Applied Behavioral Analysis - The Ergonomic Injury Firewall

Before we briefly delve into this two part topic of Applied Behavioral Analysis and Positive Reinforcement, we highly recommend an article in the Harvard Business Review from last year which applies to the second half of this article.  You can read it here.

Part One: Where is this firewall and how can I use it?

Let's clinically bring the question of active desktop micro-break reinforcement closer to home and explore it through a brief analogous discussion. 

Hypothetically, you're about to buy a car and you have a loved one who will use it often.  You plan to have your loved one watch a training video about wearing seat belts because, after all, it's proven to be among the top risk factors for automobile-related injury.

You have two choices of cars at this point to illustrate this example:

  1. Purchase the car without an active seatbelt reminder indicator.

  2. Purchase the car with an active seatbelt reminder indicator.
 

* An active seatbelt reminder system employs a point-of-use    visual and/or audio cue for people travelling in cars, reminding    them to use their seatbelts.

Which car would you purchase?

Thanks to the well-understood science of Applied Behavioral Analysis, you will not be able to find a car to purchase today or even within the last 10 years that doesn't have an active seatbelt reminder indicator installed because they are required standard equipment, for good reason.

Prior to the active seatbelt reminder systems, people were just told in classroom driver training and online courses to buckle up their seatbelts.

The answer of which car to purchase is obvious because human beings cannot learn and adopt a new long-term rhythmic behavior modification just from watching a training video or otherwise just being told to do something.  Instead, we only learn to attain such rhythmic behaviors through repetitive positive reinforcement often with the aid of select simple tools.
 

Music students and practitioners will easily recognize this well-known rhythmic behavior conditioning tool.  The Metronome has been successfully used and found effective since 1815.

Let's return our focus to micro-breaks and computer users. 

For 40 years, Ergonomists and Human Factors experts studied computer related injuries and knowledge-worker productivity. The two major risk areas have been identified – pacing and posture.

We need to take a step back from the trees here to fully appreciate the forest where, eventually, U.S. states, countries and the EU have published regulations and guidelines on computer pacing and posture.  Why?

Eventually, equipment manufacturers glued remarkably discreet and unobtrusive warning labels onto their products, and warn users to take micro-breaks in their manuals.  Why?

What is among the top recommendations, based on widespread knowledge?  “Take frequent short breaks: stand up, carefully stretch, or walk around.”

Fortunately, everyone including even children can easily learn to take brief micro-breaks while using the computer, if they have the proper tool.

You have a choice today as you're reading this. You can believe that the world might be wrong and try to duplicate for yourself all of the experts' research, studies and collective peer-reviewed conclusions - OR you can smartly leverage their good work.

The next logical question now comes to mind.  If it's common, data-supported and well-established knowledge that micro-breaks are a major factor in reducing fatigue, discomfort and increasing productivity, then how do you effectively employ them and finally realize their value?

A logical new question is raised.  Is it enough to tell someone to take breaks in a training video?  What about making them watch it 10 times?  Applied Behavioral Science confirms that you still will not evoke a sustainable long term rhythmic behavior modification from those earnest efforts.

Applied Behavioral Analysis and Positive Reinforcement

Applied Behavioral Analysis is a science that involves using well-established modern behavioral learning theory to modify behaviors. 

Reinforcement is the most important principle of behavior and a key element of most behavior change programs.  It is the process by which behavior is strengthened, if a behavior is followed closely in time by a stimulus and this results in an increase in the future frequency of that behavior. The addition of a stimulus following an event that serves as a reinforcer is termed positive reinforcement.

ErgoSuite Enterprise has been very carefully designed specifically with these critical facts in mind.

Taking Micro-breaks is a Desired Operant Behavior 

An Operant Behavior is one which is selected for its consequences.  It's well-established that the successful conditioning of operant behavior is the direct result of positive reinforcement or punishment. 
 

Behavior modification driven by punishment is not the way of successful organizations.

Since we're not seeking to increase employee stress through punishment, we can successfully accomplish our objectives with positive reinforcement.  This is commonly known as Operant Conditioning.

Decades of research has clearly established that desirable behaviors such as knowledge-worker micro-breaking are only learned through repetitive positive reinforcement.

