Psychosocial Risks
2.1. Task-related factors:
2.1.1. Content and meaning of the job
A job with content is one that allows the worker to feel that his work is useful, that it is of use in the whole process within which it is carried out and for society in general, and which offers him the possibility of applying and developing his knowledge and capabilities.
For a job to be interesting, it must be varied, it must have a certain diversity of tasks and attributions, which also allows the workload to be better regulated.
But it should also be borne in mind that job empowerment, if it constitutes a restructuring aimed at a greater horizontal load, is not empowerment, but supposes an increased workload. The enhancement of tasks has to occur within the framework of vertical improvement, so that psychological empowerment is truly achieved through work by increasing the degree of control over the job itself and the introduction of new and more difficult tasks.
2.1.2. Workload
If the job makes too many or too few demands on us temporarily, we may adapt to it, but if this situation is repeated day after day, both in excess (overload) or in default (underload), it may become a source of stress. When the demands of the job exceed the person’s capacity to respond to them, we talk of work overload, which may be:
- Quantitative overload: when the pressure of time is high, i.e. when the worker does not regulate the work rate and this is high, when a large amount of work must be done in relation to the time available to do it and/or when there are numerous interruptions that oblige the worker to momentarily abandon the tasks in hand and return to them later.
- Qualitative overload: when performing the job demands too much of the person who is doing it and overwhelms him. This usually occurs when a technological or organisational change is produced, when a person is promoted without having carried out the corresponding actions of informing and training or in jobs in Contact with users, the public and/or customers.
When the carrying out of tasks poses few demands on the person, we speak of work underload, and this may be:
- Quantitative underload: when the activity (physical and/or mental) involved in the task is scant or requires the presence of the worker, but he intervenes only to a limited extent.
- Qualitative underload: when the job content is scant, it involves little creativity and its carrying out does not permit initiative or taking decisions.
2.1.3. Autonomy
We may distinguish between three types of autonomy:
- Temporal autonomy: the possibility of controlling the rhythm of work, the duration and distribution of breaks and of adapting the timetable and vacations to one’s needs.
- Operational autonomy: the possibility of influencing the order of tasks and of choosing among them and the way of carrying them out, as well as influence over the quantity and quality of responses.
- Organisational autonomy: the possibility to intervene in company policy, in goals, standards and procedures.
The lack of autonomy has an influence on the reduced involvement of the person in the organisation, affecting his motivation, generating dissatisfaction and decreasing his performance at work. Moreover, if this lack of control is maintained over time, it may generate anxiety and psychosomatic disorders.
2.1.4.Degree of automation
In the majority of automated processes, the organisation and rhythm of work depends on the machine, reducing the task of the person to a series of routine and repetitive operations, losing the overall view of the productive process and thus leading to an impoverishment of the job content and an increase in monotony.
Furthermore, the information that is received and handled may appear on a screen, in the form of symbols, signs, graphs, which require interpretations (more or less rapidly depending on the task being carried out), thus increasing the mental workload. Likewise, an impoverishment in relations and possibilities of communication with other workers may also arise, with the subsequent risk of isolation.
