Job Demands and Workload Management are the assessment and control of the amount, intensity, diversity, and fluctuation of the tasks done by workers. Workers in occupations and business undertakings are obliged to complete work during a shift, composed of different duties, job tasks, and responsibilities, all of which produce outputs that can be informational or concrete. An office worker who needs to write reports and a storeperson stacking shelves are both completing duties of work during an assigned time. Assuming the time duration of a shift is kept constant, workers may need to complete more work in the same amount of time resulting in greater intensity of work, or complete work at the same rate over a longer period of time to address demands on the business. Similarly, workers may need to take on more duties during peak or variable times to address occupational and workplace needs. The arrangement of work tasks throughout the shift and ongoing shifts that a worker completes are generally describable as a worker's job demands, which impose physical, cognitive, and emotional strain on the worker. If work demands are imbalanced, the worker is at risk of a physical or psychological injury - high job demands can cause injuries, errors, or stress. Low job demands may cause boredom, listlessness, dissatisfaction, and discomfort. Workers experience demands from all aspects of their lives, and it is neither practicable nor socially appropriate for employers to attempt to balance the demands of workers' personal and social lives with work resources, so consideration will be restricted to the ecosystem of occupational demands.
Job Demands can change from intensification and extensification of work over the course of a shift, a business period, or as a result of non-occupational factors. Both work intensification and extensification refer to changes in the demands of work with which a worker must contend during their employment. Work intensification occurs when employees need to invest more effort, take on more tasks, work at a faster pace, or accomplish more outputs in a same or shorter amount of time compared with normal. Work intensification can occur on a predictable, daily basis like the anticipation of a lunch rush in a restaurant, the increased number of shoppers attending office supply stores in anticipation of the start of the working and academic year, or the increase in travellers on public transport on sunny days. During periods of work intensification, workers experience increased job demands owing to a multiplicative increase in the significance of their normal job duties. Workers may already know how to do these jobs, but doing them more quickly, sustaining output over a duration, or managing the ebb and flow of cyclical concentration and easing may result in increased physical or psychological strain that can express itself as muscular injury, specific pain in the arms, the back, or the legs from repetitive movement, or psychological strain. Intensive periods of work should be paired with increased availability of resources like downtime and supervision to control the exposure of workers to excessive occupational load.
Extensification of work is the broadening of a worker's duties outside of their normal scope. This can happen when a worker is asked to do work that is outside their normal duties like having a copywriter assist with unloading boxes, an accounts officer needing to do reception work, a personal trainer needing to do filing, or a physiotherapist being asked to run lunch orders instead of assigning it to the office staff. While it may be reasonable to expect that workers are mentally, practically, and otherwise equipped to handle the additional demands imposed on them by these requests, they are ultimately duties in addition to those with which they must normally contend, and assigned during the normal shift in which the worker must work. In occupations where focus is needed for sustained periods of time, extensification of work may interrupt process flows and planning of the day, resulting in disruption and confusion. Repeated extensification of work demands may arise where there is movement of staff between departments, poorly defined or overlapping job roles, poor clarification as to the core, regular, reasonable or expected duties of work that a worker must undertake, or other occupational or individual factors which, if not controlled, may predispose workers to physical injury if they undertake tasks for which they are not suited, psychological strain if completing tasks for which they have not trained, and adverse outcomes besides.
The organisation of work is the management of job tasks necessary to achieve the outputs required by the business, whether those outputs are needed at the department, team, or individual level. The demands imposed on businesses as entities are defined by and driven as a result of broad market forces, the positioning of the business with respect to its unique selling points and competitive edges, and the need to meet consumer or client demand. The demand imposed on workers from this external context needs to be met by workers using human and personal resources which are organised through the physical, mental, and institutional arrangement of people, processes, and capital to best prepare workers to meet those demands. Where those demands become more concentrated as a result of seasonal, local, or economic drivers, and where those drivers become more diverse as a result of changes within, around, or otherwise affecting the business or the individual, the business is positioned to moderate the effect of external circumstances on the worker and to provide them with information, training, instruction, and support to meet their demands sustainably, safely, and successfully.
Each workplace is different, with different demands, methods of business, and is staffed by people whose capacities, needs, and risk profiles are different. Managing ergonomic, environmental, and occupational health and safety challenges requires a business to examine and engage with the ecosystem of factors that give rise to risk, and how that risk may affect people. Each workplace is different and so sometimes the same problem will require different solutions. This applies to workers as well - every person is different and so may require different support, supervision, or resources to perform comfortably and sustainably. Under Work Health and Safety law, consultation with the workforce, the control of risk as far as is reasonably practicable, and the provision of information, training, instruction and support to the worker by the workplace, is essential to meet obligations to provide workers with a workplace that is as free of risk as far is reasonably practicable.
In our capacity as consultants, Atlas Physio will explore and scope the business and its needs, examining how exposures, risks, and processes contribute to the hazard ecosystem, best inform the design and arrangement of procedural, policy-based, and practical risk controls. Our solutions are tailored to the needs of those with whom we work, implemented in a simple, sustainable, and supportive fashion, designed to be robust and resilient, and to support the ongoing life of the business as well as the sustainable wellbeing of the workers who undertake the day to day activities of work.
At Atlas Physio, we provide reporting, structured control, and ongoing management of risk onsite, on the road, and wherever work is done. We are open seven days a week, and are happy to offer a brief complimentary discussion to explore the needs of your business and your workers if you are an employer, and your needs if you are a worker. Reach out today to arrange a discussion and take the first step toward managing risk and working safely, supported by expertise that is practical, reliable, and designed to deliver lasting results.