People generally think about sustainability in terms of environmental issues, says psychologist Steven L. Sauter, PhD, a consultant to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). But for organizations, sustainability can also mean not squandering their human resources.
"We lack a real understanding of the bottom line costs to organizations and society of stressful working conditions," says Sauter, who co-chaired the first 10 "Work, Stress and Health" conferences and served on the planning committee of the 2015 event. "The goal of this year's conference was to increase awareness of how important worker health and safety, especially preventing job stress, are to sustainability."
"Sustainable Work, Sustainable Health, Sustainable Organizations" was the theme of the 11th International Conference on Occupational Stress and Health. Convened by APA, NIOSH and the Society for Occupational Health Psychology, the conference brought together more than 550 researchers, practitioners and others from 26 countries in Atlanta May 6–9.
Since the conference was initiated in 1990, it has explored the changing nature of work and how those changes affect workers' health, safety and well-being. A few highlights from this year's conference follow.
Communication's role in sustainable interventions
Many workplace interventions that aim to reduce employees' stress, improve their health or boost their productivity don't have a lasting impact, says Christine Ipsen, PhD, an associate professor in the department of management engineering at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby. Often it's a lack of communication that causes interventions to be unsustainable, says Ipsen, who presented her research at the conference as part of a symposium she co-chaired on the importance of knowledge sharing in developing organizational interventions that have enduring results.
Employees themselves typically know what the problems are in their workplaces, what's causing those problems and what to do about them, says Ipsen, but often that information is only shared informally among colleagues. Finding ways to share that in-house information in more systematic, structured ways can increase employees' commitment to interventions and save money, she says.
"Instead of hiring an expensive outside consultant, you can get access to in-house knowledge that employees have but never get a chance to share," she says.
A variety of techniques can help achieve that goal, according to two studies of a stress prevention intervention implemented in 10 companies, Ipsen and colleagues found. The companies hosted workshops that encouraged employees to share information about the factors that prompt stress as well as enthusiasm at work. In-house facilitators interviewed participants about causes of and solutions to the problems employees identified, and departments then met to consolidate that knowledge. Participants also developed ways to monitor their progress in addressing those problems.
By making both employees and managers aware of problems and potential solutions and keeping an eye on progress afterward, says Ipsen, organizations can craft the most effective interventions and adjust them if needed.
Understanding what communication strategies work best when preparing and implementing interventions is also critical, says Lotta K. Harju, a PhD candidate at Aalto University of Science and researcher at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, who also presented at the symposium.
Harju and her colleagues evaluated the communication strategies used by facilitators and participants in four organizations as they implemented "job crafting" — an intervention in which employees are encouraged and helped to come up with ways to align their work with their own values or interests and thereby increase their engagement.
The researchers found that before an intervention, organizations should inform participants of what the intervention entails and foster realistic expectations about its potential impact. They also found that during implementation, participants' communication among themselves can be more important than the communication that comes from facilitators or the organization. "Participants gave each other support, ideas and feedback, and that was perceived as very motivating and maintained participants' engagement in the learning process," says Harju. In addition, frequent reminders via a mobile app about the intervention's goals — both during and after the intervention — helped increase employees' motivation and sustain the intervention's positive effects.
Other research presented in the symposium emphasized the important role that facilitating two-way communication between employees and supervisors can play in sustaining workplace interventions. While top-down communication is common, bottom-up communication is much rarer, especially in hierarchical organizations with centralized decision-making, says Andrew J. Noblet, PhD, a professor of management at Deakin University in Australia. In police departments, for example, junior officers have little power and often aren't willing to share their concerns with superiors.
Noblet and colleagues tested several strategies for increasing two-way communication while planning, implementing and evaluating an intervention designed to prevent job stress in an Australian police department. The researchers used interviews, focus groups and anonymous surveys to assess junior officers' views about what was causing their workplace stress. They then used that information to create the intervention, which focused on leadership development and workload management.
An evaluation of the intervention process allowed the organizers to further fine-tune the intervention, which had only modestly reduced junior officers' job stress in the first round. If participants hadn't been willing to share their thoughts about the intervention and how it was conducted, say the researchers, the intervention could have been deemed a failure. Instead, that honest feedback revealed that the intervention just needed a few tweaks to make it successful.
