The synergic role of sociotechnical and personal characteristics on work injuries in mines

Occupational injuries in mines are attributed to many factors. In this study, an attempt was made to identify the various factors related to work injuries in mines and to estimate their effects on work injuries to mine workers. An accident path model was developed to estimate the pattern and strength of relationships amongst the personal and sociotechnical variables in accident/injury occurrences. The input data for the model were the correlation matrix of 18 variables, which were collected from the case study mines. The case study results showed that there are sequential interactions amongst the sociotechnical and personal factors leading to accidents/injuries in mines. Amongst the latent endogenous constructs, job dissatisfaction and safe work behaviour show a significant positive and negative direct relationship with work injury, respectively. However, the construct safety environment has a significant negative indirect relationship with work injury. The safety environment is negatively affected by work hazards and positively affected by social support. The safety environment also shows a significant negative relationship with job stress and job dissatisfaction. However, negative personality has no significant direct or indirect effect on work injury, but it has a significant negative relationship with safe work behaviour. The endogenous construct negative personality is positively influenced by job stress and negatively influenced by social support.     

Modeling the relationship between occupational stressors, psychosocial/physical symptoms and injuries in the construction industry

Injury statistics place the construction industry as a high-risk industry, making it necessary to investigate factors that influence accidents to be able to protect workers. Research was carried out to investigate the relationship existing among occupational stressors, psychological/physical symptoms and accident/injury and work days lost outcomes as experienced by manual workers engaged in a range of industrial construction occupations. Some of the occupational stressors significantly associated with self-reported and OSHA logged injuries were training, job certainty and safety climate of the company. The OSHA logged injuries were associated with the occurrence of headaches and feelings of tenseness on the job. These results imply that non-physical stressors should be included as a potential input associated with injuries in injury risk models for construction workers.

Relevance to industry

Traditional approaches to workers’ safety in the construction industry have focused on the physical and biomechanical aspects of work by improving tools, equipment and task completion methods. The impact of psychosocial factors, specifically stress as experienced by construction workers, is an area of growing research, which is yielding results that suggest overall work safety on the construction site should take into account psychosocial aspects of work.     

Identification of accident-injury type and bodypart factors from construction accident reports: A graph-based deep learning framework

Accident reports provide information to understand why and how events occur. Learning from past accident reports is critical for preventing accidents or injuries in construction safety management. However, there are two issues: (1) manual analysis of such accident reports is time-consuming and labor-intensive; and (2) previous research mainly focused on analyzing the causal factors of accidents. Not much research concentrates on the injury effect in an accident and the influential relationship between accident cause and injury effect. To tackle this problem, a graph-based deep learning framework is proposed to identify accident-injury type and bodypart factors automatically to enable managers to make timely and better-informed decisions to prevent accidents and injuries for on-site safety. In this framework, a graph-based deep learning approach (specifically, the Graph Convolutional Network) is developed to automatically classify accident reports labeled with accident_type and injury_type, whereas the traversal method is developed to identify the bodypart factors. To further intuitively visualize these safety risk factors (e.g., accident_type, injury_type, and bodypart factors), the co-occurrence networks are drawn to further intuitively reveal the interdependency in accident-injury and injury-bodypart types respectively. From the perspective of theoretical and practical contributions, the framework proposed in this study not only represents a substantial data-driven advancement in construction accident report classification and keyword extraction tasks, but also enables managers to get knowledge of construction safety performance (i.e., accident causes and injury effects) and further formulate corresponding strategies to prevent accidents and injuries in on-site safety management.     

