Hackbarth, a safety engineer with the University's Health Protection Office, is the ergonomic specialist for the University and hospital. His job is to perform a workstation evaluation for any UI employee who needs or wants one. Sometimes he works reactively, after a worker has been injured and is undergoing medical treatment. He prefers working proactively, answering calls from employees who are not injured but want advice on how to set up their workstations for minimum strain on the body. Step one of workstation evaluation is talk.
Rapport is very important.
The more that person can tell me about themselves, what they're feeling, and the discomfort or whatever's going on, the more that I can help them. Sometimes people are seeing a physician. That's all kept strictly confidential. Then Hackbarth gets physical. The next step is to put the worker into a neutral posture, that is, a position with the least amount of resistance on the musculo-skeletal system.