DOI: https://doi.org/10.62204/2336-498X-2023-4-12

TECHNICAL SCIENCES

ANALYTICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS

OF WORK SAFETY IN URBAN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

Ivan Bohdanov,

postgraduate student,

National Transportation University, Ukraine,

gmiller180890@gmail.com; ORCID: 0000-0001-6346-4388

 

Annotation. The work investigated and analyzed the relationship between the psychology of occupational safety and industrial injuries, and the reasons that cause injuries at workplaces in the structural subdivisions of the metro were given. Proposed measures to improve the occupational health and safety management system at metro companies.

Keywords: modeling of labor safety, industrial injuries, social protection, ISO state standard, metro, project, infrastructure, production process, measurement tools.

Introduction. Occupational safety psychology is a branch of psychological science that studies the psychological causes of accidents occurring in the course of work and other activities, and develops psychological methods of improving safety.

Properties and features of psyche and consciousness play an important role in work. Factors on which the character of a person’s work depends are physical loads, the amount of nervous and emotional tension, rhythm, pace of work, its monotony, the volume of perception and processing of information, etc. A person’s mental state has a special impact on occupational safety, namely the presence of conflicts, fatigue, and overwork, and illness, addiction to narcotic drugs, alcohol, nicotine, and features of the human psyche.

Analysis of industrial injuries shows that the main cause of injuries and deaths at workplaces is the poor mental state of employees during the performance of work duties.

Ensuring the reliability and continuity of the production process is important in the prevention of industrial injuries. Stoppages of production for various reasons, which now often happen, lead not only to a sharp decline in labor productivity, production losses, but also to a sharp deterioration in the physical and psychological well-being of the staff, lead to the occurrence of various types of errors in work, a stressful state, and an increase in the risk of accidents and traumatism. Such production is accompanied by significant nervous and mental stress, disruption of the normal rhythm of work, disputes between workers and colleagues and company management [1].

Objective of the study. The purpose of this study is mental processes (perception, attention, memory, etc.) that are generated by human activity and affect a person’s mental state, personality traits, and safe behavior during work.

The main part. Based on this, in the conditions of production instability, along with guaranteeing the safe state of equipment, production environment and measuring means, significant attention from the management of structural subdivision enterprises should be paid to increasing the reliability of the human factor in the “man – machine – environment” system [2, 3]. It is necessary not only to improve the quality of training and instruction of personnel on labor protection issues, but first of all to carry out appropriate psychological work so that workers are educated in the psychology of safe work, where they evaluate every step and every action from the point of view of its safe execution in compliance with state standards.

Before the occurrence of an accident, as a rule, some dangerous situation is created, when a person can realize the approach of such an event and can take the necessary measures to prevent it. A person’s inability to recognize a dangerous situation in time and take adequate measures leads to accidents and accidents. A person must anticipate the development of the production process and his behavior, be aware of a dangerous situation in time and prevent accidents. Sometimes such cases are considered as a consequence of inadequate behavior of the person himself in a dangerous situation.

The safety of human behavior at work depends on the following factors:

• states of unconditioned reflexes, with which a person unconsciously responds to various dangers that threaten his body (for example, automatic withdrawal of a hand from a hot object);
• psychophysiological qualities of a person, which are manifested in his sensitivity to danger signals, his speed of response to such signals, in emotional reactions to danger when identifying a dangerous situation and reacting to it. A person’s behavior is influenced by his emotional, mental and physical state. Thus, a state of anxiety exacerbates the feeling of danger, a state of fatigue reduces a person’s ability to identify and counteract danger;
• professional qualities and experience of a person, that is, knowledge of the profession and safety rules, life experience;
• motivation for safe work, compliance with technological processes.

Sometimes the motives of some benefit (saving time, increasing production) exceed the motives of safety of work performance. It is necessary to morally and materially encourage workers to comply with labor safety requirements and state standards, to increase their motivation. The costs of such promotion are justified by the prevention of accidents. This will make safe work financially more profitable. The worker will earn more not only due to labor productivity, but also due to the fact that he works safely, according to the instructions. And it is also important that every violation of occupational health and safety regulations should not go unnoticed, all employees should be aware that every violation of the instructions will be punished.

The motivation of workers to work safely increases when they notice that there is strict control over the implementation of safety rules at the enterprise, and for a high state of labor safety, workers are financially and morally encouraged. The condition of the bonus must be work without injuries and accidents. Remuneration to the heads of the company’s divisions from the material incentive fund can be paid only under the conditions that there were no injuries or violations of labor protection requirements in their areas and in the services they lead, there are means of individual and collective protection, stocked first-aid kits, etc.

