Abstract
Nowadays the talent shortage is at its highest level in many emerging economies from Europe, many employers reporting difficulties in filling their vacancies with high skilled and competent human resources. The main causes are related to talent migration, education-labor market mismatch, demographic ageing or disrupting technologies that are changing the nature of jobs. In this context, keeping high skilled employees in a good working condition should be a priority for employers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the individual work ability in the case of human resource (HR) professionals from Romania in order to detect at an early stage, work – related health problems and early retirement risks. We use the Work Ability Index (WAI), a well-established instrument for the assessment of the work capacity. The instrument contains seven dimensions and it was applied on a sample of 81 respondents, from various economic sectors. The results show that in the case of human resource professionals, the overall score of the Work Ability Index is more influenced by the mental rather than physical abilities and it is not significantly affected by respondent’s age, gender or education.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Belevska, M., Jovanovic, J., Dastevska, E.G., Velkovski, Z.: The importance of individual predictors and psychosocial working conditions in assessing the work ability index of people with low vision. Int. J. Occup. Saf. Ergon. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2019.1613811
Bridger, R.S.: Introduction to Human Factors and Ergonomics, 4th edn. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group (2018)
El Fassi, M., Bocquet, V., Majery, N., Lair, M.L., Couffignal, S., Mairiaux, P.: Work ability assessment in a worker population: comparison and determinants of Work Ability Index and Work Ability score. BMC Public Health 13, 305 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-305
Eurostat: Accidents at work statistics. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Accidents_at_work_statistics#Number_of_accidents (2018). Accessed 7 Sept 2019
Eurostat: Ageing Europe. Looking at the lives of older people in the EU. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/10166544/KS-02-19%E2%80%91681-EN-N.pdf/c701972f-6b4e-b432-57d2-91898ca94893 (2019). Accessed 3 Oct 2019
Freyer, M., Formazin, M., Rose, U.: Factorial validity of the Work Ability Index among employees in Germany. J. Occup. Rehabil. 29(2), 433–442 (2018)
Geissler, H., Tempel, J., Geissler–Gruber, B.: Can the Work Ability Index also be used by non-medical professionals? A comparative study. In: International Congress Series 1280, pp. 281–285 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ics.2005.02.050
Ilmarinen, J.: Work ability – a comprehensive concept for occupational health research and prevention. Scand. J. Work Environ. Health 35, 1–5 (2009). https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.1304
Ilmarinen, J., Lehtinen, S. (Eds.): Past, present and future of work ability. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinky (2004).
Juszczyk, G., Czerw, A.I., Religioni, U., Olejniczak, D., Walusiak-Skorupa, J., Banas, T., Mikos, M., Staniszewska, A.: Work Ability Index (WAI) values in a sample of the working population in Poland. Ann. Agric. Environ. Med. 26(1), 78–84 (2019). https://doi.org/10.26444/aaem/91471
Kaewboonchoo, O., Ratanasiripong, P.: Psychometric properties of the Thai version of the work ability index (Thai WAI). J. Occup. Health 57, 371–377 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1539/joh.14-.0137-oa
Karttunen, J., Rautiainen, R.H.: Work Ability Index among Finnish Dairy Farmers. J. Agric. Saf. Health 15(4), 353–364 (2009). https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.28889
Kloimuller, I., Karazman, R., Geissler, H., Karazman-Morawetz, I., Haupt, H.: The relation of age, work ability index and stress-inducing factors among bus drivers. Int. J. Ind. Ergon. 25, 497–502 (2000)
Kujala, V., Remes, J., Ek, E., Tammelin, T., Laitinen, J.: Classification of Work Ability Index among young employees. Occup. Med. 55, 399–401 (2005)
Manpower: Solving the talent shortage. Build, buy, borrow and bridge. https://go.manpowergroup.com/hubfs/TalentShortage%202018%20(Global)%20As (2018). sets/PDFs/MG_TalentShortage2018_lo%206_25_18_FINAL.pdf?hsLang=en. Accessed 5 Sept 2019
Monteiro, M.S., llmarinen, J., Filho H.R.C.: Work ability of workers in different age groups in a public health institution in Brazil. Int. J. Occup. Saf. Ergonomics 12(4), 417–427 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1080/10803548.2006.11076703.
OECD: PISA 2015. Results in focus. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-2015-results-in-focus.pdf (2018). Accessed 15 Aug 2019
OECD: Recent trends in emigration from Romania, in talent Abroad: A review of romanian emigrants, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/00fb26e2-en (2019).
Ohta, M., Higuchi, Y., Kumashiro, M., Yamato, H., Sugimura, H.: Decrease in Work Ability Index and sickness absence during the following year: a two-year follow-up study. Int. Arch. Occup. Environ. Health 90, 883–894 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-017-1251-x
Pohjonen, T.: Perceived work ability of home care workers in relation to individual and work-related factors in different age groups. Occup. Med. 51(3), 209–217 (2001)
Reeuwijk, K.G., Robroek, S.J., Niessen, M.A., Kraaijenhagen, R.A., Vergouwe, Y., Burdorf, A.: The prognostic value of the Work Ability Index for sickness absence among office workers. PLoS ONE 10, e0126969 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0126969
Rothmore, P., Gray, J.: Using the work ability index to identify workplace hazards. Work 62, 251–259 (2019)
Tuomi, K., Ilmarinen, J., Jahkola, A., Katajarinne, L., Tulkki, A.: Work Ability Index, 2nd edn. Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki (1998)
Van den Berg, T.I.J., Elders, L.A.M., de Zwart, B.C.H., Burdorf, A.: The effects of work-related and individual factors on the Work Ability Index: A systematic review. Occup. Environ. Med. 66(4), 211–220 (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Igreț, R.Ş., Marinaş, C.V., Roman, M., Goia Agoston, S.I. (2022). Work Ability Index-Evidence from the Human Resource Field in Romania. In: Busu, M. (eds) Digital Economy and New Value Creation. ICBE 2021. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07265-9_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07265-9_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-07264-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-07265-9
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)