Agir sur le travail des managers : des enjeux de métier pour les ergonomes, pour les managers

Managers’ work and management issues are nowadays a major concern for ergonomist practitioners and researchers. In this paper, we highlight societal and corporate evolutions and the way that ergonomics has evolved as a result. We propose a reading of the evolution that has been affecting companies for the last forty years, and show how the tertiarization and financialization of the economy and of companies have led them to deploy more rigid forms of organization that accentuate the control and demands of customers. We go on to observe that this evolution has not been uniform consistent, because the 1990s were the cradle of attempts to add to the tasks of operators by delegating tasks from middle management, while at the same time highlighting the fact that managers’ jobs have been transformed, particularly by a move away from actual workof attempts to enrich the tasks of operators by delegating tasks to middle management, while pointing out that. But gradually, the work of managers was transformed, particularly by moving away from work (Gomez, 2013). We then make the observation that in response to these developments, ergonomists have looked at different levels of organizational determinants, in order to improve the sustainability of the effects and to continue the work already carried out on business development of the activity. Finally, we defend the utility of developing ergonomic approaches to managers’ work, both for its key role in organizational functioning, particularly regarding regulations, and for the role it plays in the development of the activity of other employees. Hence today, more than ever, their work becomes an essential object of study and above all a major target for organizational intervention. We will see that current and future societal transitions reinforce this position.