Sukhi Assee

Hi, my name is Sukhi and I'm a Senior Ergonomist and Human Factors Engineer working in a civil engineering and construction company.

A lot of my time is probably spent working with engineers, designers, and basically my job is to influence how things are built from machinery to really big complex machines, like how you actually make a tunnel. And those types of machines are called tunnel boring machines, and they're very interesting, but very, very complicated.

And so my job is to make sure that I'm looking at the human, looking at how they work, looking at their posture, looking at if they're feeling tired, they're feeling fatigued, looking at if the job that they're able to do is actually, if they're even able to do it.

And so my job in really simple terms is just to find a simple solution that will make sure that a job is done safely and more efficiently.

So the great thing about my job is, that no two days are exactly the same, which is something that I genuinely really enjoy.

So some days I'll be out on site. So I'll have my PPE on, I'll have my hard hat on, I'll have my high vis on so that people can see that I'm on site and for safety purposes. And I'll be on site to observe how people are working, how they're interacting with equipment or carrying out tasks.

Looking again at their posture, looking at areas that they're working on, if they're using ladders, are they using them safely. Looking if they're actually even visible, because when you've got big equipment like cranes, people have to be visible so that you don't get knocked over.

And really my job is about understanding the reality of how things are really worked and how they're done.

And some other days I can be completely office based. So I could be reviewing designs and 3D models and working with engineers to make sure that they're really kind of considering human factors and ergonomics as part of that whole kind of design process.

So I will look at things like reach distance, the height of people, if people actually fit into tight confined spaces. And my job, essentially, is to find places where people work to make sure that they can do their job as best as possible.

So sometimes I could be working in a very very small tunnel, I could be working inside a bridge, I could be working on a building site that has nothing built on it yet. I could also be working on a nuclear plant place where people are working in a really high intensive environment.

And so I need to make sure that their job is done safely, but looking after their health as well as safety.

So I feel really fortunate because I get to work with lots of people and across the company I could be working with design engineers, technical engineers, health and safety, operational managers, marketing, project managers, even site workers.

And my role is to really kind of bridge that gap between the technical people and actual human beings. So I spend a lot of my time translating a lot of technical documents and technical environments so that when it comes to practical design and changes, I'm able to do that as best as I can for people.

The best part of my job is to see how I can improve usability and people's health at work.

So when a design change makes someone's job safer or less physically demanding, that's really rewarding for me. And it's one of those jobs that you can genuinely see an improvement in someone's way of working every single day.

So for example, if I see someone who is working in a tunnel, but they're really overreaching and they're working like that with their hands above their shoulders for a really long time, it is my job to make sure that they take rest breaks, that they have their equipment where they don't have to keep their arms above their shoulders.

So it's really about maintaining a good relationship with people and really getting to see the fruits of your labour.

So one of the most difficult parts of my job is the fact that nobody really knows what ergonomics and human factors is.

And even in a big company like the one that I work in, you really have to influence all the people that I named before.

So the designers, the technical engineers, the civil engineers, you really have to get them to understand the job and understand that when you've got someone who's working in a dangerous situation, yes, it's very dangerous and yes, they need to get the job done.

But at the end of the day, that person is someone's mom, dad, sister, brother, and they need to get home safely and they have to look after their health.

So sometimes human factors and ergonomics isn't very visual. So a lot of the things are done behind the scenes and where in the field that I work in, it's very, very fast paced, you really do have to get people to understand what you do and get them to understand that your job is important for people.

So I actually started by doing a undergraduate degree in industrial design technology from Brunel University.

And it was during my placement year at a company where I was introduced to ergonomics and human factors. And I really became interested in the human body and how it interacts with design.

Because when I was doing design degree, was very much about making things look very aesthetically pleasing. But where you've got people, you'll have problems. And if we're designing products to be used by people, you want to make sure that you're looking at their height, you're looking at if they're able to use it properly.

So it really kind of convinced me that I needed to pursue a career path in something that I had a real big passion in. And so in the UK, you can't call yourself an ergonomist or a human factors engineer until you've studied at university.

So I went back to university, which wasn't in my career path. I thought after university, I am done with all my studying. And I was very fortunate enough that the company I was working for allowed me to do my master's part-time and I was able to still study at the same time.

So it was from there, I spent about four years doing my master's degree remotely at Nottingham and I have stayed in that career path for the past, I think, 10 or 11 years.

Massively. I feel like it gave me a really strong foundation because I always felt that I had a creative bone in my body.

So at school I studied product design, I did graphic products, I did art, but then also because my job now involves a lot of science, I loved chemistry and I loved biology.

Physics probably not so much for me, but it gave me a really good foundation because my job is working with so many different people and I'm in so many different environments that it gave me a good balance in knowing, kind of, I take things from different aspects, whether it's science-based, whether it's through, you know, English, report writing, all the way through to like product design creativity.

So it definitely gave me a great foundation for that.

So I would say when someone calls me up and says to me, Sukhi, thank you so much for making this change because we can see it making a big difference to the workers on site.

I think the first time I'd ever received a call like that, I felt like I need to take the rest of the day off and I'm wanting to celebrate because it's taken me so many years to convince people about how the human body, why it's so important, why we need to look after it when we're at work, that when I make changes, whether it's to how people are working in their posture all the way through to working on product designs and big machinery designs and changing the way so that they're more usable by people.

And when I see people working in those environments that have been influenced by myself, it is one of the best feelings.

I think that I would say always remain curious because I was always a curious teenager, child, adult now and I think it's my curiosity that has kind of got me to the position that I am now and I would genuinely say that continue to do what interests you even if it's not in the norm because it's often you know, those aspects where the best careers lie.