Ergo mats, also known as anti-fatigue mats, are designed to achieve two things: eliminate slip, trip and fall hazards, and provide ergonomic support for employees who stand long hours. If your ergo mats are the wrong shape and size, they may be causing both.
Custom ergo mats designed to fit – not box store mats made to limited rectangular sizes – are one solution that can answer both of these safety challenges.
Here are 5 ways custom ergo mats reduce workplace injuries:
1. Eliminates trip hazards from pieced-together mats
40% of safety and production leaders say “having to piece together rectangular mats” to cover complex layouts is one of their main challenges with ergo mats. Disconnected mats are ‘out on an island,’ making them more likely to slide, the gaps create trip hazards, and the collective group of pieces lead to inconsistent thicknesses, surfaces and life expectancies.
Below are 3 uses cases showing the issues AcroMat clients faced as a result of pieced-together mats, followed by the benefits they experienced after custom-designing ergo mats to fit.
TruStile Doors was hand-cutting rolls of mat and piecing them together to fill individual work areas. An operator tripped over one of the gaps, rolled her ankle, and missed 12 days of work. According to the EHS Manager, replacing the pieced-together mats with custom mats for the entire facility cost less than this single injury.
The Toro Company previously had 5 rectangular mats covering an area. After an employee tripped and broke his wrist on one of the overlapping borders, they designed a single mat to fit. 20-degree yellow borders now highlight entry/exit points for awareness, the material is NFSI Certified for high traction, and the nitrile rubber foam reduces fall impacts by 70%.
Andersen Windows was dealing with “rock hard” modular tiles that had to be pieced together, kept coming apart at the seams, and were limited to 90-degree configuration. Replacing the tiles with custom anti-fatigue mats design to fit improved comfort for employees and eliminated the trip hazards caused by peeling apart seams and curling borders.
The main reason many settle for a pieced-together approach is because they don’t realize customizing is an option. With AcroMat, you (or we) can design one-piece ergo mats to any size, shape and features in minutes with our online mat building tool, AcroSketch.
2. Eliminates slide-related injury risks
1 in 5 safety and production leaders are dealing with ergo mats that slide around – a clear and present safety hazard. The average slip and fall injury claim? $50,000 and 12 missed workdays.
Custom designing ergo mats to fit your workstations like a glove is one way to permanently eliminate slide-related injury risks. Simply stated, when the mat is designed precisely to fit, it has nowhere to slide.
EHS Specialist Amanda Eskew shares how custom ergo mats, and adding AcroMat’s non-slip coating, Grip-R, has made sure her mats “haven’t budged an inch” after a year of 24/7 use.
3. Increases spatial awareness
In addition to shape and size, customization gives you the ability to design the safety features you need into your ergo mats. For example, yellow safety borders to spotlight entry/exit points, built-in mat channels to seamlessly cover cords and cables, or different colors to spotlight elevation changes.
This windows manufacturer designed yellow sections into their custom mats to highlight elevation changes, letting employees know to step carefully.
In partnership with AcroMat, the windows manufacturer above designed sections of yellow into their custom mats to highlight elevation changes over cable covers. Rather than simply laying black mats over top and hoping employees recognize the change in elevation (and don’t trip), they designed yellow sections into every area that is raised even slightly off the flat ground.
Now, employees are immediately aware an elevation change is coming. They know to tread lightly and can continue to focus on the work without fear over their next step.
4. Prevents edge-standing
Pure nitrile anti-fatigue mats – what we use to make our 100-Series mats here at AcroMat, have proven to reduce pain and discomfort by as much as 50% compared to hard surfaces. Yet, even the best mats will increase pain and discomfort if they’re the wrong size.
One common example of pain increases is edge-standing or half on/half off standing. When mats are too small or unable to be custom-designed to fit, employees will often stand on the edge of the mat to do their jobs.
“Standing with only half the foot in contact with the mat promotes a non-neutral ankle posture that would be similar to standing on high heels,” says Ergonomist Mike Janak.
Two ergonomists share the impact of edge-standing:
"Standing with half the foot in contact with the mat promotes a non-neutral ankle posture similar to standing on high heels," says Mike Janak, Ergonomist with ErgoFactor. "If the standing posture is static, and the worker stands at the edge of the mat for prolonged periods without moving, then the non-neutral ankle posture may result in musculoskeletal (MSD) injury."
"From a musculoskeletal perspective, this can increase tarsal/metatarsal joint issues – where the foot bones meet the toe bones at the ball of the foot," says Mary Plehal, Ergonomist and Owner of OptimaEHS.
Customization allows you to prevent edge-standing by designing your mats to slide under machinery and around table legs; quite literally anywhere employees need them to keep the entirely of their feet firmly on the mats.
5. Prevents frequent on/off stepping
When anti-fatigue mats are too small or the wrong size, the result is constant on/off stepping. Similar to edge-standing, constant on/off stepping diminishes the anti-fatigue mat benefit.
“While stepping on/off might seem inconsequential, in increases the risk of slips, trips and falls, even cuts, punctures and scrapes as employees move quickly across their work cells and stumble over the edges,” says Mary. “It can also contribute to ankle, knee or hip/low back fatigue if the on/off stepping occurs and a higher frequency – say 50-100 times a shift.”
The ability to custom-design your mats to fit a complex layout prevents any risk of on/off stepping and, in turn, reduces the risk of related tripping and MSD injuries.
Custom design with peninsula-like cutouts prevents both edge-standing and on-off stepping for this Uponor machine operator.
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Workstations come in all shapes and sizes.
To maximize ergonomic impact and prevent unnecessary slip, trip and fall hazards, your anti-fatigue mats should too.