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.     

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.     

An investigation of the usability of the stylus pen for various age groups on personal digital assistants

Many handheld devices with stylus pens are available in the market; however, there have been few studies which examine the effects of the size of the stylus pen on user performance and subjective preferences for handheld device interfaces for various age groups. Two experiments (pen-length experiment and pen-tip width/pen-width experiment) were conducted to determine the most suitable dimensions (pen-length, pen-tip width and pen-width) for a stylus pen among young adult, child and older users. In pen-length experiment, five pen-lengths (7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 cm) were evaluated for young adult, child and older users, respectively. In pen-tip width/pen-width experiment, six combinations of three pen-tip widths (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mm) and two pen-widths (4 and 7 mm) were compared for young adult, child and older users, respectively. In both experiments, subjects conducted pointing, steering and writing tasks on a PDA. The results were assessed in terms of user performance and subjective evaluations for all three pointing, steering and writing tasks. We determined that the most suitable dimensions of the pen are as follows: pen-length 11–15 cm, pen-tip width 1.0–1.5 mm and pen-width 7 mm for older users; for child users, pen-length 7–13 cm, pen-tip width 1.0–1.5 mm and pen-width 4 mm; and for young adult users, pen-length 11 cm, pen-tip width 0.5 mm, and pen-width 7 mm.     

Profile of the musculoskeletal pain suffered by textile tufting workers handling thread cones according to work,age and employment duration

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between some socio-professional characteristics of workers (e.g. age, actual work done, experience in the job, overall time on job market, height) carrying out thread-cone handling tasks and their musculoskeletal pain profiles. Interviews were carried out with foremen and workers, and task analysis was performed. Self-administered questionnaires on work-related pain were filled out by 114 machine operators and creelers in four carpet-manufacturing companies. Statistics on nine individual and 25 pain-symptom characteristics were compiled. For data treatment, two statistical methods complemented one another: the Factorial Analysis of Correspondence (FAC) and the Hierarchical Ascendant Classification (HAC). Four classes of workers showing large differences one to another regarding time of employment on the job market, age, seniority in the company, and job experience were portrayed. No remarkable differences were found between the classes in relation to the proportion of workers showing body pain symptoms; it is greater than 50% in all classes (12 months). Moreover, in all classes, for several workers, the first region of pain (out of three possible) was reported as one persisting over the weekend. The group of workers from 25 to 35 years of age appears to be the one most seriously affected by musculoskeletal pain.     

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.     

Evaluation of fitting of plastic parts

Abstract

As an example of measurement by touch, fitting of plastic parts was studied. Where such requirement is dependent on judgement made by human senses, a number of characteristics must be measured in order to obtain the mechanical characteristics matching those of touch. The degree of fitting judged by touch is quantified by multidimensional scaling, using capsule-shaped plastic parts. Also, the dimensions, shapes and the degree of mechanical fitting are measured and the relationships of these to the quantified senses determined by factor analysis, multivariate data analysis being effective for this purpose.     

A review of: “Introduction A La Psychophysiologie Du Travail (Introduction to the Psychophysiology of Work)”, by ROBERT FLORU and JEAN-CLAUDE CNOCKAERT,Presses Universitaires De Nancy (1991). pp. vi + 233, FF 120, ISBN 2-86480-550-2.

Workers in physically demanding occupations (PDOs) are frequently subjected to physical selection tests. To avoid legal ramifications, workplaces must be able to show that any personnel selection procedures reflect the inherent requirements of the job. A job task analysis (JTA) is fundamental in determining the work tasks required for employees. To date, there are no published instructions guiding PDO researchers on how to conduct job task analyses. Job task analysis research for non-PDOs offers some insight into the expected reliability and validity of data obtained on the most prevalent task domains in job analysis (importance, frequency, time spent and difficulty). This review critiques such research, and the existing published material on JTA of PDOs, and provides recommendations for future research and practice.

Practitioner Summary: There are no published guidelines for physically demanding occupation (PDO) researchers conducting job task analysis (JTA). Given the legal consequences of improperly conducted JTA, scientifically valid instructions for JTA practitioners are required. This review critiques existing research which analyses reliabilities of JTA data, and provides guidelines for PDO researchers conducting JTA.     

