Tag: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA)

Report sheds light on the key factors determining OSH practice

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A new report from EU-OSHA describes the contextual and environmental factors that shape approaches to OSH management

A follow-up study to ESENER, the report finds that working environments in EU Member States have a dynamic and changing nature. However, the differences between them are significant. This insight helps to explain why EU work requirements are not applied in the workplace in a universal manner.

A new report from EU-OSHA describes the contextual and environmental factors that shape approaches to OSH management

A follow-up study to ESENER, the report finds that working environments in EU Member States have a dynamic and changing nature. However, the differences between them are significant. This insight helps to explain why EU work requirements are not applied in the workplace in a universal manner.

Workplace Health Practices for Employees with Chronic Illness

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Square meeting centre, Brussels, 22-23 October 2013

Chronic diseases and conditions have a

Square meeting centre, Brussels, 22-23 October 2013

Chronic diseases and conditions have a substantial impact on the labour market and working life.
This urges the need for effective job retention and return-to-work strategies and interventions.

The European Network for Workplace Health Promotion (ENWHP) conducted a two-year campaign designed to contribute to the implementation of effective workplace health practices, by stimulating activities and policies in European companies to retain and encourage return-to-work of chronically ill employees, and to prevent employees of moving into disability or early retirement. The conference concludes the campaign on promoting healthy work for employees with chronic illness (PH Work), which was simultaneously organised in 17 EU countries.

The conference will present the results of the campaign and good practices, as well as guidelines to set up comprehensive workplace health strategies and interventions for the retention / return-to-work of chronically ill employees. Furthermore, it will discuss the role of the policymakers, and all other stakeholders on a public health and workplace health level. More info…

European Month of Ergonomics EME 2013 ”Ergonomics for risk prevention”

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This is the second year of two-year campaign European Month of Ergonomics EME 2012-2013, entitled ”Ergonomics for risk prevention”.

This is the second year of two-year campaign European Month of Ergonomics EME 2012-2013, entitled ”Ergonomics for risk prevention”. A Power Point presentation for the introduction of the EME 2013 published by the Communication and Promotion Committee of the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies can be download from this page.

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This Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies campaign supports the European campaign for Healthy Workplaces, entitled for the 2012 and 2013 ”Working together for risk prevention”. The yearly Healthy Workplaces -campaigns are organized by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which is now also an official partner of the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies. The EU-OSHA -campaign ”Working together for risk prevention” calls for managers’ leadership and workers’ participation to improve safety and health at the workplaces in collaboration. For more information, see www.healthy-workplaces.eu. 

Ergonomics plays a clear role in this activity: ergonomics aims at prevention by its nature, ergonomists have experience in organizing participatory workplace interventions, ergonomists have developed strategies and practices to improve the designing of the workplaces in companies, and, after all, a great deal of the risks associated with safety and health can be attributed to poor ergonomic design. In the European Month of Ergonomics 2012 and 2013 our aim is raising the awareness of the role of ergonomics in risk prevention. 

The Power Point presentation “Ergonomics for risk prevention 2013” is an update of the introductory material for the 2012. It is intended to support the European Month of Ergonomics arranged by the national member societies of the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies. Its purpose is to disseminate the message of the European Month of Ergonomics in possible seminars, meetings or other events related to the European Month of Ergonomics 2013. The basic content can be used also in articles or other communication material for the campaign. The presentation is distributed in the ppt-format so that it can be translated and modified for local use, possibly shortened and added by local examples, photos, etc. 

The European Month of Ergonomics 2012 was mainly an introduction to the topic, highlighting the role of ergonomics in risk prevention. This year’s campaign, European Month of Ergonomics 2013, can broaden the discussion to practical applications: research and development projects, case studies, methods, etc. 

To develop the future European Month of Ergonomics campaigns, and to share the experiences within the national societies, we kindly ask the members of the national societies of the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies to gather experiences on the European Month of Ergonomics 2012 and 2013 (information on the events, articles, initiatives, etc.). Please send any material to the Communication and Promotion Committee of the Federation of the European Ergonomics Societies, to Martti Launis or to Gyula Szabó met@dsgi.hu

Benchmarking and exchange for good practices in OSH

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EU-OSHA and its official Campaign partners met on 5 -6 June 2013 in Brussels to exchange good practices, as well as performance and process indicators to promote better safety and health practices. 

