Designing for the Worker Who Has Seen Everything: An Ergonomics Framework for the Aging Manufacturing Workforce and the Risk Manager’s Role in Retention, Injury Prevention, and Total Cost of Risk

Kimberly Long Holt

doi:10.55927/fjsr.v5i4.13

Authors

Kimberly Long Holt Health and Safety Concepts – Environmental Health & Safety

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.55927/fjsr.v5i4.13

Keywords:

Aging Workforce, Ergonomics, Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD), Total Cost of Risk (TCOR), Workers’ Compensation

Abstract

The manufacturing workforce is also aging rapidly in the United States, where the labor force of workers between 50 and older is projected to occupy about half the industry workforce by 2030. The measurable hazard of this demographic shift is that musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) become three to four times more costly to claim when a worker is over the age of 55 years. The present paper provides an ARM harmonized framework on proactive ergonomic investment in the aging factory workforce, discussing the physiological alterations and their part in task design, provides a six-domain system of ergonomic design principles of the 50+ worker, and evaluates the financial argument through the Total Cost of Risk (TCOR) technique. Research results have shown that the ergonomic absorption will achieve a direct-cost ROI of more than 7,500% into the 55-64 age group - one of the most compelling investment cases in the occupational health and safety portfolio.

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