Biomedical subjects

H Grzech-Sukalo

Publications and source records attributed to H Grzech-Sukalo.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2001

Flexible working time systems--the process of design and implementation.

Examples of the design and implementation processes of flexible working time systems are derived from a counselling project in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The practical cases shown represent a diversity of variable or flexible working time systems according to different branches and different anticipated aims to reach with flexibility. For companies flexibility should improve or at least consolidate their economic situation, and for employees flexibility should result in a beneficial effect on health, family and social life. Three examples of counselling practice are reported in this paper, each case representing a different approach to flexibility in working time. To avoid overtime an industrial production plant expanded the weekly operating time without increasing the employees working time. For this purpose shifts off had to be planned. To provide a continuous service one department of a service company changed from duty on call to regular shifts on weekends. Responsibility in handling the new working times was assigned to the team. In an old people's home working times were designed according to the irregular demands throughout the day, in combining full and part-time jobs adequately.

Choice Behavior↗

PubMed2001

Beneficial effects on employment and preventive health care: the concept and results of counselling processes from a German project.

Since December 1998 a project of working time counselling named "Design of Modern Working Times" is supported by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and the European Union; AWiS-consult is entrusted to carry out this project. The service offered to all companies, institutions, work committees, and employees interested covers information, assessment of existing working time schedules, development of alternative or new working time schedules, and accompanying implementation processes. Up to June 2001 nearly 300 inquiries were worked on, most of them from industry, service companies, and from the field of care and hospitals. Working time design in this project aims not only at work safety and health care but also at beneficial effects on employment. In a special campaign from May 2000 to May 2001, 61 companies were supported by AWiS-consult, with the result of more than 400 new employees and 16 companies with employment secured, so the combination of preventive health care and beneficial effects on employment by working time design can be assessed as successful.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed1998

Accident risk as a function of hour at work and time of day as determined from accident data and exposure models for the German working population.

OBJECTIVES: Recent studies indicate that accident risk may be a function of hour at work and time of day. Further evidence was sought for these assumptions, along with the answer to the question of whether the risk of accident can be conceived as an interaction between hours at work and time of day. METHODS: Data on more than 1.2 million accidents for the year 1994 were provided, all listed according to the time of day and hour at work. Since information about how long each day and at what time of day people work is not available in Germany, different exposure models had to be estimated. For estimating the risk of having an accident relative accident risks were calculated from the ratio of accident frequencies to the exposure data. RESULTS: An exponentially increasing accident risk was observed beyond the 9th hour at work. The relative accident risks differed considerably according to the respective exposure model with regard to time of day. A highly significant interaction effect was found for hour at work by time of day, the percentage of accidents at different hours at work varying according to the particular time of day when work is started. For the 3 "traditional" shiftwork starting times, it was shown that, with later starting times, the relative accident risk increased dramatically beyond the 8th hour at work. CONCLUSIONS: Since the results clearly indicate that there are time-related effects on occupational accident risk, more detailed analyses are called for. More elaborated exposure models should be used to assess the efficiency of work schedules with extended workhours, especially under shiftwork conditions. The results also indicate the necessity of recording and providing adequate data bases for such analyses.

Accidents, Occupational↗

PubMed1997

Structural Properties of Shift Schedules, Employment of Partners, and Their Effects on Workers' Family and Leisure Activities.

To answer the question whether different properties of workers' shift schedules lead to different psychosocial impairments in different domains, depending on the rigidity of the time schedules imposed by other members of the family, analyses of variance were computed with the employment of the partner (as an example of the restrictions on the time schedule imposed by family members), the presence of children at home, and selected characteristics of the shift schedule as independent variables. The sample consisted of 931 male members of the German police force, with subsamples according to the presence or absence of children and types of partners' employment. The questionnaire data support the hypothesis that characteristics of shift schedules interact with restrictions imposed by the time schedules of other family members in affecting social impairment. Without employment of the partner and the presence of children at home, greater flexibility allows the shift worker to make better use of his hours off work for interaction with his partner or to participate in interest-representation groups, even if the shift system involves compressed working hours or late changeover times on night shift. Consequences for research and for construction of shift schedules are discussed.

Journal Article↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Changes in the structure of health complaints as related to shiftwork exposure.

Factor analyses of health complaints in groups with different length of shiftwork exposure show that the structure of these complaints changes with increasing shift experience, indicating the emergence of a shift-specific pattern of health complaints. After about 15 years of shiftwork, complaints related to disturbances of circadian-controlled functions can be found in the first factor whereas other complaints have their dominant loadings on a separate factor, representing general, non-shift-specific impairments. The results indicate that in this way shift-specific components of health impairment can be separated from other non-shift related components.

Adult↗