No Standard, Still Liable: 5 Ergonomics Misconceptions That Are Costing Your Clients Money

"We don't have to do this. There's no law that says we have to do ergonomics."

"We're already covered. We bought good chairs."

Sound familiar? These are the two most common objections ergonomics consultants hear from potential clients. And both of them reflect a regulatory picture that most businesses have completely wrong.

In this episode, Darcie Jaremey breaks down the five biggest misconceptions about workplace ergonomics that keep businesses from taking action and from working with qualified practitioners like you. Drawing on a July 2026 legal analysis from JD Supra by labor attorney Sarah Goodman of Offit Kurman, Darcie gives you the accurate regulatory picture and shows you exactly how to use it in your next client conversation. (Here's the full article: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/no-standard-still-liable-how-osha-7637946/)

What you'll take away:

• Why 'no OSHA standard' does not mean 'no duty' and how to explain this to any prospect in under two minutes
• The General Duty Clause: what it is, why it applies to office ergonomics, and how OSHA used it against Amazon without a single specific ergonomics rule
• The hazard alert letter most HR managers have never heard of — and why ignoring it builds a willful violation case worth up to $156,259 per violation
• Why office workers are absolutely not exempt — and the state-level laws in Minnesota, Washington, California, Oregon, and Michigan that prove it
• Why 'we bought chairs and did training' is purchasing activity, not a safety program and what Cornell University's research says about that
• he biggest sales reframe in this episode: from 'do we need an assessment?' to 'how do you know what you already spent actually worked?' 
• How to turn every one of these misconceptions into a content piece, a sales conversation, and a reason a client picks up the phone

This episode is content you can repurpose 50 times. Darcie explains why these five facts bear repeating across LinkedIn, email, and every client conversation you have.

Accelerate: The Business of Ergonomics gives ergonomics consultants and healthcare professionals time-saving resources and plug-and-play content so that you can become the Go-To Ergonomics Consultant in your city.

Click here to get started.

If you're a healthcare professional and this episode got your wheels turning about office ergonomics - good. I've got free resources to help you take the next step at ergonomicshelp.com/resources. 

