Making ergonomics fun and purposeful can have a great positive impact in a workplace. San Francisco is a beautiful city that has a lot of high technology and gaming technology in production. Ergonomics itself can be more engaging if gamified! Wellness a lot of times will utilize this but this is often left out when it comes to environmental health and safety efforts. Ergonomics in the workplace has a great deal to do with culture. Think Pokemon Go! and how it swept the world with a game that gamified walking, a very healthy habit. It got the most sedentary people out and about putting in more steps than ever before. In the same fashion, ergonomics can be a part of challenges and achievements to which one is rewarded with prizes. These prizes can be in the form of recognition, monetary, or just popularity! By creating a social game around company ergonomics, it sets a positive safety culture and improves workplace connections and builds education in a very fun way. Challenges can be around standing and working, taking breaks, performing self-education modules, etc. In order to implement the most appropriate ergonomics game system, you can get assistance from a company such as Ergobility that has ergonomic specialists that can build out an ergonomics training program around a social game to increase the odds of employee engagement. One such example that Ergobility performed was for a healthcare facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. This program offered employees points and badges to individuals that perform any of the following ergonomics related wellness:

1. Taking stretch breaks using a stretching break program.
2. Performing their assigned self-assessment ergonomics module of their computer workstation assigned to them.
3. Completing their equipment needs assessment module assigned to them.
4. Participation in one of the group ergonomics presentations offered quarterly.

This ergonomics program was a huge hit, and many employees created teams which won prizes such as gift cards and company merch. The awards were advertised across site to further enhance engagement and ergonomics across the organization. So, the message here is that many programs outside of general wellness can also be gamified. Applications can further help make this most accessible. To start a program yourself, ensure you that you have the right sponsors and stakeholders to support the effort and map out your plan for rollout. Sometimes, a soft rollout might be best with only one department such as HR first and then pushed out to the rest of the company after success.