Ergonomics and the meaning of work (full text in pdf)
Sebastian Capotescu 1, a
1Ergonomics & Workplace Management Society, Romania, 300133 Timisoara, Simion Barnutiu 28
asebastian.capotescu@greenforest.ro
Abstract Ergonomics can be defined as interaction between humans and other elements of a system in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance. Well-being is the experience of health, happiness, and prosperity. It includes having good mental health, high life satisfaction, and a sense of meaning or purpose. The Sustainable Development Goals defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, officially approved document by United Nations in 2015 has in the third position "Good Health and Wellbeing" after "Now Poverty" and "Zero Hungry". Also from the total of 17 Sustainable Goals in the position 8 are Decent Work and Economic Growth. In the real life the companies and studies from the developed societies saw that the average digital natives’ generations have a lower level of work motivation and meaning of work, an increasing percent of single-person households, lower level of happiness even if for the younger people physical and psychological comfort are higher than in the case of older generations. Without any actions, considering the speed of the Artificial Intelligence development that can replace a lot of routine jobs, the situation will get worse. A solution can be to develop forward organizations that have meaning for individuals and communities and make feel again that work makes them useful for the communities, it makes them feel like they belong to society and they have recognition in society somehow as ergo-therapy act in the psychiatry medicine. As representation for the importance of the meaning of work, in the current article, the results are presented from the first stage of the collaborative research “Genrations@Work”, made between 22nd of February 2019 and 28th of June 2019, as a research team leader.
Keywords: ergonomics; well-being; future of work; workplace.