EME European Month of Ergonomics 2014-2015 V4 – Ergonomics for managing work-related stress EME European Month of Ergonomics October, 2014 and 2015 Ergonomics

EME European Month of Ergonomics 2014-2015 V4 – Ergonomics for managing work-related stress

EMEEuropean Month of Ergonomics

October, 2014 and 2015

Ergonomics for managing work-related stress


What is EME ?

- The European month of ergonomics (EME) is an annual campaign for the promotion of ergonomics in Europe.

- The EME was initiated by the Federation of European Ergonomics Societies (FEES) and it is implemented by the national ergonomics societies, who are its members.

- The FEES is an official partner of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA).

- The EME 2014 and 2015 support the annual Healthy Workplace Campaign of the EU-OSHA. In 2014 and 2015 the topic of this campaign is:

Managing work-related stress and psychosocial risks

- The EME 2014 and 2015 focus on the role of ergonomics in managing work-related stress, with the title:

Ergonomics for managing work-related stress


EME 2014 and 2015

- This year the EME 2014 will be started with an introduction to the topic, highlighting the ergonomic aspects.

- Next year the EME 2015 will focus more on practical applications, research and development projects, case studies, methods, etc.

- The aim of the EME is to encourage discussion and collaboration between ergonomics experts, safety experts, occupational health and safety authorities, and managers and employees in enterprises, so that the knowledge and methods of ergonomics for managing work-related stress and psychosocial risks are considered.

- This presentation has been prepared as supportive material for use in lectures, training events, seminars or written articles for dissemination of the message of the EME by the national member societies of the FEES. It is recommended that this presentation is translated into the local language and, if needed, modified to local circumstances, e.g. enlarged or shortened, addition of own examples and illustrations, etc.


EU-OSHA campaign 2014-2015 "Healthy workplace - Manage stress"

- The EU-OSHA campaign "Healthy workplace - manage stress" for managing work-related stress and psychosocial risks aims to reduce the negative consequences both to the health of the employees and to the efficiency of the organisations. "Managment of health and safety is good for workers, good for business and good for society as a whole".

- Why this topic?

- Studies suggest that 50-60% of all lost working days can be attributed to work-related stress and other psychosocial factors. Stress is the second most often reported work-related health problem in Europe after musculoskeletal disorders.

- The total costs of mental health disorders in Europe (both work and non-work-related) are estimated to be 240 billion euros per year. More than half of this sum (136 billion euros) is due to lost productivity, including sick leave.

For more information on the campaign, see www.healthy-workplaces.eu.


What are work-related stress and psychosocial risks?

Work-related stress occurs when the demands of the job exceed a worker's ability to cope with them. Psychosocial risks can lead to this situation.

Situations that may involve psycho-social risks:

- excessively demanding work / not enough time to complete tasks

- a mismatch between the demands of the job and the worker's competence, i.e. over-using or under-using a worker's skills

- lack of influence over the way the job is done

- conflicting demands and lack of clarity over the worker's role

- working alone / being subject to violence or threat of violence

- lack of support from managment and colleagues / poor interpersonal relationships / harrashment and isolation

- unjust distribution of work, rewards, promotions or career opportunities

- poorly managed organizational change / job insecurity / ineffective communication

- difficulties in combining commitments at work and at home


EME in relation to OSHA-campaign - support and highlight

Many of the psychosocial risk factors mentioned are not directly related to the work requirements and workplace. In many cases, they can be attributed to inappropriate behaviour of human beings, e.g. inadequate leadership or poor interpersonal conduct. These risks are general to all workplaces, not depending on the field of work. Such risks are included in the EU-OSHA campaign but are not the focus of the EME campaign.

The EME campaign will support the EU-OSHA campaign by highlighting the risk factors which are related to the work activity and the technical arrangements of the workplace, such as:

- organisation of the work - design of the work tasks - design of the work equipment - design of the worker-system interface - design of the physical work environment.

