Prevention of
Overuse Injury
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The following guide is intended to assist managers,
supervisors and operators in preventing occupational overuse
syndrome. Managers, supervisors and operators
should work together to establish systems of work which include:
- a limit of 4-5 hours total keyboard work per day;
- a limit of 50 minutes continuous keyboard work before
a break of 10-15 minutes on other duties. More frequent
shorter breaks may be desirable for some people;
- the avoidance of unnecessary deadlines;
- the organisation of reasonable deadlines;
- the sharing of inevitable 'rush' work among operators
in the same or adjacent work units. Overloading the best
workers should be avoided;
- job design which enables the use of various skills rather
than restricting work activities to screen based equipment;
and
- the avoidance of a situation where an operator is overloaded
when one or more other operators in the work unit are absent
for any reason. Consideration should be given to rescheduling
the work and, if necessary, to the employment of temporary
staff.
It is local management's responsibility to ensure that safe
working procedures incorporate these guidelines where reasonably
practicable.
In those areas where work currently provided is of a restricted
or specialised nature (for example, administrative
data processing entry), jobs may need to be redesigned. Assistance
in this area may be obtained from the Occupational Health
and Safety Unit of the Human Resources Division.
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Updated: April 2007
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