Remote Workplaces Research Articles

DETERMINING THE VALUE STREAM IN THE PROCESS OF TESTING KNOWLEDGE OF LABOR PROTECTION REQUIREMENTS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE VOLGOGRAD BRANCH OF PJSC "RTK")

According to the structure of the objects served, operating organizations have geographically remote workplaces. These traditionally include organizations in the telecommunications industry, electric power, gas industry, oil industry, and others. With the development of telecommunication channels and electronic data transmission technologies, more and more enterprises in the world use the labor of workers who work remotely. There is a trend in the world to increase the number of jobs that operate remotely from each other. This is due to global cooperation, territorial unevenness in the distribution of qualified human resources, as well as different costs depending on the region for the organization of jobs. In the context of the spread of COVID-19 and other infections, industrial communications via telecommunications channels in some cases become the only possible and safe way. Despite the territorial remoteness of workplaces from each other, the requirements of labor legislation for training and testing the knowledge of labor protection requirements for employees remain. The article presents a map of creating a value stream in the process of testing knowledge of labor protection requirements in the Volgograd branch of PJSC «RTK». The map visualizes the process and shows operations that create value for the company when checking the employee’s knowledge of occupational safety requirements. The analysis of the transport component during the verification of knowledge of labor protection requirements is given. The article presents the necessary and sufficient types and methods of transmitting information in the process of checking knowledge of labor protection requirements. It is concluded that it is expedient for remote workplaces to switch from face-to-face testing of knowledge of labor protection requirements to remote testing.

НОВИЙ ПОГЛЯД НА СТРАТЕГІЮ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЗНАННЯМИ В ПЕРІОД КРИЗИ

The pandemic has enhanced the social function of digital technologies and services. It is solely through digital technology that a massive shift to remote work has been possible during the most difficult period of the pandemic. All over the world, the philosophy of office work is changing, and there is a transition to permanent and conditional-permanent remote work. For example, Transport Canada is planning to move to telecommuting as a key employment model for its employees. In the near future, telecommuting will continue for most of the 6,000 employees in the agency. In China, widespread use of WeChat, Tencent, and Ding digital working applications began in late January 2020, when isolation measures were introduced. In Switzerland, COOVID-19 Remote Work and Study Resources provides free resources for remote operation and distance learning. Zoom and Google Meet videoconferencing, remote workplaces, and new social platforms run remote work almost immediately, and this trend is likely to continue after the lifting of the quarantine. Trends in staff employment worldwide are rather mixed. According to LinkedIn, it is possible to track changes in the employment rates of seven key economies – Australia, China, France, Italy, Singapore, Great Britain and United States. In France and Italy, the decline was more pronounced at -70% and -64.5% respectively by mid-April 2020. Since then, employment has been gradually recovering, and most of the seven key economies for which these figures have been analysed tend to change by 0 per cent year on year. By July 1, 2020, China, France, and the United States had seen the largest rebound in relative recruitment – -6% or -7%. At the end of September 2020, the countries with a high recovery in employment were China (22 per cent), Brazil (13 per cent), Singapore (8 per cent) and France (5 per cent). In these economies, hiring so far seems to compensate for months in which no new personnel have been recruited, indicating some stabilization of the labor market.

Virtual Watercoolers: A Field Experiment on Virtual Synchronous Interactions and Performance of Organizational Newcomers

Do virtual, yet informal and synchronous, interactions affect individual performance outcomes of organizational newcomers? We report results from a randomized field experiment conducted at a large global organization that estimates the performance effects of “virtual water coolers” for remote interns participating in the firm’s flagship summer internship program. Findings indicate that interns who had randomized opportunities to interact synchronously and informally with senior managers were significantly more likely to receive offers for full-time employment, achieved higher weekly performance ratings, and had more positive attitudes toward their remote internships. Further, we observed stronger results when the interns and senior managers were demographically similar. Secondary results also hint at a possible abductive explanation of the performance effects: virtual watercoolers between interns and senior managers may have facilitated knowledge and advice sharing. This study demonstrates that hosting brief virtual water cooler sessions with senior managers might have job and career benefits for organizational newcomers working in remote workplaces, an insight with immediate managerial relevance.

