Supervisors Guide to

Module 4 | Your work environment

Module 5 Objectives
After completing this module you will be able to:
1	Identify the factors in your working environment, which can affect efficient working
2	Suggest beneficial changes that could be made in your own environment
3	Get such changes made

Synopsis: Your work environment affects your efficiency

Almost everyone who works -even people who work at home - reserves a space which is their working area, whether it is a workshop, an office, a room or just a table. Indeed those who don't very quickly discover that they are attempting the impossible!

Whether it is a small work area or a large industrial site, the place and space in which we work has a great impact on how effective we are. In this chapter we'll look at ways in which we can ensure our workplace helps, and doesn't hinder effective working.

To start with, the type of work may itself impose certain constraints and conditions - for example the layout of equipment, side products of processes and so on. These may be controlled by health and safety regulations and by a variety of other national or local authority laws and company rules.

There may also be influences that we can't identify because we don't fully understand them; new materials or processes are often developed faster than our understanding of their side effects. For example, we learned to use asbestos years before we understood its hazard to health.

In thinking about our working environment there are two issues to tackle:

• what things have an impact on us
• how much control do we have