Positive and negative aspects of the work of information technology personnel: An exploratory analysis

This paper re-analyses data gathered in a 1989 research among Dutch information technology personnel. Working from Karasek's job stress model, we use exploratory multiple correspondence analyses on the aggregated data matrix of occupations and work items. We employed two models: one that emphasised the negative evaluations of job aspects, and one that emphasised positive evaluations. The structuring of positive evaluations of job aspects proved most meaningful. Occupations could be distinguished into three groups. The first and largest group is characterised by a fairly balanced degree of autonomy and workload. A second group comprised of middle management occupations is characterised by unfavourable judgement on workload, matched by insufficient autonomy; as such, employees in these occupations appear at risk of overburdening. A third group of computer specialists report a workload that is too slight given their degree of autonomy; this group appears to be at risk of underburdening.     

The associations between psychosocial workload and mental health complaints in different age groups

The objective of the present study was to explore associations between psychosocial workload and mental health complaints in different age groups. A questionnaire was sent to 2021 employees of a Dutch railway company. Six aspects of psychosocial workload (work pressure, mental workload, emotional workload, autonomy, social support from colleagues and social support from supervisors) and three mental health outcomes (work-related fatigue, stress and burnout) were assessed. Associations between the aspects of psychosocial workload (distributed into tertiles) and health complaints were analysed by logistic regression analysis in four age groups (22-35, 36-45, 46-55 and 56-66 years old). In all age groups, worse work pressure was a significant risk factor for having mental health complaints. Worse emotional load in the younger employees and lack of social support in older employees were associated with a higher risk of having mental health complaints. Age-specific preventive measures should be implemented on both individual and group levels. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: With an ageing workforce, understanding relationships between age and work-related health ailments is increasingly important. This study found that emotional workload in younger and lack of social support in older employees were associated with a higher risk of mental health complaints. Work pressure was a risk factor in all age groups.     

The associations between psychosocial workload and mental health complaints in different age groups

The objective of the present study was to explore associations between psychosocial workload and mental health complaints in different age groups. A questionnaire was sent to 2021 employees of a Dutch railway company. Six aspects of psychosocial workload (work pressure, mental workload, emotional workload, autonomy, social support from colleagues and social support from supervisors) and three mental health outcomes (work-related fatigue, stress and burnout) were assessed. Associations between the aspects of psychosocial workload (distributed into tertiles) and health complaints were analysed by logistic regression analysis in four age groups (22–35, 36–45, 46–55 and 56–66 years old). In all age groups, worse work pressure was a significant risk factor for having mental health complaints. Worse emotional load in the younger employees and lack of social support in older employees were associated with a higher risk of having mental health complaints. Age-specific preventive measures should be implemented on both individual and group levels.

Statement of Relevance: With an ageing workforce, understanding relationships between age and work-related health ailments is increasingly important. This study found that emotional workload in younger and lack of social support in older employees were associated with a higher risk of mental health complaints. Work pressure was a risk factor in all age groups.     

On the Relation of Job Insecurity,Job Autonomy,Innovative Work Behaviour and the Mediating Effect of Work Engagement

European policy is focusing on innovation as a way out of the economic crisis. At the same time, job insecurity is rising as Europe is still in crisis. In this paper, we examine whether job insecurity affects the innovative work behaviour of employees by focusing on the relation between job insecurity, job autonomy, work engagement and innovative work behaviour (IWB). Using employee level survey data, we use structural equation modelling to disentangle the relations between these variables. The partially mediated model shows the best fit with the data. This model shows that job insecurity and autonomy are both directly and indirectly, through work engagement, related with IWB. For autonomy these relations are positive, while they are negative (and smaller) for job insecurity. Moreover, a negative covariance is observed between job insecurity and autonomy.     