Enterprise management should abandon the principle of “production and safety separately” and move to the principle of “production in safety conditions”, where safety becomes a means of achieving production efficiency. The policy in the field of labor protection should be aimed at the collective search for ways to prevent accidents. Everyone in his place should make suggestions in this direction. It is necessary to create a psychological mood in the team aimed at occupational safety.

Psychological processes of human labor activity and occupational safety are characterized by a number of elementary types of mental activity (sensation, perception, attention, etc.). The worker receives information from several sources of irritation simultaneously by different sense organs. This is a process of perception. The time of sensation perception by various organs reaches a second or more. It is important for an employee to know which objects he needs to monitor especially carefully during the production process [4].

Concentration of attention can be caused by external factors (sound, light). This is an unconscious concentration of attention. Conscious concentration, which is carried out with the help of the second signaling system (words, thinking, etc.), is important. Unconscious concentration of attention can cause distraction from the main work and lead to an emergency situation. At the same time, a person is able to divide mental processes, for example, to perform work automatically and think about something else. However, the work will be safe if the worker can at any time connect the second alarm system to make an urgent decision. This is achieved by educating and mastering the relevant skills. Therefore, the development of skills and the ability to consciously manage mental activity is an important condition for occupational safety.

A person’s ability to maintain attention on one subject determines the stability of attention, and the ability to transfer attention to other subjects is the phenomenon of attention switching. At the same time, a distracting factor can cause distraction, which leads to errors. If a person observes several objects at the same time, then this causes the distribution of attention. However, a person cannot simultaneously observe more than 4-5 objects. Studies show that a person can observe one object with the same degree of attention for no more than 10-20 minutes. Fatigue significantly affects attention. It reduces the volume of attention and shortens the time of its concentration. Therefore, it is necessary to provide rest breaks in such works (after 2 hours – a break of 15 minutes) [4].

Also, an important moment in the formation of the psychology of work safety is the labor team. Each team has formal and informal leaders, on whom the attitude of employees to the implementation of occupational safety instructions depends, therefore it is extremely necessary to form the correct attitude of the team to safety by involving leaders in the activities of occupational safety commissioners. Safety measures coincide with the tasks of the team and the production process. The manager should systematically remind the employees about this. The leader’s authority is created if his instructions are carried out not due to administrative subordination, but due to subordinates’ awareness of their correctness.

Therefore, psychophysiological factors of danger directly affect a person – on physical and physiological processes, work capacity, mood, work productivity and his life activities in general.

The fight against fatigue, first of all, comes down to improving the sanitary and hygienic conditions of the production environment (elimination of air pollution, noise, vibration, normalization of the microclimate, rational lighting, etc.). Professional selection, workplace organization, correct working position, rhythm of work, rationalization of the labor process, use of emotional stimuli, implementation of rational modes of work and rest, etc., play a special role in preventing employee fatigue.

In addition, specific methods are used to prevent worker fatigue, which include means of restoring the functional state of the visual and locomotor apparatus, reducing hypodynamia, increasing cerebral blood circulation, and optimizing mental activity [5].

From the point of view of medicine, for the prevention, prevention and rehabilitation of the consequences of psycho-emotional stress, it is recommended to use exercises that include psychotherapy, physical, water-air procedures, physiotherapeutic procedures, massage, adequate nutrition, taking vitamins and minerals, relaxing music and exercises, meditation, autogenic training, etc.

In the prevention of worker fatigue and overwork, a significant role also belongs to the organization of a rational regime of work and rest. Physiologists substantiated five conditions for increasing work capacity, which contribute to the effective prevention of fatigue:

• any work should be entered gradually;
• a condition for successful working capacity is regularity and rhythmicity;
• familiarity, consistency and planning;
• carelessness and haste in work are not acceptable;
• a physiologically justified alternation of work and rest, as well as a change in the forms of activity (the most effective is rest associated with an active muzzle state;
• favorable attitude of society to work (work motivation and social conditions).

One of the common causes of industrial injuries at subway companies is the carelessness of the employee himself. An employee’s actions may be considered careless if he is careless at work, does not use personal protective equipment, or carelessly complies with the requirements of the occupational health and safety instructions. Sometimes employees with long experience of more than 10-15 years ignore the implementation of labor safety rules and labor protection instructions.