НОВЫЕ ПОДХОДЫ К ФОРМИРОВАНИЮ МЕТОДОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ ОСНОВ НОРМИРОВАНИЯ ТРУДА В ОТРАСЛЯХ БЮДЖЕТНОЙ СФЕРЫ

Digital technologies are being actively introduced into our life and economy that it is often impossible to track all innovations and the resulting effect of their appearance; the population quickly adapts and gets used to them. Similar trends are observed in the public sector. Visitors to clinics, museums, Multifunctional Public Services Centers, and other institutions easily use an electronic system that puts a queue to a specialist, use various services and gadgets. Due to digitalization, remote work is gaining more popularity, especially among young people, pensioners and women. The remote work market plays a very important role in the modern economy. As an extremely complex distribution mechanism, it ensures the connection of workers to remote workplaces. Thus, it affects both productivity and growth rates, as well as many other parameters of the economy as a whole. Digitalization is becoming such an important factor in increasing labor productivity and improving the quality of life that the changes taking place in the market are considered as the onset of a new stage of economic development. Currently, the development of digitalization is primarily associated with the introduction of digital communication technologies, the platform for which is the Internet and mobile devices. Information technologies are being integrated into all spheres of economic activity. In this regard, the nature of labor, as well as labor functions are undergoing dramatic changes, the proportion of work performed remotely or using specialized software is increasing. In this regard, the work intensity (provision of services) requires attention, which directly depends on the updating of the methodology of labor rationing. Within the framework of this article, the methodological foundations of labor rationing in the public sector are analyzed, considering the impact of digitalization and automation processes on labor rationing.

Organization of remote workplaces during the pandemic: comparative analysis of employee and manager evaluations

Organization of remote workplaces during the pandemic: comparative analysis of employee and manager evaluations

The system of administrative services in Ukraine: features of legal regulation

The article is devoted to determining the main stages of regulatory and legal support of the administrative services’ system in Ukraine development which include: laying the foundations of the administrative services’ system in terms of interaction with business entities (until 2005); the beginning of the administrative services’ system formation (2006–2008); rule-making activity for the purpose of streamlining the sphere of administrative services (2009–2013); expanding the local governments’ powers in the field of administrative services (2014–2017); development of a network of appropriate administrative services centres of local governments and digitalization of public services (2019–2020). Certain legislative acts that provide local governments with certain own and delegated powers in the field of administrative services are considered and analysed. Emphasis is placed on the fact that the legal field in the field of public administration, in particular, the provision of administrative services to the population, is constantly evolving. The study of trends in this area indicates that the further vector of development will be aimed mainly at the end user of services – the subject of the application – with regulatory priority of complex services and their provision mainly in electronic form, for example using the application «Diia» or similar services. It is determined that ensuring the innovative development of administrative services requires state executive bodies and local governments to make strategic decisions on the development of appropriate infrastructure: updating computer, specialized (workstations) equipment and other office equipment in the administrative services centres; ensuring high-quality communication for the effective operation of the Internet, which allows mobile administrative services centres and workplaces of administrators to work effectively, to provide services to individuals and legal entities in the territorial divisions of administrative services centres and remote workplaces, make instant payments for administrative services, gain access to state registers; implementation of activities to inform and involve the public in the administrative services centres’ activities.

