LIGHT AND HEAVY WORK IN THE HOUSEKEEPING SERVICE OF A HOSPITAL

Work is organized based in part on the perceptions, by managers and wo rkers, of workers, their abilities and the characteristics of the work to be done. Physical tasks in factories and services have often been divided into 'light and 'heavy', a division that often corresponds for mally or informally to gender. We have observed the work of cleaners o n wards and in offices in an acute-care hospital, using several indica tors of workload to identify and characterize typical work situations. 'Heavy' work was characterized by neutral postures, walking, repetiti ve movements involving the articulations of the upper limb pushing a 1 -6 kg (wet or dry) mop, with occasional more intense effort. 'Light' w ork was characterized by flexed postures, walking, rapid repetitive mo vements involving the articulations of the upper limb and light weight s (dusting); or 1-3 kg weights (emptying wastebaskets), with more occa sional intense effort. We did not discover any compelling reason to di vide cleaning into 'light' and 'heavy' work. Task assignment by sex ma y appear to be a solution to excessive job demands which would be bett er addressed by job re-design. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All righ ts reserved.