The project as such involves examining the interrelations between control forms on the one hand, and occupational demands and workloads on the other. Our research and development project on indirect control explores to what extent similar risks exist in the partner enterprises involved and how these hazards might be best dealt with. The more work is measured in terms of success, goal attainment, key performance indicators and the surpassing of benchmarks, the more closely these phenomena become aligned. Indirect control allows the performance dynamics of self-employed entrepreneuers to become part of company culture. Such inconsideration for one’s health is also becoming increasingly prevalent among company staff and management.

There is also a prevailing tendency to ignore one’s health when unique opportunities of success or new career perspectives arise. It is well known that when clients jump ship and turnover collapses, or indeed when the future of one’s business comes under existential threat, freelancers and self-employed contractors, especially entrepreneurs involved in business start-ups, will often work without taking their health into due consideration. This approach requires greater sensitivity to new kinds of risks, as well as more opportunities for discussing such issues in the workplace – both among team members and between staff and management – and to jointly discover new solutions (1) for recognising in good time the performance dynamics resulting from indirect control and (2) for adopting appropriate countermeasures. A feasible solution is to help people help themselves. Traditional preventive health care falls short because ultimately human beings cannot be protected from themselves. Our cooperation partners in this project are breaking new ground with their research on indirect control.

Gesundheit und soziales brugg