Psychological and physiological stress reactions of male and female assembly workers: a comparison between two different forms of work organization

Psychological and physiological stress responses of 36 male and 29 female a ssembly workers were examined during and after work at a car engine factory . Two different ways of organizing assembly work were compared, (1) a more traditional assembly line with fixed work stations organized as a chain and involving short repetitive work cycles and, (2) a new and more flexible wo rk organization with small autonomous groups having greater opportunities t o influence the pace and content of their work. Each worker was examined du ring and after a normal day at work on 2 consecutive days and, in order to obtain endocrine baseline data, during a corresponding work-free period at home. As expected, both female and male workers in the flexible organizatio n reported significantly more variation, independence and abilities to lear n new skills at work. Workers in both forms of work organization showed a s ignificant increase in urinary epinephrine and norepinephrine during work c ompared to the work-free day at home. Males had significantly higher epinep hrine and systolic blood pressure levels than females. Successive self-repo rts of tiredness increased significantly more at the assembly line compared to the flexible work organization. In keeping with this, systolic blood pr essure, heart rate and epinephrine increased significantly during the work shift at the assembly line but not during work in the flexible organization . Catecholamine levels revealed that the subjects were able to unwind more rapidly after work in the flexible organization. This pattern was particula rly pronounced for the female workers. In summary, the various stress indic ators support the notion that the flexible work organization induces less s tress than the assembly line and that the female workers were able to benef it most from this new form of work organization. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wi ley & Sons, Ltd.