ABSTRACT
Over the past twenty years, various methods of analysing workplaces and working conditions have been developed, particularly in France. This chapter presents four of these job analysis methods, as yet little known outside the French-speaking world -though without passing judgement on their scientific value or practicability. The methods are: the workplace profile method, the Laboratoire d'Economie et de Sociologie du Travail (LEST) method, the AVISEM method and the Groupement des entreprises siderurgiques et minieres (GESIM) method. Workplace profile method was designed to analyse working conditions with the following characteristics: repetitive work, short cycle, average precision, semi-skilled workers. Developed at LEST, the LEST method is intended for analysing the workplaces of unskilled or semi-skilled industrial workers. The work situation is analysed with the aid of an observation handbook. The essential aim of the GESIM method was to develop a method of workplace analysis based on experience of working conditions as recorded by a simple evaluation procedure using a questionnaire.
