Ergonomics in the Workplace - Essay Example

Ergonomics in the Workplace Introduction Since few decades, there have been significant advancements in the field of business and management, specifically due to developments in the information and technology. However, it is an observation that such developments have often resulted in increment of complexity, as well as increase in various issues at the workplace. In specific, such transformation to the implementation of technology has resulted in domination of machines at the workplace where employers expect employees to work with the machines during their job timings and achieve the targeted amount of work to acquire bonuses and promotions. In other words, in this world of competitive environment, the field of business has turned into a race where every other individual is running after success and promotions. However, in midst of such competition, individuals at the workplace are becoming the major victims in terms of their health, psychology, and personality due to a number of different issues that is causing an adverse impact on the individuals at the workplace (Hartvigsen & Lings, e2, 2004). Discussion In response, experts (HSE, 2007) have introduced a new branch of science, Ergonomics that facilitates employers in the creation and provision of safe and healthy workplace environment for the individuals and employees at the workplace. Although Ergonomics focuses primarily on the workplace setting that is the fundamental risk factor in affecting individuals at the workplace, however, researchers (Pransky et al, pp. 443-455, 2002) have indicated that as years are passing, the scope of ergonomics is expanding as it now deals different aspects of workplace safety and management from health, psychological, and social aspects as well. In this regard, ergonomics is emphasizing significantly on transforming workplace environment into a comfortable ‘fit’ environment for the individuals working with it. In other words, it is the major responsibility of ergonomics to create a relationship between individuals and the workplace environment by focusing on needs and requirements of individuals, such as equipments, tasks, and other aspects of the working environment (Pransky et al, pp. 443-455, 2002). Studies (ACAS, 2007) have indicated that despite imperative role of ergonomics, a huge number of individuals are confronting various challenges at times of conflict and change in their workplaces that range from physical and social to psychological and emotional adverse impact (Hartvigsen & Lings, e2, 2004), and subsequently, affecting the organizations associated with these individuals. Before analyzing different mechanisms that individuals use to cope during times of conflict and change at work, it is very imperative to identify and discuss such challenges and issues that will enable better understanding of the topic. In particular, experts and psychologists (ACAS, 2007) have indicated that it is almost impossible to avoid conflicts and changes in the organisations, as they are fundamental part of every organisation, and in other words, it will be riskier to avoid conflicts and changes, and may result in detrimental effects on different processes, and mainly survival of the organisation. In this regard, managers and employers should welcome conflicts and changes in the organisations, as they are positive forces that play an imperative role in driving individuals to work more effectively in the organisations. However, one of the issues in majority of organisations is misperception of managers and employees about conflicts and changes, as they consider these forces as destructive all the time. On the other hand, a conflict is the best way of identifying a problem in the organisation, and subsequently, allowing its immediate management (Dul, pp. 23-25, 2001). However, inefficient management of managers and employers towards conflicts cause detrimental effects on the individuals in the workplace environment. In such effects, stress is the most common outcome of lack of effective management (HelpGuide.org, 2009) that subsequently inclines individuals towards reduced productivity in terms of both quantity, as well as quality. Experts (Moray, pp. 46-57, 2004) from the ergonomics field believe that it is often possible that an individual might be having a conflict within himself, and thus, his mechanism of coping will be different with the individual that will be confronting an external conflict rather than an internal one. From this understanding, individuals at the workplace enjoy the facility of acquiring choices every time when they confront a conflict; however, lack of adequate management often reduces the number of choices that increase the level of stress (HelpGuide.org, 2009) and other adverse impact on the employees. In such situations, identified resources have indicated that compromise is the first and most common mechanism that exists in majority of organisations, and that facilitates individuals at the workplace environment to cope up during times of conflicts at the workplace. However, investigation (Moray, pp. 20-33, 2004) pointed out that compromise does not resolve the conflict but only put it behind the curtains for temporary period that often ignites the levels of stress in individuals gradually that can be detrimental for them. Besides compromise, a huge number of individuals at the workplace choose to ignore the conflicts, in order to preserve their employment, as in some business organisations, indication of a conflict, especially personal conflicts is a way of choosing your