Ergonomics
-
Review
The Work Compatibility Improvement Framework: an integrated perspective of the human-at-work system.
The industrial revolution demonstrated the limitations of a pure mechanistic approach towards work design. Human work is now seen as a complex entity that involves different scientific branches and blurs the line between mental and physical activities. Job design has been a traditional concern of applied psychology, which has provided insight into the interaction between the individual and the work environment. ⋯ A joint approach to organizational and job design will not only result in decreased prevalence of health risks, but in enhanced organizational effectiveness as well. The implementation of the WCM, that is, the Work Compatibility Improvement Framework, provides the basis for integrating different elements of the work environment into a single reliable construct. An improvement framework is essential to ensure that the measures of the WCM result in a system that is adaptive and self-regulated.