Changes implemented during a workplace psychosocial intervention and their consistency with intervention priorities.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the changes implemented as part of a workplace psychosocial intervention. METHODS: The intervention was conducted in a public organization employing 1630 white-collar workers. The intervention was defined as all changes implemented to reduce adverse psychosocial work factors. A logbook was held to describe the changes implemented in the intervention group and in a comparable control group (N = 1282). RESULTS: Social support and reward were the psychosocial factors most targeted (41% to 83%). In comparison with the control group, the intervention group implemented four times more major changes and implemented changes, improving the employees' workload. CONCLUSIONS: Changes mainly targeted social support and reward. The intervention group implemented four times more major changes than the control group. The intervention group implemented changes targeting the workload, whereas no such changes were implemented in the control group.

Implementation of an organizational-level intervention on the psychosocial environment of work: comparison of managers' and employees' views.

OBJECTIVE: To compare employees' and managers' perceptions of implemented changes in an organizational-level workplace intervention. METHODS: Nine departments participated in an intervention aimed at reducing adverse psychosocial work environment factors. On the basis of a prior risk evaluation, department managers were responsible for decisions and implementation of the intervention, that is, work changes. These were recorded in logbooks, which were compared to employees' questionnaire ratings of the changes. RESULTS: For half of the changes, proportion of employees reporting that a specific change was implemented did not correspond with the amount of manager-reported changes. CONCLUSIONS: Evaluation of employees' and managers' perceptions of an organizational-level intervention is crucial, since these perceptions do not necessarily fully correspond. Employees perceived changes that were not reported by department managers and they also did not perceive exposure to all changes reported by the managers.

Intervention study on psychosocial work factors and mental health and musculoskeletal outcomes.

Organizations are facing ever-stiffer competition in the current globalized economy, and employees are consequently being exposed to increasingly adverse psychosocial work factors. Psychosocial work factors, also called psychosocial stressors, refer to all organizational factors and interpersonal relationships in the workplace that may affect workers' health. Two well-defined and internationally recognized theoretical models are used to assess these factors: the Karasek demand-latitude-support model and the Siegrist effort-reward imbalance model. The Karasek and Siegrist models reflect specific components of the work environment for which there is empirical evidence of a deleterious effect on health. Preventive interventions targeting these factors are conducted in workplaces. However, few studies have rigorously documented these interventions and their effectiveness in reducing adverse work factors and improving health outcomes. Most previous intervention studies were limited by (1) a short follow-up that may not have provided sufficient time for effects to appear, (2) small sample sizes (N ≤ 100) that limited the statistical power and the possibility of detecting results and (3) rare assessment of the Siegrist model. The current paper presents the overall design and the main results of an intervention study on psychosocial work factors and related mental health and musculoskeletal outcomes. The study integrated (1) a development phase that aimed at identifying the changes needed to reduce psychosocial factors in the target population and the best ways to bring about these changes, (2) an implementation phase that systematically documented how the intervention was carried out and (3) an effectiveness phase that evaluated whether the intervention was successful in reducing adverse psychosocial work factors and health problems. In addition, the study used repeated measurements of psychosocial work factors and health indicators at baseline and six and 30 months post-intervention to assess short- and medium-term effects of the intervention.

The handling of objects other than boxes: univariate analysis of handling techniques in a large transport company.

The purpose of this study, carried out on handlers in the distribution centre of a large transport company, was to identify the techniques used for handling objects other than boxes. Thirty-one workers, with experience varying from one month to 17 years, were each filmed during one shift. A grid with 36 variables allowed the successive operations to be described: the type of grip, the nature and the direction of the efforts by the upper limbs, the use of the back and the lower limbs, and the displacement of the object. Nine hundred and forty-four handlings carried out in 3217 distinct movements were analysed. These observations revealed the complexity of the handling techniques and the tendency to favour some of them. Seventy-nine per cent of the handlings observed included pre-transfer and/or post-placement phases in addition to the transfer itself. Essentially horizontal phases (pulling, pushing) are more frequent than essentially vertical ones (lifting, lowering); asymmetry is generalized, whether it involves the back position (torsion), the direction and the type of effort, the position of the hands on the object, etc. More than half of the efforts are used to move an object resting on a surface (sliding, pivoting, turning, rolling); resistive efforts downwards (e.g., lowering) are avoided in favour of 'throwing' or 'dropping'.