposure somebody has, The research shows that they start to fall into those habits and start to adopt that way better than if they're thirty, sixty, ninety days into their position, and these concepts are just being introduced to them.

So integration into the normal workflow, some ideas that, again, are supported by research, and there are definitely best practices.

Our pre job briefings and tail wards is really that low hanging fruit. It's an opportunity people are together, there's a conversation that's happening, and it it allows, this discussion of, these high energy hazards to be assessed. I know that, Doctor. Hallwell and many other people at the EI, they've talked a lot about tech model and being able to, have a framework for identifying and quantifying those high energy hazards. So, again, some opportunity there to actually be able to incorporate those concepts into the day.

Again, from more from my perspective from an MSD, perspective, just thinking about how our movement health action steps being embedded into that pre job briefing. So, you know, are people preparing their body for activity? Are they discussing the duration of the job and when they're gonna take micro breaks to give themselves rest, maybe having a conversation of are you actually fit to to be able to do that job today? Are stress levels, you know, being evaluated so that again, we can make sure that everybody's heads are in the game. Their bodies are ready to perform and they're ready to go.

Also talking about body mechanic and ergonomic that might be present with the job so that people can be thoughtful as they go through that. And then thinking about the performance optimization aspects, if you're working in heat, How are we not just gonna hydrate with water? But, you know, maybe we need to actually supplement with, some electrolytes, so that we can actually taken that that those fluids and give our, body what it needs. So lots of opportunity, especially during pre job briefing in the tail board to incorporate some of these concepts.

So last slide here, just talking about other factors in just kind of this key takeaway is that it really comes down to consistency and how you incorporate, a SIF injury prevention program, the energy wheel, MSD injury prevention into your day. So number one, provide those resilience building activities, integrate them into the workday. If you have something like that in place. What it's gonna do is it's gonna allow the workforce to have less discomfort, less pain, be more optimized form their job task and then continue to embed, continued learning and hazard recognition, training into your, routine.

Even just pulling some of the things that Doctor. Walter, covered today. I I remember the first time that, she showed us the slides about counting the f's and just being more cognizant, and then being able to actually see, how many f's were actually there after I'd done it, the first time. And so again, those little exercises can be really impactful when it comes to just people being more aware of the risks that exist.

So with that, we'll wrap things up and open it up for questions and answers. Again, before, before we do that, I just wanna let everyone know that we're incredibly grateful for, the important work that you do to keep the workforce healthy and safe. Thank you for doctor welfare for her contribution to the conversation today. So turn it over for a question and answer.

Hello. This is Carolyn. Hi. Can you hear me?

Yeah. We can.

Okay. Hey, so when I saw this, I initially thought that there was some going to be some link between the hazard wheel and how we can use it to help identify the opportunities for, musculoskeletal disorder. But it's not really that at so much as it's, using the hazard wheel to bench off the opportunity to identify people's own physical capabilities and incorporating movement.

Is that am I getting that correct?

Yeah. For sure, Carol. And I think the other key component is just realizing that majority of the workforce is in pain on a regular basis. And so being able to provide them with the tools, resources, that are gonna help them experience less discomfort.

Cognitively think better. It's gonna improve their hazard recognition skills when they're utilizing the energy wheel on a day to day basis. So, really, the performance aspect is improving the way the workforce functions so that they can better identify the risks and be safer and have essentially greater capacity when they're performing their jobs.

No, no, that was helpful. Yeah, I was having a hard time putting the two together. So thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for that question, Carolyn.

I think that one thing too, Carolyn, Kevin and I talked about that a lot as well. Like, how do we connect this? And I think this is the beginning of that conversation too. You know, we wanna make sure that we're we're on the forefront of this conversation and that's the hope is is having meeting webinars like this and discussions like this saying, Hey, the energy wheel exists. It already is a thing But we also are not seeing this issue with MSDs. So how can we incorporate these as well on a daily basis?

So I I think that you're right in that it's not obvious because it's still something that's continuing to evolve and it always it always really will. But it's work I think that's part of it because we we had a similar conversation ourselves.

It looks like Wendy has her head up.

I do. Thank you. That my question comment was really around the same kind of topic. We are increasingly moving towards using the energy wheel. And I struggle with finding the right examples, where MSD or ergonomic related hazards, could be identified using the wheel. I feel like some of them, especially the more settled ones get lost.

And then my other concern, and this is in terms of prioritizing ergonomics in the organization is as we go to the energy wheel, we're we're losing some of those subtle MST triggers.

