How to prevent overuse injuries on the job and promote workplace wellness
CLIENT: UNITED AIRLINES
Goal
Help United Airlines combat overexertion injuries for their ramp operations team and provide better movement practices for a healthier workforce.
Outcome
Live Better produced a full “warm-up for work” stretching routine video, three site-specific mobility exercise routine videos for common workplace injuries, we held on-site education days to conduct live stretch classes for ramp operations’ employees as well as Safety administrators.
Overview
A Boeing 737-800 (as an example) holds 166 people. For illustration, let’s say 75% of the passengers on the flight check a bag, and each bag weighs 50lbs. That’s a total weight of 6,225lbs of luggage moved per flight! For the ramp operations team at United, that adds up to millions of pounds of luggage moved per year.
Nearly half of the injuries listed for United occurred in the first three hours of a shift. This gave us perspective on where to start – the “warm up.”
The Challenges
First, Live Better first noted the inherent challenges that exist in the ramp operations environment:
- Dynamic environment
- Uneven, variably weighted bags
- Weather – daily changes, moment to moment weather patterns, surface conditions
- Workflow – IRROPS (Go-Stop-Go)
- Repetitive, high exertion movement
Second, Live Better started with the “industrial athlete” in mind — our team shadowed the IAH airport operations teams across their working environments to see what constraints existed (low ceilings, tough to reach areas, high heat, etc.).
Then, we moved to design better movement practices to reduce injury risk and promote wellness outside of work.
The Live Better Solution
As a result, United asked Live Better to produce mobility related stretches for three key locations:
- Bag Room
- Tarmac
- Plane Cargo Hold
The Results
Overall, our delivery goals were simple: Help the ramp operations team better prepare and recover from the physical demands of their job to remain pain-free and healthier.
Moreover, the result was the delivery of high quality stretch and movement videos to complement their SMART movement training practice for each of the three key working environments, a full warm-up routine video to be completed before each work shift (to combat early onset injuries), and on-site classes Live Better conducted during site visits to IAH.
In short, the videos were created in the bag room, on the tarmac, and inside the cargo hold wearing proper safety gear to demonstrate real-time application for each stretch and movement practice.
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