Veel bedrijven in de Eems-Dollard Regio (EDR) klagen over een gebrek aan de zogenaamde ‘blue collar workers’ of ‘blauwe boorden’: geschoolde arbeiders, werkzaam in de industriële sector. Ondanks het feit dat er al een groot aantal initiatieven zijn geweest om meer personeel te werven, lijkt het steeds moeilijker te worden om dit type personeel te vinden.
DOCUMENT
Health interventions often do not reach blue-collar workers. Citizen science engages target groups in the design and execution of health interventions, but has not yet been applied in an occupational setting. This preliminary study determines barriers and facilitators and feasible elements for citizen science to improve the health of blue-collar workers. The study was conducted in a terminal and construction company by performing semi-structured interviews and focus groups with employees, company management and experts. Interviews and focus groups were analyzed using thematic content analysis and the elements were pilot tested. Workers considered work pressure, work location and several personal factors as barriers for citizen science at the worksite, and (lack of) social support and (negative) social culture both as barriers and facilitators. Citizen science to improve health at the worksite may include three elements: (1) knowledge and skills, (2) social support and social culture, and (3) awareness about lifestyle behaviors. Strategies to implement these elements may be company specific. This study provides relevant indications on feasible elements and strategies for citizen science to improve health at the worksite. Further studies on the feasibility of citizen science in other settings, including a larger and more heterogeneous sample of blue-collar workers, are necessary.
DOCUMENT
Particulate matter (PM) exposure, amongst others caused by emissions and industrial processes, is an important source of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. There are situations in which blue-collar workers in roadwork companies are at risk. This study investigated perceptions of risk and mitigation of employees in roadwork (construction and maintenance) companies concerning PM, as well as their views on methods to empower safety behavior, by means of a mental models approach. We held semi-structured interviews with twenty-two employees (three safety specialists, seven site managers and twelve blue-collar workers) in three different roadwork companies. We found that most workers are aware of the existence of PM and reduction methods, but that their knowledge about PM itself appears to be fragmented and incomplete. Moreover, road workers do not protect themselves consistently against PM. To improve safety instructions, we recommend focusing on health effects, reduction methods and the rationale behind them, and keeping workers’ mental models into account. We also recommend a healthy dialogue about work-related risk within the company hierarchy, to alleviate both information-related and motivation-related safety issues. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.06.043 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-bolte-0856134/
DOCUMENT
Background: With increasing knowledge on the adverse health efects of certain constituents of PM (particulate matter), such as silica, metals, insoluble ions, and black carbon, PM has been under the attention of work safety experts. Previously, we investigated the perceptions of blue-collar workers in highly exposed areas of work. Subsequently, we developed an instruction folder highlighting the most important aspects of PM risk and mitigation, and tested this folder in a digital experiment. The digital experiment yielded positive results with regards to acquired knowledge about PM, but did not on risk perception or safety behavior. Methods: In this study, we investigate the efects of the folder when combined with a practical assignment involving a PM exposimeter, showing the amount of particulate matter in microgram per cubic meter in real time on its display for various activities. We tested this at six workplaces of four companies in the roadwork and construction branch. Results: The results indicate that the folder itself yields an increased knowledge base in employees about PM, but the efects of the practical assignment are more contentious. Nevertheless, there is an indication that using the assignment may lead to a higher threat appraisal among employees for high exposure activities. Conclusion: We recommend implementing our folder in companies with high PM exposure and focusing further research on appropriate methods of implementation.