Overcoming underload and overload: The effect of stage and level of autonomy in routine-failure trade-off in human-autonomy teams

We examined how human mental workload and the corresponding eye movement behaviors are affected by the stages and levels of autonomy in routine and autonomy failure conditions in human-autonomy teams (HAT). Thirty participants performed monitoring and diagnosing tasks with the autonomous agent in a three-factor experiment. The factors included information processing stage, level of autonomy, and agent operation condition. The results indicated that the later the agent-supported information processing stage or the higher the autonomy level, the higher the participants’ mental workload following autonomous agent failure. Compared to the continuous manual operation condition, the HAT performance did not decline following autonomous agent failure at the cost of increased mental workload. The eye movement results indicated a top-down compensatory control mechanism of attention, indicating the risk of team performance decline following autonomous agent failure. These findings can be applied in designing autonomous agents and setting human mental workload levels in a HAT.     

Social and psychological aspects of computer-aided design systems

A study was performed among design employees in three large companies to investigate the psychosocial effects of computer-aided design (CAD) work. The study included all technical employees of the departments selected, of whom about two-thirds worked with CAD systems. The results demonstrate that 90% of the CAD users have a positive attitude to CAD-work. No significant differences were found between CAD users and non-CAD users in terms of work load, autonomy, social support, job satisfaction, personal development, or degree of co-operation. Within the group of CAD users, those spending a larger number of weekly working hours with the CAD system reported lower work complexity, lower autonomy of work methods, and less job satisfaction. CAD users with a relatively higher number of years of CAD experience reported a greater work load, fewer CAD difficulties, and lower autonomy of work methods. Among draftspersons and designers, there were no significant differences in work activities between CAD users and non-CAD users.     

The impact of new technology by occupation and age on work in financial firms: A 2‐year follow‐up

The assessment of expectancies and experiences concerning the effects of new applications in different occupations and age groups were analyzed as one part of a longitudinal study conducted in 1985 and 1987. Also, respondents’ own subjective feelings of mastering the applications were studied. The follow‐up sample consisted of 803 employees in four banks and two insurance companies in Finland. New integrated and flexible on‐line systems were implemented in most of the target organizations. The questionnaire method was used in 1985 and 1987.

In general, new computer applications were experienced to have more often increased than decreased positive characteristics at work Both the occupational groups and the age groups differed significantly in their expectancies and experiences of the applications. Analyses of variance showed that the expectations about the effects of new applications on job complexity, autonomy, social interaction, and job appreciation differed significantly according to occupation in 1985, but not according to age. In 1987, occupation was no longer as significant as earlier in explaining real changes in the studied work characteristics. More often, experiences varied significantly according to age group. The youngest employees tended to feel that positive traits at work had increased more.

In both years, occupation was significant in explaining mastery of applications. The decrease in mastery of applications showed that during the implementation period, more attention should be paid to finding suitable methods of training employees in different occupational and age groups.     

Balancing high operator's workload through a new job rotation approach: Application to an automotive assembly line

Reducing musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) risk factors and work monotony are the main reasons that persuade a manufacturing industry to apply job rotation in the workforce planning. This research aims to smooth the daily workload by designing an optimal sequence of job rotation using a mathematical model. The study consists of two main steps. The first is an ergonomic analysis of the workstations to evaluate the physical workload of different jobs. An in-house risk assessment method was used to identify physical workloads of each job. In the second step, a mathematical model was developed to schedule job rotation and optimize/balance the cumulative workload. Mixed integer programming is proposed to implement a platform for the ergonomic job rotation.The objective of the job rotation programming in this research was to determine the optimal sequence of jobs for each worker such that the global daily workload of the workers would be balanced. The proposed job rotation strategy reduced the dispersion and the deviation of the daily cumulative workload among the workers considering that the rotation only occurred inside the specific groups and not between the groups.     

Social and psychological aspects of computer-aided design systems

Abstract

A study was performed among design employees in three large companies to investigate the psychosocial effects of computer-aided design (CAD) work. The study included all technical employees of the departments selected, of whom about two-thirds worked with CAD systems. The results demonstrate that 90% of the CAD users have a positive attitude to CAD-work. No significant differences were found between CAD users and non-CAD users in terms of work load, autonomy, social support, job satisfaction, personal development, or degree of co-operation. Within the group of CAD users, those spending a larger number of weekly working hours with the CAD system reported lower work complexity, lower autonomy of work methods, and less job satisfaction. CAD users with a relatively higher number of years of CAD experience reported a greater work load, fewer CAD difficulties, and lower autonomy of work methods. Among draftspersons and designers, there were no significant differences in work activities between CAD users and non-CAD users.     