An epidemiological study of low-back pain in crane operators

Abstract

A survey among workers in a steel factory was conducted to determine the risk for low-back pain (LBP) among male crane operators. Crane operators (n = 33) were matched for age with male control workers (n = 30)p and examined for frequency and nature of LBP by the on-site medical service. Comparison between crane operators and controls showed a statistically significant odds ratio for LBP of 3-6. Although crane operators had been exposed more often to backstraining factors in previous occupations, in the employed logistic analysis only their current job explained the elevated occurrence of LBP. It is suggested that workers in sedentary position with exposure to whole-body vibration are at special risk for LBP. The results of this study provide evidence to strongly recommend persons with a history of back complaints not to seek employment as crane operators.     

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.     

Computation and communication schedule optimization for data-sharing tasks on uniprocessor

Almost every computation task requires input data in order to find a solution. This is not a problem for a centralized system because data is usually available locally. However, in a parallel and distributed system, e.g., computation grids, the data may be in remote sites and must be transferred to the local site before the computation can proceed. As a result, the interleaved sequence of data transfer and job execution has a significant impact on the overall computational efficiency. In this paper, we analyze the computational complexity of the shared-data job scheduling problem on uniprocessor, with and without consideration of the storage capacity constraint on the local site.We show that if there is an upper bound on the server capacity, the problem is NP-complete, even when each job depends on at most two data items. For the case where there is no upper bound on the server capacity, we show that there exists an efficient algorithm that can provide an optimal job schedule when each job depends on at most two data items. We also propose an efficient heuristic algorithm that can determine good schedules for cases where there is no limit on the amount of data a job may access. The reported experiment results demonstrate that this heuristic algorithm performs very well, and derives near optimal solutions.     

A quantitative assessment of changes in work activities resulting from computer-assisted design

Abstract

In an effort to understand how computer-assisted design (CAD) can be optimized in an organizational setting, perceptions and attitudes of CAD users about their jobs and workplace are compared with those of non-users. Results indicate that the implementation of CAD may not result in the expected benefits if CAD is not appropriately managed. Job unpredictability, job autonomy, and job interdependence are three areas in particular needing management attention if CAD benefits are to be achieved.     

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.     

Association of job strain with working hours,shift-dependent perceived workload,sleepiness and recovery

We explored the relationship of job strain with working hours, shift-dependent perceived workload, sleepiness and recovery. Nurses/nursing assistants (n = 95) were recruited from wards that belonged to either the top (high-strain group, HJS) or the bottom (low-strain group, LJS) job strain quartiles of a Job Content Questionnaire survey of employees in five health care districts and four cities in Finland. Three-week field measurements during naturally occurring shift schedules and a subset of pre-selected shift arrangements consisted of the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, perceived workload and recovery. The HJS group (n = 42) had more single days off and quick returns than the LJS group (n = 53, p < 0.01), and both mental workload and physical workload were rated as higher (p < 0.01). During naturally occurring shift arrangements, severe sleepiness was more common in the HJS group only in quick returns (p = 0.04) and the HJS group recovered on average more poorly from work after all shifts (p = 0.01) and morning shifts (p = 0.02). During pre-selected shift arrangements, the differences between the groups were only minor. In conclusion, job strain-related differences in sleepiness and recovery were mostly attributable to differences in shift arrangements.     

A long-term evaluation of the stage of change approach and compensable injury outcomes – a cluster-randomised trial

Abstract

This study investigated the long-term injury outcomes for workers in companies from a range of industries which had been randomly allocated to receive ergonomics interventions tailored according to the stage of change (SOC) approach or standard ergonomics advice. Differences in compensable injury outcomes between the groups were analysed using logistic regression models. Questionnaire results from face-to-face interviews to assess musculoskeletal pain and discomfort (MSPD), job satisfaction and other factors were also analysed. Although not significant at the 0.05 level, after adjusting for workgroup clustering, workers in receipt of tailored advice were 55% (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.19–1.08) less likely to report a compensable injury than those in receipt of standard ergonomics advice. Workload, job satisfaction and MSPD were significantly correlated with injury outcomes. The observed outcomes support the potential value of the SOC approach, as well as highlighting the need to consider workload, job satisfaction and MSPD when planning injury prevention programmes.

