Predicting new major depression symptoms from long working hours, psychosocial safety climate and work engagement: A population-based cohort study

Objectives This study sought to assess the association between long working hours, psychosocial safety climate (PSC), work engagement (WE) and new major depression symptoms emerging over the next 12 months. PSC is the work climate supporting workplace psychological health. Setting Australian prospective cohort population data from the states of New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia. Participants At Time 1, there were 3921 respondents in the sample. Self-employed, casual temporary, unclassified, those with working hours <35 (37% of 2850) and participants with major depression symptoms at Time 1 (6.7% of 1782) were removed. The final sample was a population-based cohort of 1084 full-time Australian employees. Primary and secondary outcome measures The planned and measured outcomes were new cases of major depression symptoms. Results Long working hours were not significantly related to new cases of major depression symptoms; however, when mild cases were removed, the 41–48 and ≥55 long working hour categories were positively related to major depression symptoms. Low PSC was associated with a threefold increase in risk for new major depression symptoms. PSC was not related to long working hours, and long working hours did not mediate the relationship between PSC and new cases of major depression symptoms. The inverse relationship between PSC and major depression symptoms was stronger for males than females. Additional analyses identified that WE was positively related to long working hours. Long working hours (41–48 and ≥55 hours) mediated a positive relationship between WE and major depression symptoms when mild cases of major depression were removed. Conclusion The results suggest that low workplace PSC and potentially long working hours (41–48; ≥55 hours/ week) increase the risk of new major depression symptoms. Furthermore, high WE may increase long working hours and subsequent major depression symptoms.Amy Jane Zadow, Maureen F Dollard, Christian Dormann, Paul Landsbergi

The role of psychosocial safety climate on flexible work from home digital job demands and work-life conflict

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of employees in flexible work from home has increased markedly along with a reliance on information communication technologies. This study investigated the role of an organisational factor, psychosocial safety climate (PSC; the climate for worker psychological health and safety), as an antecedent of these new kinds of demands (specifically work from home digital job demands) and their effect on work-life conflict. Data were gathered via an online survey of 2,177 employees from 37 Australian universities. Multilevel modelling showed that university level PSC to demands, y=−0.09, SE=0.03, p<0.01, and demands to worklife conflict, y=0.51, SE=0.19, p<0.05, relationships were significant. Supporting the antecedent theory, university level PSC was significantly indirectly related to work-life conflict via demands (LL −0.10 UL −0.01). Against expectations PSC did not moderate the demand to work-life conflict relationship. The results imply that targeting PSC could help prevent work from home digital job demands, and therefore, work-life conflict. Further research is needed on the role of digital job resources as flexible and hybrid work takes hold post COVID.Amy K. Parkin, Amy J. Zadow, Rachael E. Potter, Ali Afsharian, Maureen F. Dollard, Silvia Pignata, Arnold B. Bakker, And Kurt Lushingto

Vision zero: from accident prevention to the promotion of health, safety and well-being at work

There is growing attention in industry for the Vision Zero strategy, which in terms of work-related health and safety is often labelled as Zero Accident Vision or Zero Harm. The consequences of a genuine commitment to Vision Zero for addressing health, safety and well-being and their synergies are discussed. The Vision Zero for work-related health, safety and well-being is based on the assumption that all accidents, harm and work-related diseases are preventable. Vision Zero for health, safety and well-being is then the ambition and commitment to create and ensure safe and healthy work and to prevent all accidents, harm and work-related diseases in order to achieve excellence in health, safety and well-being. Implementation of Vision Zero is a process – rather than a target, and healthy organizations make use of a wide range of options to facilitate this process. There is sufficient evidence that fatigue, stress and work organization factors are important determinants of safety behaviour and safety performance. Even with a focus on preventing accidents these additional factors should also be addressed. A relevant challenge is the integration of the Vision Zero into broader business policy and practice. There is a continued need more empirical research in this area

Climate congruence: How espoused psychosocial safety climate and enacted managerial support affect emotional exhaustion and work engagement