Transcript

0:00

Well, hey there. Welcome to the Business of Ergonomics Podcast. I'm your host, Darcy Jeremy, board-certified professional ergonomist. Today on the show, we're gonna be talking about a question that I bet you've heard of in some version when you're talking to a client, maybe you're talking to a prospect about how to land that client and close that deal, and it's probably along the lines of, We don't have to do this, right? Welcome to The Business of Ergonomics Podcast. I'm your host, Darcy Jeremy. I'm a board certified professional ergonomist with over 15 years of experience delivering ergonomics programs to employers of all different types. In this podcast, I share what other healthcare professionals are already doing and being with ergonomics assessments, and how to land those clients that you dream of. Without further ado, let's jump into this episode right now There's no law that says we have to do ergonomics." Have you ever heard that comment before? Well, maybe you've heard this one. "We're already covered. We've got good chairs." Well, my friend, These two are the most common things ergonomics consultants hear from potential clients, and both of them reflect the same underlying problem, which is that most businesses have genuinely no idea what the ergonomics regulatory landscape actually looks like. And that's crazy, right? They're operating on assumptions, and those assumptions are costing them money and costing us, as well-meaning, highly sought after ergonomics consultants, they're costing us business, so today I wanna walk through five of the biggest misconceptions about workplace ergonomics that keep businesses from taking action and from working with qualified practitioners like you and me. I'm using a legal analysis published this month on JD Supra written by a labor and employment attorney at Offit Kurman as my foundation, but I'm really gonna be jumping off this and taking the conversation where it needs to be. Because this is the regulatory picture, right? And they describe exactly the same thing that your clients need to understand, and many of them don't, until maybe an injury happens and they're like wading through the, the high issues of concerns with getting someone back to work. And it can be frustrating, it's time-consuming, and you know what? It's really expensive. This is the exact thing that positions you as the expert who can help them navigate it. Okay? So I'm not a lawyer, and nothing in this episode is legal advice. So keep that in mind, please. Consult your local ChatGPT or lawyer to make sure that you are on a firm foundation. However, I am a professional ergonomist with almost 20 years of experience delivering programs to employers of all types. And the regulatory context that we're covering today is something that every ergonomics consultant should have at the tip of their tongue. No matter if you are in the United States, where this is going to be based from, in Canada, which is very, very, very similar. They almost use the same type of language in Canada and in the States. In Europe, which is very different. Do your own due diligence there. Or in Australia, very similar to Canada and the US. So do your own due diligence. However, what we are gonna be talking about here bears repeating, and it's something that can cement you as the go-to expert in your city about ergonomics. 'Cause I bet you From this one piece of content that we're gonna be talking about, this one idea, you could probably get, like, 50 pieces of content. One thing that I've learned over the years in marketing my business is that oftentimes when you think your audience has heard what you do enough and they're getting tired, it's very rare when your audience can even hear, like, a 10th of the information in the content that you share. For a variety of reasons. One, their lives are crazy busy. Two they have lots of things going on in their lives. Three, if you're posting on algorithms, like on LinkedIn or Facebook or wherever, it's kind of rare if they're gonna actually get that information or they're gonna open emails from you. But the point that I'm bringing home with this is that what I'm sharing today bears repeating and bears repeating often in a variety of, settings okay? And if you are interested in scaling your business, reaching more businesses, bringing in more customers, doing more assessments, I want to encourage you to look at the Accelerate program. Accelerate the Business of Ergonomics is filled with time-saving resources and copy-and-paste templates and done-for-you aspects of ergonomics that it saves you hours and hours of time every single month and connects you with a community of like-minded individuals who are also building and scaling their businesses. If you want to learn how to reach more people with your services and become that go-to ergonomics consultant in your city, then you got to check out the Business of Ergonomics program called Accelerate, and you can get to that by going to ergonomicshelp.com and checking out the information there. I also offer resources if you are looking to start your office ergonomics journey. I have a course called the Ergonomics Blueprint, and it teaches you how to start from scratch to doing valuable office ergonomics assessments. The difference with both of these programs is that I'm there as a mentor to help, and what sets these two programs apart from the others is that we connect the marketing early. Not only do you get good ergonomics resources, but we show you how to bring in paying customers, and that's what truly sets Ergonomics Help far apart from any other types of how to do ergonomics courses out there. So head to ergonomicshelp.com, see what we have there, and you can join the fellow members who are learning how to do office ergonomics assessments or growing their ergonomics consulting businesses. So let's start with misconception number one. There is no OSHA standard, so we don't have to do anything. Have you heard this before? This is the one I hear most often, and it's the one that's actually the most expensive too because it's so expensive. If there's any sort of mistake with office ergonomics and avoiding things that need to be done, then it's gonna cost those workplaces a lot of money At the very end of 2000, OSHA did look at a comprehensive ergonomics program standard. It required covered employers to identify and control MSD hazards. Have you heard about this? And this was all the rage when I was first starting out my career. We talked about it in and out, and there was a common talk amongst ergonomists that this was just gonna come back at some point in time. We don't know when this ergonomic standard was going to come back, but it was going to come back. That was, like, 25 years ago with this ergonomic standard. So long story short, it's not coming back. And it lasted about two months back in the year 2001. In early 2001, Congress used the Congressional Review Act to rescind it, and the president signed the repeal. I remember it like yesterday. Do you? The Congressional Review Act repeal did something interesting beyond just erasing the standard. It bars the agency from reissuing a rule of substantially the same from without fresh congressional authorization. Okay, you following me? Which means OSHA was not just choosing not to regulate ergonomics, it was statutorily prevented from doing so the conventional way. A quarter century later, that's still the