Practitioner Summary: This study investigated compensable injury outcomes for workers who had received ergonomics advice tailored according to the stage of change (SOC) approach compared with standard ergonomics advice. The results support the potential value of the SOC approach and highlight the need to consider workload, job satisfaction and musculoskeletal pain and discomfort when planning injury prevention interventions.     

Learning at work - a combination of experience based learning and theoretical education

Training and learning at work is important as employees competence has to meet organisational requirements for flexibility. This study examines conditions and obstacles in integrating a web-based course at work in order to enhance employees level of competence. Employees view of working condition, competence and how they learn at work is also of importance. A selection of 35 people was made at a company which is part of a large business. The design was quantitative with complementary qualitative data. The employees had a positive attitude towards work despite increasing difficulties in work tasks and an increasing workload, which was the greatest barrier of integrating the web-based course at work. Competence development involved a certain degree of stress, but was outweighed by the fact that it was stimulating and led to the work feeling easier. To manage work, knowledge was obtained primarily by colleagues and company courses.     

Job failures in high performance computing systems: A large-scale empirical study

The growing complexity and size of High Performance Computing systems (HPCs) lead to frequent job failures, which may cause significant performance degradation. In order to provide high performance and reliable computing services, an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of HPC job failures is essential. In this paper, we present an empirical study on job failures of 10 public workload data sets collected from 8 large-scale HPCs all over the world. Multiple analysis methods are applied to provide a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of job failures. In order to facilitate design, testing and management of HPCs, we study properties of job failures from the following four aspects: proportion in workload and resource consumption, submission inter-arrival time, locality, and runtime.Our analysis results show that job failure rates are significant in most HPCs, and on average, a failed job often consumes more computational resources than a successful job. We also observe that the submission inter-arrival time of failed jobs is better fit by Generalized Pareto and Lognormal distributions, and the probability of failed job submission follows a “V” shape: decreasing during the first 100 seconds right after the submission of the last failed job and increasing afterward. The majority of job failures come from a small number of users and applications, and furthermore these users are the primary factor related to job failures compared with these applications. We find evidence that failed jobs’ lifetime accuracy (runtime / request time) always follows the “bathtub curve”. Moreover, job failures exhibit strong locality properties that can support the prediction of failed jobs’ occurrence and runtime. Most of these findings are new contributions from the research community, and some findings also reveal important properties of job failures that were misunderstood or poorly understood before. The wide range of studies in this paper can directly and thoroughly facilitate fault tolerant, scheduling, workload modeling, etc. in HPCs, and lead to better system utility while reducing costs.     

Minimizing migrations in fair multiprocessor scheduling of persistent tasks

Suppose that we are given n persistent tasks (jobs) that need to be executed in an equitable way on m processors (machines). Each machine is capable of performing one unit of work in each integral time unit and each job may be executed on at most one machine at a time. The schedule needs to specify which job is to be executed on each machine in each time window. The goal is to find a schedule that minimizes job migrations between machines while guaranteeing a fair schedule. We measure the fairness by the drift d defined as the maximum difference between the execution times accumulated by any two jobs. As jobs are persistent we measure the quality of the schedule by the ratio of the number of migrations to time windows. We show a tradeoff between the drift and the number of migrations. Let n = qm + r with 0 < r < m (the problem is trivial for n ≤ m and for r = 0). For any d ≥ 1, we show a schedule that achieves a migration ratio less than r(m − r)/(n(q(d − 1)) + ∊ > 0; namely, it asymptotically requires r(m − r) job migrations every n(q(d − 1) + 1) time windows. We show how to implement the schedule efficiently. We prove that our algorithm is almost optimal by proving a lower bound of r(m − r)/(nqd) on the migration ratio. We also give a more complicated schedule that matches the lower bound for a special case when 2q ≤ d and m = 2r. Our algorithms can be extended to the dynamic case in which jobs enter and leave the system over time.