Ergonomics and Human Factors 2012 International Conference - Elaine Yolande Williams Presentation

7/31/2019 Ergonomics and Human Factors 2012 International Conference - Elaine Yolande Williams Presentation

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“Working Late”...

Building healthy construction workers



Who are we?

Elaine Yolande Williams

Research Associate, Loughborough Design School

Diane Gyi

Reader in Health Ergonomics and Design,Loughborough Design School

Roger Haslam

Professor of Ergonomics, Loughborough Design School

Alistair Gibb

Professor of Construction Engineering Management,

Department of Civil and Building Engineering



Who sponsors the research?

The “Working Late” project is supported by the

New Dynamics of Ageing programme.

This project is funded by all five UK Research councils;

AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC & MRC



What is Working Late: Ageing productively

through design?

Increasing age of the UK workforce presents major challenges By 2020, a third of the workforce will be aged over 50

Important to maintain health and quality of working life People’s ability to stay in work is affected by their health: increased

physical illness as people get older

Need to promote a healthy working environment Some of the health effects from work can take years to surface, therefore

employees of all ages should be given attention

See Paper for Literature Review



What is Working Late: Ageing productively

through design?

This “Working Late” project investigates the role of good design and

ergonomics in healthy working.

The research will be used to create an online resource called OWL (Organiser

for “Working Late” ) which will facilitate healthy working through better moreintelligent workplace design.

“Working Late” is NOT about ‘over time’ or ‘long working hours’



“Working Late” through ‘design’

non-stigmatising

preventative healthcare

individual choice & control

flexible

Design

sustainable

accessible and intuitive

desirablefun intelligent

encourages good habits



“Working Late” through ‘OWL’

non-stigmatising

preventative healthcare

individual choice & control

flexible

sustainable

accessible and intuitive

desirablefun intelligent

encourages good habits



What is OWL?

The OWL resource will support line managers in facilitating

healthy ageing at work through design.

It will be made up of education & training tools Generic tool kit – tool box talks,

discussion tools

Personal Stories - design examples,

video stories

OWL will empower and support worker involvement in designdecision making processes especially when “Working Late” .



Phase Research activities Progress

1

(Dec 2009) Questionnaire survey of workers.

Triangulation interviews .

21 participated – 719 questionnaires after ‘data

cleaning’.

Triangulation interviews with 5 organisations (26workers).

Data analysis complete – discussion document

presented to 5 collaborating organisations.

Decisions made regarding focus of Phase 2.

2 In-depth ‘rich’ data collection (interviews,

observations , objective measures).

Co-develop solutions to workplace design

problems.

Data collection complete with 4 organisations.

Co-designing focus groups completed with 2

organisations. Complete in Jan 2012.

3 Create a tool/resource (Organiser for Working

Late - OWL)

Development and synthesis of OWL resource –

images, audio, video.

4 Evaluation and refinement of OWL. ALL organisations keen to be involved.

5

(Nov 2012)

Data analysis and report writing.





Introduction

Understanding worker requirements

Workplace environments and equipment

Construction company

Environment constantly changes



Method

Collaboration: Construction company New Build – Domestic

Gaining participation

Site visits and presentations to management andteam leaders

Site tour & meeting employees

Questionnaire survey Open to all employees 10 minutes to complete Online and paper



Questionnaire survey

Other

Health &

Social Work

Transport

Public

Sector e.g.

Education,

health

Construction

Computing

& IT

Manufacturing

Energy &

Utilities

Retail &

Hospitality

Banking &

Financial

Questionnaire survey of UK

workers across different

sectors

on-line/paper based

Disproportionate sampling blue-collar, older workers

Follow-up in-depth interviews n=6 at this company



Results: Questionnaire Survey

25 surveys returned – all paper based Response rate of ~71% of total from surveyed site

Responses removed from participants who did not indicate Any results for NMQ (Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire)

Year of birth

Gender

83% (n=20) of respondents were aged ≤49 years and 17% (n=4) aged ≥50

years

100% male, 0% female



Work Ability

High WAI ‘best to current’ scores

High WAI physical & WAI mental ability scores High scores indicate that respondents feel they have

good work ability and are able to perform work tasks

n Mean (SD) Range

WAI ‘best to current’

(0=unable to work – 10 =work at best ability)

24 8.9 (1.6) 5 – 10

WAI in respect to physical demands of job(1=very good – 5=poor)

24 1.6 (0.7) 1 – 4

WAI in respect to mental demands of job

(1=very good – 5=poor)

24 1.7 (0.7) 1 – 3





Results: NMQ

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Neck Shoulders Elbows Wrists andhands

Middle of back Lower back Hips, thighsand buttocks

Knees Ankles or feet

F r e q u e n c y ( % )

Body Area

Period (12 months) Point (7 days) Severity Attributing symptoms to work tasks



Age and Work statements

Statement

Statistical

difference

Positive

agreement

I feel more tired now due to my job then I did when I was younger Yes (0.001) ≥50

Only one of the 13 statements showed that there was a statistically significant difference ( p≤0.05) inthe responses from both groups, based upon two-tailed independent samples t-test.

Work related statements according to age group; ≤49 and ≥50. Statistically significant ( p≤0.05)



Conclusion

MSDs were experienced by construction workers.

Observations helped identify that some MSDs could be attributed

to specific work tasks.

Worker experiences can inform healthy design-decision making.



Construction Workers: Joiners

Focus on hand-tool design and use on construction sites

Understanding their views on ageing and staying fit and healthy

in their job ( prompts: obstacles, advice to others, top tips…).

Encourage thinking about staying healthy through ‘design’ in

their job (prompts: ‘design’ solutions - procedure, equipment,

training etc…)

To collate solutions to workplace design ‘problems’ focusing onergonomics and healthy ageing at work.



Discussion tools: body cards



Discussion tools: action cards



Discussion tools: equipment cards





Elaine Yolande Williams Diane Gyi

[email protected] [email protected]

+ 44 (0) 1509 228816 +44 (0) 1509 223043

Any questions please contact:

Thank you!

Documents

Ergonomics and Human Factors 2012 International Conference - Elaine Yolande Williams Presentation