Workplace Ergonomics: OSHA Requirements, Risk Factors, and How to Fix Them (2026)

Back strains and rotator cuff injuries don’t appear on your OSHA 300 log labeled as “ergonomic injuries.” They show up as “back strain, warehouse associate” or “shoulder injury, assembly line operator.” Five of them in the same department over two years is a pattern. Most employers don’t recognize it as one.

According to BLS Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses data, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are the single largest category of workplace injuries measured by days away from work, accounting for roughly 30% of all such cases. That number has stayed stubbornly consistent for years. And most employers aren’t running a real ergonomics program aimed at it.

What OSHA Actually Requires on Ergonomics

There is no specific OSHA ergonomics standard for general industry. Congress passed a resolution in 2001 repealing an ergonomics standard that OSHA had finalized under the Clinton administration. That regulation never took effect.

What OSHA does have is the General Duty Clause, Section 5(a)(1) of the OSH Act. It requires employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Ergonomic hazards qualify. OSHA cites under the General Duty Clause in industries where MSDs are well-documented and employers haven’t addressed them.

To support a General Duty Clause citation for an ergonomic hazard, OSHA typically has to show four things: the hazard is recognized in the industry, it causes or is likely to cause serious harm, a feasible method of abatement exists, and the employer failed to use it. In high-MSD industries like meat processing, warehousing, and nursing homes, OSHA has documented evidence for all four. Willful ignorance isn’t a defense.

Some OSHA standards do contain specific ergonomic requirements. The telecommunications standard (29 CFR 1910.268) includes ergonomic provisions. Maritime standards address ergonomics more directly than the general industry standards. If your work falls under these, check the specific text.

And if you’re in California, the analysis changes significantly. Cal/OSHA has a specific ergonomics standard under Title 8 CCR 5110. Washington State’s L&I also has an ergonomics rule. State plan states can exceed the federal floor, and several do on ergonomics. See our Cal/OSHA guide for more on state plan differences.

The Six Risk Factors

NIOSH and OSHA identify six primary ergonomic risk factors. None of them alone necessarily causes an injury. But multiple factors present at the same time, sustained over months or years, is how MSDs develop.

Awkward postures. Any position that moves your body away from neutral. Bending forward to reach into a low bin. Reaching overhead to load a high shelf. Twisting your torso while lifting. Warehouse order pickers do all three in the same motion dozens of times per hour.

Forceful exertions. High force demands on muscles and tendons. Lifting 50-pound bags repeatedly. Gripping a vibrating tool tightly to control it. Pulling carts on uneven floors. In meat processing, the knife work combines high grip force with repetitive motion at the same time, which is why that industry has some of the highest MSD rates in manufacturing.

Repetitive motion. The same movement pattern repeated throughout a shift. An electronics assembly worker running the same two-second hand motion 1,400 times in an eight-hour shift isn’t doing heavy lifting. They’re doing cumulative tissue damage to the tendons in their fingers and wrists.

Repetition becomes a risk factor at lower force levels than most people expect. Low force plus high repetition can cause as much damage as high force at lower repetition. That’s the carpal tunnel mechanism.

Contact stress. A body part pressing against a hard or sharp edge. A forearm resting on the edge of a workbench while doing assembly work. Wrists resting on a hard desk edge while typing. The edge concentrates pressure on the underlying tendons and nerves. It doesn’t take much force to cause damage when it’s focused on a small area over hours.

Static postures. Holding a position without movement. Standing in one spot on a concrete floor for a full shift. Holding your arms in a fixed position to perform a task. Sitting in the same chair position for four hours. Muscle fatigue from sustained contraction is different from the fatigue of movement. The tissue doesn’t get the recovery that comes with alternating contraction and relaxation.

Vibration. Two types: hand-arm vibration from operating tools like grinders, chain saws, or jackhammers, and whole-body vibration from operating vehicles or equipment on rough surfaces. Hand-arm vibration syndrome causes blood flow problems and nerve damage in the fingers and hands. Whole-body vibration is a major contributor to low back disorders in equipment operators.

Applying the Hierarchy of Controls

Most ergonomics programs fail before they get started because they lead with training. “Train workers on proper lifting technique” is an administrative control. It’s at the bottom of the hierarchy for a reason. Proper lifting form matters, but it doesn’t change the weight of the box, the height of the shelf, or the frequency of the task.

Start with engineering controls. These are physical changes that remove or reduce the hazard at the source, regardless of what workers do or know.

Good engineering controls for ergonomic hazards include mechanical assists (lift tables, pallet lifters, vacuum lift systems), conveyors that eliminate carrying, adjustable-height workstations that put work at elbow height, ergonomically designed tools that reduce grip force requirements, anti-vibration handles and mounts, and floor mats on concrete standing surfaces. These controls work whether the worker knows about ergonomics or not.

