Work Classification and Workstation Design for Person with Functional Difficulty (PFD)

Employing Persons with Disability (PWD) is a challenge for every employer especially in the Philippines. Some companies have hesitation on hiring PWD because employers are not confident that persons with difficulty could function and deliver what they are expected from them to do in their job. In a similar way, most workplace environment is not yet designed to fit or accommodate this particular group. According to Philippine Statistics Authority (2015), Persons with Disability (PWD) has a branch called Person with Functional Difficulty (PFD); these are individuals that have difficulties in executing activities but are still capable of having a job [7]. For these reasons, it became the research interest of the authors to conduct a study on the work classification and workstation design for persons with functional difficulty (PFD). The authors examined the employment profile of 270 PWDs within NCR region and classified them according to their functional difficulty in terms of the following: (a) difficulty in seeing, even if wearing eyeglasses, (b) difficulty in hearing, even if using a hearing aid, (c) difficulty in walking or climbing steps, (d) difficulty in remembering or concentrating, (e) difficulty in self-caring (bathing or dressing) and (f) difficulty in communicating. Afterwards, specific tasks and work activities that can be performed by each person with functional difficulty were identified in order to match them with the job suitable for PFD. It was done using a career aptitude test and job analysis. Finally, principles of ergonomic were employed in order to design a workstation that would be suitable for the persons with functional difficulty based on the specific job that were identified in the study appropriate for PFD.