Efficiency and Ability of Employees to Work in Relation to Timber Quality and Structural Ageing

Small and medium-sized enterprises play a crucial role in job creation in the wood industry. The process of employee ageing and avoidance of heavy physical effort affect the labour market contribution. The need to increase work efficiency is certainly reflected in the pressures on employees. Workplace health investigations with the Work Ability Index (WAI) is a one of several tools that take into account job requirements, the employee health status and their resources. In the conducted study, an attempt was made to assess the workability of logging workers in the private sector of small and medium-sized enterprises. Excellent work readiness was found only among harvester and forwarder operators aged 20-30. Different dynamics of WAI decline as a function of age were also observed. In general, for the study group, the WAI fluctuated at a moderate level depending on the technical equipment, age of the employees, BMI, log dimensions and quality (pulp, industry or large saw log wood) or machine productivity. The worst situation was observed during silvicultural treatments of deciduous (beech) stands using the cut-to-length (short saw log wood harvesting) method. Ageing, being overweight, deteriorating health and the mainly physical nature of work are risk factors for low (mediocre) work capacity. It can partially be modelled by increasing employee engagement through an appropriate incentive system. We often observed differences between the work demands determined by the employer's expectations and the social, physical, and health limitations of employees, which led them to seek easier jobs.