Intensity of the Work Process: Reasons for Inefficiency of Factor Evaluation

Abstract

The transformation of the procedure for hygienic assessment of the intensity of the labor process in the Russian Federation is considered. Special assessment of working conditions, which later replaced certification, had already different goals and objectives, respectively, the change in the goal setting directly affected, among other things, the methodological approach to assessment. Federal Law № 416-FZ dated December 28, 2013 «On the Special Assessment of Working Conditions» introduced an explanation of the intensity of the labor process as indicators of sensory load on the central nervous system and sense organs of employees, which led to a deep sequestration of the assessed indicators. The number of considered indicators was reduced from 23 to 7, which is contrary to common sense and realities in the workplaces. Primitivism and bias in the assessment of working conditions according to the methodology of Order No. 33n of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated January 24, 2014, led to the need to introduce an accredited methodology for assessing factors of the working environment and, in addition to the existing one, issue orders that take into account the specifics of conducting a special assessment of working conditions for a number of manufacturing industries. The experimental and statistical evaluation of the efficiency of the existing approaches to assessing the intensity of the labor process showed that these indicators are less and less identified by the experts. In addition, when conducting studies (measurements) of the identified indicators, they are assigned to the 1st or 2nd class of working conditions, i.e., there is a process of «overflow» of the number of jobs with «harmfulness» into the number of jobs with the indicator «severity of the labor process». These collisions confirm the idea that a special assessment of working conditions is unsuitable for a real assessment of the working conditions in terms of the intensity of the labor process, since they mislead the state, owners and employees. Under the current conditions, the applied methodology for assessing the intensity of the labor process in the procedure for a special assessment of the working conditions is outdated and uninformative.