Increasing prevention of health hazards in the firm by training people in ergonomic work analysis (EWA)

摘要

The limits of traditional approaches to prevention are acknowledged at present. So we experiment another path - training people in EWA (Ergonomic Work Analysis) - which is aimed at improving the actor's comprehension of the real work activity considered as revealing constraints that are both exogenous (task and environment) and endogenous (individual characteristics) so that action can be taken against the sources of the risks identified without interfering with the activity, while preserving the conditions that are favorable to it. The workers themselves are supposed to becoem more "agents of change in work situations". The training is a training through "action for action", using four different methods: expression of the trainees' initial representations of work, health and safety, contribution of theoretical, methodological and stategic ergonomic knowledge in an "opportune" way, practical exercise of analysis of working activity at the work place by trainees, presentation and collective discussion of the on going studies. Changes due to the training are visible at three levels: the trainees' representations linked to work and health and to the prospects of action, concrete traces in the company (modification of preventive practices, actions against hazardous working conditions), organizational transformations.