These topics are core fields of ergonomics (see the next slide). Ergonomists have experience dealing with them and can contribute this knowledge to the EU-OSHA campaign.


What is ergonomics?

- Ergonomics provides the knowledge and skills for fitting the environment, equipment and activities to people (For the IEA1 definition of ergonomics, see www.fees-network.org)

- The dual aims of ergonomics are to improve the well-being of people and to enhance productivity of work systems

- For the practical application of ergonomics, the following subfields are identified:

- physical ergonomics – e.g. postures and movements, physical workload, manual material handling, workplace design

- cognitive ergonomics – e.g. information processing, mental workload, human-computer interface, applications for transmitting information

- organisational ergonomics – e.g. coordination of work processes, such as assembly lines, combinations of work activities, work-rest schedules, collaborative development of work activity

- Ergonomics is a scientific discipline and development tool to create highly effective work places - and also to prevent risks in the workplace!

1 IEA – International Ergonomics Association, www.iea.cc


Why ergonomic aspects of psycho-social stress need to be highlighted?

- Stress factors related to inappropriate work activity or inappropriate work equipment (i.e. stress factors related to inappropriate application of ergonomics) are sometimes not obvious. They are, therefore, not always identified as stress factors, and often get ignored. In many cases, the work activity involving such stress factors is regarded as a "normal situation" or just an unavoidable condition. Highly repetitive work performed at a high pace in numerous factories is a typical example.

- However, these stress factors have gradual adverse influences on the health and well-being of individuals, e.g.:

– feelings of monotony, boredom or dissatisfaction, resulting in lack of commitment and motivation to work

– mental fatigue, lack of initiative, burnout and depression

– disturbed nervous and hormonal functions of the body and

– subsequently various diseases of the internal organs.


Example 1: repetitive work

- Repetitive work is one of the most common modes of organising work, e.g. in assembly industries or in the food industry. It involves a risk of work-related stress, especially when tasks are partitioned into very short cycles, without the possibility of additional rest breaks or adjustment of the pace by the worker.

- This type of work has been under scrutiny for decades, and many initiatives to ease the stress have been proposed and tested in companies, e.g, job rotation, job enrichment or job enlargement (see later in this presentation).


Example 2: monitoring, controlling

- Typically in process industries there are jobs involving intensive monitoring and controlling of the process by displays. The process may also be controlled directly on the line, e.g. by visual quality control. This seems the light work, but it often requires a high-level of concentration and uninterrupted attention.

- This type of work is mentally very demanding and involves a risk of work-related stress, especially when the system interface is not designed in accordance with ergonomic principles and when the workers level of responsibility for possible adverse consequences of his/her errors is very high (in terms of e.g. economic loss, production disturbances or accidents).


Example 3: operating a vehicle

- Driving a car, or any other vehicle (e.g. truck, train, boat, airplane) is a demanding task, generally requiring constant vigilance. Varying circumstances (heavy traffic, icy roads, passenger requests, etc.), poor design of the displays and controls of the vehicle, poor design of the driving environment (lighting, traffic symbols, navigation devices, etc.), high levels of responsibility for the safety of people or materials, and long periods without rest, can make the mental load even higher.

- An additional stress factor is the difficulty of maintaining arousal (vigilance), especially when driving at night, as this is not inaccordance with normal bio-rythms. To ease this problem, ergonomists have produced new technical means to monitor the level of activation of the driver.

- To reduce the risk of cumulative stress, the working hours must be suitably designed and this is also the focus of ergonomic research.


Example 4: customer service

- The work at customer service desks (e.g. retail cashiers, ticket selling) becomes mentally demanding at peak hours when the length of the queues of customers grow. As a reaction to the expectations of busy customers, the pace of work is increased and this raises the risk of errors. Additionally, the number of disturbances increases, making concentration more difficult.

- This work can be stressful for many reasons, not only because of the intensity of the work performance as such, but also because of the psychosocial stress caused by the unexpected behavior of customers.

- Ergonomists have worked for decades on improving the design of such workplaces, the machine interfaces and the organisation of work in the retail industry.


