Promoting mental health in small-medium enterprises: An evaluation of the "Business in Mind" program

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Workplace mental health promotion (WMHP) aims to prevent and effectively manage the social and economic costs of common mental illnesses such as depression. The mental health of managers and employees within small-medium enterprises (SMEs) is a neglected sector in occupational health research and practice, despite the fact that this sector is the most common work setting in most economies. The availability and propensity of SME staff to attend face-to-face training/therapy or workshop style interventions often seen in corporate or public sector work settings is a widely recognised problem. The 'Business in Mind' program employs a DVD mode of delivery that is convenient for SME managers, particularly those operating in regional and remote areas where internet delivery may not be optimal. The objective of the intervention program is to improve the mental health of SME managers, and examine whether employees of managers' whose mental health improves, report positive change in their psychosocial work environment. The mechanisms via which we aim to improve managers' mental health are through the development of their psychological capital (a higher order construct comprised of hope, self efficacy, resilience and optimism) and their skills and capacities for coping with work stress.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The effectiveness of two versions of the program (self administered and telephone facilitated) will be assessed using a randomised trial with an active control condition (psychoeducation only). We aim to recruit a minimum of 249 managers and a sample of their employees. This design allows for 83 managers per group, as power analyses showed that this number would allow for attrition of 20% and still enable detection of an effect size of 0.5. The intervention will be implemented over a three month period and postal surveys will assess managers and employees in each group at baseline, intervention completion, and at 6 month follow up. The intervention groups (managers only) will also be assessed at 12 and 24 month follow-up to examine maintenance of effects. Primary outcomes are managers' levels of psychological capital (hope, resilience, self-efficacy and optimism), coping strategies, anxiety and depression symptoms, self-reported health, job satisfaction and job tension. Secondary outcomes are participating managers subordinates' perceptions of manager support, relational justice, emotional climate and job tension. In order to provide an economic evaluation of the intervention, both employees and manager rates of absenteeism and presenteeism will also be assessed.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The intervention being trialled is expected to improve both primary and secondary outcomes. If proven efficacious, the intervention could be disseminated to reach a much larger proportion of the business community.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current controlled trials ISRCTN 62853520</p

Satisfaction with Creativity: A Study of Organizational Characteristics and Individual Motivation

In answering the question of what influences satisfaction with creativity in the workplace, this work takes into account the extent to which the organization supports human aspiration to act creatively. The work throughout reflects a pragmatist approach to creativity and fulfillment, bridging it with needs theory in psychology. The empirical model uses survey data encompassing over 4,000 workers in Italian social enterprises. Results show that satisfaction with creativity is supported, at organizational level, by teamwork, autonomy, domain-relevant competences, as well as by inclusive, fair processes and relationships. At the individual level, satisfaction with creativity is enhanced by the strength of intrinsic initial motivations. The analysis of interaction terms shows that teamwork and workers' initial motivations are complementary in enhancing satisfaction with creativity, while a high degree of domain-relevant competences appears to substitute advice and supervision by superiors in accomplishing the desired level of creative action

Leadership and its relationship to organizational climate, psychological capital, employee well-being and organizational commitment

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Leadership, climate, psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a nonprofit organization

Purpose ¿ This exploratory study aims to examine the effects of leadership on organizational climate, employee psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a religious/church-based non-profit organization. Design/methodology/approach ¿ Leadership effects are investigated using established scales including the transformational leadership scale, (TLS), organizational climate questionnaire (OCQ), positive and negative affect scale (PANAS), psychological capital (PsyCap), and organizational commitment. It is a context-based study that considers a unique organizational culture that comprises social, political, economic, technological, personnel, and personal facets. The survey was administered across a large religious/church-based non-profit organization. Findings ¿ The findings show strong positive relationships between employee ratings of their immediate supervisor&#039;s transformational leadership and employee ratings of organizational climate, wellbeing, employee commitment and psychological capital. Additional analyses which explored the impact of demographic variables revealed older employees recorded significantly higher scores on psychological capital than younger employees. These findings inform organizational sustainability where the principles of socially responsible management practices form the heart of responsible stewardship. Research limitations/implications ¿ Risks of method variance or response biases are likely as all data are drawn from employee surveys, and some selection bias as respondents could not be directly compared with non-respondents. Originality/value ¿ This study makes a significant contribution to the non-profit literature by providing further evidence of the impact of leadership on organizational climate, with the added dimensions of psychological capital, employee wellbeing, and commitment adding to the knowledge of these relationships

Workplace innovation in a nonprofit organization

We examine the relationships among leadership, organizational climate, and workplace innovation in a nonprofit organization. We used established scales including the Transformational Leadership Scale, Organizational Climate Questionnaire, and Workplace Innovation Scale, and then descriptive statistics, regression models, and regression-based path analysis to fulfill the objectives of the study. The survey was administered to fulltime and part-time employees in a religious-based nonprofit organization in Australia. A major finding is that leadership directly promotes workplace innovation and can foster a healthy climate, while the partial effect of organizational climate on workplace innovation, holding leadership constant, was insignificant. Certain characteristics of transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and organizational climate were predictive of workplace innovation as defined. The benefit of this study resides in its potential to look further into predictive leadership characteristics that would assist with recruitment processes in nonprofit organizations

The impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a non-profit organization

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a religious/church-based non-profit organization