Since January 27th 2022, the Serious Accidents Punishment Act has been applied in phases to workplaces with 50 or more employees
Regardless of business type, the Serious Accident Penalty Act applies equally to workplaces with five or more employees
Therefore, the need to apply safety and health measures for office workers working in places
with relatively negligent safety and health management measures has been raised
We will discuss office safety measures together
What is office safety management?
According to Article 646 of the Industrial Safety and Health Standards Regulations
"Office" means an indoor space in which an employee conducts their work
and according to Article 39 Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 1 of the Act, the term "office pollutants" means
substances floating in the air of an office, such as gas, steam, dust, mold, bacteria, and viruses
that can cause health problems to workers
In other words, office safety management refers to preventing
accidents and disasters in an indoor space where workers handle office work
Office workers are those whose main job is mental work
and work mainly at office desks
On the other hand, non-office workers are those whose main tasks require physical work
mainly working in the field such as manufacturing, production, and construction
Let's look at examples of office workers
Office and desk workers such as executives, managers, administrators, office assistants, human resources, planning, labor, public relations workers
bookkeepers, accountants, sales, designers and more
Among employees of educational institutions, cram school instructors, kindergarten teachers, assistant teachers
Among those involved in culture, arts, broadcasting, and performance, television writers, news casters, designers
There are also financial, securities, and insurance workers such as bankers, securities brokers, loss adjusters, as well as architects and draftsmen
Then what are non-office workers?
Simple labor workers, equipment and machine operators and assembly workers, direct sales workers
Sales workers whose main duties are door-to-door orders and collection services
Flight attendants, sailors, motorists, hairdressers, cooks, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, medical technicians, and field reporters
Among employees of educational institutions, technical instructors, training instructors, and childcare teachers at daycare centers
Among those involved in culture and arts, broadcasting, and performance, producers, actors, choreographers, camera and sound operators
Among the workers in the insurance industry, insurance recruiters, soldiers and military personnel, and fire fighters
Now let's look at the harmful factors of disaster accidents in the office
The first work environment factor is indoor air quality
Office pollutants are substances that float in the office air and can cause health problems to workers
such as gas, steam, dust, mold, bacteria, and viruses
The office space has respiratory dust of various sizes that can accumulate in
the alveoli through the respiratory system
Indoor air pollutants can be classified into pollutants generated indoors
and air pollutants around the building
Pollutants generated indoors include carbon dioxide, vapor, and odor generated from workers
combustion gas, dust, cigarette smoke, and ozone and electromagnetic waves generated from office equipment
Radon, VOC, formaldehyde generated from building materials or office furniture
and bacteria and microorganisms in air conditioners
Air pollution around the building includes smoke from surrounding roads, combustion gases for heating,
and waste gases emitted from factories and power plants
It is important to ensure sufficient illumination in an office that mainly works on computers
Without this, it can affect eye health
The first work condition factor is that the work requires sitting down for an extended period
Since office workers work long hours sitting in chairs
it can lead to lack of exercise and various health problems
The second factor is that most require computer-based work
Extended computer use can affect eye health due to
glare from the monitor
The third is long work hours
According to the "2022 National Work-Life Balance Survey"
conducted by researcher Soojung Byun et al, at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs
Office workers work about five hours longer per week than sales and service workers
Now let's look at the factors impacting health problems
Office work is often done by moving small muscles
such as fingers in a fixed position for a long time
therefore there is a high risk of developing musculoskeletal diseases
In the case of office work, 58.6% of workers said
they use repetitive hand movements or arm movements during almost all working hours
About 70% of workers said they use repetitive hand movements
or arm movements for three-quarters of their working hours
The prevalence of musculoskeletal diseases by region was 40.4~56.8%
symptoms were most seen in order, back, arm, leg, shoulder, neck
There are largely three harmful factors that affect musculoskeletal diseases
in places such as the hand, wrist, neck, and back
Direct harmful factors include repetition, load, improper posture, and contact stress
Indirect harmful factors include exposure time to harmful factors, complex occurrence of harmful factors
environmental factors, and organizational factors
And other factors unrelated to work include physical conditions, hobbies
computer use at home and diabetes
Office tasks that burden the musculoskeletal system are classified by
Article 3 of the Notice on the Scope of Musculoskeletal Burden Work and the Method of Investigating Harmful Factors
into two categories
Subparagraph 1 concerns operating a keyboard or mouse for over four hours per day
such as intensive data input
Subparagraph 2 concerns work that require repetition of the neck, shoulder, elbows, wrists, or hands
for over two hours per day
An example of a health problem is computer vision syndrome (CVS)
CVS refers to various physical and mental disorders that occur when
working with a computer keyboard while looking at a monitor for long periods of time
CVS can cause forward head posture
where the neck is angled to the front like a turtle
Chronic fatigue is also a big issue
According to a survey conducted by this research team, 71.1% of respondents complained of fatigue
A survey conducted by the Korea Information Technology Industry Union also found
that 82.2% answered they experienced chronic fatigue
I also cannot leave out the issue of job stress
This research team used a job stress factor measurement tool for Koreans
and researched job stress factors among IT workers and found that
the level of job stress was higher than the median of Korean male workers in the areas of
job demand, relationship conflict, and workplace culture
Now let's look at the factors related to accidents
First, you could slip and fall on the floor or step on an obstruction
You could trip or slip down the stairs due to poor visibility in the hallway or stairwell
You could also bump into a door and fall when opening a door
Or you could trip on a file box, or a file cabinet can tilt over or
your hand could get stuck in the cabinet
In the case of a rotating chair, you may tilt over or the chair may slip and fall
or trip over an electric cord
In the case of equipment in a drawer, you may get stabbed with a knife or scissors, or get a papercut
Electrical appliances can cause fires due to overheating
Or you could get rolled over or pricked by office equipment
You could also hurt your back while carrying heavy items
Also, fire can also be caused by cigarette butts or overheating
Then let's look at actual accident cases
This is an example of a fall, which is after working on a computer for a long time while sitting at a desk
the employee stood up from the chair to get water and stumbled
and fell, spraining left ankle
There was also a musculoskeletal disease incident where tenosynovitis occurred on the digitus tertius due to extensive keyboard use
For a mental illness case, while working at a computer operating business, due to job-related stress the employee was
diagnosed with anxiety, depression, insomnia and acute stress and received medical treatment
They were then diagnosed with autonomic dysfunction due to stress but experienced continued symptoms such as insomnia and resulted in death
For cerebrovascular disease, there was a case where the employee experienced an accumulation of overwork and stress due to increased workload
Due to the inclusion of new tasks in addition to existing work
they experienced mental and physical overload, while discussing this matter with HR
due to accumulated stress, they had a cerebral hemorrhage and is now recuperating
As an example of jamming, while taking out the shredded paper from the bottom of a paper shredder to clean the interior
the shredder was turned on resulting in the fingers getting jammed between the blades
As an example of a burn, a multi-tab got caught in a hole under the partition
while replacing the partition
To take it out they used a driver to disassemble and while reassembling it
they touched the wire and was electrocuted by 220W for 304 seconds
causing burns to the right thumb and left palm