Sustainable return to work for workers with mental health and musculoskeletal conditions

Common mental health and musculoskeletal disorders (CMDs and MSDs) are two of the most significant causes of non-participation in employment amongst working age adults. Background: This case study fills an important gap in the scientific literature on reintegration back to work after sickness absence due to CMDs and MSDs. It particularly examines the return to work (RTW) experiences of sick-listed employees to understand the facilitators and barriers of sustainable RTW. Methods: Using a realist evaluation approach within a qualitative inquiry, perceptions of employees were explored to provide in-depth understanding of what, how and under what circumstances sustainable RTW can be enabled for employees absent on a short- or long-term basis. Repeat face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 participants (15 women and 7 men, aged 30–50 years and sick-listed with MSDs and CMDs) who were recruited using purposive sampling. Data was thematically analysed. Results: A total of 2 main codes and 5 subcodes were developed and grouped into three theoretical abstractions. As a result of validating the context, mechanism, and outcome configurations with accounts of participants, all three initial theories explaining the most prominent mechanisms that either facilitates or impedes a sustainable RTW for people with CMDs and MSDs were justified. Conclusions: Our findings reveal the active role of line managers on the RTW outcomes of returning employees. However, line-manager’s competence and ability to effectively support and implement appropriate RTW strategies suited to employees’ hinges on working in alignment with key stakeholders and returning employees

Sustaining and Embedding:A Strategic and Dynamic Approach to Workplace Wellbeing

Much research on practices to improve workplace health and wellbeing focuses on specific ‘interventions’ or combinations of ‘interventions’. In this stream of research, an intervention is a specific and discrete organisational action mandated by management with a planned and specific target. However, organisations typically can and do adopt multiple workplace health and wellbeing practices in a strategic and evolving programme. In the current chapter, we outline a model of how organisations sustain, embed and change patterns of workplace health and wellbeing practices over the longer term in coherent and strategic programmes. We suggest that this adaption of programmes is especially relevant in the current turbulent era we find ourselves in, post-Covid

Out of sight and out of mind? A literature review of occupational safety and health leadership and management of distributed workers

Distributed workers – those who work autonomously and remotely from their organisation’s main locations for at least some of their work-time – are an important and growing proportion of the workforce that share common characteristics of temporal and spatial distance. Yet, many leadership styles and management practices assume face-to-face interaction, potentially rendering them less helpful in trying to ensure good occupational safety and health (OSH) outcomes for distributed workers. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine the leadership and management of OSH for distributed workers. Twenty-three papers were identified. Eleven papers identified established leadership styles, including leader-member exchange, (safety specific) transformational and considerate leadership. Twenty papers examined management. Findings from these 20 papers were interpreted as representing resources, deployed through management and utilised by managers to ensure OSH for distributed workers, including communication technologies, social support and a good safety climate. Despite limited research in this area, findings indicate the importance of both leadership and management in ensuring OSH for distributed workers. Findings suggest a fertile area for future enquiry

Implementing practices focused on workplace health and psychological wellbeing: A systematic review

Rationale: Workplace health and wellbeing practices (WHWPs) often fail to improve psychological health or wellbeing because of implementation failure. Thus, implementation should be evaluated to improve the effectiveness of WHWPs.  Objective: We conducted a systematic review to identify critical success factors for WHWP implementation and gaps in the evidence. Doing so provides a platform for future theoretical development.  Methods: We reviewed 74 separate studies that assessed the implementation of WHWPs and their effects on psychological health or psychological wellbeing. Most studies were from advanced industrial Western democracies (71). Intervention types included primary (e.g., work redesign, 37 studies; and health behavior change, 8 studies), secondary (e.g., mindfulness training, 11 studies), tertiary (e.g., focused on rehabilitation, 9 studies), and multifocal (e.g., including components of primary and secondary, 9 studies).  Results: Tangible changes preceded improvements in health and wellbeing, indicating intervention success cannot be attributed to non-specific factors. Some interventions had beneficial effects through mechanisms not planned as part of the intervention. Three factors were associated with successful WHWP implementation: continuation, learning, and effective governance.  Conclusions: The review indicates future research could focus on how organizations manage conflict between WHWP implementation and existing organizational processes, and the dynamic nature of organizational contexts that affect and are affected by WHWP implementation. This systematic review is registered [PROSPERO: the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews ID: CRD42019119656]

