# Working with a Key Community Engaged in the Transformation of Work: Historical Analysis and Key Challenges

Yannick Lémonie, Bationo Tillon Anne, Vincent Grosstephan, Lucie Cuvelier, Christophe Real, Gaëtan Bourmaud

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Yannick Lémonie, Bationo Tillon Anne, Vincent Grosstephan, Lucie Cuvelier, Christophe Real, et al. Working with a Key Community Engaged in the Transformation of Work: Historical Analysis and Key Challenges. ISCAR Southern Europe and West Asia Conference 2025. Towards Equity, Peace and Sustainability in Times of Crisis, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, 2025, Barcelone, Spain. pp. 15-17. hal-05485663

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# Working with a Key Community Engaged in the Transformation of Work: Historical Analysis and Key Challenges

Yannick Lémonie<fnref n="1" />, Anne Bationo-Tillon<fnref n="2" />, Vincent Grosstephan<fnref n="3" />, Lucie Cuvelier<fnref n="4" />,
Christophe Real<fnref n="5" />, Gaëtan Bourmaud<fnref n="6" />

**Abstract:** Ergonomic interventions aim to improve or adapt work situations, enhancing both health and performance. Ergonomists operate within evolving organizations and must adjust their methods to address emerging health risks. This proposal explores the learning challenges and historically rooted contradictions in ergonomic interventions. It draws on a workshop inspired by the change laboratory methodology, involving 75 consultant ergonomists and trainees. Key tools such as the history wall, activity system, contradictions, and “four fields models” are mobilized. The presentation highlights the importance of historical analysis, the future-oriented nature of the laboratories, and the potential for expanding the scope of ergonomic practice.

**Keywords:** Cultural-Historical Activity Theory; formative intervention; anthropocene; historicity

## Introduction

Faced with the challenge of the Anthropocene, the radical transformation of work is essential, insofar as work and its organisation are underlying causes of the climate crisis (Lémonie, 2025). In the context of a fourth generation of work within cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), it becomes necessary to identify communities with whom to act. The community of ergonomists constitutes such a community, having historically formed around issues related to workplace interventions.

This communication aims to identify the learning challenges and historically inherited contradictions of ergonomic interventions, based on a workshop inspired by the change laboratory methodology (Engeström, 2007; Lémonie & Grosstephan, 2021). Within this framework, we conceptualise ergonomic intervention as an activity system that has evolved through historically situated contradictions. This perspective is not new (Blight, 2024; Vilela et al., 2020). In this context, ergonomic intervention is shaped by a contradiction between academic discipline and professional practice. Initially focused on individual work situations, recent developments call for a radical transformation of ergonomic practice to align it with the challenges of the Anthropocene (Pueyo, 2022). This developmental approach implies involving participants in the redefinition of their activity and in the reconceptualisation of its object.

Following an invitation to co-organise two study days on ergonomics and CHAT in April 2025, a design group was created to help ergonomist participants appropriate the concepts and tools of change laboratories and reflect on the history and future of ergonomic intervention. The objective was to provide an opportunity for participants

<footnote n="1">¹Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, CRTD, Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Haute École Pédagogique du Canton de Vaud, Lausanne, Suisse</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³INSPÉ d'Aix-Marseille, Laboratoire LEST, Aix-en-Provence, France</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴CESI, Grenoble, France</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Nantes, France</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Université Paris 8- Saint Denis, Laboratoire Paragraphe, Saint-Denis, France</footnote>
to experiment with these tools and support the collective transformation of ergonomics practices through intergenerational learning.

The research questions were: (1) What developmental periods of ergonomics do participants identify?; (2) What areas of development do they see for ergonomic intervention?; (3) How do participants use the tools of the change laboratory?

## Methods

Seventy-five participants—students in a Master’s programme in ergonomics and professional ergonomists—were divided into three groups of 25, each working in subgroups of 4–5. Each group was tasked with creating a historical frieze to represent developmental periods in ergonomics, using selected mirror data (e.g. themes of the French ergonomics society, changes in work organisation, workers’ roles in interventions, evolution of ergonomics research). Each group then produced a summary of their discussions.

In the afternoon, a collective discussion focused on identifying historically inherited contradictions, key challenges, and a proximal zone of development using the “four fields model”. Data collected included workshop discussions, group outputs, Master’s student reports, and field notes from informal exchanges.

## Results and Discussion

Results showed heterogeneity across group syntheses, but all identified development trajectories for ergonomics, such as:

* Increasing stakeholder participation, from observation to active engagement. E.g., a participant said: “With the change laboratory, it’s the operators who are involved in the analysis – that’s a huge shift!”

* A shift from focusing on isolated work situations to broader work organisation and societal issues.

* Moving from task-level adaptation to the transformation of collective work to address major challenges.

Key concerns identified were the Anthropocene and ageing at work. From these, participants collectively proposed a new, broader object for ergonomics, termed “political ergonomics”, characterised by:

* The need for interventions beyond company boundaries.

* Empowering workers to take control of the transformation process.

* Contextualising interventions at the local level.

Results will be discussed through three lenses: the role of history in constructing a desirable future; the challenge of facilitating change with large groups; and the methodological contributions to the change laboratory approach within the framework of a fourth-generation CHAT.
References

Bligh, B. (2024). The Change Laboratory as a Collaborative Approach to Designing Tools and Activity Systems for Learning. In A.R Costa & R. Cooper (Eds), *Design for Education* (pp. 232-247). Routledge.

Engeström, Y. (2007). Putting Vygotsky to Work. The Change Laboratory as an Application of Double Stimulation. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), *The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky* (pp. 363-382). Cambridge University Press.

Lémonie, Y., & Grosstephan, V. (2021). Le laboratoire du changement : une méthodologie d'intervention au service de la transformation du travail. *Revue d'anthropologie des connaissances*, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.4000/rac.21846

Lémonie, Y. (2025). Transforming & Understanding. An introduction to Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. Peter Lang.

Pueyo, V. (2022). Contribuer à des futurs souhaitables pour répondre aux défis de l'Anthropocène: les apports d'une Prospective du travail. *Activités*, (19-2), 15-10.

Vilela, R.A.G, Querol, M.A.P, Hurtado, S.L.B, Cerveny, G.C.O, & LopesM.G.R. (2020).
*Collaborative Development for the Prevention of occupational Accidents and Diseases*.
Springer.