PLANNING THE WORK
1. General requirements
Technology, organization of the work, execution of the work, working hours and wage systems shall be set up so that the employees are not exposed to undesirable physical or mental strain and so that their possibilities of displaying caution and observing safety measures are not impaired. Necessary means to prevent undesirable physical strain shall be placed at the disposal of the employees. Employees shall not be subjected to harassment or other unseemly behaviour.
2. Arrangement of work
When planning and arranging the work the individual employees opportunity for self-determination and professional responsibility shall be taken into consideration. Efforts shall be made to avoid undiversified, repetitive work and work that is governed by machine or conveyor belt in such a manner that the employees themselves are prevented from varying the speed of the work. Otherwise efforts shall be made to arrange the work so as to provide possibilities for variation and for contact with others, for connection between individual job assignments, and for employees to keep themselves informed about production requirements and results. The work must be arranged in such a way that the dignity of the employee is not infringed.
3. Control and planning systems
The employees and their elected union representatives shall be kept informed about the systems employed for planning and effecting the work, and about planned changes in such systems. They shall be given the training necessary to enable them to learn these systems, and they shall take part in planning them.
NORWEGIAN INTERNAL CONTROL ACT OF 1992
In 1992 a new regulation was introduced in Norway claiming that every enterprise should implement internal control (IC) of their health, environment and safety work (HES). The regulation stated that "the enterprise should undertake systematic actions (at the enterprise level) to ensure and document that the activities of health and safety are performed in accordance with requirements specified in laws and regulations. The systematic actions must be described as administrative procedures". The IC regulations stipulated that every employer must arrange for systematic follow-up of current requirements laid down in the following acts:
* The Working Environment Act
* The Pollution Control Act
* The legislation relating to fire and explosion hazard and fire prevention
* The Product Control Act
* The Civil Defence Act
* The Act relating to Electrical Installations and Electrical Equipment
As shown, the IC regulations are based on already existing laws and regulations. The novelty lies in a new objective and main requirements. There is an objective to stimulate a change from detailed inspections provided by the Labour Inspectorate, to self-regulated work environment monitoring conducted by the employers themselves. The governing authorities expect by this efficient inspection routines conducted at the level of the organization - not at the level of every individual employee. An evaluation study one year after the regulation was set into force showed that the majority of the enterprises had not started the implementation (actually most of them had not heard about the regulation at all) and only 6% had established something they called an IC-system (Saksvik & Nytro, 1996). This study also showed that the enterprises with the best IC-status had a higher HES activity level and a minor (but significant) decrease in absenteeism figures (op. cit.). However, possible confounding variables to this result were discussed. Among them were a tradition of systematic thinking (e.g. TQM) and more complicated production (higher level of hazards) in the enterprises with the best IC-status (op. cit.). The disappointing status of implementation and complaints from some of the enterprises about a complicated regulation led the authorities to focus more on recommendation for the process of implementation. In 1995 an initiative for a simplification and a change of the regulation was actuated and a new regulation was set into force in 1997. The definition of IC in the new regulation was "systematic actions to ensure that the establishment is planned, organized, executed and maintained in accordance with requirements specified in laws and regulations in the HES-area". The emphasis on activity at the sacrifice of documentation in the new definition is noteworthy. A remarkable change was also observed in the direct recommendations in the new regulation to do a proper implementation process. An implementation model developed at our institute was used as a basis (Nytro et al., 1995; Saksvik, 1996).
References
Nytro, K., 1995. Internkontroll? [Internal Control]. Videofilm.
The language of the 1977 Act is taken verbatim from the Act, as reported by Steven Deutsch, "Work Environment Reform and Industrial Democracy", Sociology of Work and Occupations, vol. 8, no. 2, May 1981, 180-194. This language was edited by Aslaug Mikkelsen, Rogaland Research, Stavanger, Norway. The language of the 1992 Act and its interpretation was provided by Per Oystein Saksvik, Institute of Social Research in Industry, Trondheim, Norway.