Authenticity in the Pursuit of Mutuality During Crisis

Employee wellbeing activities constitute a space for organisations to realise a shared agenda with employees, and therefore a means to pursue mutuality. The pursuit of mutuality draws on assumptions of reciprocity in social exchange theory (SET) but is dynamic and put under pressure by external shocks. The first UK COVID-19 lockdown provided the setting to explore how organisations addressed employee wellbeing concerns under conditions of crisis. Using qualitative data from five organisations, we identify authenticity-building, which is the constellation of past and present activities through which organisations channel efforts to be authentic in their concern for employees. Attributions of authenticity emerge as fundamental to authenticity-building, while authenticity-work (the organisation noticing, understanding and acting on shifts in interests) is enabled by dialogic processes. Authenticity-building shifts the quality of the exchange relationship to allow for mutual benefits and is therefore, a vital and dynamic component of mutuality. Our findings contribute to the mutuality literature by providing a theoretically-embedded extension of SET and show how organisations may become more (or less) authentic within the context of the employment relationship. We highlight the complexity of organisational endeavour for mutuality and show how mutuality need not be compromised during external shocks

Leading and Managing Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing of Distributed Workers

In this chapter, we explore the challenges presenting in ensuring safety, health and wellbeing of employees who are out of sight of their manager for some of their work time. We examine how to enhance safety, health and wellbeing of distributed workers by focusing on leadership provided by managers, the means put in place by the organization and the steps taken by the employees themselves. We provide recommendations for scholars, end-users and managers to help ensure the occupational safety, health and wellbeing for distributed workers

The Emergence of Inter-Organizational Working Through the Processes of Job Crafting: A Relational Perspective

Organizations are becoming are increasingly reliant on employee-initiative to deal with interdependence and unpredictability in work contexts (Grant & Parker, 2009; Griffin, Neal & Parker, 2007). One form of employee-initiative is job crafting - an informal, personalized and continuous process through which employees alter their own job and their work environment (Berg, Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2010; Oldham & Hackman, 2010; Grant & Parker, 2009; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Job crafting is a useful perspective to examine how employees initiate inter-organizational working because it relaxes the assumptions of top-down work design - by moving away from ostensive requirements of the job into the realm of highly motivated self-initiated informal elements. However, although scholars acknowledge that employees change the design of work by crafting the relational and task boundaries of their job, how this plays out has received little attention (Parker, 2014; Grant & Parker, 2009). As a result, we know little of how the processes of job crafting inform inter-organizational working

The protective role of work self-efficacy on wellbeing during COVID-19 pandemic: Results from a longitudinal year-long study

In this study, we focused on four work self-efficacy dimensions and their relationship with wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We adopted a person-centered approach and investigated whether individuals with different work self-efficacy profiles would have different wellbeing experiences at 6 and 12 months from the beginning of the pandemic. Data were collected in the UK across three waves (January 2020, October 2020 and January 2021) on a sample of 393 full-time employees. Results showed that being in two at-risk profiles significantly increases the likelihood of experiencing lower wellbeing during the pandemic. In particular, the probability of belonging to the Profile 3 “low self-efficacy but high empathic” significantly increased the risk of lower wellbeing in the shorter and longer timeframe. In addition, the probability of belonging to the Profile 2 “high assertive and task self-efficacy but low emotional” also significantly increased the risk of lower wellbeing in the longer timeframe

Out of sight, out of mind? Research into the occupational safety and health of distributed workers

Less well-defined workforce and recent changes to more flexible working patterns are introducing challenges to today's workplaces. One of these transformations is exemplified by the way many workers spend at least some of their work time working away from a main office or location. Leading the occupational safety and health of these distributed workers is challenging, due to less opportunities for face-to-face contact and potential issues of access to safety, health and wellbeing resources. The goal of this research is to understand the roles of both OSH practitioners and line managers play, to ensure the safety and health of distributed workers. The research has generated a toolkit for OSH practitioners to enhance development of effective line management behaviours. It toolkit provides practical awareness in the form of top tips, case studies and much more. As part of the toolkit you’ll also find materials to help you identify which type of leader you are and those abilities required to manage distributed workers