FOUR APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF AGEING IN INDUSTRY

Accurate reporting of work-related conditions is necessary to monitor workplace health and safety, and to identify the interventions that are most needed. Reporting systems may be designed primarily for external agencies (OSHA or workers' compensation) or for the employer's own use. Under-reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses is common due to a variety of causes and influences. Based on previous reports, the authors were especially interested in the role of safety incentive programmes on under-reporting. Safety incentive programmes typically reward supervisors and employees for reducing workplace injury rates, and thus may unintentionally inhibit proper reporting. The authors describe a case study of several industrial facilities in order to illustrate the extent of under-reporting and the reasons for its occurrence. A questionnaire and interview survey was administered to 110 workers performing similar tasks and several managers, health, and safety personnel at each of three industrial facilities. Although less than 5% of workers had officially reported a work-related injury or illness during the past year, over 85% experienced work-related symptoms, 50% had persistent work-related problems, and 30% reported either lost time from work or work restrictions because of their ailment. Workers described several reasons for not reporting their injuries, including fear of reprisal, a belief that pain was an ordinary consequence of work activity or ageing, lack of management responsiveness after prior reports, and a desire not to lose their usual job. Interviews with management representatives revealed administrative and other barriers to reporting, stemming from their desire to attain a goal of no reported injuries, and misconceptions about requirements for recordability. The corporate and facility safety incentives appeared to have an indirect, but significant negative influence on the proper reporting of workplace injuries by workers. A variety of influences may contribute to under-reporting; because of under-reporting, worker surveys and symptom reports may provide more valuable and timely information on risks than recordable injury logs. Safety incentive programmes should be carefully designed to ensure that they provide a stimulus for safety-related changes, and to discourage under-reporting. A case-control study of similar establishments, or data before and after instituting safety incentives, would be required to more clearly establish the role of these programmes in under-reporting.     

Accimap and crowd flow in urban infrastructure: Case study of Elphinstone road railway station tragedy,Mumbai, India

The aim of this article is to show how Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) methods can be used to improve urban public infrastructure systems in densely populated countries, such as India. In this case, we use Accimap analysis with crowd flow approaches to inform safety and policy. We demonstrate the need for sociotechnical systemic safety by a case study of accident analysis of the Elphinstone Road railway station stampede. On September 29, 2017, the Elphinstone Road, Mumbai, India, railway platform bridge stampede killed at least 23 and injured 39 other commuters who traveled through the Mumbai Suburban railway. In this study, we understand the accident as it is presented in newspaper articles. We analyze the accident by a sociotechnical accident analysis method called the Accimap. The Accimap method helps by identification of various stakeholders and their interactions in the different levels of hierarchy in a sociotechnical system. This ensures moving away from individualistic and blame-based accounts of media reporting to a coherent sociotechnical account based on understanding the dynamics of the situation. The findings from the Accimap analysis identify the problem areas in the commuter transit system and provide recommendations. These recommendations range from commuter flow management to enforcement of rules for supporting pedestrian flow. The article concludes with an emphasis on the development of the sociotechnical dimension of public safety and infrastructure from a human factors perspective, above and beyond what is currently practiced in India.     

UK rail workers' perceptions of accident risk factors: An exploratory study

Although non-fatal injuries remain a frequent occurrence in Rail work, very few studies have attempted to identify the perceived factors contributing to accident risk using qualitative research methods. This paper presents the results from a thematic analysis of ten interviews with On Track Machine (OTM) operatives. The inductive methodological approach generated five themes, of which two are discussed here in detail, ‘Pressure and fatigue’, and ‘Decision making and errors’. It is concluded that for companies committed to proactive accident risk reduction, irrespective of current injury rates, the collection and analysis of worker narratives and broader psychological data across safety-critical job roles may prove beneficial.     

Disaffection or expected outcomes: Understanding personal Internet use during work

Many contemporary analyses of personal Internet use during work explain the behavior in terms of workplace disaffection. However, evidence for this interpretation is mixed. This article posits that an approach emphasizing the expected outcomes of Internet use more effectively explains the behavior. The 2 approaches are tested using survey data collected from more than 1,000 U.S.‐based computer‐using workers. About 4/5 of those workers do engage in personal Internet use during work. Regression analyses show that workplace disaffection factors, such as stress and dissatisfaction, have no significant influence on the extent of web surfing or personal e‐mail use during work. In contrast, factors which shape the expected outcomes of personal Internet use during work, such as a generalized positive perception of the utility of the Internet, routinized use of computers, job commitment, and organizational restrictions on computer use, are very significant predictors of such behavior. These results suggest that employees use the Internet for personal purposes at work for many of the same reasons that they use it elsewhere. Implications of these findings are explored.     