And we're also moving towards, focusing on sticky hazards, which is stuff that can kill you And I get that. Right? I I I get that. That's the most important thing to to focus on, but I fear that as a result, we will lose what momentum we have, looking at MSD hazards.

I wondered if you had comments on that.

Sure, Katie. Do you wanna, start off?

You go for it.

Okay.

I feel like we have more to say on that.

But I can totally tag on whatever we're Yeah.

Wendy, I think that brings up such a good point because you're exactly right. The sticky, situations. I mean, ultimately, that's what we have to focus on.

So what I'm grateful for conversation and just even to kick it off. I think all of us are exploring how do these fit together? And it's it's saying that you know, those are definitely the top priority, but if we know that forty to sixty percent of, you know, all injuries that happened, relate to musculoskeletal injuries, how do we not lose sight of that aspect and that risk?

How do when we're assessing a situation, If we identify a mechanical or gravitational, or motion type hazard, how are we saying, you know, maybe that's a situation where it's a hazard that, you know, lower risk for serious injury, but a higher risk for an ergonomic incident do we point that as part of the conversation? So, again, I think it's it's it all comes down to the intention of the conversation. If you're looking at a situation only for serious injuries and fatalities, but you're not also thinking in terms of, like, you know, how is this gonna also, you know, potentially have the risk of creating, soft tissue injury.

And I think Yeah. One thing that I'll I'll comments on brief. They know we're running out of time, but, I've been in in a lot of discussions around the energy wheel and sticky and sift and pieces and all all the things. And one thing that I feel like I never really heard until I started working with these folks is, you know, it's one thing to prevent the sticky event that's happening that could kill you today. But when someone is fifty years old and they retire or sixty years old and they've been in this industry for so long, they've just been ignoring these kind of MSD types issues.

We're that's still a problem. They they shouldn't be debilitated because of that. So it's it was like kind of a mindset shift even for me of It's not just the stuff like right now, but it's like how does that look long term? And so that's like kind of what pulled me in at the very beginning was These are a bigger deal because it's not just a today. It's not just a broken arm today. It's like what what does that look like in the future? Are are a strained muscle or torn up knee or whatever it is.

But really focusing on those MSDs, as being more significant, not just now but in the future. And that kinda made it more. It's still not a sticky event by any means, but it's something that should really be considered for the the these folks well-being and their long term health.

So it's it's not a I can't you can't pick one or the other. It's all it all matters. So it's I I know where you're coming from and I I feel like you're doing all the right things and our hope is just that we can make sure we're not, leaving out stuff that still matters, particularly down the road.

So I'll just add then to I think that the the key there is to make it a business proposition. I mean, we we can't approach it with our workplace and expect them it to have the same level of scrutiny and attention if there's not a business driver. So employee health and well-being It's great. Everybody says that's what they want.

I know.

It used to be a business value as well.

And we can get that if we look at our long term injury and disability numbers and and the amount of money we spend on those things as as organizations.

Yeah. Definitely. And I think actually, the CSRA that I mentioned earlier as a project they're doing on, like, safety return on investment. So that might be one that you could be interested in, in particular. I haven't actually seen what they've got other up to on it, but I know it should be good.

That's a great conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. I know. Curtis, I I know yeah. I know we're at time. We can hang on for a few more minutes if if people, have additional questions.

But if you need to drop, obviously, no problem at all, we're really grateful free to stop by today. Curtis.

Yeah. I just had a a quick question. So you listed, strength and resilience and endurance in the physical capacity, component or prepared us. And I was just curious, is that gonna be something that, Bemosi is gonna focus more on in the future on so maybe some strength training opportunities.

Yeah. That definitely is part of the our, our focus in the future because it is a critical component, and people just need to understand again how can they even just leverage their daily activities that they're doing to build strength and endurance? Again, so much of it is intention. There's a fascinating study that showed that, it was actually, people who clean hotel rooms, and they looked at that population, and and they told one group if they, to have the intention that when they do their work, they're actually exercising. And what they found is that the group that they told that their work was exercised versus the group that they didn't tell that. The group that, perceived what they're doing as exercise actually over time had reduced, they reduced their body mass index. They reduced their, hypotension.

Just by again, the intention that I was over about a twelve week period. And so it's powerful how people just reframing what they're doing. Can impact that. But, yeah, definitely our our our program in the future will will focus on those components as well.

Thank you.

Any other questions before we wrap it up?

Again, thank you so much for joining today.

We will be sending you a recording and some additional resources. And if you have any other questions or comments or if there are other things from the presentation that you wanna make sure that, you walk step away from, definitely don't hesitate to reach out for many of us. But, again, thank you very much, and we look forward to to doing this again soon.