Beyond ergonomics

Teleworker safety is typically associated with ergonomics – positioning equipment and furniture properly to avoid repetitive stress ailments and all that. But in her research, Susan Harrington is addressing an array of home office health safety issues we don’t think much about – like fire and electrical safety, and home air quality.

Teleworker safety is typically associated with ergonomics –  positioning equipment and furniture properly to avoid repetitive stress ailments and all that. But in her research, Susan Harrington is addressing an array of home office health safety issues we don’t think much about – like fire and electrical safety, and home air quality.

A fire protection engineer who formerly designed sprinklers and fire alarm systems for the General Services Administration, Harrington and her software-developer husband formed a company that develops safety training software. In 2000, while developing fire safety training software for nursing home staff, home office safety caught her attention when OSHA flip-flopped on whether companies are liable for teleworkers’ safety.  

“Most companies just provide a checklist of things to do,” Harrington says. “But unless you change people’s attitudes, they just write it off.”

So with a grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Harrington launched a home office safety study and training program. Phase 1 involved creating an ergonomic training program on CD-ROM piloted with 102 teleworkers. Phase 2, underway now, involves creating six training modules that will be piloted by  several thousand teleworkers.  

At the outset of the first pilot, 75% of participants said they’d never thought about ergonomics, and only 14% had had telework safety training. Yet 44% said they felt discomfort while working, whether it be pain in neck, shoulders, arms, sore eyes or wrists. After training, 100% said they would evaluate their home offices and make necessary changes.

“A lot of this is about making people more comfortable so they can be more productive,” Harrington says.  

For Phase 2, Harrington is developing training modules for fire safety, electrical safety, indoor air quality, accident, theft and disaster planning, and the safety roles and responsibilities for managers.  She’ll launch a small pilot in the spring of 2005, then launch a big test with several thousand teleworkers next June.

Harrington’s research has her talking to fire marshals. While they cite instances of home office fires caused by overloaded circuits, such fires aren’t reported because the “home office” isn’t a room specifically designated by fire codes. For electrical safety, she’s developing a power assessment tool that helps teleworkers determine the amount of power each office device draws, information they can use to readjust the load on various circuits.  

“It’s all about awareness,” Harrington says. “With me, I would always start cooking lunch in the kitchen, then the phone would ring and I’d burn something. Now I set timers to make sure I don’t forget.” 

If you want to participate in Harrington’s pilot and gain free safety training, write her at susan@hsainc.net. She also promises to share many more of her safety training tips for a future column.