Streamlining ergonomic assessment of nonrepetitive workplaces

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) pose a substantial burden in nonrepetitive jobs such as construction. However, identifying the principal sources of ergonomic risk is challenging because of the wide scope of tasks that the assessor must analyse. Existing assessment methods in these workplaces are either cumbersome or rely on approximation. This study proposes a worker feedback elicitation mechanism to suggest a smaller scope for high-risk problem activities. The five-step template consists of short focus groups and surveys and is designed to be flexible, comprehensive, simple, and replicable. The template was deployed among 11 construction crews across five employers and validated along four quality dimensions: predictive validity, effectiveness, test-retest reliability, and intra-rater reliability. Workers were able to consistently identify activities with elevated ergonomic risk, but not necessarily in the same order as the control method, and were able to reduce the number of activities that merit further investigation by 60%.