Example 5: modern office work

- In recent times, many additional tasks have been added to the core task of the employee, e.g. administrative tasks are shared by almost everyone, the employees may be engaged to work simultaneously in many projects or teams and direct cooperation with customers is more frequent. The work may become, on the whole, too extensive and too varying, with frequent interruptions and disturbances in activity. This may lead to difficulties concentrating on important tasks and difficulties following the schedules.

- New information technology produce additional burdons: the constant need to learn new software applications, or new versions of old ones along with usability problems of the software can all produce stress. If the technology itself is not reliable, this leads to disturbances that also add to the stress on individual worker.


Example 6: very high precision tasks

- Many jobs require working in very constrained postures and operating fine machinery, such as work under microscopes. Not only laboratory employees but many process workers need to do this e.g. in electronics industries and watchmaking.

- The need to keep physically very still for long periods is a stress factor for the body and mind, as the effects of pain and discomfort on concentration can produce costly disturbances and mistakes. Attention to ergonomic design of the equipment and workstations is essential in this type of work.

- Similarly, developments in medical technology have meant that surgeons can operate with microscopes to minimise the side-effects of large surgical wounds. Here again, the ergonomic design of such equipment is crucial to avoid errors and to minimise the stress to the surgeon – both physical and mental.


Other examples: something else?

- Please think for a moment about other types of work wich you have found to be mentally stressful!

- Think of some specific work task, or, a group of similar work tasks

- What makes the task mentally stressful?

- What are the most important stress factors in the work task?

- Are there any obvious remedies to decrease stress in the work task?

- Would the larger work system (of which the work task is a part) need to be developed to improve the work situation, by for example,

– re-organizing the work

– by using more developed technology, or/and,

– by redesign of the jobs and tasks


How to reduce "ergonomics-related " psycho-social risks?

- As can be seen, risks related to inappropriate application of ergonomics are connected to fundamental characteristics of the work task: organisation of the work, work task arrangement and technology used.

- Thus the reduction of these risks requires an analysis of the entire work system, identification of problems and a concept of possible ways to improve the work situation.

- This could be a task for an ergonomist, production engineer or work study technician, but anyone involved with the problem can start to do something towards it.

- For instance, using common measures or "good practices" solutions to improve the work in question will often provide a solution.

- Common measures may, however, only produce small or partial improvements.

- Ergonomic measures are best considered and applied in the design stage of the work system. However, ergonomists are also trained in a systematic approach to solving unusual workplace problems.


Basic ergonomic considerations in the design of the work system

- For analysing the task and for the systematic identification of the problems, criteria regarding good work tasks can be used ("Characteristics of well designed work tasks", see later).

- For developing solutions, the appropriate ergonomic standards and guidelines need to be consulted and used.

- For utilisation of practically tested solutions, experiences from similar situations should be gathered, assessed and used.

- For utilization of all available knowledge and experience, planning must be done in collaboration with the developers of the work and work system (e.g. managers and engineers), the actors of the workplace (e.g. supervisors and workers) and representatives of the safety and health personnel. This approach is also referred to as participatory design.


Design criteria: Characteristics of well-designed work tasks (1)

To avoid work-related stress, the following work task design principles should be observed as closely as possible. These principles have been developed over decades from studies on work psychology. The principles, "Characteristics of well designed work tasks" are stated in the European ergonomics standard EN-614:2:

a) Use the competencies and skills of the workers

b) Create meaningful and "whole" tasks - not isolated fragments of tasks

c) Make their contribution to the total output identifiable to the worker

d) Use the variety of the worker's skills, with an appropriate combination of:

– simple routine actions

– acting by application of rules

– reasoning: analysing the process and developing needed actions


Design criteria: Characteristics of well-designed work tasks (2)

e) Allow an appropriate degree of freedom and autonomy to the worker, e.g. to choose the method of task accomplishment, or to determine priorities, pace and the procedure for the work task

f) Provide sufficient feedback on the task performance to the worker

g) Provide opportunities to develop existing skills and acquire new ones

h) Avoid overload as well as underload that may lead to unnecessary or excessive strain, fatigue or errors

i) Avoid repetitiveness, which may lead to physical disorders as well as to feelings of monotony, loss of motivation, boredom or to dissatisfaction

j) Avoid working alone without opportunities for social and functional contacts

(for more details, see European standard EN 614:2)

To summarize, the work task should promote the mental growth of the worker, and provide a feeling of personal success and progression. This is necessary for psychosocial well-being at work.


