A case study on the impact of medical restrictions on school ergonomic costs of a municipality

Abstract

Ergonomic interventions are classified as effective tools for occupational health and can be used by schools to improving productivity and reducing associated costs. Functionalism, despite seeking social results, has worrying expenses rates as medical restrictions, which interfere with the service quality and burden the public machine. In this way, a fundamental research variable is the idea of cost-benefit, which should align with the ergonomics concepts and the school costs, making a company broad vision to the managers. This work aims to raise the ergonomic costs in a school, based on the ABC method, in order to identify the impact of each activity on the institution costs. The results showed that in the school, labor costs correspond to 86% of total costs. The medical restriction generated significant impacts on costs and forced the municipality to hire outsourced professionals, increasing by 274% the expected cost for personnel expenses.