The alignment between espoused (saying) and enacted (doing) psychosocial safety climate (PSC; a climate for worker psychological health) is important to consider in relation to health and work outcomes. This diary study explored the interplay (moderation and mediation processes) between espoused PSC (organizational level PSC) and daily enacted PSC (operationalized in the specific domain of managerial support) and their relationships to worker psychological health (i.e., daily emotional exhaustion) and motivation (i.e., daily work engagement). In all, 545 diary data points were collected within five consecutive days from 109 secondary school teachers across 23 schools in Selangor, Malaysia. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) in a three-level model, we found espoused PSC was positively related to daily enacted managerial support. For work engagement, espoused PSC was related to work engagement through enacted managerial support. For emotional exhaustion, enacted managerial support moderated the negative relationship between espoused PSC and daily emotional exhaustion. The expected (beneficial) effects of espoused PSC were evident when high levels aligned with high levels of enacted managerial support within schools. In this case, PSC acts as a safety signal — when high espoused PSC is coupled with repeated, unequivocal and stable support (enacted managerial support), employees may feel safe to take action in their environment to protect themselves from emotional exhaustion. These findings offer new insights regarding how managers can build PSC, by valuing employee psychological health, and translating PSC into action (integrity in saying and doing), to increase psychological health and work engagement

Organizational context matters: Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to team and individual motivational functioning

Beyond its function to protect worker psychological health, psychosocial safety climate (PSC) may be construed as a context factor that affects employee work motivation. This study explores the effect of PSC on various aspects of motivational functioning at work. We expected PSC to be positively related to wellbeing-related outcomes (work engagement and organizational commitment) and that these relations would be mediated through job resources and job crafting, and that they would be evident at both the individual and team level. Multilevel mediation analysis was used with data from 963 health professionals (doctors and nurses) from 66 work units in two Chinese hospitals. At the individual level, there were significant effects of, individual resources on work engagement and organizational commitment through individual crafting; PSC through individual resources on individual crafting, and PSC through individual crafting on work engagement and organizational commitment. At the team level, team resources were related to average team work engagement and organizational commitment through team crafting; PSC was related to team crafting through team resources, and the indirect effects of PSC through team crafting on average work engagement and organizational commitment were significant. Overall, the results support the proposition that the PSC context positively predicts team- and individual-level work motivation. We conclude that PSC theory can serve as an integrative contextual framework to explain the complex interplay of factors from different sources (i.e., the team and the individual) that contribute to work motivation

Job demands, resource deficiencies, and workplace harassment: evidence for micro-level effects

Most research examining work environment influences on workplace harassment has focused on organizational (e.g., social climate, culture) and generic job design factors, but this study focused on jobs in situ at the micro level. Specifically, the link between exposure to harassment and role-specific job demands and resources was explored, arguably the most proximal predictors of work-related behavior. Self-report survey data gathered from a cross-section of sworn police officers employed by an Australian police organization indicated that underresourcing for particular role-related tasks increased the likelihood that police Constables (N = 368) and Sergeants (N = 348) were exposed to harassment at work, irrespective of how demanding the task was perceived to be. An exception was in role domains that involve police-offender interactions, where the likelihood of experiencing harassment was associated with perceptions of higher demands rather than with inadequate resourcing. Our findings suggest that harassment may have its genesis in lack of resources (e.g., budget, time, people, vehicles, computers, office equipment, training, and operational equipment) at the micro level, highlighting the importance of examining demand and resource variables unique to different organizational settings. Practical implications include the need for general increases in concrete resources for frontline police officers as well as the need to further explore and counteract the demands associated with police-offender interactions. © 2012 American Psychological Association.Michelle R. Tuckey, Sergio Chrisopoulos, Maureen F. Dollar

Managing employee creativity and health in nursing homes : the moderating role of matching job resources and matching occupational rewards

Health care staff in nursing homes are facing increasingly high job demands at work, which can have a detrimental impact on their health and work motivation. The Demand-Induced Strain Compensation (DISC) Model offers a theoretical framework to study how matching job resources and matching occupational rewards can buffer the adverse effects of high job demands. The aim of this study is to test the moderating role of matching job resources and matching occupational rewards in the relation between corresponding job demands and employee creativity and adverse health (i.e., emotional exhaustion and physical health complaints). A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 184 health care workers from a nursing home in The Netherlands. Hierarchical regression analyses showed the proposed 3-way interaction effects of matching cognitive job resources and matching cognitive occupational rewards on the relation between cognitive job demands and employee creativity. In general, findings showed more moderating effects of job resources than of occupational rewards. In line with DISC theory, it is recommended that employers provide health care workers with those job resources that match the type of job demands concerned, conditioned by matching occupational rewards