• Project number: F 2511
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Completed Project

Description:

Time and performance pressure, as well as an increasing information overload, are relevant demands in today's working world – across all industries and regardless of company size. Dealing with these challenges effectively is crucial to avoiding negative psychological and health consequences for employees. It is therefore important to design working conditions in such a way that excessive demands are reduced or avoided.

In practice, however, this still happens far too rarely. Even companies that address the issue as part of their risk assessment or other operational processes often do not get beyond the analysis phase. Concrete steps for selecting, implementing, and reviewing suitable design measures are often lacking. This is where the project comes in and provides practical support.

In the first part of the project, existing findings from BAuA projects on design options for time and performance pressure and information overload were bundled and validated and supplemented by three review papers. This resulted in a guide for companies containing specific recommendations for successful design processes in dealing with these factors. The guide was then further developed in the second part of the project. This was based on intensive discussions with company specialists who are directly responsible for creating healthy working conditions in their companies, as well as with experts working across companies. The revised and expanded version of the guide “What to do when faced with time and performance pressure and information overload” and two summaries are now available to all interested parties.