Ergonomic stress levels, personal characteristics, accident occurrence and sickness absence among factory workers

This study was designed to evaluate the association of a single, integrated measure of simultaneous exposure to a number of adverse work and environmental conditions, termed the Ergonomic Stress Level (E-S-L), on workers' accident and sickness absence rates. The factors determining the E-S-L were body motion and posture, physical effort, active hazards and environmental stressors. E-S-L evaluation was based on 'walk-through' hazard inventories, direct observations, measurements and interviews. Workers were assigned to one of four stress levels ranging from low (A) to high (D). Subjects were 729 males, aged 20-67 years, employed in five factories in Israel. A linear relationship between E-S-L AND accident incidence was found, increasing from the lowest to the highest E-S-L. Moreover, workers more sensitive to environmental stressors, as indicated by their reported subjective annoyance, showed higher accident rates across all the ergonomic stress levels, a tendency which was statistically significant at levels C and D. On the other hand, sickness absence was significantly related to the overall subjective stress experienced, as manifested by reported job dissatisfaction and somatic complaints, and not directly to E-S-L. These findings highlight the role of aggregate work stress, coupled with individual sensitivity to environmental stressors, in increasing the risk of accidents.     

Ergonomic stress levels,personal characteristics,accident occurrence and sickness absence among factory workers

This study was designed to evaluate the association of a single, integrated measure of simultaneous exposure to a number of adverse work and environmental conditions, termed the Ergonomic Stress Level (E-S-L), on workers' accident and sickness absence rates. The factors determining the E-S-L were body motion and posture, physical effort, active hazards and environmental stressors. E-S-L evaluation was based on ‘walk-through’ hazard inventories, direct observations, measurements and interviews. Workers were assigned to one of four stress levels ranging from low (A) to high (D). Subjects were 729 males, aged 20-67 years, employed in five factories in Israel. A linear relationship between E-S-L and accident incidence was found, increasing from the lowest to the highest E-S-L. Moreover, workers more sensitive to environmental stressors, as indicated by their reported subjective annoyance, showed higher accident rates across all the ergonomic stress levels, a tendency which was statistically significant at levels C and D. On the other hand, sickness absence was significantly related to the overall subjective stress experienced, as manifested by reported job dissatisfaction and somatic complaints, and not directly to E-S-L. These findings highlight the role of aggregate work stress, coupled with individual sensitivity to environmental stressors, in increasing the risk of accidents.     

Understanding felling safety in the New Zealand forest industry

Highest injury rates within the New Zealand forest sector are reported for the logging operation, with up to 30% of logging injuries occurring during the felling task. This paper reports findings from a detailed task and job safety analysis of the motor-manual (chainsaw) felling task, and an analysis of New Zealand Accident Reporting Scheme data for logging injuries for the five-year period, 1996-2000. Key safety factors, including physical hazards and potential errors and violations associated with the felling task, were determined from the task and job safety analysis, along with possible adverse consequences and potential solutions for reducing injury risk. The potential for injury among inexperienced fellers was noted, as felling safety was dependent upon appropriate assessment of hazards and good judgement in respect of decisions regarding the felling of trees. The analysis of some 351 reported felling injury cases allowed identification of high-risk task elements, common injury initiating events and temporal and logger population injury patterns. Findings from the two methods of analysis were triangulated where possible to produce a better understanding of key risk areas. The potential risk associated with inexperienced employees, who incurred a high proportion of felling injuries, and the need for good judgement and decision making for different aspects of the felling task were particularly noted.     

Predictors of Use of Social Network Sites at Work ‐ A Specific Type of Cyberloafing

A total of 11,018 employees participated in a survey investigating whether demographic, personality, and work‐related variables could explain variance in attitudes towards and actual use of social network sites for personal purposes during working hours. Age was negatively related to both dependent variables. Male gender, single status, and education were positively associated with both dependent variables. Managers had negative attitudes to use, but top‐level managers reported more use than other respondents. Access to social network sites at the workplace was positively related to both dependent variables, whereas policies prohibiting showed the opposite relationship. Extraversion and Neuroticism were positively related to both dependent variables. Conscientiousness, positive challenge at work, and quantitative demands were all negatively related to both dependent variables.     

Comparisons of variables between fatal and nonfatal accidents in manufacturing industry

This study concerns with the comparisons of variables between fatal and nonfatal accidents in Korean manufacturing industries. The national industrial accident statistics for the years 1991–1994 were extracted from the annual publications of Ministry of Labor. These data were used to compare the distributions of fatal and nonfatal injuries in terms of company size, injured person's age, work experience, accident time, activity at time of accident, accident type, injury type, injured body part, and accident agency. Results show that the distributions of the fatal injuries are statistically different from those of the nonfatal injuries: (1) nonfatal injuries occur more frequently in the younger workers, while deaths occur more frequently in the older workers; (2) the proportion of death occurring in night shift is greater than that of nonfatal injuries; (3) `caught in and between objects' is the most common type of accident, but the second common type of accident is `awkward or sudden movement' in the nonfatal injuries, instead of `falls from a height' in deaths; and (4) `fracture' is the leading caused injury and death, but the second leading type of injury is `contusion or bruise' in the nonfatal injuries and `cerebral concussion' in deaths.