Research on the organization of remote workplaces in Russian enterprises

The article examines the contradiction between the sharp increase in the number of remote workplaces and the difficulties in their organization experienced by both employers and their employees. This problem is enhanced by the fact that in scientific publications the issues of organization of remote workplaces with the modern digital environment, mass transition to the remote work in a pandemic are poorly understood. The authors present a review of currently available scientific research and publications, which confirmed the conclusion that, along with a deep study of the essence of remote work and remote jobs, their advantages and disadvantages, the reasons for their appearance, there is a shortage of research on the organization of remote jobs. The purpose of the research presented in the article was to study the state of the organization of remote workplaces in Russian enterprises. The research hypothesis is formulated as follows: despite the intensive development of the practice of remote workplaces, there are many difficulties and problems in their organization. The study uses methods of analyzing secondary data presented on the websites of various agencies, job search services and analytical centers; questionnaire survey at Omsk enterprises. There were interviewed remote employees (481 people) and their managers (253 people) at 206 enterprises of Omsk. As a result, the growth in the number of remote jobs at Russian enterprises was confirmed. This is evidenced by research presented on the websites of the Headhunter job search service, the NAFI analytical center, and the Hays international recruitment agency. A study at the Omsk enterprises have demonstrated the existence of problems in organization of remote workplaces, for example, in equipping remote workplaces, in irregular work schedules and blurring the boundaries between work and personal life, in the lack of effective communication and social isolation of employees, in the lack of understanding of employees' career prospects. The study was conducted in the period from November 2019 to February 2020. With the onset of the pandemic and the massive forced transfer of employees to remote work, the processes of organizing remote workplaces have become even more relevant. As a result, there is planned the second stage of the study, which will further study the features of the organization of remote workplaces in the context of the pandemic. It is planned to develop a mechanism for organizing remote workplaces of specialists, taking into account the timely conditions for the functioning and development of enterprises.

Conquering workplace loneliness Individual or organization accountability

Purpose The paper aims to understand the role of an individual and the organization for managing workplace loneliness in special workplaces, giving insight into the manifestation of a negative organizational climate which may have an adverse impact on personal and organizational effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach This study considered the existing literature and conducted an independent survey with sailors as the sample. Findings Individuals experience feelings of loneliness and it is the collective responsibility of both the individuals and the organizations to help alleviate these feelings. Research limitations/implications The present study focused on vulnerable groups of sailors as employees working in remote workplaces. Practical implications The findings suggest that leaders can be sensitized to include interventions to assure quality interactions among workers and be facilitators for sharing of emotions, especially in high-risk occupations. Originality/value Studying the existence of loneliness among employees in remote workplaces like the shipping sector has received limited attention in previous studies.

User studies on teleoperation of robots for plant inspection

Purpose – To avoid harm to humans, environment, and capital goods, hazardous or explosive gases that are possibly escaping from industrial and infrastructure facilities of the gas and oil processing industry have to be detected and located quickly and reliably. Project RoboGasInspector aims at the development and evaluation of a human-robot system that applies autonomous robots equipped with remote gas detection devices to detect and locate gas leaks. This article aims to focus on the usability of telemanipulation in this context. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents four user studies concerning human-robot interfaces for teleoperation in industrial inspection tasks. Their purpose is to resolve contradictory scientific findings regarding aspects of teleoperation and to verify functionality, usability, and technology acceptance of the designed solution in the actual context of use. Therefore, aspects concerning teleoperation that were separately examined before are evaluated in an integrated way. Considered aspects are influence of media technology on telepresence, simulator sickness and head slaved camera control, usability of different input devices for telemanipulation, and identification of intuitive gestures for teleoperation of mobile robots. Findings – In general, the implemented interaction concepts perform better compared to conventional ones used in contemporary, actually applied robot systems. Otherwise, reasons are analyzed and approaches for further improvements are discussed. Exemplary results are given for each study. Originality/value – The solution combines several technical approaches that are so far separately examined. Each approach is transferred to the innovative domain of industrial inspections and its applicability in this context is verified. New findings give design recommendations for remote workplaces of robot operators.

Design Optimization of a Portable Thermophoretic Precipitator Nanoparticle Sampler.

Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are developing methods for characterizing diesel particulate matter in mines. Introduction of novel engine and exhaust after treatment technologies in underground mines is changing the nature of diesel emissions, and metrics alternative to the traditional mass-based measurements are being investigated with respect to their ability to capture changes in the properties of diesel aerosols. The emphasis is given to metrics based on measurement of number and surface area concentrations, but analysis of collected particles using electron microscopy (EM) is also employed for detailed particle characterization. To collect samples for EM analysis at remote workplaces, including mining and manufacturing facilities, NIOSH is developing portable particle samplers capable of collecting airborne nano-scale particles. This paper describes the design, construction, and testing of a prototype thermophoretic precipitator (TP) particle sampler optimized for collection of particles in the size range of 1-300 nm. The device comprises heated and cooled metal plates separated by a 0.8 mm channel through which aerosol is drawn by a pump. It weighs about 2 kg, has a total footprint of 27 × 22 cm, and the collection plate size is approximately 4 × 8 cm. Low power consumption and enhanced portability were achieved by using moderate flow rates (50-150 cm3/min) and temperature gradients (10-50 K/mm with ΔT between 8 K and 40 K). The collection efficiency of the prototype, measured with a condensation particle counter using laboratory-generated polydisperse submicrometer NaCl aerosols, ranged from 14-99%, depending on temperature gradient and flow rate. Analysis of transmission electron microscopy images of samples collected with the TP confirmed that the size distributions of collected particles determined using EM are in good agreement with those determined using a Fast Mobility Particle Sizer.

A Handheld Electrostatic Precipitator for Sampling Airborne Particles and Nanoparticles

Researchers at NIOSH are developing methods for characterizing ultrafine aerosols in workplaces. One method includes the detailed analysis of collected particles using electron microscopy (EM). In order to collect samples for EM at remote workplaces including mining and manufacturing facilities, researchers have developed a handheld electrostatic precipitator (ESP) particle sampler capable of collecting airborne particles including nanoscale materials, for subsequent EM analysis. The handheld ESP has been tested in the laboratory and is currently undergoing beta testing in the field. Gross collection efficiencies were measured with a CPC and net efficiencies by EM analysis of collected samples. Using laboratory-generated NaCl aerosols in the 30–400 nm size range at a flow rate of 55 cc/min and ESP operating voltages between 5.6–6.8 kV, both gross and net efficiencies were measured and showed a similar correlation with voltage, with maximum efficiency of approximately 86% at 6.4 kV. EM images from samples were also used to estimate particle size distributions of the original aerosols and the size-dependent deposition was evaluated for upstream versus downstream locations on the sample media. Results suggest that the number concentration and particle size distribution of sampled aerosols may potentially be estimated from a single ESP sample, but that the accuracy and repeatability of such quantification need to be investigated and refined. NIOSH is planning to license the ESP sampler for commercial manufacturing.

On Human Robot Collaboration - A Survey on Cost Aspects

Collaboration of human operators and automation systems like robots are under development for achieving more flexibility in production and for saving cost when avoiding repeated reconfiguration of the systems. Tele-operation is considered with the aspect of tactile interaction over remote workplaces supporting maintenance. Robots are presented to relieve workers from physical load together with path guiding assistance. Recent research results of robot assistants of workers at shared workplaces are discussed with respect to their implementation in industry.

Treating hand injuries in remote workplaces

David J Allan discusses the special requirements of treating hand injuries on North Sea oil rigs

Health circles for teleworkers: selective results on stress, strain and coping styles

Telework is decentralized computer-mediated performance of work activities at a location distant from the employing organization. In order to improve well-being at such remote workplaces, we developed a health circle (HC) concept for teleworkers. Three HC sessions were conducted with a total of 17 teleworkers from diverse organizations and branches. The sessions were moderated by a professional facilitator, while the participants selected the discussion issues. Typical issues were technical problems at the home-based computer, time management, communication with supervisors, colleagues and customers, and feelings of isolation from the main company. Besides discussing these stress factors, participants developed concrete coping strategies based on the exchange of experiences and additional informational input by external experts. Process evaluation at the end of each meeting revealed that participants found the exchange of personal experiences and the informational input during the HCs very helpful, as well as the common development of coping strategies. Moreover, a questionnaire 2 months after the last HC session revealed that participants reported significantly more positive changes in typical stress factors than teleworkers in a control group. The implications of these results for preventive and corrective strategies of telework design are discussed.