termination or confirming no promotion in the near future (Kroemer, pp. 59-68, 1994) . For this reason, many individuals at the organisations prefer ignoring the conflicts that often work in times of personal conflicts, as well as external conflicts. However, ignoring conflicts related to the workplace itself can be very damaging for the individuals, as well as for the organisation, and thus, such strategy seems very risky for the survival of organisations on long-term basis. Until now, all the mechanisms and strategies seem to hide the conflicts for a while, and thus, experts believe that the best way to solve or cope up with a conflict is to confront it rather than compromise with it or ignore it. In this regard, confronting the issues and conflicts occurring at the workplace environment is the most effective mechanism that is very rare in individuals; however, can bring constructive outcomes in the organisations if managed adequately. In specific, some experts (Meister, pp. 19-27, 1999) believe that effective management of conflicts and issues is the best tool of any organisation to acquire and maintain success in the current era of competitive business environment. Therefore, it is very imperative to promote individuals at the workplace to create and maintain a practice of identifying serious conflicts and issues in the organisations, and put efforts to confront and resolve them while collaborating with managers or supervisors at the workplace (Meister, pp. 35-40, 1999). In this regard, such mechanism of confrontation and solution is the best possible methodology of eliminating primary risk factors and causes of any conflict or problem in the organisation. This seems the principal responsibility of the experts of ergonomics to eliminate the underlying causes of destructive conflicts in the organisations and bring constructive changes to suit the environment according to the needs and demands of the individuals at work and the task respectively. At the same time, while focusing primarily on the satisfaction of employees that has now become the common formula of attaining success in organisations. In the organisations, two categories of individuals confront challenges during times of conflict, and they acquire different choices and opportunities for resolving the issues. Until now, the paper discussed some of the mechanisms that employees category of individuals at the workplace consider in times of conflict (Karwowski, pp. 31-42, 2006). On the other hand, managers and supervisors have the higher responsibility in times of conflict, they play a crucial role in managing conflicts in the workplace environment, and their actions often are determining factor for the success or failure of organisations in providing a healthier and safer workplace environment to the individuals. In most of the circumstances, supervisors and managers often consider involving in the process of conflict resolution that is an efficient mechanism and strategy of dealing with the identified conflicts, and such strategy usually work in both internal, as well as external conflicts. In the process of conflict resolution, it is very imperative for managers to identify underlying causes, actions involved in the task, stakeholders involved, and lastly and most importantly, consequences of the conflicts that is the best mechanism to confront and resolve any conflict in the organisations (Karwowski, pp. 56-59, 2006). Effective communication is one of the most important and fundamental requirements in every organisation, as it is an observation that lack of communication often disables individuals at the workplace, as well as experts of ergonomics to resolve a conflict in the organisations (McCabe, pp. 89-97, 2004). Thus, it is very important for the managers to provide a comfortable workplace environment to the employees that may allow them to communicate adequately and comfortably that is very important for effective resolution of a conflict. In such mechanism of conflict resolution, another important task for the managers is to consider every stakeholder involved in the conflict, as ignoring a single stakeholder can be detrimental and may result in a destructive environment that would be unsuitable for the coping of conflicts, and subsequently, discouraging a constructive change in the organisation (Hartvigsen & Lings, e2, 2004). Analysis of the literature (Ahasan & Imbeau, pp. 123-128, 2003) related to conflict management and ergonomics have pointed out that in times of conflicts and change in the organisations, supervisors or managers have different powers that play efficient and crucial role in creating a suitable and comfortable workplace environment for the individuals at work. In particular, managers enjoy the legitimate power at the workplace environment that comes along with their position in the organisation. In this regard, misuse of legitimate powers often create internal conflicts in the organisations that may discourage individuals at work to maintain their productivity in terms of quantity, as well as quality, and thus, managers should put efforts to engage in adequate utilization of their legitimate powers in the organisations, especially in times of conflicts (Ahasan & Imbeau, pp. 123-128, 2003). Besides legitimate power, managers have the referent authority as soon as a manager is successful in inspiring others at work emotionally with his actions. Besides legitimate power, it is an observation that referent power plays the greater role in times of conflict, and utilisation of both legitimate and referent powers in a balanced approach