用爬山法实现无中心式网格调度

为方便网格资源的扩展,网格调度应当是无中心的.为在尽可能多的计算资源中为单地点作业优化资源选择,这里采用了爬山算法.当一个网格调度器收到一个单地点作业,爬山法被激活,根据网格调度器之间的相邻关系为作业找出最适合的计算系统,这里每个计算系统的适合度用预测的作业响应时间表示.实验模拟了无中心式网格调度与计算系统之间的性能差别,每个计算系统的本地调度采用保守式装填法,网格工作负荷由模型得到,并用一段工作负荷的平均响应时间衡量调度性能.实验结果表明,即使在作业提交点分布不均匀且运行时间估计不准确情况下,爬山法仍可有效改善单地点作业的调度.     

Occupation-differential construct validity of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) psychological job demands scale with physical job demands items: a mixed methods research

The construct validity of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) psychological demands scale in relationship to physical demands has been inconsistent. This study aims to test quantitatively and qualitatively whether the scale validity differs by occupation. Hierarchical clustering analyses of 10 JCQ psychological and physical demands items were conducted in 61 occupations from two datasets: one of non-faculty workers at a university in the United States (6 occupations with 208 total workers) and the other of a Belgian working population (55 occupations with 13,039 total workers). The psychological and physical demands items overlapped in 13 of 61 occupation-stratified clustering analyses. Most of the overlaps occurred in physically-demanding occupations and involved the two psychological demands items, 'work fast' and 'work hard'. Generally, the scale reliability was low in such occupations. Additionally, interviews with eight university workers revealed that workers interpreted the two psychological demands items differently by the nature of their tasks. The scale validity was occupation-differential. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: The JCQ psychological job demands scale as a job demand measure has been used worldwide in many studies. This study indicates that the wordings of the 'work fast' and 'work hard' items of the scale need to be reworded enough to differentiate mental and physical job demands as intended, 'psychological.'     

Impact of Lean Production on Perceived Job Autonomy and Job Satisfaction: An Experimental Study

Previous studies have indicated positive and negative effects of lean production on employees’ perceived work characteristics and job attitudes. The most detrimental consequence of lean production is a decrease in the perceived job autonomy of workshop employees. To reduce these negative consequences, we propose human resource practices for integration with lean production. Drawing on the job characteristics model, we hypothesized that the implementation of lean production combined with human resource practices would enhance perceived job autonomy, job satisfaction, and operational performance. To evaluate our hypotheses, we used an experimental design consisting of a simulation game that mimics a manufacturing company. We implemented lean production combined with human resource practices in this simulated company. The results indicated a significant increase in perceived job autonomy, job satisfaction, and operational performance. Moreover, the results revealed a positive relationship between job satisfaction and operational performance.     

The student experience of a collaborative e-learning university module

The aim of this paper is to present a picture of student experience of a collaborative e-learning module in an asynchronous e-learning environment. A distance learning module on music education worth five credit points for a bachelor online degree for primary school educating teachers was assessed using a self-evaluation questionnaire that gathered quantitative and qualitative data about student satisfaction of the collaborative e-learning activity. The quantitative part of the questionnaire consisted of 27 closed questions on a 10-point Likert scale and offered data about satisfaction with the module. The qualitative part of the questionnaire provided an insight into the participant perspective of the online collaborative experience. General open questions on satisfaction and dissatisfaction were analyzed with an inductive analysis which showed the evaluation criteria used by 92 students. Results of the analysis showed five themes of the participants’ perspectives, which were interpreted by the researcher as: teamwork, cognitive, operating, organizing, and emotive/ethic for the positive aspects and teamwork, operating, organizing, and emotive/ethic for the aspects to be improved. The aspects that were associated with satisfaction include: collaborating, comparing ideas, sharing knowledge and skills to support each other, peer learning, analyzing and integrating different points of view, the usability of the platform, group planning and workload management. Aspects of the student learning experience that should inform the improvements of e-learning include: more collaboration between students since some students engage differently; more coordination and organization, the workload management in the group activities, some technical problems such as updating modifications. The participants’ results in the module increased their didactic potential as primary school teachers. The findings are discussed in relation to their potential impact on developing collaborative activities addressed to teacher education in distance learning. Implications for future research are also considered.     

