Workplace Health Promotion in German Social Firms—Offers, Needs and Challenges from the Perspectives of Employees, Supervisors and Experts

On the general labor market, social firms provide 30–50% of people with different types of disabilities the opportunity to gain employment. However, the topic of workplace health promotion (WHP), needs for improvement and accompanied challenges are neglected in the current research and were the focus of the present study. Therefore, data triangulation was used between July and December 2020 by combining three focus groups with employees (n = 14 employees) with 16 interviews with supervisors from several social firms in Northern Germany (e.g., from catering, cleaning or bicycle repair sectors). 17 semi-structured telephone interviews with experts in the field of WHP or social firms were added. All approaches were audio-taped, transcribed and anonymized. To analyze the data, Mayring’s qualitative content analysis was used. The results indicated that several offers for WHP, including sport, nutrition and relaxation, were offered, as well as those on smoking cessation, cooperation with external organizations or training and education offers. Needs for improvement were stated referring to additional sport offers, support for implementing a healthy diet, offers for relaxation, financial incentives or collaborations with external organizations. A low take-up of offers; a lack of resources, structures or management support; compatibility of offers with work time and organization; challenges with available trainings or the consideration of individual needs and capacities were highlighted as challenges. Overall, there is a need for further interventional and longitudinal research on WHP in social firms.

R&D of the PERT basic model for project planning

The guiding principles of project implementation are planning. The discrepancy in time, cost, and quality between the plan and the actual implementation of the project requires management decisions supported by an analysis of the optimization of the duration of the project and the search for reserves to reduce the implementation time. For this purpose, a basic PERT model for a specific project was developed, early and late deadlines for work, time reserves, and a critical path were calculated. This work is aimed at applying methods of evaluation and analysis of projects to find optimal solutions and control the efficiency of time and costs in project planning, by varying the work on the project and the executors of the work. The results of this study showed that there are quite large time reserves for works 5-7, 7-9, 6-9, etc., which makes it possible to redistribute work between performers and allows you to vary performers during the implementation of several projects simultaneously.

Burnout Among ENT Residents During Covid-19 Pandemic: What Are The Contributing Factors?

Introduction. Resident doctors are susceptible to burnout syndrome, which are the combination of physical and psychological fatigue, that may affect their performance. Long-term pandemic of Covid-19 may also contribute to increase the severity of burnout among residents doctor, might be because the increasing of work time and effort to treat the patients during the time while maintaining prevention against the possible exposure that may harm themselves. This study was aimed to evaluate burnout prevalence among ENT (Ear-Nose-Throat) medical residents in Covid-19 pandemic, and its relation to certain factors of demographic and wellness. Methods. Thirty ENT medical residents of Medical Faculty of Sriwijaya University were enrolled as study population. Burnout was measured by Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) and divided by three parameters (personal,work-related, patient-related). Results. Among 30 ENT resident doctors at Rumah Sakit Moh. Hoesin, the mean level of personal burnout was 53.056 (SD 17.125), work-related burnout was 47.975 (SD 17.663), and patient-related burnout was 34.861 (SD 20.746). Conclusion. Marriage, female gender, and inadequacy of PPE may contribute to the development of burnout. The burnout among resident doctors is a serious matter regarding their role as a frontline doctor during the pandemic era, because it may affect not only their performance at work, but toward their life as well.

Biomechanical Exposure to Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorder Risk Factors in Hospital Laboratories

Exposure to ergonomic risk factors has been reported for laboratory workers over decades. However, these exposures are not well characterized with respect to the type of laboratory or work organization. This study compared biomechanical exposure to upper extremity (UE) postures and hand activity levels (HALs) in general hospital laboratories by job, work, and laboratory type. The study used observational data gathered using a revised version of the Posture, Activity, Tools, and Handling (PATH) method, generating frequencies of categorized exposures. Eighteen workers were observed in 11 job titles (seven laboratories) in a single hospital by two investigators over a 7 month period. A taxonomy was constructed to categorize the extent to which the laboratory operations were automated. Overall, there were markedly high exposures to postural strain for the distal UE, especially wrist/forearm deviation (73% of observations), gross grasp (71%), and pinch grip (49%). For the HAL categories, 61% of the observations were in the moderate range (3.3–<6.7). Shoulders and elbows tended to remain in the neutral postural range. Posture frequencies were similar among the job categories studied and laboratory types. HAL was higher when the hand was in a pinch grip. Manual operations represented a higher proportion of work time than semi-automated or automated operations. Biomechanical exposure can be documented more extensively and diversely when using the revised PATH approach along with the taxonomy, with respect to exposure variables, such as the type of job, work, or organization in the industry including the hospital laboratories.

Analysis of the Traffic Parameters on a Section in the City of the National Road during Several Years of Operation

The study carried out an analysis of the vehicle traffic parameters on a national road in 2011-2016. The variability and uncertainty of results were evaluated. An analysis of traffic data recorded on the city's entry and exit lanes was carried out. The variations in traffic volume are of interest e.g. in dynamic traffic management systems and navigation services, examining the benefits of flexible work time and places and assessing the environmental effects of traffic congestion. Research has shown that the assumption that lanes perform equally is not always true. Traffic volume models should be periodically calibrated taking into account the shape of the daily profile, which may, for example, allow public transport timetables to be more responsive to the needs of travelers.

FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI WAKTU KERJA PEREMPUAN DAN KESEJAHTERAAN KELUARGA PADA INDUSTRI KERAJINAN KAYU DESA MAS

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of work experience, number of family dependents and husband's employment status on the allocation of women's working time in the wood craft industry in Mas Village; the effect of work experience, number of family dependents, husband's employment status and allocation of women's working time on family welfare in the wood craft industry in Mas Village; and the role of women's work time allocation in mediating the effect of work experience and number of family dependents and husband's employment status on family welfare in the wood craft industry in Mas Village. Data were obtained using observation and interview methods, with a total sample of 97 people which were then analyzed using path analysis. The results showed that work experience had a non-positive or non significant effect on the allocation of women's working time, while the number of family dependents had a positive and significant effect on the allocation of women's working time, and husbands who had employment status had a lower allocation of women's working time than husbands who did not work; Work experience, number of dependents in the family has no effect on family welfare, while husbands who have employment status work have higher family welfare than husbands who do not work, and the allocation of women's working time has a positive and significant effect on family welfare; Work experience, number of family dependents and husband's employment status indirectly affect family welfare through the allocation of women's working time, in other words, women's work time allocation is an intervening variable that mediates work experience, number of family dependents and husband's employment status on women's working time allocation. . Meanwhile, the husband's employment status has no direct effect on family welfare.

193 BALANCING EDUCATION AND PRACTICE: A REFLECTION FROM A SIMULATION EDUCATOR DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

What? I consider myself privileged to divide my work time between my roles as a clinical simulation educator and as an intensive care nurse in a large teaching hospital. I find that working alternate weeks in educational and clinical roles can be challenging because both demand complementary but different skills. However, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to continue caring for patients alongside supporting and learning with colleagues. Balancing these roles during a pandemic presented me with new challenges and rewards, and reflection on these experiences has given me some fascinating insights. As the COVID-19 pandemic progressed and the number of patients requiring admission to the Critical Care Unit increased, the units were expanded and staff were redeployed from other areas to provide support. These ‘surge’ staff required rapidly developed simulation-based training to allow them to work in this unfamiliar environment within a restricted scope of practice. Being involved with delivering this training as well as working with surge staff in Critical Care afforded me a deeper understanding of the surge role and the unique challenges it presented. Once surge training was completed and I returned to delivering our standard simulation-based education courses, my experiences of working clinically continued to enrich my teaching because I felt somewhat familiar with some of the challenges our learners were facing as the pandemic continued. So what? Over the last year, I have felt conflicted at times; when working clinically during the peak of the pandemic, there was very little time to facilitate learning at the bedside, and during my educator weeks I relished the opportunity to support and teach but felt guilty for spending time away from colleagues and patients in Critical Care Unit. However, continuing with both roles better equipped me to answer questions and to provide support during surge training, particularly for those staff who had not yet spent time on the units. When assisting with other courses as a faculty member, I was able to deeply empathize with participants who encountered situations that I had become familiar with in practice – for example, communicating with others when wearing full personal protective equipment – which helped me to validate and normalize some of the experiences shared during debrief discussions. Through continuing to reflect on my time spent working in these environments during the pandemic so far, I hope to present my learning and recommendations for optimizing practice under challenging circumstances.

Do good psychosocial working conditions prolong working lives? Findings from a prospective study in Sweden

Due to an ageing population, governments in European countries are striving to keep older workers longer in the workforce. Remarkably few studies have paid attention to the influence of psychosocial working conditions on timing of retirement for older workers in and beyond normative retirement age. The aim of the present study was to examine whether good psychosocial working conditions contribute to prolonged working lives among older workers (59 years and above). A particular question was whether such conditions increase in importance with age. Seven waves (2006–2018) of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) were used (N = 6000, observations = 10,632). Discrete-time event history analyses showed that higher levels of job resources (decision authority [OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06–1.22], skill use [OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.07–1.29], learning opportunities [OR 1.22, 95% CI 1.13–1.31], social support [OR 1.29 (95% CI 1.16–1.42], work-time control [OR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01–1.13], and reward [OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.24–1.57])—but not lower levels of job demands (quantitative and emotional demands or effort)—were associated with working longer (continued work two years later). Also, low effort-reward imbalance (OR 0.84 [95% CI 0.73–0.96]) was associated with working longer. In addition, skill use, work-time control, reward, and low effort-reward imbalance increased in importance with age for continued work. These results suggest that providing older workers with control over their work tasks, giving opportunities for learning and using their skills, as well as rewarding and acknowledging their achievements, may keep them in the workforce longer. Especially, job resources may grow in importance with age.

Study and Application of Industrial Thermal Comfort Parameters by Using Bayesian Inference Techniques

This paper focuses on the use of Bayesian networks for the industrial thermal comfort issue, specifically in industries in Northern Argentina. Mined data sets that are analyzed and exploited with WEKA and ELVIRA tools are discussed. Thus, networks giving the predictive value of thermal comfort for different pairs of indoor temperature and humidity values according to activity, time, and season, verified in the workplace, were obtained. The results obtained were compared to other statistical models of linear regression used for thermal comfort, thus observing that comfort temperature values are within a same range, yet the network offered more information since a range of options for interior design parameters (temperature/relative humidity) was offered for different work, time, and season conditions. Additionally, if compared with static models of heat exchange, the contribution of Bayesian networks is noted when considering a context of actual operability and adaptability conditions to the environment, which is promising for developing thermal comfort intelligent systems, especially for the development of sustainable settings within the Industry 4.0 paradigm.