Lecture # 509:
Occupational Information and Decision Making: Physical Demands

copyright 2008 Cheryl K. Hosken, BSN, MS Psych.

Physical Demands of a Job
The physical activities of a person at work can be, a) the requirement of a job and, b) the physical capacity that a person must have to do the job. For example, if a person must be able to lift 50 pounds to do a job, that is a job requirement. This type of job might be delivery of products to stores or construction sites. A person may have to demonstrate that he can lift 50 pounds by showing his own personal strength in a simulated job setting.

Meditate Word By Word On This Verse:
Gen. 4:2.

There are six categories of physical demands:

1. Strength - this refers to lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling. Usually the person who can do one of these things, can do all of them. There are 5 degrees of strength:
   • a. Sedentary work - requires that a person lift 5 kilograms and carry small objects frequently,
   • b. Light work - requires a person lift 10 kilograms and lifting or carrying objects that weigh a maximum of 5 kilograms frequently,
   • c. Medium work - demands that a worker lift 20 kilograms and be able to carry or lift 10 kilograms frequently,
   • d. Heavy work - the worker must lift 45 kilograms and frequently carry 20 kilograms,
   • e. Very heavy work - demands that a worker lift objects over 45 kilograms and often lift or carry objects that weigh over 20 kilograms.
2. Agility - the ability to climb while working or balance on a ladder or other object.
3. Body Positioning - the necessity to stoop, crawl, kneel, or crouch while doing a job.
4. Manual Dexterity - this is the ability to reach, handle, finger, or feel. Handling is defined as work with the hand, but not with the fingers. Fingering does not involve the hand or the arm. Feeling entails the perception of physical characteristics in objects, such as size, shape, temperature, or texture through the use of the fingertips.
5. Communication skills of speech and listening.
6. Function of seeing: includes the functions of far and near acuity - far acuity is seeing at a distance of 20 feet: near acuity is seeing at a distance of 60 cm. or less. Accommodation of the eye is the adjustment of the lens of the eye to varying distances. There is also field of vision, which refers to the ability to see up, down and to the side while the eyes are focused on a particular point.

Question:
1. What kinds of physical demands must a doctor fulfill?

Environmental Conditions
The actual physical surroundings of a job are important to one's health. For example, if a person has a number of allergies, work in a chemistry laboratory is probably not the best environment for him. Likewise, if he does not have allergies, but over time develops allergies, the allergies may be the result of his work environment. There are seven types of environmental conditions for work. They are:

1. Inside Work - that means that 75% of the work done by an employee where he is not exposed to outside weather conditions. Outside work means that the person is outside 75% of his work time or 6 hours of every 8-hour workday.
2. Extremes of Cold - means that a person works in temperature low enough to result in physical discomfort unless the worker has special clothing. Temperature changes are those that produce physical reactions such a shivering, redness of skin, and coldness of extremities.
3. Extremes of Heat - this compares to extremes of cold.
4. Wetness and Humidity - the worker’s skin may be exposed to various infections because of the amount of water in the environment.
5. Noise and Vibration - these two conditions may cause physical harm or be distracting to the person working in that environment.
6. Hazards - this condition includes working high from the ground, working in the ground, working under water, or working in space.
7. Atmospheric conditions - this includes fumes, odors, toxic conditions, dust, and poor ventilation that may be injurious to the worker's health.

2. Sasha works on a crane in the center of Moscow. What environmental hazards might affect him?
(One or more of the following answers may be correct.)
a) extremes of heat and cold,
b) atmospheric conditions,
c) noise and vibration,
d) inside work.

Machines, Tools, Equipment, and Work Aids
Workers use these devices to perform a particular job.

• Machines - have mechanical parts that exert a force to perform work, move an object, or process information. They are usually started by external power such as electricity.
• Tools - they are operated by hand and get their power from the person using them or from electricity. An example is a screwdriver, which may be hand-operated or operated by electricity.
• Equipment - this is a device that produces power, transmits signals, or alters material through the use of heat, light, or chemicals.
• Work aids - these help to hold parts together such a clamp, or help to measure small distances. Also included in this category are graphic instructions.

If you are helping someone find work, all of the above information about a job is needed so that a client can get the job that suits him the best. If you have this information, you can use it to investigate a job that a client might like to do. The job needs to fit the worker's physical limitations and his skills.

Other factors to consider when helping a person find work are:
Licensing requirements set by the government to do certain work. Sometimes one city will require a license to work, but another city or government agency will not require the license. There are many jobs in which workers need licenses - barbers, chauffeurs, cosmetologists, food handlers, architects, engineers, and medical personnel.

Question:
3. What are some more examples of occupations that require a license?

Stability of Work
There are many reasons why jobs grow, decrease over a period of time, or cease to be.