EU-OSHA and its official Campaign partners met on 5 -6 June 2013 in Brussels to exchange good practices, as well as performance and process indicators to promote better safety and health practices. 
Issues discussed included:
  1. Learning from incidents and accidents, including training of workers to report hazards,
  2. Leadership training and OSH competence of all responsible actors,
  3. How to motivate and support SMEs and self-employed in OSH,
  4. Safety and health culture of an organisation,
  5. Indicators of OSH performance
  6. OSH regulations and how they are applied in the construction and associated industries

Summary – Benchmarking and Exchange of Good Practices in Occupational Safety and Health

European month of Ergonomics 2012 – Ergonomics for risk prevention

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This FEES-campaign supports the European campaign for Healthy Workplaces, this year entitled ”Working together for risk prevention”. The yearly Healthy Workplaces -campaigns are organized by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which is now also an official partner of the FEES.

This FEES-campaign supports the European campaign for Healthy Workplaces, this year entitled ”Working together for risk prevention”. The yearly Healthy Workplaces -campaigns are organized by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), which is now also an official partner of the FEES.

The EU-OSHA -campaign ”Working together for risk prevention” calls for managers’ leadership  and workers’ participation to improve safety and health at the workplaces in collaboration. For more information, see www.healthy-workplaces.eu.

Ergonomics plays a clear role in this activity: ergonomics aims at prevention by its nature,   ergonomists have experience in organizing participatory workplace interventions, ergonomists have developed strategies and practices to improve the designing of the workplaces in companies, and, after all, a great deal of the risks associated with safety and health can be attributed to poor ergonomic design. In the EME 2012 our aim is raising the awareness of the role of ergonomics in risk prevention.

This year the EME 2012 is an introduction to the topic, highlighting the role of ergonomics in risk prevention. Next year EME 2013 the focus is shifted to practical applications: research and development projects, case studies, methods etc. 

The slideshow is a work of Martti Launis.

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European Month of Ergonomics 2010 – Ergonomics is a Key to Safe Maintenance

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Ergonomics is a key to safe maintenance! 

Ergonomics makes maintenance lighter, more fluent and more acceptable – and safer Proper ergonomics design takes account of the life-cycle of systems: besides their daily operation, also assembly, maintenance, cleaning, reparation, renovation and dismantling By following the ergonomics design principles, guidelines and procedures, given in European ergonomics standards (EN), maintenance conditions and activities can be optimized to the worker/operator
See the following examples of ergonomics considerations in maintenance activity – presented in order of their nature, physical, cognitive or organizational 
Physical problems in maintenance work: 

  1. working in unfavorable locations (e.g. in high places, in narrow spaces) 
  2. working in awkward postures 
  3. insufficient space for the hand movements or seeing, lack of free maintenance space 
  4. excessive force required for operations e.g. in changing of components, in opening valves 
  5. excessive physical workload in some tasks e.g. changing pumps without hoisting equipment 
  6. poor lighting and thermal conditions, high noise and vibrations levels 
  7. hazards, e.g. mechanical, electric, chemical 

Cognitive (or mental) problems of maintenance work: 

  1. visually poor displays and symbols, text not legible in varying environment 
  2. use of maintenance equipment not intuitive 
  3. maintenance procedures not logical, memorable or controllable 
  4. instructions not easy-to-understand 
  5. disturbance situations poorly instructed or guided 
  6. other activities around, attention directed elsewhere 

Organizational problems of maintenance: 

  1. inappropriate division of tasks between the operator and the machine – e.g. lack of equipment for lightening heavy tasks 
  2. inappropriate division of tasks between operators – unbalanced workload inappropriate working hours (shifts, extensive work periods) – reduced physical and mental performance
  3. poor communication between operators 
  4. poor guidance of the operators 

With the help of ergonomics knowledge and ergonomics approach, the maintenance conditions and activities inherently become good for the operator and good for the organization: 

  1. better satisfaction, motivation and commitment of the operator 
  2. lower rate of accidents and fewer sick leaves 
  3. less disturbances and losses due to human error 
  4. better quality, less careless work 
  5. fluent and cost-effective maintenance, right operations in the correct way, in a minimum time, with minimum effort
  6. by proper ergonomics design, less need for corrections later, and fewer costs of late changes.

The presentation’s purpose is to clarify ergonomics and demonstrate how it is essential in improving maintenance conditions. FEES recommends that the EME 2010 relate to the Healthy Workplace campaign “Safe maintenance,” promoted by the EU-OSHA, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.

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