Researchers at the symposium also presented a new way to gauge the success of workplace interventions. The "Corporate Health Index," developed by Georg F. Bauer, MD, DrPh, and colleagues at the University of Zurich, gives organizations a convenient way to assess employees' stress and health.
The researchers create a ratio for each organization based on employees' job demands, such as unclear job roles, time pressure and social conflict, and their job resources, such as decision-making ability, good social support and recognition of work well done. The researchers have found that health and productivity measures increase in step with increases in the Corporate Health Index.
"It's very attractive for companies to see this one number," says Bauer, who directs the public and organizational health division in the university's Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute. "It makes it very easy to make a first initial assessment of the health situation in a company, then use it to compare to their own benchmark or other companies."
The Swiss railroad system now uses the index as a key performance indicator alongside such measures as the punctuality of its trains and number of people transported each day.
Job stress and burnout
Other sessions at the conference focused on the intersections of work, stress and health.
Researchers have long known that job stress can lead to such physical and mental health problems as heart disease, anxiety and depression, musculoskeletal injuries and accidents, for example. It can also lead to burnout, which is itself associated with psychological distress, physical problems and unhealthy behaviors. But just how common — and dangerous — are job stress and burnout?
In an analysis of data from the 2002, 2006 and 2010 NIOSH Quality of Worklife survey, NIOSH research psychologist Rashaun Roberts, PhD, and colleagues found that while workers in all three waves of data reported moderate job stress and burnout, there were significant variations by industrial sector and job type.
Health-care workers, for example, reported more job stress than those in other industries. Along with construction workers, they also suffered significantly higher burnout — feeling emotionally exhausted, having a sense of depersonalization and no longer experiencing a sense of accomplishment. Regular, permanent employees experienced more stress and burnout than those in other arrangements, such as freelancers, temps and on-call employees, while supervisors and full-time employees fared worse than nonsupervisors and part-timers. The self-employed reported lower stress and burnout than their more traditionally employed peers.
No matter what the job, Roberts's analysis found, workers who reported high levels of stress and burnout also reported having worse health than their less-stressed counterparts.
Flextime and health behaviors
You might think flextime could help employees fight stress and stay healthy, says Eric J. Faurote, PhD. But flextime doesn't seem to improve the health habits of women experiencing high levels of conflict between their work and family roles, Faurote found in research that was part of his graduate studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
In an analysis of 302 women workers, Faurote and colleagues examined the impact of flextime during periods of high work-family conflict, when work responsibilities interfere with family responsibilities and activities. The researchers found that during periods of high work-family conflict, women with a lot of flextime actually decreased the amount of time they spent exercising, while women with less flextime maintained their exercise regimens. They also found that flextime had no effect on the women's reliance on restaurant meals, prepared foods and other unhealthy eating options. Instead of taking advantage of flexible scheduling to improve their health, says Faurote, women may be using it to address their children's needs.
Even with flextime, concludes Faurote, "work-family conflicts continue to have very detrimental effects on women's health." Instead of relying solely on flextime, he says, employers could consider treadmill desks, standing work stations, walking meetings and other strategies to increase physical activity during the work day. If they have on-site food services, they might also offer healthy dinners that employees can pick up as they head home.
Research by Deanna K. Burns, a graduate student in industrial-organizational psychology at Clemson University, also supports the idea that flextime alone isn't enough to help employees overcome the negative effects of work-life conflict and that organizations should offer a combination of resources.
In a study of 597 workers, Burns and colleagues examined the relationship between income and work-family conflict. As income increases, they found, so does the availability of resources that can help workers manage work-family conflict, such as flexible work schedules, leave and support from family, friends and neighbors. As those resources increase, work-family conflict decreases. "It's not necessarily money that's making things easier," says Burns. "It's the extra resources that make it easier to cope."
Not all of these resources had that same effect independently, however. "It's not that having one resource alone will necessarily alleviate work-family conflict," says Burns. "Pooling them together will."
The impact of sleep quality
Improving workers' sleep could be another way to improve their health and well-being, according to research by Yifan Song, a graduate student in the University of Florida's department of management.
In one study, Song and colleagues collected data from employees working for Chinese information technology companies. They found that workplace stress in the mornings increased workers' tendency to eat unhealthy fatty food once they got home. However, a good night's sleep changed things. If employees slept well the night before, they were less likely to eat badly the next evening, even if they'd faced morning job stress.
