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Managers’ work and management issues are nowadays a major concern for ergonomist practitioners and researchers. In this paper, we highlight societal and corporate evolutions and the way that ergonomics has evolved as a result. We propose a reading of the evolution that has been affecting companies for the last forty years, and show how the tertiarization and financialization of the economy and of companies have led them to deploy more rigid forms of organization that accentuate the control and demands of customers. We go on to observe that this evolution has not been uniform consistent, because the 1990s were the cradle of attempts to add to the tasks of operators by delegating tasks from middle management, while at the same time highlighting the fact that managers’ jobs have been transformed, particularly by a move away from actual workof attempts to enrich the tasks of operators by delegating tasks to middle management, while pointing out that. But gradually, the work of managers was transformed, particularly by moving away from work (Gomez, 2013). We then make the observation that in response to these developments, ergonomists have looked at different levels of organizational determinants, in order to improve the sustainability of the effects and to continue the work already carried out on business development of the activity. Finally, we defend the utility of developing ergonomic approaches to managers’ work, both for its key role in organizational functioning, particularly regarding regulations, and for the role it plays in the development of the activity of other employees. Hence today, more than ever, their work becomes an essential object of study and above all a major target for organizational intervention. We will see that current and future societal transitions reinforce this position. more...

Visant des rapprochements entre ergonomie, sociologie et sciences de gestion, ce mémoire d’HDR, qui s’appuie sur une pratique d’interventions en entreprise, s’intéresse aux modalités d’intervention sur l’organisation à travers le travail des managers. Leur rôle dans la capacité de régulation organisationnelle (technique et décisionnelle) des entreprises, leur participation active aux changements ou encore le regard sur le travail de leurs équipes, et le leur, seront ainsi mis en avant. more...

This article presents the main conclusions of an ergonomic thesis on the activity of staff representatives in CHSCTs (occupational health and safety committees) at the SNCF. These elements may shed new light on certain determinants of an activity that can be developed to help improve working conditions. After a presentation of the framework and methodology of an intervention-research study, we will present the main lessons learned. The activity of the staff representatives is here considered as a collective resolution of design problems. We will show the difficulties they have in integrating employees and mobilizing work during the resolution of issues that exist throughout the company. We will then be able to describe the main methodological guidelines for ergonomic interventions that aim to develop the capacity of staff representatives to deal with work related issues. It is about providing them with tools so that they can think, act and debate differently about both the work of the employees and their own work. more...

Practices in ergonomics have been the object of research for many years. The objective of this research is to use concrete cases to proffer generalizations relating to how ergonomists approach situations. We wish to show that ergonomists’ involvement in work transformation projects has evolved. Ergonomists have built an indisputable place among the actors who influence how we work. However, we believe that two major factors now oblige us to think differently about their actions. Firstly, evolutions in the working world, in particular with the increase in service activities; and then new forms of organization which are inevitably forcing us to focus our actions on organizational determinants. Secondly, the evolution of health models allows us to consider this as a construct, supported by the development of individuals and collectives: developing operators within their work environment thus becomes an objective in itself. Taking an intervention as a starting point, we will try to show that ergonomic intervention must have a dual objective and associated devices 1) To support organizational experimentation based on collective work on the management of production issues. This device will be considered as a means of developing on-job-training and organizational regulation. 2) To influence a transformation of the organizational structure and decisional circuits by working with the decision makers. more...