• Conditions such as seasons of the year, the weather, politics may cause the number of jobs to change or change at different times of the year.
• Technical progress affects manufacturing, information processing, and invention of new machines.
• Population can change depending on the number of births and deaths in a certain part of a country or in the whole of a country.
• Immigration due to wars or the need for a better life also affects who works where and the type of work they do.
• Natural resources may increase or decrease due to the way they are used, sold, or discovered.
• The available capital needed for financing industry may affect the amount of work a certain region has available for workers.
• Governmental regulations of business and labor regarding wages, hours of work per week, and working conditions affect the number and type of persons who will do a certain job.
• The general economy of a nation and the goods it trades affects the type of industries it has and the workers in those industries.

Question:
4. What occupations have changed in your country in the last 5 years?

Job Analysis
For direct knowledge of a specific job, there is no substitute for personal experience. If you have a client who wants to do a certain job, ask him to accompany you to the place where the job is done. Of course, you must ask permission to visit the job site and have an appointment. The information you obtain comes partly from the workers themselves, the supervisor staff, and observation. Be sure that the conclusions you make are valid. If you are not sure about why a person is doing a certain action, ask about it. There is a way to organize the information that you collect at a job analysis. There are six main headings:

1. The business or industry - name, location, products or services, and major jobs in the industry.
2. Physical features of the work environment - includes transportation to the job, lighting, heating, sanitation, noise, and other physical elements at the job site.
3. Psychosocial features of the environment - the characteristics of workers in the job, interpersonal relationships among the workers. For example, do workers do their jobs alone or with others, do they have opportunity to talk with one another, how are the workers supervised?
4. Physical demands of the work performed - note the way a person stands to do the job, his dexterity, the amount of weight he must lift and sensory touch needed.
5. Psychological Demands of the work - refers to the intellectual performance a person needs to do a job, precision, adaptability, repetitiveness and endurance.
6. Psychological rewards of the work performed - is there autonomy on the job meaning the person takes initiative and responsibility, is there lack of responsibility, are people who do the job contented with it - if not, why?

By doing a job analysis, you may find previously obscure or new information that will help your client choose a job for himself. For example, a secretary may have to lift 12 kilos of paper at a certain company. Usually, a secretary's job is considered light work, but if the job you visit involves lifting 12 kilos, maybe your client cannot do that job because of the lifting required.

Remember that you are working with a person who has his own personality and set of aptitudes that God has given him. You cannot push him into something he does not want to do. For example, we have met a young man who was in a car accident associated with his job. He has a broken heel on the left foot and broken bones on the top of the right foot. During a period of two months, he must not put any weight on his heel so that the bones remain in place and the fragments heal. He was quite sure that he would be able to continue in his job as a distributor of beer, soda, and water products. He actually delivers crates of liquid drinks to stores for sale, lifting the crates of products to the storage section of a store. We talked with him about returning to his job part-time when he is able to put weight on his foot. We asked if he could work in the office in some way with inventory of products or answering the telephone while his foot healed completely. He said that type of work might be possible for him to do. However, he stated that he is a person who needs a variety of activities on his job and sitting in the office would be very difficult for him to do.

If a rehabilitation counselor tried to find a different job for this young man because his foot could not bear the weight he lifted in his former job, he would not offer a different job in bookkeeping, which requires detailed work and patience with figures. This young man would probably do well in a job as a chauffeur or driver. He has the aptitudes of motor coordination and manual dexterity that he demonstrated in his previous job that can apply to the new job of chauffeur or driver.

His foot is not completely healed and therefore we are not certain of his return to work at his former job. It will be good to follow up with him during the first week when he returns to his former job to find out how his foot is tolerating the lifting of crates of liquid, which can be heavy work.

When you work with someone to find him a different job, you will need patience to gather all the information about him and form an idea of the type of work he can do with the limitations he has to his physical body.

The occupational information we have listed in this lecture will help you gather the facts you need to understand a person and his job.

Occupational Information:

1. What are his common job and personal characteristics?
2. What specific interests does he have?
3. What aspect of general educational development applies to him?
4. What is his specific vocational preparation?
5. What aptitudes does he have?
6. What type of temperaments does he report to you?
7. What are the physical demands of his former jobs?
8. What environment did he work in?
9. Did he like to work with people, data, or things?
10. What machines or tools did he use?
11. Is the type of job he had a stable one in this society?
12. Does he need a special license to work at his job?

5. Why do a job analysis of a possible new job for your client?
(Only one of the following answers is correct.)
a) to help him choose a good-paying job,
b) to find out all the details that will help your client make a good choice,
c) to make work for yourself.

Before finishing this lesson, fill out the form (also used in Lecture 007) to make an initial assessment of a person's disability and his/her abilities: click here.