Analyzing Perceptions on Barriers to Safety in the Workforce and Expectations on Human and Robotic Assistance

Abstract

Prior research on the fear of robots in blue-collar workplaces shows that perception is influenced by minority status, education level, job domains, age, and location. However, the perception of robots is not universally negative, as workers exhibit positive views when robots can improve workplace safety, enhance existing skills, or take over tasks that are viewed as less desirable. Currently, an understanding is lacking of the types of barriers to safety that a worker faces or how the job context, e.g. hours spent in heavy lifts, or demographics, e.g. weight or height, contribute to the perceptions of safety, need for and type of assistance from a co-worker, and perception of an assistive robot. Through a survey of 530 blue-collar workers, we find that 85% of the barriers to safety in the workplace are physical, psychological, and a combination of physical and psychological factors. Our survey shows that the time spent in performing heavy lifts is a significant predictor for barriers to safety, while the interaction between weight and time is a marginal predictor. We find that the barriers to safety significantly influence perception of job longevity. We observe that the worker’s height is a significant predictor to comfort levels in receiving assistance from co-workers, while weight and the interaction between height and weight are marginally significant. We find that the worker’s weight and hours spent in lifting are significant predictors for the type of assistance expected. Our findings show that the number of hours spent in lifting is a significant predictor on the type of assistance expected from a robot. Based on our results, future collaborative robots should be designed to show awareness of physical and physiological needs and cognizance to the worker’s physical traits, in particular height and weight, as well as the amount of time the worker has spent on lifting tasks.