Understanding Hazards – Organisational Hazards

Organisational hazards are associated with behaviour, workload, time constraints and deadlines.

Studies have shown that the following work dimensions may have the potential to be stressful:

• temporal aspects of work – shift work, overtime
• work content – nature of tasks and level of autonomy
• interpersonal issues within a team –  interaction with co-workers and equality of workload
• interpersonal issues with supervisors –  feedback at reviews, day to day interaction and personality clashes
• organisational structures – leadership teams, line manager interaction.

The ideal workload should be organised to provide optimal alertness.  If people are overworked and not performing well, they miss potential hazardous warnings through burn-out.  Also if people are underworked they may also miss potential hazardous warnings through complacency.