Relevance to industry

Strategies for accident prevention should be in reasonable agreement with significant variables of occupational accidents. These results can be used to develop more effective accidental occupational death and injury prevention programs for manufacturing industry.     

Modernization of a laundry processing plant: is it really an improvement?

An ergonomics assessment was conducted in a modern, automated hospital-based laundry to investigate workers' complaints of musculoskeletal aches and pains and general fatigue. Numerous job stressors were identified requiring ergonomic solutions, including prolonged standing, excessive manual handling of transport units, non-adjustability of workstations, work pacing, awkward postures, lack of job rotation and excessive repetition of tasks. Associated health and safety issues such as noise, sharps, equipment maintenance and sanitation were also addressed. Potential mechanisms for repetitive strain injuries were substantiated and solutions for problematic areas were presented to management and the union for implementation. It was concluded that human factors must be taken into consideration when designing automated laundry systems to avoid mismatches resulting in potential injury to workers.     

The role of psychological factors in workplace safety

Workplace safety researchers and practitioners generally agree that it is necessary to understand the psychological factors that influence people's workplace safety behaviour. Yet, the search for reliable individual differences regarding psychological factors associated with workplace safety has lead to sparse results and inconclusive findings. The aim of this study was to investigate whether there are differences between the psychological factors, cognitive ability, personality and work-wellness of employees involved in workplace incidents and accidents and/or driver vehicle accidents and those who are not. The study population (N = 279) consisted of employees employed at an electricity supply organisation in South Africa. Mann–Whitney U-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted to determine the differences in the respective psychological factors between the groups. These results showed that cognitive ability did not seem to play a role in workplace incident/accident involvement, including driver vehicle accidents, while the wellness factors burnout and sense of coherence, as well as certain personality traits, namely conscientiousness, pragmatic and gregariousness play a statistically significant role in individuals' involvement in workplace incidents/accidents/driver vehicle accidents. Safety practitioners, managers and human resource specialists should take cognisance of the role of specifically work-wellness in workplace safety behaviour, as management can influence these negative states that are often caused by continuously stressful situations, and subsequently enhance work place safety.     

When your Second Life comes knocking: Effects of personality on changes to real life from virtual world experiences

A survey study (N = 223) of participants in the social virtual world, Second Life, examined the relationship between Big Five personality factors, experiences in the virtual world and reports of changes to real life resulting from the virtual world experiences. Hypotheses about direct and indirect effects of personality on real life changes were tested with structural equation modeling. Results showed that the strength of users’ relationship to the virtual environment, identification with and similarity to their avatars positively predicted reports of changes to real life, and that these three factors mediated effects of Agreeableness, Extraversion, Intellect, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability, on real life changes. Conscientiousness also had a direct negative relationship with real life changes. Implications are discussed for the potential of virtual social media features for activating facets of personality traits.     

Are team personality and climate related to satisfaction and software quality? Aggregating results from a twice replicated experiment

ContextResearch into software engineering teams focuses on human and social team factors. Social psychology deals with the study of team formation and has found that personality factors and group processes such as team climate are related to team effectiveness. However, there are only a handful of empirical studies dealing with personality and team climate and their relationship to software development team effectiveness.ObjectiveWe present aggregate results of a twice replicated quasi-experiment that evaluates the relationships between personality, team climate, product quality and satisfaction in software development teams.MethodOur experimental study measures the personalities of team members based on the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and team climate factors (participative safety, support for innovation, team vision and task orientation) preferences and perceptions. We aggregate the results of the three studies through a meta-analysis of correlations. The study was conducted with students.ResultsThe aggregation of results from the baseline experiment and two replications corroborates the following findings. There is a positive relationship between all four climate factors and satisfaction in software development teams. Teams whose members score highest for the agreeableness personality factor have the highest satisfaction levels. The results unveil a significant positive correlation between the extraversion personality factor and software product quality. High participative safety and task orientation climate perceptions are significantly related to quality.ConclusionsFirst, more efficient software development teams can be formed heeding personality factors like agreeableness and extraversion. Second, the team climate generated in software development teams should be monitored for team member satisfaction. Finally, aspects like people feeling safe giving their opinions or encouraging team members to work hard at their job can have an impact on software quality. Software project managers can take advantage of these factors to promote developer satisfaction and improve the resulting product.     