Ergonomic,job task,and psychosocial risk factors for work‐related musculoskeletal disorders among teleservice center representatives

A cross‐sectional study was conducted to evaluate the association between work‐related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMDs) and work conditions, perceived exhaustion, job dissatisfaction, and job‐stress issues at two teleservice centers (TSCs). The study covered teleservice representatives who respond to toll‐free calls for assistance. The work involves a computer or manual search for information, and data entry using keyboards. One facility had upgraded the furniture at the workstations; the other facility had not. A questionnaire survey among 114 teleservice representatives and an ergonomic evaluation were conducted to determine WRMDs and their risk factors and perceived job stress. A high prevalence of symptoms of WRMDs was found at both TSCs. Suboptimal ergonomic conditions were associated with neck, shoulder, elbow, and back WRMDs, as well as with increased job dissatisfaction. Perceived increased workload variability and lack of job control were associated with the occurrence of neck and back WRMDs, respectively. WRMDs were more frequently reported by teleservice representatives at the center with older furniture and suboptimal ergonomic conditions. WRMDs may be prevented by improving ergonomic conditions at workstations and addressing work‐organization elements.     

ATLAS grid workload on NDGF resources: Analysis,modeling, and workload generation

Evaluating new ideas for job scheduling or data transfer algorithms in large-scale grid systems is known to be notoriously challenging. Existing grid simulators expect to receive a realistic workload as an input. Such input is difficult to obtain in the absence of an in-depth study of representative grid workloads.In this work, we analyze the workload of the ATLAS experiment at CERN at the LHC, processed on the resources of Nordic Data Grid Facility. ATLAS is one of the biggest grid technology users, with extreme demands for CPU power, data volume and bandwidth. The analysis is based on the data sample with ∼1.6 million jobs, 3029 TB of data transfer, and 873 years of processor time. Our additional contributions are (a) scalable workload models that can be used to generate a synthetic workload for a given number of jobs, (b) an open-source workload generator software integrated with existing grid simulators, and (c) suggestions for grid system designers based on the insights of our analysis.     

How job satisfaction can influence air traffic controllers' backup‐providing behavior in parallel runway operation

Team members can request and provide backup from one to other members, which can help teams with high workload achieve dynamic workload optimization at the group level. However, studies on this issue are limited, especially on real‐world high‐risk operations. This study explored how to approach air traffic controllers make backup decisions in the dependent parallel approach operation. In this study, we focused on how individual difference factors can influence the controller's backup willingness and decision. Forty licensed controllers performed 32 simulated scenarios varied in their own task load, the backup recipients' task load, and shorter taxing possibility. We also measured their job satisfaction and work experience. Multilevel regression analyses showed that controllers with a higher level of job satisfaction were more likely to provide help to their colleagues. Moreover, when their job satisfaction was high, they were less sensitive to the seemingly inappropriate request, but they only used their additional resources to help others. The findings were discussed in the literature of teamwork and aviation safety.     

计算网格工作负荷的建模

为评估计算网格中的作业调度,建立了网格工作负荷模型。在不同的节点,作业的运行时间不同;在不同的节点之间,作业的迁移开销不同。定义了不依赖网格资源性能的纯运行时间和纯迁移开销。借鉴并行计算机的工作负荷模型,可得到并行度、纯运行时间和到达间隔的分布。构建了作业提交位置、纯迁移开销、纯运行时间估计因子、完成期限的分布。应用实例表明,由网格工作负荷模型可获得 各种工作负荷,支持对作业调度的全面评估。