Intel enjoy “great success” protecting global workforce with Wellnomics

Founded in 1968, Intel is the world's largest and most trusted semiconductor chip manufacturer with revenues over $70 billion and employing 118,000 staff worldwide.

Protecting the health and safety of its employees is a key priority for Intel. The organization is committed to providing safe and healthy workplaces that prevent work-related injury.

Thousands of 'Type A' employees working long hours

Intel has tens of thousands of highly skilled employees working long hours at computers performing complex tasks. “A lot of our people are 'Type A' personalities” says Dishayne Garcia, Ergonomist and Safety Engineer at Intel. “The type of people who will work incredibly long hours to get a project completed”.

“We were seeing an increased rate of injuries related to long hours of computer use. We didn't have any means of protecting those workers or ensuring they take breaks to protect their health”.

“We had tried some off the shelf ergonomic software tools to resolve the workforce issues around computer related injuries, but they were not sophisticated and lacked any data showing their effectiveness.”

Intel has now deployed Wellnomics to 115,000 staff worldwide

Initially Intel were seeking an ergonomics solution for their North American employees. But this deployment proved so successful that the software was subsequently rolled out to the entire global workforce.

After a global search for a solution to their unique workforce ergonomics challenges and a rigorous assessment of the Wellnomics ergonomics software Intel chose Wellnomics to implement as a global standard.

115,000 Intel staff now have access to Wellnomics unique office ergonomics risk management software. Intel chose Wellnomics for the effectiveness of its end user ergonomics applications, the comprehensive management data layer and its full compliance with GDPR data privacy regulations.

With Wellnomics Intel gained the ability to identify at risk computer users, to provide the world's best ergonomic tools to all their employees remotely, the ability to understand who within the organization was using the new tools effectively and determine the rate of compliance, with best practice ergonomic behavior, at the team level.

Game changing Ergonomics Management Data

Intel's global management team are strongly committed to providing a safe workplace for all employees. They were very aware of the ergonomic issues posed by long hours of intense computer work undertaken by their most valuable employees. This major health and safety issue had however proven impossible to manage with no metrics on how the teams, or the broader organization were behaving or on the ergonomic risks present.

With Wellnomics for the first time Intel’s senior managers had access to clear metrics on the relevant work behaviors and on overall ergonomic risks within their teams and organization, allowing them to effectively manage and improve the work behaviors and ergonomic outcomes of their staff.

Intel have now established an ergonomic wellness target across the organization. No team should have more than 5% of its staff as identified by Wellnomics as ‘high risk’. This clear target has given Enterprise Health and Safety management a critical benchmark against which to each departments progress towards health and safety objectives. “Some groups find it harder to stay under 5% than others” says Dishayne “but its very useful to have that metric showing us where there are issues”.

Identifying AND solving ergonomic risks

As well as helping Intel’s EHS team identify where ergonomic risks exist, the Intel team are also very pleased with the targeted recommendations Wellnomics provides for each individual employee. Derived from the user level data “the recommendations section” according to Dishayne “is just amazing. Without it helping managers to address ergonomic issues within their team, the EHS team would have an immense amount of additional work to do to mitigate those risks”.

To protect staff data privacy managers cannot see any data at the individual user level. But they do get very useful data at the team level which helps initiate positive conversations to adjust ergonomic behaviors or change the way computer based work is undertaken.

Wellnomics received very well by Intel staff

Intel staff doing the longest hours are also the ones who will experience the greatest number of reminders by Wellnomics for micro-breaks, stretches and high usage limits. These are not people who welcome disruption to their work flow so there was concern that they might resist the imposition of breaks by any ergonomics solution.

However, the adoption of Wellnomics Risk Management by Intel staff has been rapid and successful thanks to early adopters and champions of the software throughout the organization. Most Intel staff understand the risks of computer use and appreciate the role that Wellnomics micro pause and stretch break reminders now play in protecting them from musculoskeletal injuries. With many employees and managers being software engineers by training, many have become even experts in understanding the Wellnomics feature set and applying it to improve their team’s well being.

“We get a regular flow of emails from Intel staff attesting to the benefits of the Wellnomics solution which they say has helped them avoid computer use related fatigue”.

It’s a real testament to the Wellnomics solution that many Intel staff have been emailing the EHS team since the software was deployed to ask if they can get additional licences to install on family members PCs’.

Protecting people on the most demanding projects

One of the most demanding areas of work at Intel is new factory establishment. Staff can work huge hours on planning and analysis. The immense workload has presented ergonomic risks to the staff involved but now, with Wellnomics, these staff and their managers can set ergonomics targets, regulate their computer use and take breaks to avoid harm.

“It is hugely helpful for the managers on big projects to know who is at risk”

Helping Intel meet the challenge of Covid-19 and 'Working From Home'

The importance of Wellnomics has been elevated by Covid-19 with 90% of Intel staff currently working from home as of Nov 2020. Intel have made ergonomic workstations available for home offices. However, the significant increase in time spent at a computers has caused an uptick in high risk staff.

Wellnomics ability to remotely assess and train computer users, on workstation setup, has been invaluable. Also the software’s ability to coach computer users towards safe behavior, to take breaks and avoid harm, have been enormously helpful. The EHS team have been using Wellnomics management metrics to efficiently target support to those employees most at risk.

The Wellnomics have exceeded Intel expectations

Intel have been very pleased with the service and support they have received from Wellnomics since day one. “We've had great success working with Wellnomics” says Garcia. “Chris our support person at Wellnomics has been phenomenal at getting me on-boarded and Wellnomics have always provided wonderfully prompt replies to any questions”.

“We really have a great partnership with Wellnomics”