A few concepts...

Origin of the word

Ergonomics comes from Greek:

• ergon (lat. ergon): work, action, activity
• nomos (lat. nomos): rule, law, principle

So, in the literal sense: the rules of work / the laws of activity.

Definition

Ergonomics is the discipline that aims to adapt work to humans (and not the other way around). It seeks to understand how work is actually done — with its constraints, unforeseen events and trade-offs — in order to improve situations sustainably.

Concrete objectives

An ergonomic intervention generally aims to improve, together:

• health (fatigue, pain, wear, workload),
• safety (reduction of errors, incidents, accidents),
• quality (reliability, less rework),
• performance (sustainable efficiency, smoother organisation).

What ergonomics can address

Ergonomics is not limited to the workstation. It can cover:

• tools and interfaces (software, documents, screens, procedures),
• spaces and flows (circulation, noise, confidentiality),
• organisation (priorities, interruptions, distribution, routines),
• collectives (coordination, handovers, cooperation),
• workload (cognitive, temporal, emotional).

A unique working context

Work at sea concentrates constraints rarely combined with such intensity: geographical isolation, watch cycles, confined spaces, small crews, exposure to the elements, decisions under pressure. But beyond these visible constraints, there is a more discreet yet central reality: at sea, people work together for long periods, at close quarters, with few escape routes, in an environment that demands both rigour, endurance and coordination.

In this context, safety does not depend solely on procedures or equipment. It also rests on the quality of the collective: the way people communicate, how information is passed on, how adjustments are made, how people hold up over time, and how the organisation allows — or not — people to remain lucid, reliable and supportive day to day.

What human factors at sea encompass

• Fatigue and recovery: effects of watches, fluctuating vigilance, incomplete recovery.
• Isolation and confinement: impact on mood, psychological availability and crew cohesion.
• Information flow: handovers, quality of exchanges, actual understanding of messages.
• On-board cooperation: role distribution, adjustments, coordination between crew members.
• Cognitive load: interruptions, accumulation of information, constant trade-offs, time pressure.
• Collective wear: relational tensions, difficulty expressing a limit or difficulty before it impacts safety.

Acting before deterioration

It is often when an incident occurs that the question of human factors resurfaces. Yet their importance begins well before.

Our work also consists in intervening upstream, where the solidity of the collective is built — or damaged —: in the day-to-day organisation, the clarity of roles, the circulation of information, the possibility of raising a difficulty, the way the crew absorbs fatigue, workload or ordinary tensions.

Strengthening human factors is not only about avoiding errors. It is about making work more sustainable, exchanges more legible, cooperation more reliable, and the collective more capable of coping when conditions become strained.

Why combining ergonomics and psychology

Ergonomics allows us to observe work as it is actually done: the adjustments, the trade-offs, the implicit constraints, the gaps between what is planned and what the situation requires in practice. It helps to see where the organisation supports work — and where it weakens it.

Psychology provides another, complementary perspective: attention, fatigue, cognitive load, stress, communication, emotional regulation, relational dynamics. It allows us to better understand what plays out humanly in daily work, including well before an incident appears.

Together, these two perspectives allow us to move beyond an approach focused solely on fault, deviation or urgency. They help work on the concrete conditions that make a crew more solid, more coordinated and more capable of holding up over time.

Examples of concrete situations

This combined perspective can make a real difference in situations such as:

• a crew that functions "broadly well", but where certain tensions, fatigue or misunderstandings are gradually setting in;
• handovers between watches that are uneven, not through lack of seriousness, but because the timing, workload or habits do not favour good information flow;
• a work organisation that holds on paper, but overloads certain crew members at key moments;
• difficulty in reporting fatigue, a doubt or a limit, because the collective framework does not make it easy;
• cooperation weakened by wear, close quarters or repeated misunderstandings;
• procedures or tools that are correct in theory, but poorly suited to actual conditions of use on board.

In these situations, the challenge is not only to correct what is already visible. It is also to strengthen what allows the collective to hold: clearer reference points, smoother exchanges, a more realistic organisation and more sustainable working conditions.