Part Two:  How is this untapped value typically mined by an Organization?

Today's Global Economy  

More so than ever before in the history of free markets, competitiveness and expenditure containment are at the top of every organization's priorities. 

We are all learning to do more with less as the Darwinian alternative is being unemployed.

Many people, unfortunately, remain "the machinery of momentum".  They simply continue whatever was done in the past within their organizations.  Within that venue, positive change is elusive.

Are you a Change Agent?  

You are probably a Change Agent if you're reading this article.  We have the utmost respect for you as you're the type of professional who improves their organization.

In business, a change agent is someone who alters human capability or organizational systems to achieve a higher degree of output, self actualization, greater efficiencies and lower expenditures.

Perhaps you might have had some "risk" here maybe 15 years ago, however, today you can safely walk in the footsteps of giants and leverage all of their good work in proving out how well ErgoSuite Enterprise performs.

Human beings are creatures of habit even within the most highly trained professional and political realms.  Often, even solid sound business opportunities are unnecessarily delayed as people are slow to embrace change. 

To some, change is "uncomfortable" and "work", but that's not in "your" makeup as a change agent.

To create positive change you must take action. 

To effectively and successfully employ micro-breaks and create positive change through reducing your healthcare utilization, injury rates/costs, discomfort rates and increasing productivity levels for knowledge workers you must actively reinforce micro-breaks at the point of use - the desktop.

In view of the research, preponderance of data, global regulatory actions and successful steps of the Early Adopters, the truth becomes self-evident.

Over 84% of our champions at our clients are change agents in some respect or another and have realized enormous savings for their organizations and now easily gather, analyze, report on and manage computer-use enterprise-wide with de minimus effort.

The other 16% of our clients were possibly being pressed by their CEO, CFO, CIO or manager who heard from a peer in another company how well they did with our platform in terms of reducing expenditures and adding quantifiable value to their organization from productivity improvement. 

That other 16%, who were also successful like the 84%, encountered some serendipity in happening upon our website because we do not advertise aside from alerting web seekers to our website via AdWords.  We do not promote ourselves at trade shows nor pay people to write how good we and our tools are.  This is our choice as regular people, just like you, who have a solid value to share with others.  We respect you and take great pride in growing organically one unsolicited client referral at a time.

If all you have is a mountain of work to do and no bandwidth to further improve your organization, it's easy to be resistant to change. 

But if you can tap into some leadership energy, then hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for your organization for years to come.

A successful organization does not have just one single leader but, in fact, has many leaders throughout it's ranks.

At the end of the day, you can employ a very powerful lever for change - ErgoSuite Enterprise.  With that lever, you will bring significant measurable positive change to your organization.

In order to do so, however, we need to embrace the "way of the change agent" and take action, today.

Where Do I Go From Here?  

If your targeted destination is reducing your healthcare utilization, injury rates/costs, discomfort rates and increasing productivity levels for knowledge workers, well the road has been paved and you can now simply travel it.

This effort of reinforcing micro-breaks will only be as complicated as you allow a vendor to make it.  You have a choice of if you want your employees to spend their time distracted in some complicated ergonomic software tool rather than do their work, or do you want employees to do their work with a less-is-more gentle yet effective ergonomics tool always within reach and always supporting their positive long term behavior modifications and the best practices of your organization.

The purest and most effective practice is to very simply reinforce micro-breaks at the point of use - actively at the desktop.  There is no panacea suggested here as there are other areas of office ergonomic to address, obviously including good posture, however, ErgoSuite Enterprise deeply addresses posture also.

The simplest and easiest course of action is inaction, however, we're here for you with a time-tested proven platform and ready to embrace your call to action. This is what we do.  This is all we do and, without exception, we love what we do for clients and their employees.

We've travelled this road with many clients from the very small up to our very large Fortune 100 over the years.  We are ready to assist, shoulder-to-shoulder with you every step of the way.  For us, it's not difficult nor rocket-science and we'll bring our unmatched experience to you to plan and execute together a very successful project. 

It's much easier than you may think, when you have the right partner and the right tools.  Our success begins with your success.

Join our successful clients, including many who have been with us for more than a decade. From the Fortune 100 to local companies with less than 100 employees, find out why our time-tested proven platform works so well.

Call us today.