DOCUMENT
Objectives: The aim of this study was to study measurement properties of the DutchLanguage Version of the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS-DLV) in blue and white collarworkers employed at multiple companies and to compare the validity and factorstructure to other language versions.Methods: Workers (n = 1023) were assessed during a cross-sectional health surveillance.Construct validity was tested with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses(EFA and CFA) and hypothesis testing. Reliability was tested with Cronbach 's alpha.Results: A two-factor structure of the BRS-DLV had good model fit in both EFAand CFA, which could be explained by difficulties of workers with reversed orderitems. After excluding these inconsistent answering patterns, a one-factor structureshowed good model fit resembling the original BRS (χ2 = 16.5; CFI & TLI = 0.99;SRMR = 0.02;RMSEA = 0.04). Internal consitency is sufficient (Cronbach 'sα = 0.78). All five hypotheses were confirmed, suggesting construct validity.Conclusions: Reliability of the BRS-DLV is sufficient and there is evidence of constructvalidity. Inconsistent answering, however, caused problems in interpretationand factor structure of the BRS-DLV. This can be easily detected and handled becauseitem 2, 4 and 6 are in reversed order. Other language versions differ in factorstructure, most likely because systematic errors are not corrected for. To collect validdata, it is advised to be aware of inconsistent answering of respondents.CC BY-NC
MULTIFILE
Recently, the Dutch government raised the retirement age of workers in the Netherlands. In this study we focused on the work values of low-skilled older workers, the extent to which their jobs fulfill these values, and the effect of work values on the willingness of these workers to extend their working life. This study is based on a literature review and a secondary analysis on a large database of persons aged 45 and older (STREAM). The study shows that extrinsic work values are more important for low-skilled older workers, and intrinsic work values more relevant for high-skilled older workers. The most important work values for low-skilled older workers are fulfilled slightly more often than those of high-skilled older workers. The extent to which important work values are fulfilled in the jobs of low-skilled older workers is positively correlated with job satisfaction and with their own assessment of whether or not to continue working for another 12 months. Based on this research, we formulated recommendations for HR practices on the employability of low-skilled older workers
DOCUMENT
The annual publication (since 1995) of the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International (TI) Secretariat in Berlin, gives the scores of the perceptions which selected observers have of the prevalence of corruption in their countries. They do not report about facts. Moreover, these observers are not at random chosen from whatever universum of respondents. Those contributing are predominantly male, between 25 and 50 years of age, well-paid and expatriate, white collar workers, with diplomas of MBA and similar studies, anglophone. Perceptions of women, poor, locals, blue collar workers, francophone and lusophone, are predominantly missing. The automatic result is that rich countries rank in the top, are perceived as less corrupt, ‘clean’. Poor countries rank at the bottom end of the list. The result is unreliable, unscientific, and should not be used – as is generally done by governments and the media – as a yardstick for the level of corruption in particular countries. (TI-Berlin has announced that beginning with the CPI of December 2012, it will use another methodology with more reliable results. As soon as this is published such information and comments will become available on this website).
MULTIFILE
Betekenis van het werk van John Atkinson over flexibilisering en segmentering voor hedendaags HRM
DOCUMENT
Digitalization is the core component of future development in the 4.0 industrial era. It represents a powerful mechanism for enhancing the sustainable competitiveness of economies worldwide. Diverse triggering effects shape future digitalization trends. Thus, the main research goal in this study is to use sustainable competitiveness pillars (such as social, economic, environmental and energy) to evaluate international digitalization development. The proposed empirical model generates comprehensive knowledge of the sustainable competitiveness-digitalization nexus. For that purpose, a nonlinear regression has been applied on gathered annual data that consist of 33 European countries, ranging from 2010 to 2016. The dataset has been deployed using Bernoulli’s binominal distribution to derive training and testing samples and the entire analysis has been adjusted in that context. The empirical findings of artificial neural networks (ANN) suggest strong effects of the economic and energy use indicators on the digitalization progress. Nonlinear regression and ANN model summary report valuable results with a high degree of coefficient of determination (R2>0.9 for all models). Research findings state that the digitalization process is multidimensional and cannot be evaluated as an isolated phenomenon without incorporating other relevant factors that emerge in the environment. Indicators report the consumption of electrical energy in industry and households and GDP per capita to achieve the strongest effect.
MULTIFILE