Multiple ergonomic interventions and transportation safety

This article discusses arguments and research evidence concerning multiple ergonomic approaches to problems of transportation safety. Transportation accidents ( and their consequences) are the result of multifactor processes. Therefore, the probability of an- accident ( and of an injury, given an accident) can be influenced by interventions directed at any of the factors. Furthermore, the most effective accident countermeasures are not necessarily those directed at the ‘ cause’ of accidents. As examples, multiple ergonomic countermeasures are noted for road accidents involving alcohol-intoxicated drivers and elderly drivers, as well as for minimizing injuries resulting from road accidents     

New Information Technologies,Job Profiles,and External Workload as Predictors of Subjectively Experienced Stress and Dissatisfaction at Work

Implementation cycles of information technologies in modern workplaces have become shorter, and employees have to constantly adapt to changing work situations. Presented here are preliminary results from a comprehensive research project. The 2nd Vienna Implementation Study, which investigated the effects on workers of continuous implementations, that is, the implementations of new information technologies on workplaces already equipped with computers. In a longitudinal research design, strain and dissatisfaction of 466 employees in 10 different companies are investigated. In each company, an implementation of a new information technology occurs during a specified time period. Seven measurements are taken over a 22-month period. Contextual factors postulated to moderate employee reactions to the new information technology include the following: type of implementation, implementation style (e.g., implementation management, participation) job profiles, external workload of employees, and personality factors. Preliminary analyses of the first two measurements of subjectively experienced stress and dissatisfaction (2 subscales representing strain and job satisfaction) in 9 companies are presented here. Compared to a control sample (the first 2 measurements in companies in which the implementation has not occurred), employees in the implementation sample had an increase in subjectively experienced stress and no changes in dissatisfaction shortly after the implementation. Both preimplementation values and changes in subjectively experienced stress and dissatisfaction seemed to be highly influenced by contextual factors at an organizational level. Regarding job characteristics (decision latitude) and external workload (e.g., family, children, and household responsibilities), employees with low decision latitude at their workplaces and a high external workload showed the strongest increases in subjectively experienced stress after the implementation....     

The impact of negative attitudes toward computers on employees' satisfaction and commitment within a small company

In order to examine the impact of negative attitudes toward computer usage, a survey was administered that measured attitudes toward computers, the level of job satisfaction in the work environment, and general attitudes toward the organization. Twenty-nine employees at a real estate office completed a 24-item survey during a regularly scheduled employee meeting. Attitudes toward computers were generally positive; however, about one third of the sample felt incompetent in their ability to use computers, and 21% said that they avoid using computers altogether. Results also indicated that feelings of frustration and confusion about the use of computers were associated with lower job satisfaction. While negative attitudes towards computers were related to one 's attitudes toward the job, these attitudes were unrelated to one's feeling toward the company. Thus, computerphobia may have a strong link to individual job satisfaction, with any consequence for overall attitudes toward the company operating through prolonged dissatisfaction with one's job.     

Impact of using social network services on workplace ostracism,job satisfaction,and innovative behaviour

Research has found workplace ostracism to negatively impact workplace attitudes and behaviours such as job satisfaction, organisational citizenship behaviour, and job performance. However, research investigating beyond the direct effects of workplace ostracism and findings about boundary conditions for mitigating the negative effects of workplace ostracism are limited in organisational studies. In this regard, this study explored the mediating effects of job satisfaction on the relationship between workplace ostracism and innovative behaviour and the moderating effects of social networking services for work-related purposes for the relationship between workplace ostracism and job satisfaction. The two-wave study consisted of 237 full-time employees in large organisations in South Korea. The hierarchical regression analyses resulted in job satisfaction to mediate the relationship between workplace ostracism and innovative behaviour and social network service to significantly moderate the relationship between workplace ostracism and job satisfaction. Moreover, mediated moderation was found for the study model, which further suggests that using social network services for work-related purposes had indirect effects on innovative behaviour.