The Saxion University of Applied Sciences recently started its “Safety at Work” project. Its objective is to increase safety in the workplace by combining and applying state-of-the-art factors from Ambient Intelligence, Industrial & Product Design and Smart Materials [1].The human factor plays a significant role in safety. Safety is related to incidents happening to people who get injured or even die. 97% of the cases in which an injury occurs [2] concerns something that happens is within someone’s control. Many incidents at work are often the result of human behavior: how people interact with each other, and how people cope with risks and guidelines. Industrial environmentsneed to be organized in such a way that people behave safely in an automatic way and that safety becomes a habit. Encouraging safe behavior starts with safe products.However, in many cases this is not sufficient, and incidents still occur. Therefore, communication is often an effective medium that target people’s conscious mind. One cost-effective, asynchronous, and persistent way of communicating with people is through ICT. The approach to changing behavior through ICT is termed PersuasiveTechnology. We focus on ambient aspects of safety: influencing people in an invisible (unconscious) way so as to make industrial environments safer.Literature distinguishes between individual aspects of safety (attitudes, individual differences) on one end, and environmental aspects of safety (safety climate, supervision, work design) on the other end [3, 4]. Depending on several factors, like the safety culture of a company, type of workers, and management involvement, theseaspects contribute to safe behavior. Looking at these factors, we argue that a right mix of them contributes to improving safe behavior. Hence, our main research question is: In which ways can people in work environments be influenced to behave more safe, with the use of technology? This paper was written for and presented on the International Conference on Persuasive Technology in Sydney Australia, 3-5 April 2013.
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Purpose – The hospitality industry creates a distinctive context in which learning takes place. The industry’s international perspective and large globalisation play an important role in learning, as well as the operational and structural features that give meaning to learning and development in the hospitality industry. This explorative research therefore studies the relation between workplace learning and organisational performance in the Dutch hospitality industry. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative research is done through 15 in-depth interviews with general managers and HR managers of Dutch hotels with three or more stars and at least ten employees. Findings – It can be concluded that there is a relation between workplace learning and organisational performance in the hospitality industry, as the participants in this research and the literature both mention workplace learning enhances organisational performance. Originality/value – Little research has been done on learning and organisational performance specifically, in the (Western) hospitality industry. This research therefore focusses on HRD and studies the influence of workplace learning on organisational performance in the Dutch hospitality industry.
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/
