Integrating occupational health and safety in operations management for autonomous and polyvalent work

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Profound changes caused by technological advances, globalization and deregulation have occurred in the workplace, resulting in the rise of new forms of work organization. In this context, workers often need to be autonomous and polyvalent and information must be shared among many stakeholders, who must all coordinate their activities. The number of information asymmetries significantly increases in such situations. In this new working environment, health and safety management issues are often neglected, putting workers at greater risk. It is therefore relevant to examine how information regarding health and safety should be shared among principals and agents when it is available but cannot be communicated through traditional channels (employers, health and safety committees, prevention representatives) and legislative bodies have not yet ruled. In addition, it is crucial to address how responsibility for health and safety should be shared among the parties in such organizations. Finally, since the global economic crisis, some organizations limit health and safety prevention to regulatory compliance. It is critical to fully engage stakeholders in a more active prevention without having counterproductive impact on their organization. The proposed research program will examine and develop a systemic and systematic approach to the design of new strategies through which activities could be modified in order to improve health and safety while maintaining or improving efficiency or productivity. We shall focus on the information systems that are shared by principals and agents and on the development of technological tools to assist such persons in the co-construction of their action plans. The originality of this research program resides in the integration of health and safety considerations into new and increasingly prevalent forms of work organization and the introduction of prevention schemes that are adapted to these forms and could therefore have a positive impact on the management of operations. The proposal is innovative in that it promises to improve service operations, information technology and decision-making processes within new organizational systems.