Psychosocial Work Factors - Fundamentals and Assessment Tools for Occupational Ergonomics - page 552

and theories of job design reviewed at the beginning of the chapter tended to emphasize a small set of
psychosocial work factors. For instance, the human relations movement (Mayo, 1945) focused on the
social aspects of work, whereas the job characteristics theory (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) lists five
job characteristics, i.e., skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. However,
research and practice in the field of work organization has demonstrated that considering only a small
number of work factors can be misleading and inefficient in solving job design problems. The balance
theory proposes a systematic, global approach to the diagnosis and design or redesign of work
systems that does not emphasize any one aspect of work. According to the balance theory, psychosocial
work factors are multiple and of diverse nature.
Table 26.1 lists eight categories of psychosocial work factors and specific facets in each category. This
list cannot be considered as exhaustive, but is representative of the most often studied psychosocial work
factors.
The study of psychosocial work factors needs to be tuned in to the changes in society. Changes in the
economic, social, technological, legal, and physical environment can produce new psychosocial work
factors. For instance, in the context of office automation, four emerging issues are appearing
(Carayon and Lim, 1994): (1) electronic monitoring of worker performance, (2) computer-supported
work groups, (3) links between the physical and psychosocial aspects of work in automated offices,
and (4) technological changes. The issue of technological changes applies nowadays to a large
segment of the work population. Employees are asked to learn new technologies on a frequent, some-
times continuous, basis. Other trends in work organization include the development of teamwork and
other work arrangements, such as telecommuting. These new trends may produce new psychosocial
work factors, such as high dependency on technology, lack of socialization on the job and identity
with the organization, and pressures from teamwork. Two APA publications review psychosocial stress
issues related to changes in the workforce in terms of gender, diversity, and family issues (Keita and
Hurrell, 1994), and some of the emergent psychosocial risk factors and selected occupations at risk of
psychosocial stress (Sauter and Murphy, 1995).

TABLE 26.1 Selected Psychosocial Work Factors and their Facets

1. Job demands Quantitative workload

Variance in workload
Work pressure
Cognitive demands

2. Job content Repetitiveness

Challenge
Utilization and development of skills

3. Job control Task instrumental control

Decision

/

organizational control
Control over physical environment
Resource control
Control over work pace: machine-pacing

/

4. Social interactions Social support from supervisor and colleagues

Supervisor complaint, praise, monitoring
Dealing with (difficult) clients / customers

5. Role factors Role ambiguity

Role conflict

6. Job future and career

issues

Job future ambiguity

Fear of job loss

7. Technology issues Computer-related problems

Electronic performance monitoring

8. Organizational and

management issues

Participation

Management style