In a second study, the researchers found a similar pattern in customer service representatives in a Chinese call center. Being mistreated by customers in the morning prompted negative moods in the afternoon, which led to poor eating at night. Once again, sleep helped: A good night's sleep gave employees more energy in the morning, which helped prevent bad moods in the afternoon. That in turn kept them from indulging in unhealthy eating at night.
"Organizations could provide training programs to help employees learn how to get better sleep at night," says Song. "They could even provide a time and space for employees to have a nap during their lunch breaks."
Introducing a new type of office
Other presenters focused on the physical aspects of workplaces. Christian Korunka, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Vienna, examined a new way of designing offices that encourages workspace flexibility. Instead of fixed spaces for workers, this new type of office offers zones for specific activities. A "zen zone" offers a quiet environment for creative work, for example, while workers who need a telephone use "call boxes." "This new kind of office concept is quite fashionable these days," says Korunka.
To assess the new design's impact, Korunka and colleagues used surveys, interviews and focus groups to see how workers reacted when their traditional office was replaced by a flexible design. Workers reported that the new design improved productivity and information-sharing. Employees experienced fewer interruptions and more interaction, for example.
The news wasn't all good, however. While the number of social interactions increased, employees reported that the quality of those interactions had decreased. "In conventional offices, people sit at the same desk every day, so you know where you can find people if you want to have a coffee break or go out to lunch together," says Korunka. "In the new office, you never know where you'll find your colleagues." The result can be loneliness, says Korunka, adding that new office designs need to include meeting rooms, "interaction zones" or other ways of meeting employees' social needs.
Social media in the workplace
Facebook and other forms of social media could help mitigate that loneliness among employees, according to research by Hannah J. Murphy, another graduate student in industrial-organizational psychology at Clemson.
In a study of full-time workers who are active Facebook users, Murphy and her team found a relationship between employees' use of social media and social support from co-workers. The link could mean that social media helped employees feel connected with co-workers or that employees already feel connected in person and so connect online, too, says Murphy, explaining that the research shows a correlation rather than causation. "But if future research found that social media use with co-workers increases feelings of social support, that would be huge," says Murphy. "Social support increases the likelihood that people are satisfied with work and stay on, that they don't burn out because they have friends at work."
The research also revealed a connection between social media use and job satisfaction. "The more satisfied someone is at work, the more likely they are to use social media," says Murphy, adding that the link goes both ways. If you have the freedom to express yourself and your opinions about work on social media, she explains, you're more likely to feel satisfied with the organization.
It's encouraging to see that social media use in the workplace isn't always a negative, says Murphy. "A lot of people don't use Facebook to talk about work or connect with co-workers because they feel that it's inappropriate," she says. "Human resource departments need to be clear about policies so that people understand if they're able to use it and maybe encourage social media use on certain terms."
Designing an age-friendly workplace
Ensuring that offices promote the health, safety and productivity of the growing number of older workers is especially important, say James Grosch, PhD, a senior research psychologist at NIOSH, and Ken Scott, a doctoral student of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.
Despite changing demographics, few organizations are taking steps to age-proof their workplaces, says Grosch, noting that failing to do so can result in injuries, loss of productivity and reduced morale.
At the Work, Stress and Health conference, Grosch and Scott offered a workshop originally developed by Scott and former colleagues at the University of Washington, with subsequent support from NIOSH. The workshop encourages organizations to make changes in three areas. First, design the physical work environment to provide sufficient lighting, reduce background noise, prevent falls and otherwise accommodate older workers. Second, offer workplace wellness programs to help older workers prevent and manage such chronic conditions as hypertension, diabetes and arthritis. And third, institute flexible scheduling, phased retirement and other policies to help workers manage work-life balance. An online version of the workshop is available online.
Designing age-friendly workplaces helps all workers, adds Scott. "It makes for a healthy place to work, no matter what your age," he says.
For more information about the Work, Stress and Health Conference, visit Work, Stress and Health. The next conference, "Work, Stress and Health 2017: Challenges and Opportunities," will take place June 7–10, 2017, in Minneapolis.
Employees typically know what the problems are in their workplaces, what's causing those problems and what to do about them, but often that information is only shared informally among colleagues. Finding ways to share that in-house information in more systematic, structured ways can increase employees' commitment to interventions and save money.