Means of developing repetitive and paced work tasks/jobs

To counteract the deficiencies of highly fragmented, narrowly loading work tasks three basic methods are recommended: Job rotation, job enlargement and job enrichment. These principles are often applied by organizing the activities into groups or teams:

- job rotation (see illustration below) refers to rotating workers between different tasks that load the worker in different ways

- job enrichment refers to adding more demanding subtasks to the core task, such as planning the job or controlling the quality of the product

- job enlargement refers to adding similar types of subtasks to the work performed by one worker.


Ergonomic guidelines are the basis for risk prevention

Ergonomics guidelines are needed for proper risk prevention in the design stage!

Appropriate guidelines are published in European ergonomics (and safety)standards1, e.g.:- Ergonomics design principles (EN 614-1, EN 614-2 and EN ISO 6385) - Acceptable postures and forces (EN-1005-series)- Anthropometric workplace measurement (EN ISO 14738)- Access openings, for the whole body and body parts (EN 547-series)- Presentation of information (EN 894-series, parts in 9241 series)- Human work activities in regard to human cognition (EN 894-series)- Human work activities in order to control mental workload (EN ISO 10075-series)- Human centred design for interactive systems (EN ISO 9241 Part 210) - Environmental factors (lighting, temperature etc.) (e.g. EN 12464, EN ISO 11399)- Passageways and stairs (EN ISO 14122-series)

1 standards are distributed by the national standardisation associations.


Ergonomics: going beyond health and safety

- By its definition, ergonomics is not limited to the health and safety aspects of work (the dual aims of ergonomics are well-being and efficiency).

- By the comprehensive development of the work activity human resources can be appropriately utilized, and the total output of the work-system optimized.

- Well-functioning and productive work-systems are important to the well-being of workers. They support the stable development of enterprises and their workplaces, and consequently personal development of workers, their feelings of success and progression and ultimately the welfare of their families.

- As they take the effectiveness of the systems into account, ergonomics applications should be attractive for managers, who make the decisions on the workplace investments.


Ergonomics in workplace design: good for health and good for business!

By application of ergonomics in workplace design, the production systems and workplaces can be improved both for the worker and for the organization.

To summarise, the following outcomes are typically achieved:

- Better satisfaction, motivation and commitment of the worker

- Lower rate of accidents and fewer sickness absences

- Less disturbances and losses in production due to human error

- Better quality, less careless work

- Fluent operation, the right operations in the easiest way

- Less need for corrections later: Less costs of late changes


Experiences of the EME 2014-2015

- Following the EME 2014, please gather information on the actions related to the EME (events, articles, initiatives, etc.) that took place in your country

- This information will be used to develop future EME campaigns and, to share your experiences amongst the national societies of the FEES

- PLEASE REPORT this information to the Communication and Promotion Committee of the FEES, via Martti Launis, e-mail: [email protected]


Thank you

Let us work together for the prevention of work-related psycho-social risks – ergonomists together with other OHS specialists and with the people at work!

Let us show the role and potential of ERGONOMICS in such risk prevention!

Thank you for your interest!

The FEES-campaign European Month of Ergonomics to promote ergonomics in Europe

FEES – Federation of European Ergonomics Societies www.fees-network.org

Documents

EME European Month of Ergonomics 2014-2015 V4 – Ergonomics for managing work-related stress EME European Month of Ergonomics October, 2014 and 2015 Ergonomics