How Will the Future of Work Shape the OSH Professional of the Future? A Workshop Summary

Abstract

Rapid and profound changes anticipated in the future of work will have significant implications for the education and training of occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals and the workforce. As the nature of the workplace, work, and the workforce change, the OSH field must expand its focus to include existing and new hazards (some yet unknown), consider how to protect the health and well-being of a diverse workforce, and understand and mitigate the safety implications of new work arrangements. Preparing for these changes is critical to developing proactive systems that can protect workers, prevent injury and illness, and promote worker well-being. An in-person workshop held on February 3–4, 2020 at The University of Texas Health Science Center (UTHealth) School of Public Health in Houston, Texas, USA, examined some of the challenges and opportunities OSH education will face in both academic and industry settings. The onslaught of the COVID-19 global pandemic reached the United States one month after this workshop and greatly accelerated the pace of change. This article summarizes presentations from national experts and thought leaders across the spectrum of OSH and professionals in the fields of strategic foresight, systems thinking, and industry, and provides recommendations for the field.

Worker Perspectives on Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Office Workspaces: Implications for the Future of Office Work

“…In addition, AI systems integrated into individual workstations could turn off lights, personal comfort devices, and other electronic devices when the presence of the worker is not noted as a means of conserving energy [ 42 ]. Future study is needed to explore the transactions that occur among a worker, the workspace, and an AI system to better understand these interplays and the implications of worker health, work performance, and other organizational or environmental impacts within future office work contexts [ 26 ]. Such a multifaceted approach could result in robust, efficacious workplace worker health solutions [ 20 , 34 ] with additional far-reaching benefits.…”

“…The plethora of health and performance issues associated with office work are likely to continue and expand in future work and workplaces [ 21 , 26 ]; thus, it is ever important to identify solutions to the challenges of mitigating risk and improving well-being within office work [ 27 ]. Environmental modifications such as sit-stand desks have been found to reduce sedentary work behavior in the short term, but no studies examining these modifications have demonstrated long-term effectiveness of reducing sedentary behavior [ 28 ] nor any effects in reducing pain-related disability in office workers [ 29 ].…”

How Will the Future of Work Shape OSH Research and Practice? A Workshop Summary

“…There is a growing body of literature to demonstrate that the future of work will have increasingly profound effects on the jobs that workers around the world perform every day [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. These changes will affect not only the nature of work but also the workplace and the workforce, and existing paradigms of worker health, safety, and well-being will need to shift to meet new challenges for worker protections [8][9][10][11]. Many of these changes will Int.…”

“…The need for an expanded focus for occupational safety and health (OSH) to prepare for such changes anticipated in the future of work has been well documented [8,11,16,[19][20][21]. One model for an expanded focus for OSH (Figure 1) calls for broadening the traditional OSH domains, which previously focused on evaluating workplace exposures and hazards and developing risk-prevention strategies.…”

“…This expanded model considers the complex interaction of work and non-work factors that influence worker safety, health, and wellbeing [11]. The horizontal expansion includes personal, social, and economic factors; and the vertical expansion includes measurement of risk extended to the working-life continuum that includes worker well-being as an outcome [8,11]. This model builds on previous work of the World Health Organization (WHO), European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), and the NIOSH Total Worker Health ® program (TWH) [22][23][24][25], and considers a broader set of work-life and well-being factors that support the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals calling for sustained economic growth and decent work for all nations [26].…”