may allow the supervisors to engage in maintaining a suitable, safer, and healthier workplace environment for the individuals at work (Nayer, pp. 25-28, 1996). Along with these two powers, as time passes and managers acquire experience, they enjoy another category of power, expert power that comes with extensive knowledge and acquisition of work-related skills. Analysis has indicated that a manager should be efficient enough to utilize each power in an adequate manner to avoid misuse of any power while putting efforts to complement each power with the other. Lastly, supervisors enjoy coercive power that indicates the level of consequences that their decisions and actions can bring in the organisations. Experts (Ahasan & Imbeau, pp. 123-128, 2003) believe that in times of conflict, this power often results in destructive impact due to its relation with the notion of fear that exists in employees at the workplace environment. Scrutiny of material (Nayer, pp. 25-28, 1996) related to the ergonomics, it is an understanding that ergonomists give significant importance to the abovementioned five perspectives of powers of managers or supervisors while planning and designing compatible workplace environment according to the needs, capabilities, and limitations of the individuals associated with it. In addition, theoretical framework of ergonomics has shown that there are three fundamental domains of ergonomics, physical, cognitive, and organisational (IEA, 2010). The physical ergonomics focuses on physical consequences of actions involved in carrying out of tasks and jobs in the organisations, such as adverse impact on back in a computer-related job, recurring movements required in a specific job, etc (HSE, 2007). On the other hand, cognitive domain emphasizes primarily on mental mechanisms of the individuals in the workplace environment, such as perception, knowledge, logical analysis, etc as humans use mental features mostly to interact with each other, as well as to perform a task. Lastly, organisational domain (IEA, 2010) of the ergonomics relates with the policies and structural formation of the organisation while ensuring effective communication, teamwork, and improving culture of the organisation to suit the needs and demands of the individuals working in it. In detail, it is an understanding that ergonomists consider various aspects of workplace environment to deliver the most appropriate working setting to the individuals in it. However, there are few aspects of the workplace environment that are fundamental for every ergonomist, and it will be worthy to discuss some of such aspects in this paper that will enable in comprehensive understanding of the relation of individuals at work with the framework of ergonomics. In specific, analysis of the task is the foremost step of ergonomists followed by evaluation of stress (HelpGuide.org, 2009) of the particular task on the individuals. Besides, as earlier mentioned, in this era, information technology is dominating most of the organisations around the globe, and thus, technological equipments and machines (Bay Regional Medical Center, 2010) have become an essential component of every task. For this reason, the ergonomists (IEA, 2010) put enormous efforts to evaluate the condition of equipments, in order to relate its relevance and appropriateness with the identified task. Subsequently, physical environment is another consideration of the ergonomists, as studies have indicated that besides people at work, environment, and especially factors of the physical environment such as temperature, lighting, etc play a crucial role in affecting individuals’ productivity at work (HSE, 2007). Lastly, besides physical environment, social environment is the last but equally important concern of the ergonomists as humans are social animals, and individuals cannot work in isolation in the organisations, and thus, it is very important to provide a socially healthier environment to the individuals. From the understanding of abovementioned theoretical framework of the field of ergonomics, it is an observation that every power of the supervisors, and every strategy or choice of the individuals falls in one of the domains (IEA, 2010) of ergonomics. Thus, it is very important that individuals along with the managers should put some efforts to understand such framework and theories of ergonomics (IEA, 2010) that may be helpful for the ergonomists to provide a suitable workplace environment. In detail, some of the specific factors in the physical domain of ergonomics are size of the body, body posture, position of muscles and joints, utilization of five senses, etc that play their significant role in ensuring productivity of the individuals at work (Fernandez, pp. 20-27, 1995). Although all this information seems existing in isolation from the abovementioned discussion related to the mechanisms and strategies of individuals to cope during the times of conflict and changes in the organisations. However, consideration of similar aspects of different domains of ergonomics (IEA, 2010) in detail can be very effective for individuals (employers and employees) to acquire a comfortable, healthier, and safer workplace environment. In addition, although it is the responsibility of ergonomists (Fernandez, pp. 20-27, 1995) to ensure safer and healthier workplace environment for the people in it, however, in personal observation, it is a triangular relationship between ergonomists, employers/managers, and employees to ensure their suitability with the environment. On the other hand, another aspect of the relationship