situation. There is no federal ergonomic standard, and one is genuinely unlikely to ever appear through ordinary rulemaking. Now, here's where most businesses stop reading. They hear no standard, and they conclude no duty, and that conclusion is wrong. What remains in OSHA's toolkit is Section 5A1 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and this is a general duty clause. There's the same one in Canada, and I bet you in Australia too. So no matter where you are in this world, there's a general duty clause. It requires every employer to furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm. The general duty clause is the catch-all. It reaches recognized serious hazards for which no specific standard exists, and ergonomics is the textbook example. For your clients, this is the sentence that reframes the whole conversation, and this is the thing that I think bears repeating frequently wherever you communicate with your clients, whether it's LinkedIn, email, other social means. It could be a conversational starter in a networking event, you name it. More people need to know they are at risk if they're not doing anything. You can say there is no specific OSHA ergonomics rule, but your company can still be cited under the general duty clause for recognized ergonomics hazard. And MSDS, strain sprains, carpal tunnel, back injuries from repetition force and awkward postures are explicitly recognized. They account for roughly a third of all serious workplace injury cases, and that is not small exposure. And then you mic drop, and then you continue on with your conversation So if you do check out this article, I will link it in the show notes. There is an Amazon settlement that the article references, and it's a perfect illustration. OSHA pursued ergonomic hazards against one of the largest employees in the world using the general duty clause, not a specific ergonomic standard, and secured facility-wide commitments, including adjustable workstations, anti-fatigue flooring, and job rotations programs. The mechanism was not a rule book. It was a catch-all clause applied to recognized serious hazards. So when your client says there's no law, this is what you know that they actually don't know. And the knowledge is a sales tool. And as you can see, this is the perfect segue to talk about your services and how you can help. One of my favorite services to offer employers in the office is a hybrid of a few different low-cost solutions. Because when we're talking about misconceptions, there's this misconception that workplaces think that office ergonomics assessments are just too expensive. And that's not true, right? Especially when we look at these other hybrid services that can give a very good ROI without the cost. The second misconception here is that OSHA isn't going to come after us. So they don't need to have any concern because OSHA has bigger fish to worry about the general duty citation is not a free-floating accusation. To issue one, OSHA has to establish four specific elements. One, a condition in the workplace presented a hazard to employees. Two, the employer or the employer's industry recognized that hazard. Three, the hazard was causing or was likely to cause death or serious physical harm. Four, a feasible and useful means existed to materially reduce it. The second and fourth elements are where most ergonomics cases are decided. On recognition, OSHA can either use the OSHA's own-- OSHA can either... The second and fourth elements are where most ergonomics cases are decided. On recognition, OSHA can use the employer's own injury logs, prior employee complaints, internal assessments, or industry consensus materials and NIOSH guiding to prove it On feasibility, OSHA has to show that workable engineering or administrative controls, job rotation, lift assist, workstation redesign, pacing changes were reasonably available. This is critically important for your clients. An employer that had injury data showing MSDs received employee complaints about pain or discomfort and did nothing has handed OSHA the knowledge element. That's the element that is hardest to defeat against, and the defense for feasibility is not we couldn't afford it. It's we evaluated it, and it wasn't applicable in our context, which requires documentation, which requires an assessment from an ergonomist. There's also something called a hazard alert letter that the article covers and that most HR managers have never heard of. When OSHA observes ergonomic risk that is not ready to cite outright, it may issue a hazard alert letter. No fine, no formal citation. The temptation is to file it and move on. When a client tells you OSHA isn't coming after them, the honest response is they might not, but if they do and you have complaint records and no documented response, you are already behind. And if you received a hazard alert letter and did nothing, the next inspection could produce a willful violation. Is that a risk that you want on the table? Documentation of a good faith responsive ergonomics program is not just good safety practice, it's the legal defense. The four element test for a general duty clause citation gives companies a way to defend themselves, but only if they actually did something and wrote it down All right, let's move on to misconception number three. This only matters in manufacturing, warehousing, healthcare. We're just an office. We sit at desks. We're fine. Have you ever heard an iteration of this when you're talking about office ergonomics? I've heard it a lot, to be honest. It's constantly. Either I hear it from prospects or I hear it from my members of either the Ergonomics Blueprint Program or Accelerate, and it does a tremendous disservice to the real population of people who are genuinely injured at office environments every year. Let me give you the numbers, okay? MSDs in the office represent a substantial share of all MSD cases. Neck, shoulder, lower back, wrist, and hand injuries from sustained postures, repetitive keyboard and mouse use, and poor workstations fit are among The most common sources of workers' comp claims in the knowledge work environments. And a single carpal tunnel surgery claim, according to the OSHA Injury Cost Estimator, can run upwards of $67,000 in direct and indirect costs. So this is not a small business can absorb it number. This is a serious financial event that we need to be considerate about with our marketing and with our clients. They need to know. Knowledge is power here. This article also covers state-level developments happening right now, which are particularly important for multi-sector employers. So Minnesota passed a statute in 2024 requiring written ergonomics programs for warehouse distribution centers, meat packing, and poultry processing facilities, and licensed healthcare settings above certain employee counts. Washington is rolling out specific sector ergonomics rules targeting industries whose workers' comp MSD claim rates run at more than twice the statewide average with effective dates from mid-2026 onward, which is now. But here's the piece that's relevant for office-focused consultants. Five states now maintain ergonomic standards of some form. The federal vacuum is being filled at the state level, and the trend is accelerating. The multi-state employer who assumes a single national compliance posture is now wrong in an increasing number of jurisdictions. And the office-only client who thinks they're