Traditional ergonomic interventions focus on physical workplace risk factors and are often limited by failure to address larger issues related to organizational factors in the work systems. Macroergonomics is an approach that tries to systematically analyze a broader range of factors that influence organizations and the workers in them. This approach recognizes that organizational, political, social, and psychological factors at work have as much impact on implementing new ideas as the merit of the ideas themselves. This session will focus on concepts that will allow safety professionals to expand their knowledge and methods to address these broader organizational factors and apply basic macroergonomic principles to reduce risk, improve performance, and achieve safety excellence. The presentation will discuss methods for safety professionals to:
Develop a systems approach to identify, understand and address the multiple factors that contribute to accident causation, including physical, psychosocial and organizational issues
Use workforce surveys to measure and understand perceptions that are related to improving ergonomics and safety
Expand participation of the workforce in risk assessment and control through the use of team approaches to driving change in the organization
Many factors can contribute to work-related injuries and workers' compensation claims and most incidents result from a combination of causes. Injures related to musculoskeletal disorder (MSD), for example, are often related to a combination of physical, psychosocial and organizational issues in the work and home environment.
The primary physical workplace risk factors that have been associated with an increased risk to worker musculoskeletal disorders include high repetition of the same physical activity, high force exertions, awkward postures, and long durations of static positions, mechanical pressure, vibration, and cold temperatures.
Other risk factors may be related to the physical and emotional condition of the worker, the culture within the organization, and workers' perceptions of the work environment and organization. Macroergonomics is concerned with the research, design, development, and application of the interface between organization, environment, human behavior and work systems. The broad category of factors related to the workers perceptions of the work and the organization are generally referred to as psychosocial factors. Strategies to control risk must address the physical, psychosocial and organizational factors.
Safety and Health research has identified several psychosocial factors that can influence health outcomes for the work force. Health outcomes that have been studied have included stress measures, MSD symptoms, frequency of reported claims, amount of time lost from work, and the extent of the disability from the injury.
The psychosocial factors that have been studied include perceptions of the workers and management about the organization, the work environment, the management systems, job content, and job satisfaction. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) studies of health and safety research (DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No 97–141) have concluded that there is strong support for the association of some psychosocial risk factors with adverse health outcomes.
