The influence of team workload on team performance in the light of task complexity: a study of nuclear fire brigades

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the effect of perceived team workload on team performance among nuclear fire brigades of the Hungarian nuclear power plant. Our sample consisted of six firefighting teams (N = 42 individuals) who were involved in two high-fidelity simulated scenarios with different task complexity. Team workload was measured by the NASA Task Load Index, while team performance was evaluated by a team of experts. Our results showed that teams generally managed to maintain a standard performance in both cases, although they perceived there to be a higher workload during the complex scenario. Our results further revealed that perceived ‘physical demand’ and ‘effort’ factors contributed to the increased level of workload in the complex task. Finally, in the case of the simple simulated scenario, workload and team performance were not related to each other, while the two were positively correlated in the complex scenario.

Keywords:

• firefighters
• NASA Task Load Index
• nuclear industry
• simulation
• team performance
• workload

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.