The cause of most accidents (up to 75%) is the human factor, so the main focus of preventive work should be to increase the working capacity of employees and maintain it during working hours. An important direction of this work is the early diagnosis of professional pathologies and the painful state of the nervous system. An accident is the result of not taking into account a potential danger. An important role in this is played by the employee’s physical condition (good eyesight, hearing, etc.) [6].

Impeccable vision is an important condition for occupational safety. A significant number of accidents occur as a result of poor vision, poor lighting of tunnels, mines, machine rooms of escalators, transformer and traction-lowering substations, workplaces, etc. Uneven lighting requires frequent re-adaptation of vision, which takes up to 6 seconds, during which an accident can occur.

High noise background, hearing impairment lead to rapid fatigue and untimely reaction to sound signals. The more tired a person is, the more time is needed to perceive and react to a dangerous situation.

Reducing morbidity and preserving the health of workers is an important social and economic task. A radical measure in this direction is the improvement of working conditions, the implementation of medical and preventive measures (sanitary and educational work, promotion of a healthy lifestyle, industrial gymnastics, dispensation, etc.). This will reduce the level of industrial injuries and increase the economic efficiency of production.

Employees must know and follow occupational health and safety instructions during work. However, it is impossible to predict everything in the instructions. Life activities are much more complicated than the most detailed instructions. Therefore, it is very important to educate employees to observe, to be cautious and cautious.

The survey of employees showed that most of them consider the most frequent causes of injuries to be imperfect work organization, bad mood, fatigue, conflicts in the team with superiors, inattentive attitude of managers to subordinates, unsatisfactory psychological climate.

Violation of the rhythm of work and rest significantly affects work capacity. Therefore, when determining the working day regime, variable schedules must be set so that the duration of the employee’s inter-shift rest, taking into account intra-shift breaks, is at least twice the duration of his working time of the previous shift. The length of working hours established by law cannot be changed by the administration even with the consent of the employee.

Taking into account that the mistakes of the employee during work can threaten the health and life of both the employee himself and other people, the requirements for his working capacity should be sufficiently high. Most workers feel tired at the end of the shift, which increases the likelihood of an injury-threatening situation, therefore, strict compliance with the established legislation and rules of the work and rest regime is very important.

Biorhythms greatly affect a person’s well-being, work capacity, and reliability. It is known that more than 100 different rhythmic processes operate in the human body. Many publications have appeared in the literature about the effectiveness of taking into account three sinusoids with periods of 23, 28 and 33 days, which characterize the physical (ability to work, energy), emotional (mood, reaction) and intellectual (wit, memory) in regulating the work and rest regime of employees y) conditions [7].

In order to prevent accidents and diseases, safe work methods are promoted.

The following methods of campaigning and mass work are used: briefings, lectures, conversations, films, radio broadcasts devoted to issues of labor safety. Posters, souvenirs, etc. are widely used. Posters contribute to establishing correct and safe work methods in the employee’s mind. An effective form of labor protection advocacy is public reviews, which are conducted by the administration together with trade union activists. It is important to use such forms of propaganda as exhibitions, stands, safety corners, etc.

However, the more effective are not the listed methods, but the formation of motives that force the employee to comply with the rules of safety technology, not because the employer requires it, but because it is his own desire, his own psychological attitude to safe work. This attitude is achieved by improving the psychological climate, involving employees in monitoring occupational safety, educational work, and the personal example of managers.

So, socio-psychological methods of labor protection management are based on the use of a complex of interrelated factors, such as knowledge of labor safety requirements, skills, safe work skills, motives, professional performance, moral stimulation for compliance with safety rules, humanization of work, adherence to a scientifically based regime work and rest, promotion of labor protection, medical and preventive measures [8].

Based on this, an important factor among the socio-psychological methods of labor protection management is also professional selection and career guidance of employees in some responsible professions. At the same time, it is worth paying attention not only to physiological, but also psychological data, that is, a sense of responsibility, the degree of confidence in one’s capabilities, willpower (self-control, perseverance, determination). The probability of accidents increases with the worker’s tendency to risk, adventurism, indiscipline, frivolity, social instability, aggressiveness, impulsiveness.

The existing methods of economic motivation of labor protection work at enterprises in modern economic conditions are complicated by the lack of funds for the implementation of appropriate organizational and technical measures and staff stimulation. Therefore, solving the tasks of occupational health and safety at enterprises can be achieved by increasing the efficiency of economic activity. The existing order of centralized management of the enterprise’s economic activity, when all the levers of management are in the hands of the first manager, is outdated. This procedure suppresses the initiative and productivity of labor teams. It is necessary to radically change the procedure for managing production activities.

