A great ergonomic program does more than just teach some of your employees how to sit correctly or adjust their chair. Rather, it stimulates engagement, team building, and training towards a betterment of workplace culture and ergonomics. One effective way to set healthy habits early on is by using a workplace activity or game called ErgoQuest. This interactive ergonomics game is specially designed to assist employees recognize common ergonomic risks while enjoying their time with colleagues. ErgoQuest requires a teamwork and a challenge that includes observation, problem-solving, and proper posture and mechanics. The game is primarily used in office environments, but it can easily be shifted to work for industrial spaces such as warehouses, and laboratory environments, or even remote work from home settings. How it works is, employees are divided into teams of between three to five people. Each team receives a checklist of ergonomic missions or a treasure map with quests that is to be completed over the course of a week. The focus is on the mitigation ergonomic risk factors such as posture, proper workstation setup, and stretch or rest breaks. At the start of the game activity, the participants attend a group training provided by an ergonomic consultant. During this section, employees will learn ergonomic principles such as how to adjust features of a workstation, stretches, and a microbreak regimen. After the training session, each team receive an individual set of challenges. For instance, a mission might require team members to identify five ergonomic hazards in a staged workstation photo. One other mission may involve demonstrating proper lifting techniques or manual materials handling. The gamification is what engages participants with points for each completed task depending on difficulty and time requirements. The teams earn bonus points for any extra bonus effort put in towards ergonomic improvements or over the top teamwork. One particularly engaging activity is the Shirlock Desk Holmes. During this event, participants will inspect their own workstations and make ergonomic improvements based on what they learned. They can help from their own teammates and submit photos before and after the modifications with their explanations of what changes they made and why. This activity helps create their own practical ergonomic skills but helps them share them with their teammates to provide a greater depth of learning. To keep the energy on the uppity up, daily challenges are introduced every morning at 8am during the weekdays. Challenges can be a regiment of standing each day or stretching every hour, taking a meeting while walking, or using keyboard shortcuts. ErgoQuest can provide ergonomic education using the engaging properties of gamification. A lot of employees might look over ergonomic advice as it might feels repetitive or boring. However, by turning the material into a game, employees are more attentive and willing to practice healthier behaviors. If you are interested in gamifying your workplace ergonomics, call a consultant with Ergobility today.