Should data on gender and ethnicity inform ergonomics interventions? Lessons from four case studies

Abstract

Ergonomists intervene to improve work for all workers and adapt jobs to a range of worker characteristics. But their mandate rarely includes explicit attention to the distribution of worker demographics, to divisions among workers, or to discrimination on the basis of sex/gender or racialisation. A decades-long collaboration between ergonomists and the women’s committees of three union confederations in Québec, Canada led to several instances where ergonomists had to confront situations involving sexism or racism, not foreseen during their training. This article will explore four problematic situations and suggest solutions, including paying more attention to teamwork, considering gender during ergonomics training, and developing a code of practice for ergonomics interventions.

Practitioner summary: Workplace inequities related to sex/gender, racialisation and other sources of social inequity can affect job performance and workers’ health. As such, do ergonomists need to consider them during an intervention? How? We analyse four situations encountered during interventions and suggest more attention to understanding workplace dynamics and promoting team function.

Keywords:

• Ergonomics intervention
• sex
• gender
• racism
• collective work

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge very helpful insights from Drs. Myrna Lashley and Minh Thi Nguyen.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research/Institute of Gender and Health [# IGK 153464 to the GESTE team, led by Marie Laberge] and the Réseau Québécois en Recherches Féministes team, led by Yolande Cohen. Karen Messing is a member of the SAGE research team, supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.