Mental workload: what it is, how it is studied and how to manage it

As ergonomics becomes more important in the workplace, aspects such as demands and mental fatigue to which they may be subjected workers become issues to take into account to ensure not only good performance, but also prevent them from being committed mistakes.

The idea of ​​mental workload refers to how cognitively demanding a task is depending on how difficult it is and the capabilities of the worker himself.

This idea is very important when managing work in an organization and then we are going to go into more detail about why.

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What is mental workload?

In any job it is necessary to put into operation mechanisms or processes, both physical and mental, to carry out the tasks that are required in them. These mechanisms suppose what has been called "workload", which can well be defined as the set of psychophysical requirements to which an employee is subjected throughout the working day, having more or less repercussions on their performance and health.

There are few purely "intellectual" or purely "physical" jobs, since regardless of the sector in the work, you will always have to do tasks that require different skills, and can be of both types.

However, from a theoretical point of view we can differentiate between physical and mental work depending on the activity that predominates and, based on This, we can speak of two types of workloads: the physical, when muscle is required to work, and the mental, when it is required to think and reflect.

Taking all this into account, we can say that the mental workload is the set of mental, cognitive or intellectual requirements to which a worker is subjected throughout their workday. This is becoming increasingly important because new forms of work organization, together with technological and computer advances, facilitate manual work while requiring more intellectual work compared to more traditional jobs.

Both mental and physical load depend on the interaction or relationship established between two factors.

• The demands of the job
• The characteristics of the individual who carries out the task

This comes to mean that the response capacity of the individual varies according to the demands of the work that corresponds to carry out in addition to the individual characteristics. When the demands of the job are not adapted to the capabilities of the worker, that is, the individual has a certain inability or difficulties to perform the work that is supposed to be done, we speak of an inadequate workload.

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Consequences of mental load

The mental workload represents the mental tension to which a worker is subjected in a specific period of time and when having to face a certain task.

This condition It is not intrinsically good or bad, but depends on how it occurs, its duration in time and degree of exhaustion and to what extent the person presenting it feels that he is capable of doing the intellectual tasks that are requested of him. Based on this, we can discuss two types of consequences of mental load.

1. Facilitating effects

In a generic way, we can define the facilitating effects as those positive consequences of having a certain mental load of work.

Among the facilitating effects we can find the warming effect, a phenomenon that implies that the worker requires a less high amount of effort. That is to say, it is the phenomenon by which, thanks to a certain mental tension, we perform more fluidly in the intellectually demanding task.

2. Detrimental effects

You are subjected to cognitively demanding tasks for a long time or that are more difficult than you we are used to it, it can bring with it harmful effects, the main one being fatigue mental.

We can define this as a temporary reduction in mental and physical efficiency depending on the intensity, duration and temporal distribution of the mental stress to which the worker is subjected. Fatigue causes irritability, more mistakes, accidents and worse decision making.

Depending on how long the worker has been fatigued, we can speak of two types of fatigue: physiological or normal and chronic. The physiological one would be the normal fatigue we feel when we have done an activity cognitively demanding, a loss of normal homeostasis and that to regain it it will be enough to take a break. However, if the individual is subjected to fatigue for a long time, without being able to rest properly, this state will become chronic, causing damage on a psychological level.

Evaluation

The expression "mental workload" refers to a concept that is neither unitary nor unidimensional, with which your evaluation is not a uniform procedure. There is no single ideal and perfect way to evaluate this type of work-related phenomenon.

Fortunately, there are several ways to evaluate and measure it depending on the purpose of what you want to observe, evaluating different aspects of mental work using different measurement techniques and with different degrees of precision.

Between techniques and instruments to assess mental workload we have the following.

1. Physiological measurements

Physiological measurements record the physiological changes produced in the worker's body that are related to the demands of the task that he has to perform. Among these measures we can talk about brain electrical activity, blink rate, pin diameter or heart rate, among others.

2. Subjective techniques

Subjective techniques reflect the worker's own perceived level of mental workload. Among these measurements we can find the NASA-TLX, SWAT or the Cooper-Harper scale.

3. Performance evaluation

It would consist of all those tools that evaluate the mental and psychomotor performance of the employee in certain working conditions, for example to determine the variations in worker performance attributable to the effects of mental workload.

4. Job and task analysis

Work analysis involves evaluating the sources of mental workload such as the elements of the task, the physical working conditions, the environmental ones ...

Prevention

As we have commented, in itself the mental load is neither good nor bad, but depends on what its quantity is. For example, on many occasions a certain level of mental load is necessary to motivate the worker and prevent him from getting boredSince a too simple job can be seen as too monotonous and consequently get fed up with it, or underestimate it and make mistakes.

On the other hand, if the job is too complicated, you may eventually get tired and have an accident due to not paying enough attention.

It is for all this that, for avoid the harmful consequences of mental workload, caused by having either put too complicated tasks on the workers or because not enough attention has been paid to how fatigued they were, the following points should be followed:

• Pay attention to details that can contribute to mental exhaustion.
• Take into consideration the work environment that may influence work performance.
• Adequately train workers to perform their tasks.
• Adequately train in occupational risk avoidance.
• Facilitate control over employees and detect cases of fatigue
• Organize your work in a way that avoids the appearance of mental fatigue.