Line managers as work professionals in the era of workplace health professionalisation

Abstract : With the comeback of issues relating to work, working conditions and workplace health and safety – very salient in the French case since the 2000s – we seem to be dealing with the establishment of a specialised process for managing workplace health and safety within the human resource management function. This is taking place to the detriment of the awareness that safe and efficient working is a matter of organisation; and that the organisation of work begins with the organisation of work activities: what material and human frameworks are required for situated action to be well-equipped to tackle the difficulties of the task? This inevitably involves a clear understanding of the priority of the role of field executives in planning the actions of their teams within appropriate conditions of preparation.