Work performance index

The Work Ability Index (ABI, English: Work Ability Index - WAI) is used to assess the individual work capacity of a person in a particular activity. The instrument primarily takes into account the subjective assessment of the person interviewed. The result shows how urgently measures are required in the areas of individual health, competence / knowledge of the employee, work environment and leadership / management.

The work performance index was developed in the 1980s by an interdisciplinary team of occupational physicians , psychologists and sports scientists at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and has now been translated into around 25 languages. It is used worldwide (Europe, Australia, North and South America) both in occupational health work and in research projects.

The ABI records the individual stress and the consequences of stress (emotional reaction, sick days) of an employed person. The questionnaire does not make any direct reference to the stresses resulting from the existing working conditions .

While the index value determined with the ABI only shows whether there is a need for action, the “work ability concept” tries to derive the type of measures that may be required from the results. It takes into account the following fields of action: 1. Health & functional capacity, 2. Professional competence, 3. Working conditions ( ergonomics and safety), 4. Leadership & cooperation, plus the social environment and the structural social conditions and opportunities. The concept was also developed by scientists from the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) working with the ABI, when they examined which factors of work and the person contribute to maintaining the ability to work. Like the ABI, it does not determine psychological stress, but psychological stress. Insofar as preventive measures are derived from the application of the concept, they can fall into the field of occupational health and safety , company health management and / or organizational development .

For the use of all survey instruments in the area of behavioral prevention as well as in the area of relationship prevention, there is an obligation to codetermine in companies with employee representatives ( works council or staff council ) . This co-determination obligation is of particular importance if the ABI is to be used as a non-anonymizing procedure in the company.

In recent years, in addition to the classic company medical ABI discussion, various forms of deployment have emerged with which individual work ability in organizations is to be maintained and promoted, e.g. B. ABI employee survey and coaching in the field of work management. The Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) has published corresponding project descriptions. There is the opinion that the ABI can be used indirectly for the prevention of relationships, for example with the help of company, anonymous employee surveys, from the results of which behavior prevention measures can then be derived. In the toolbox of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, however, the ABI (or WAI) is identified as a “quantitative behavior prevention method”.

The BAuA has also examined and developed the Work Ability Index (WAI) as part of the “Study on Mental Health at Work” (S-MGA). The investigation of the construct validity of the WAI on the basis of a representative sample of employed persons showed that the seven indicators of the WAI have different degrees of influence on the subjectively recorded ability to work. On this basis, the BAuA further developed the originally unweighted one-dimensional sum index into a weighted index with the factors “subjective work ability and resources” and “health conditions”. On its website, the BAuA provides a corresponding calculation aid as well as answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the Work Ability Index and the above. Research project available.

The ABI provided for behavioral prevention is not suitable for the prescribed risk assessment , because the occupational safety and health law reformed in 1996 focuses on prevention. Suitable for occupational health and safety are processes that are marked in the toolbox of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as "Relational Prevention Processes" and that meet the quality criterion "Reliability and Validity". For example, the instrument for stress-related activity analysis (ISTA) and the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) provide measured values that can be used directly for risk assessments.