can occur between ergonomists, individuals, and the environment itself that can be supportive as well in achieving the objective of acquiring a suitable and comfortable workplace environment. Now, this understanding makes relevance with earlier discussion of the mechanisms of individuals, as preservation of such relationship will enable individuals to bring constructive changes in the organisations while ensuring positive perception towards conflicts as encouraging driving forces. Besides theoretical frameworks and discussions, few studies and researches (Fernandez, pp. 20-27, 1995) have indicated that some conflicts and issues are bound to occur in the organisations, and individuals working in it should prepare themselves physically, mentally, and psychologically to confront the situations appropriately. For instance, as earlier mentioned, some conflicts are internal and exist within an individual, and thus, only the individual himself will be able to confront and resolve it while managers and ergonomists may be putting efforts to ensure compatible and complementing workplace environment. However, in some situations, it is an observation that individuals, specifically, employees leave everything on the shoulders of managers or supervisors and ergonomists to ensure an efficient and safer workplace environment while they deny their role in occurrences of accidents, issues, and conflicts that is a wrong perception and needs immediate intervention by counseling and conciliation. Similarly, ergonomists (Cooper & Kleiner, pp. 114-117, 2001) focus primarily on physical environment while endeavoring for an effective psychological and social environment; however, in the past, various ergonomists were focusing only on the physical environment while leaving other domains on the employers and employees that was inadequate. In this regard, as the time passes, it is an expectation that there will be need of integration of the three (physical, cognitive, and psychological) domains of ergonomics (IEA, 2010) in the future, resulting in increment of complexity in the field of ergonomics, as well as complication in resolving conflicts at the managerial or internal levels. Finally, in order to understand the relevance and significance of ergonomics in the workplace, it will be easier to comprehend in light of a contemporary example. In this regard, stress (HelpGuide.org, 2009) is one of the most common examples of consequences of conflicts at the workplace while experts have identified a number of underlying causes of stress at work. In specific, this issue is unique in terms of its characteristics, as studies have indicated that stress at work can be internal, as well as external, and thus, it often becomes very complex to deal the issue effectively. In this regard, ergonomists (Cooper & Kleiner, pp. 114-117, 2001) will have the responsibility to identify any factors that might be increasing levels of stress, such as workload, bullying, or harassment at workplace, lack of motivation, behavioral changes in the social settings, or any errors in the equipments, etc. After identification of underlying causes, the best possible mechanism will be to initiate a conflict resolution process while involving managers/supervisors and the individual/s. This confrontation of the conflict through mediation will be very beneficial for every stakeholder of the organisation to maintain a comfortable, safer, and effective workplace environment that would have been detrimental in case of other mechanisms such as avoiding, ignoring, or compromising with the situations. Conclusion In conclusion, the researcher has described, analyzed, and discussed some of the noteworthy aspects of ergonomics while recognizing different mechanisms that individuals use to cope in times of conflicts and changes in the workplace. For this purpose, the researcher has included various studies and researches for their scrutiny that enabled a more comprehensive and critical understanding of the role of ergonomics in the workplace. It is an anticipation of the researcher that the paper will be advantageous for students, teachers, and professionals in better understanding of the topic. References ACAS. (2007). “Managing Conflict at Work.” Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service. Issue of February 2007, pp. 1-20. Ahasan, Rabiul, Imbeau, Daniel. (2003). “Who belongs to Ergonomics? An examination of the human factors community.” Journal of Work Study. Volume 52, Issue 3, pp. 123-128. Bay Regional Medical Center. (2010). Ergonomics and Injury Prevention. Retrieved on March 20, 2010: http://www.bayregional.org/body.cfm?id=391 Cooper, Chad, Kleiner, Brian H. (2001). “New Developments in Ergonomics.” Journal of Management Research News. Volume 24, Issue ¾, pp. 114-117. Dul, Jan. (2001). Ergonomics for Beginners. CRC Press. Fernandez, Jeffrey E. (1995). “Ergonomics in the Workplace.” Journal of Facilities. Volume 13, Issue 4, pp. 20-27. Hartvigsen, J., Lings, S. (2004). “"Psychosocial factors at work in relation to low back pain and consequences of low back pain." Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Volume 61, pp. e2. HelpGuide.org. (2009). Stress at Work. Retrieved on March 21, 2010: http://www.helpguide.org/mental/work_stress_management.htm HSE. (2007). “Understanding Ergonomics at Work.” Health and Safety Executive Leaflet. Issue of February 2007, pp. 1-8. IEA. (2010). International Ergonomics Association. Retrieved on March 21, 2010: http://www.iea.cc/index.php?contID=home Karwowski, Waldemar. (2006). 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