Employee Motivation, the Organizational Environment and Productivity

Ergonomics

Gaining knowledge of ergonomics

Ergonomics is a scientific subject and is written about by scientists. Non-scientists read the books and scientific papers that have been written by ergonomists and do their best in reproducing the information. Unfortunately, this is seldom adequate; usually the information is summarized in a mechanistic manner, omitting warnings and limitations that were included in the original scientific paper.

There are many scientific books on each subject and because scientists seldom entirely agree with each other, it is wise to read three or four different authors on any one subject. With the day-to-day pressures of work in management services department, to read several books in order to find out one very small piece of information about one project is obviously uneconomic. But ergonomics is about people and work; and a problem that has turned up in one area is likely to be encountered in other similar situations.

Most of the books are written by good scientists; this means that readers can dip into the book, retrieve the piece of information that they want and put it down again without having to read more than part of a single chapter. Many scientists have little appreciation of the problems of modern industry and commerce, leaving their readers to stretch their own knowledge and skills in applying the information to their own problems. Because of this, all management services training courses include a large section on ergonomics, whether described as such or not.

Putting the person first

Unfortunately in the application of ergonomics, a mechanical engineering background is usually a positive disadvantage because the engineer will naturally consider the machine first whereas ergonomics is about putting the person first. In the same way, training departments often expect the human being to adapt to the machine; this can be expensive and will usually break down in an emergency.

In gaining knowledge about ergonomics the manager or supervisory has to be able to look at work from the point of view of the person doing it. As well as having the scientific knowledge, ergonomists need to have a feel for the job.

They need to be able to picture themselves with the skills, attributes and background of the worker being actually engaged in the work for a full working year. They need to be able to feel that management is getting full value from the worker without stressing him or her and without unnecessary set-up cost of the job. This is an attitude of mind that is seldom mentioned in the textbooks but is important.

Formal training in pure ergonomics may be gained at colleges and universities. Each course should have anatomy, physiology and psychology, and environment firmly distinguished from each other.

NB. References and recommended books are given in the Acrobat PDF version of this article.

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