Gardening work in an urban environment and the notion of territory.

BACKGROUND: There are several characteristics of working in an urban environment that challenge the usual forms of work prescription. OBJECTIVE: This is a case study on the work of gardeners in an urban setting in the north of Paris. This paper develops the notion of territory, which we define as a system that is locally rooted in an open environment through the situated actions of gardeners' work. As the employees do their work in an outside environment, interactions in real-life situations are beyond the control of work organization. City gardeners' work is carried out in a green, living and human environment. METHODS: We conducted detailed open observations in a town's green zones. These were complemented by individual interviews in work situations and by collective interviews within the boundaries of the municipality. RESULTS: We use the notion of territory to highlight the particularity of work within organizations where the work environment cannot be limited to the space inside their walls. The gardeners' work makes it possible to link residents and passers-by (on foot or in vehicles) with the town's green spaces (micro-ecosystems). Their work consists in connecting the different expectations and needs of the various life forms: the human beings (with a variety of lifestyles), as well as the plants, insects and animals. CONCLUSION: The particularities of working in an open environment create complex forms of prescription. The notion of territory, rarely used in ergonomics, proves to be fruitful for considering work in these contexts.

An ergonomic approach to improve work conditions of older employees in social housing.

French companies are legally required to develop action plans to improve employment and work conditions for older workers ("plans seniors"). These plans contain measures oriented towards recruiting, career evolution, skills developme1nt, knowledge transmission and improvement of work conditions. A tool for assessing work situations experienced by council buildings caretakers ("gardiens") was used in such a plan on behalf of the main agency of council housing in Paris, and we developed. This assessment tool was developed after ergonomic work analysis on a sample of 36 older caretakers (age > 57 y.o). The technical inspectors in charge of technical interventions on buildings and managing caretakers were trained to use the assessment tool and apply it to all caretakers aged 50 and over.

Care giving and nursing, work conditions and Humanitude®.

Increased lifespan in western societies causes the increase of hospitalization in the old age, notably for patient showing forms of dementia including Altzheimer disease. These patients relate poorly to care givers and nurses, and cases of maltreatment have repeatedly been reported. To prevent abuse and increase patient's quality of life, Gineste and Pelissier (2007) proposed a philosophy of care based on the Humanitude® concept. Acknowledging that being human is being vertical and related to other humans, the pillars of Humanitude® are gaze, touch, talk, and standing. These modes of relation are systematically developed in care giving techniques derived from the concept. After several studies in geriatric hospitals, to assess psychosocial and ergonomic aspects of work, we present an analysis of the gap between the logic of human care and the logic of hospital organization, impacting employees work conditions and psychological welfare. Care giving is not only a "one to one" relation with the patient but needs to be integrated in the whole organization. Psychologists and ergonomists should be instrumental in defining the project and the organization linking human care giving towards the patients and better work conditions for healthcare employees.

Social responsibility and work conditions: building a reference label, Démarche T®.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is now considered in large and global companies and the recent publication of the ISO 26000 standard clarifies the targets. Based on our consultancy's experience for fifteen years in ergonomics mainly in French small and medium enterprises, we developed a label to coax and value efforts of companies in dealing with health and safety at the work place as required by ISO 26000 paragraph 6.4. The formal approach of ISO describes what should be achieved but gives no cue on how actual conditions of work should be improved. The label, called Démarche T (ie Process W where W stands for work) aims the management of work conditions as a process, giving visibility and credit to companies for their continuous involvement in the matter. We describe the items and processes that are part of our assessment. We first conduct an ergonomic diagnosis including the analysis of records on health, physical and psychological well-being, observations at the workplace and interviews with the workers. This diagnosis is followed by recommendations. The fulfillment of these is assessed yearly. Items under assessment include: - ergonomics, health and safety in the companies statements and their impact in actual project management; - relations with workers through the committee for health and safety; - actual results on health, safety and work conditions. On a local level, we give the companies passing the label a competitive edge in recruiting better candidates motivated by good work conditions, and help them fulfill ISO 26000 requirements, an increasingly decisive advantage to benefit from public regional and European support. Our paper describes the diagnosis and follow-up process.

Crossing the Red Sea: phylogeography of the hamadryas baboon, Papio hamadryas hamadryas.

The hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas hamadryas) is found both in East Africa and western Arabia and is the only free-ranging nonhuman primate in Arabia. It has been hypothesized that hamadryas baboons colonized Arabia in the recent past and were possibly even transported there by humans. We investigated the phylogeography of hamadryas baboons by sequencing a portion of the control region of mtDNA in 107 baboons from four Saudi Arabian populations and combing these data with published data from Eritrean (African) P. h. hamadryas. Analysis grouped sequences into three distinct clades, with clade 1 found only in Arabia, clade 3 found only in Africa, but clade 2 found in both Arabian and African P. h. hamadryas and also in the olive baboon, P. h. anubis. Patterns of variation within Arabia are neither compatible with the recent colonization of Arabia, implying that baboons were not transported there by humans, nor with a northerly route of colonization of Arabia. We propose that hamadryas baboons reached Arabia via land bridges that have formed periodically during glacial maxima at the straits of Bab el Mandab in the southern Red Sea. We suggest that the genetic differentiation of Arabian from African populations suggests that Arabian populations have a higher conservation status than recognized previously.