Journal of Business & Economic Policy

Work Assessment of Small Scale Restaurant Workers and Their Enterprising Ability
Tulika Khare

Abstract
Restaurant workers, who works in the kitchen, doing the different activities in continuous standing posture and spent most of the time inside the buildings and therefore experience the greatest amount of exposure while performing various activities and at greatest risk,. They do the work which is very labor intensive. The workers working in the restaurants withstand the pressure, string of working for long hours, suffering from high blood pressure due to prolong standing posture, lifting heavy pots and kettles and working near hot ovens and grills. An occupational hazard includes slips and falls, cuts and burns. Restaurant relaxing chair is one of important furniture design that cause people especially who work in the restaurant feel comfortable after prolong stand. Each parts of chair should be designed properly so that it can have more ergonomics characteristics to ensure the user to get a good posture. It also can assist the user to minimize fatigue and injury by fitting the chairs to the body size, and also suggest the strength and range of movement. Correct sitting and standing posture is an important factor for the prevention of musculoskeletal symptoms. Therefore, the study was undertaken design of ergonomically functional and aesthetically sound relaxing chair for kitchen related standing activity. For the present study 120 workers were selected from the four south Indian restaurant i.e.Sri nidhi sagar, Raaga the family restaurant, Tamarind and Inchara the family restaurant, Bangalore city, Karnataka State. Descriptive cum experimental research design was used for the present study. Purposive sampling procedure was followed to select the sample and data was gathered by interview method. The workers were mainly literate and aged from 25-40 years. The data further showed that the existing conditions of the restaurant workers were satisfactory i.e. work environment. Besides this occupational risks were noticed among workers which can result in health hazards. Statistical analysis showed the significant difference between physiological cost of work and different activities such as preparation, cooking, serving and dishwashing performed by the restaurant workers. It was found that the restaurant workers faced lot of problems due to non availability of relaxing chair at their work unit. Hence due to prolong standing posture and, continuous working hours and absence of relaxing of body they suffered with arthritis problem, lower and upper back problem, headache, swelling on ankles, stiffness in leg and hand joints, numbness in body, reduced grip strength, limiting movement of fingers etc. Besides this there was a problem of slips, falls, repetitive body motion, and adoption of awkward posture for performing especially preparation and dishwashing activities besides cooking activity. Mainly lower back and leg/feet were the affected body parts while doing the work. Their work abilities were affected and hence the need was felt to design relaxing chair for Dabbawala units.

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