The economic mechanism of labor protection management should provide for a system of incentives for those employees who conscientiously comply with labor protection requirements, do not allow violations of the rules and norms of personal and collective safety, take an active creative part in the implementation of measures to improve the level of labor protection at the enterprise. The collective agreement (agreement) must establish various kinds of moral and material incentives for such employees: wages, bonuses (including special incentive bonuses for achieving a high level of labor protection), rewards for inventions and innovative proposals on labor protection issues. Rewarding the workers of brigades, divisions, and workshops for long-term work without violations of labor protection rules, without injuries and accidents is of great benefit. In the case of the presence of dangerous and harmful production factors that constantly threaten the health of the employee, he is recommended to pay an allowance for increased caution. In addition to material encouragement, moral stimulation, which was once used in our country and is successfully used by foreign companies, is also of great importance. The forms of moral stimulation can be very diverse: from the announcement of thanks to the organization of evenings of rest, picnics, cruises for teams that have achieved the best results in labor protection.

The unsatisfactory state of labor protection at the enterprise leads to the inhibition of the economic and social progress of the country as a whole. According to the calculations of the experts of the International Labor Organization, losses due to industrial accidents and occupational diseases amount to 4% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, the improvement of the labor protection system is one of the urgent issues at the level of both the state and individual enterprises [9].

Management of occupational health and safety at the enterprise is a set of actions of officials, carried out on the basis of constant analysis of information about the state of occupational health and safety at all workplaces in order to improve and maintain it at a certain level in accordance with legislative and regulatory acts [10].

The attitude of employees to work duties depends not only on the level of wages, but also to a large extent on their confidence in permanent employment, respect, recognition, and interest in work. The manager’s task is to combine firm leadership with giving subordinates the opportunity to show their own creative abilities, initiative and individuality. The manager must constantly inform subordinates about the state of affairs. This increases people’s interest in work. Each employee must realize that his work is very important, that without his participation the enterprise can stop. Favorable and safe working conditions at workplaces are an important factor in increasing labor productivity. Additional costs for improving labor protection are purchased multiple times. This is evidenced by the experience of developed countries.

Conclusions. Measures to increase the efficiency of labor protection activities in structural units of the metro:

1. The key to reducing the level of industrial injuries and improving the state of labor protection is the rise of the economy, which in modern economic conditions can be achieved only through the decentralization of production.
2. Improvement of the state of labor protection in structural subdivisions of the metro can be achieved by transitioning from the implementation of individual scattered measures to a system of planned purposeful management of this activity with a clear definition for each structural subdivision of the enterprise of the list and content of management tasks and functions. The tasks of work on labor protection arise from all production activities of the company’s divisions and are aimed at fulfilling the requirements of the state policy on labor protection.
3. In order to fulfill the planned and other tasks of work on labor protection at enterprises, it is necessary to create labor protection funds, deducting for this purpose

0.5% of the volume of sales of products (services).

4. In the structural subdivisions of the metro, it is necessary to carry out systematic engineering support of the occupational health and safety management system by bringing production equipment, technological processes, buildings and structures, timely verification of measuring devices, sanitary and hygienic conditions, sanitary and domestic provision, etc., in accordance with the requirements of regulatory acts on occupational health and safety using modern methods of engineering and reengineering in order to eliminate unacceptable risks and comply with state standards.
5. For the instruction and training of labor protection workers, use modern methods of active learning, education of psychology and safety culture in workers, when someone’s dangerous actions would be impossible. Before each potentially dangerous operation, a plan for its implementation is drawn up, an admission order is issued, and a detailed briefing is conducted. In case of the first violation of safety rules, the offender is given a warning, in case of repeated action according to the Code of Labor Laws. The occupational health and safety management system is a daily functional management subsystem of an enterprise, institution, or organization [11].

According to current legislation in Ukraine, enterprises are certified for compliance with the requirements of state standards DSTU ISO 9001-2001 “Quality management systems. Requirements” and DSTU ISO 14001-97 “Environmental management systems”. The labor protection management system is also subject to certification. In accordance with international standards, the following are checked: the presence of a safety certificate, the integration of this system with the quality management and environmental protection systems, the presence of the document “Occupational safety policy at the enterprise” signed by the first manager, the implementation of this policy. The presence of legal acts on labor protection, certification of workplaces and assessment of the risk of work in them, availability of personal protective equipment, training of personnel, safety of high-risk works, certification of sanitary and technical conditions and availability of labor protection equipment in workshops, audits are also checked state of labor protection in shops and the enterprise as a whole.

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DSTU ISO 14001-97 “Environmental management systems”