Ergonomics Contributions to Company Strategy

Presently, ergonomics is associated with occupational health and safety and related legislation, and not with business performance. Therefore, companies perceive ergonomics as a “must” and not as a “want”. In order to strengthen the position of ergonomics and ergonomists, we discuss the opportunities to link ergonomics explicitly to company strategies and business goals. Conceptual models are presented and examples are given to illustrate the present and desired situation. It is concluded that ergonomics has a clear potential to contribute to business strategies and goals. In order to utilize this potential, considerable changes must take place within the ergonomics community by moving from a health ergonomics paradigm to a business ergonomics paradigm. <div><br></div><div>Keywords Corporate strategy, human factors, business, management, paradigm shift, future of ergonomics</div>