exempt from all this, ask them whether their state is one of the five. Ask them how many of their remote employees are based in California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, or Michigan. The answer might change the conversation For ergonomics consultants, this is your expansion argument. The office isn't exempt. The real risk here is the risk, and the fact that if nothing's being done, there's still an ergonomic risk here. And the regulatory trend is towards more obligation, not less, even if it arrives through the state law rather through this federal standard Let's move on to misconception number four. We already bought expensive ergonomics chairs. We did training last year. We're covered. This is also a really big misconception that I hear, and I love dismantling this one the most because it's incredibly common and easy to address with some need-to-know evidence. Here's what the research says. First, a comprehensive ergonomics intervention, meaning assessment plus equipment plus training, reduces musculoskeletal problems by 40%. Equipment alone or training alone, not effective. Not effective. Let's preach it from the mountaintops. Equipment alone or training alone, not effective. Do I encourage you to share this information as much as possible to your network? Absolutely. Can you share this, like, 40 times? You should. You should. You should do that. I want to encourage you to do that. It's not my opinion. This is a finding from research published through Cornell University, which is a mainstay in ergonomics research for the past half-century, dare I say. I said it. Equipment without an assessment is a prescription without a diagnosis. Mic drop. A $500 adjustable chair set up incorrectly for that person sitting in it produces the same outcomes as the chair it replaced. The adjustment capability is only useful if someone with the knowledge can use it properly and has actually assessed the worker and configured the setup for their body, their task, and their environments. That's ergonomics 101. And training without follow-up, without an assessment of whether or not the workstation can actually be configured correctly, without equipment where it's needed, does not stick. People receive a lunch and learn and walk back to the same desk they had before. That doesn't help. Three months later, the content is gone, and the neck pain is back. And training without follow-up? The general duty clause is relevant here, too. Equipment purchases and annual training are not automatically evidence of good faith effort. The four-element test asks whether a feasible and useful means existed to materially reduce the hazard. If a company bought chairs in their workforce without ensuring proper setup, that's not a documented good faith effort. That is purchasing activity, and that's a different thing this is your reframe for the client who says they already handled it. What you've done is spent money. What you haven't done is documented whether it worked. A professional assessment gives you the evidence that the intervention reduced the hazard. Without that evidence, you spent money and assumed it was effective. Those are not the same as defensibly safety record. The conversation shifts when you put it this way. The conversation stops from, "Do we need to do an assessment?" and becomes, How do you know what we already spent actually worked?" Right? That's a subtlety, but it's actually huge We're moving on to misconception number five. Time is flying. This is so good, and I hope you're finding it useful. And in many ways, this last one is the one that sits underneath the others. Ergonomics is a wellness perk. It's nice to have. It's not a real legal objection this is the mindset that produces all other misconceptions. If ergonomics is optional, then the lack of a federal standard becomes an excuse. If it's a wellness perk, then buying a standing desk is enough. If it's not a legal obligation, then you don't need documentation, don't need an assessment, and don't need a program. The article opens with this exact framing. Ask most employers what OSHA requires on ergonomics, and you will get one of two wrong answers. Some think there's a detailed rule book. Others think it's entirely voluntary. The article's argument is that that gap between those two wrong answers is exactly where liability lives. Here is what is actually true. MSDs account for roughly a third of all serious workplace injury cases in the US. They cost employers billions annually in workers' compensation, lost productivity, and medical expenses. The general duty clause applies to recognized ergonomics hazards. Record-keeping requirements under the 29 CFR Part 1904 require accurate logging of work-related MSDs regardless of location. A hazard alert letter that goes unaddressed builds a willful violation case for the next inspection. Five states have affirmative ergonomics obligations. Two more are actively development, developing requirements. This isn't a wellness perk. This is a compliance exposure, a financial risk, and a human health issue all operating simultaneously. For ergonomics consultants, this misconception is actually your biggest sales opportunity. When you can walk into a conversation and say, "I know there's no specific OSHA ergonomic standard, and here's why that doesn't mean what most people think it means," you have positioned yourself as the most informed person in the room. That is exactly where you wanna be. The business that understands this are the ones that build real ergonomics programs with real practitioners. Your job is to help them understand it, and now you have the regulatory context to do that accurately and confidently Let me give you the summary that you can take into your next client conversation. Misconception number one: there's no OSHA standard, so we don't have to do anything. The truth? The general duty clause applies to ergonomic hazards. No standard does not mean no responsibility. Misconception two: OSHA isn't coming after us. The truth? Hazard alert letters build willful violation cases. Injury logs and unaddressed complaints are knowledge evidence. Good faith documented effort is the defense. Misconception three, this only matters in manufacturing. The truth, office injuries are real and expensive. State laws are accelerating and multi-state employers have patchwork obligations right now. Misconception number four, we bought chairs, we did training, we're covered. The truth, equipment without assessment isn't intervention, it's just purchasing. The research is clear that combined assessment-led programs produce the outcomes. Equipment only doesn't do anything. Misconception number five, ergonomics is a wellness perk, not a legal obligation. The truth, it's a compliance exposure, a financial risk, and a human health issue. And the practitioners who can explain that accurately are the ones who get hired. This is the knowledge that makes you the most credible person in the room, okay? So I want you to use this. I want you to share this. I want you to repeatedly share this because as I mentioned, it can take 10 or 12 plus times of sharing for a client or a prospect to see a message once. It can take a lot. If you want to build the business around this kind of expertise, accelerate. The business of ergonomics is where it happens. Head to ergonomicshelp.com to get on the wait list. Thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next episode