Administrative controls are the second tier. Job rotation distributes exposure across workers and body parts rather than eliminating it. Reducing shift length on high-exposure tasks limits the cumulative dose. Scheduling heavy manual material handling tasks earlier in the shift, before workers are fatigued, reduces injury risk. These are better than nothing but they require ongoing management to actually work. Job rotation only helps if the rotated-to jobs use different muscle groups, which isn’t always the case.

Work practice controls and training sit at the bottom. Teach workers to use the mechanical lift rather than carrying by hand. Show them the proper push versus pull technique for carts. This matters, but only after the engineering and administrative controls are in place.

Start With Your Injury Records

You don’t need an ergonomics consultant to know where your problems are. You need your OSHA 300 log.

Pull two or three years of 300 log data and look for patterns. Same body part injured repeatedly. Same department, same job classification. Cases requiring more than a handful of days away. The same description showing up in different incident dates. That’s your priority list.

Workers’ comp claims tell the same story, often with more detail. Claim costs by body part and department will show you where your MSD burden is concentrated.

The 300 log won’t use the word “ergonomics.” It will say “back strain, strain of lumbar region” or “tendinitis, right wrist.” Look at the nature of injury codes: strains, sprains, tendinitis, carpal tunnel, rotator cuff. Look at the body parts: lower back, shoulder, wrist, knee. Look at the department and job title. Three back injuries in two years among forklift loaders in receiving tells you where to look.

This analysis is also the starting point for any job hazard analysis in those departments.

Structured Assessment Tools

Once you’ve identified the high-risk jobs, structured tools help you quantify the exposure and prioritize controls.

The NIOSH Lifting Equation is the standard method for evaluating manual lifting tasks. It produces a Recommended Weight Limit (RWL) based on task variables including the object’s weight, the horizontal and vertical distances of the lift, the frequency, the coupling between hand and load, and the degree of trunk twisting. Dividing the actual lift weight by the RWL gives a Lifting Index. An index above 1.0 indicates the task exceeds recommended limits for most workers.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries publishes free ergonomics checklists for specific industries including construction, healthcare, and manufacturing. These are practical tools that don’t require specialized training to use.

For more complex assessments, particularly ones involving upper extremity work with repetitive motion, tools like RULA (Rapid Upper Limb Assessment) and REBA (Rapid Entire Body Assessment) provide scoring systems based on observed postures. These are more involved but still within reach for a trained safety professional.

For small employers who lack in-house expertise, OSHA’s free on-site consultation program (separate from enforcement) can provide ergonomics assistance. It’s confidential and citation-free. Contact your state’s OSHA consultation program to request it.

High-Risk Industries and Their Dominant Hazards

Manufacturing, particularly food processing and automotive assembly, combines repetition with force in ways that drive high MSD rates. Meat processing workers run the same cutting motions thousands of times per shift under cold conditions, which increases grip force requirements and reduces dexterity. Auto assembly work often involves overhead reaches, awkward postures working inside vehicle bodies, and sustained static positions.

Warehousing and order fulfillment have seen MSD rates increase as e-commerce expanded and order picking rates intensified. High pick-rate targets, low shelf heights, heavy boxes pulled from ground-level storage, and long walking distances on concrete create a combination of risk factors. BLS data from the warehousing and storage sector consistently shows MSD rates above the average for all industries.

Healthcare is where the conversation often surprises people. Nursing care facilities have some of the highest MSD rates of any industry. Patient handling, repositioning, and transferring patients is one of the leading causes of back injuries in healthcare workers. Lift equipment exists and is effective. Facilities with comprehensive safe patient handling programs, including ceiling-mounted lifts and floor-based lift devices, document significant reductions in caregiver injuries. The American Nurses Association has tracked this data. The barrier isn’t knowledge, it’s capital investment and consistent use protocols.

Office work carries its own ergonomic risks, though at lower severity levels than the above industries. Prolonged sitting with poor posture, keyboard and mouse use without adequate wrist support, monitor positioning that forces neck flexion or extension, and poorly fitted chairs all contribute to MSDs over years. The NIOSH recommends a mix of sitting and standing rather than prolonged static posture in either position.

Building a Program Without Overcomplicating It

An ergonomics program doesn’t need to be complex to work. The core cycle is straightforward.

Identify where your MSDs are using injury records and worker reports. Prioritize the two or three highest-risk jobs. Observe those jobs and identify which risk factors are present and when. Generate options for controlling those risk factors, starting with engineering controls. Evaluate feasibility and cost. Implement the highest-level control you can. Track whether the MSD rate in that job category changes. Repeat.

Worker involvement matters. Workers know things about their jobs that won’t appear in any hazard analysis. They’ve already figured out workarounds and shortcuts. They know which tasks hurt and which don’t. Getting them involved in generating control options produces better solutions and better buy-in.

The employer safety training requirements page covers what documentation you need for any training components of your program.

For most employers, the gap isn’t knowledge of ergonomics principles. It’s connecting the injury data they already have to specific tasks and then actually changing those tasks.

If your 300 log shows five back strains in the past two years in the same department, you don’t need a formal ergonomics study to start. You need to walk into that department and watch what people are actually doing.