Anthony Pellagrino

We looked at Move 4 Life as we were having issues around lower lumbar muscular back pain and shoulders and arms in reaching-type incidents and injuries.
I was well aware of their program and have seen first hand the benefits of implementing, and I knew that it would really offer a benefit for us here at GWA to bring that on board here too.

Our business is quite diverse in what we do. We have a product range of very small door handles through to quite large baths, so it was important for us that we didn’t look at a manual handling program that was an off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box program.

When we partnered with Move 4 Life and they spent the time to learn and understand our business, observing and engaging with the workforce and identifying different risk areas and slight tailoring to the way it’s delivered depending on the setting. So it was a real end-to-end process. It wasn’t just deliver the training and walk away.

We started with our leadership team because we felt it was important that it started from the top and that they landed the message first. Our MOVE Champions are peers, they are floor team members and they’re able to get people to listen to them. They agreed to be a Champion because we care for each other and they care for you.

We’ve implemented a number of initiatives such as MOVE Interactions where our MOVE Champions will have an engaging conversation with people. We’ve set up stretch stations and that let people have a proper stretch and reset their spines. In the MOVE Champions program we ran a Move 4 Life shark tank of sorts … it’s all coming together.

The way people move is changing their mindset around, “We can move better, but you know, we can also place things differently in a location or in a different pick slot,” and I think it’s because of what they’ve learned from Move 4 Life.

We have seen incident rates decrease, we have seen the severity of injuries decrease as well. When Move 4 Life started, we had in excess of 40. Current year to date we’re below 5.

I’ve been exposed to other programs over the years. However, Move 4 Life is a cut above is because it delivers in a way that makes sense and engages its audience.

It provides an understanding of the way their body works and their mechanics work to prolong your health and well-being and reduce the risk of you having trouble or issues in a long term. That’s why I think it’s a great program.