Psychosocial Risks in Job Designs
Task Design
Job/task design is used in the work environment to evaluate how tasks or the whole work is organized and then ensure that these match the employee's qualifications.
A well-designed job helps the worker achieve the conditions necessary to maintain a safe and healthy job, thereby reducing physical and mental strain and helping the work organization work. It contributes to the identification of psychosocial risks such as excessive workload, monotonous work repetitions, and limited control over work and thus to improvements in occupational health and safety (OHS) within organizations. A well-designed business results in a business with more engaged, healthy, and productive employees, and these results benefit both employees and organizations.
The result of any job or job design intervention is to obtain jobs that:
Task Variety: An attempt should be made to provide an optimal variety of tasks in every job. Too much variety can be counterproductive for the employee. Too little can cause boredom and fatigue. The optimal level is the level that allows the worker to rest after a high level of attention or effort while working on another task or, conversely, to resume an active process after periods of routine activity.
Talent Diversity: Studies show that employees are satisfied with using a range of skill levels.
Feedback: There should be a way to quickly inform employees when they reach their goals. Quick feedback aids the learning process. Ideally, employees should have the responsibility to set their own quantitative and quality standards.
Task ID: Task sets should be separated from other task sets by some clear boundaries. Whenever possible, a group or individual worker should be responsible for a clearly defined, visible, and meaningful set of tasks. In this way, the work is seen as important by the group or individual undertaking it and others understand and respect its importance.
Task autonomy: Employees should be able to exert some control over their work. Spaces of appreciation and decision-making should be open to them.
Psychosocial Risks in Task Designs
It is an accepted situation that all work activities will place physical or mental demands on employees. If these are maintained at appropriate levels, employee health, well-being and performance are protected. But if demands exceed workers' capacity, mistakes, accidents, injuries, and impairments in physical and mental health can occur.
Application of job design principles; It should also assist in identifying suitable workspaces, furniture, machinery, and tools, including size, strength, physical capacity, information processing capacity, and expectations, designed and delivered in accordance with the qualifications of workers. Since this harmony of the employee with the environment is related to the psychosocial aspect of the job design, the person-environment harmony is also included in the process. In general, good job design results in conformity of the organization's demands to the employee's abilities.
A job/task design process is created by addressing psychosocial factors in the work environment. Examples of these factors are control, overwork or underload, ergonomic aspects associated with musculoskeletal disorders, shift work, repetition, overtime, and work stress. Therefore, the goal of a good task/job design process is to improve productivity and psychosocial conditions at work.
Conclusion
Job/task design occurs within organizations when a new job is created or when the job no longer fits the worker perfectly or when it starts to exceed an employee's capacity, as the creation of this task design or updating an existing task.
These updates are made when employees exhibit health problems such as ergonomic problems related to the musculoskeletal system or strain due to psychosocial risks, or when interventions are required to counteract the negative effects of the job and the risks that may occur.
N_HumaN Consultancy provides services to businesses to assess psychosocial risks, identify risk factors related to task designs, and prevent them within the scope of the 5-stage IYRS model.
References
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