What employees see as the motivations of HR management affects their wellbeing

Firms need to understand how employees see the intent of their human resources actions, writes Amanda Shant

HRM in healthcare: The role of work engagement

Purpose: Due to increasing cost pressures, and the necessity to ensure high quality patient care while maintaining a safe environment for patients and staff, interest in the capacity for HRM practices to make a difference has piqued the attention of healthcare professionals. The purpose of this study is to present and test a model whereby engagement mediates the relationship between four HRM practices and quality of care and safety in two different occupational groups in healthcare, namely, nurses and administrative support workers. Design/methodology/approach: Structural equation modelling was used to analyze questionnaire data collected by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom as part of their 2011 Staff Survey (n=69,018). We tested the hypotheses for nurses and administrative support workers separately. Findings: Training, participation in decision-making, opportunities for development, and communication were positively related to quality of care and safety via work engagement. The strength of the relationships was conditional on whether an employee was a nurse or administrative support worker. Originality/value: This is the first paper to examine the mediating role of engagement on the relationship between four relevant HRM practices in the healthcare context, and outcomes important to healthcare practitioners. We also add value to the HRM literature by being among the first to use the Job Demands Resources Model to explain the impact of HRM practices on performance outcomes. Moreover, we provide insight into how HRM practices affect outcomes in the world’s largest publicly funded healthcare service

Testing additive versus interactive effects of person-organisation fit and organizational trust on engagement and performance

Purpose: To date, most research has assumed an additive relationship between work-related predictors and engagement. The present study contributes to the refinement of engagement theory by exploring the extent to which two predictors – person-organization fit and organizational trust – interact to influence employees’ engagement, which in turn, positively influences their task performance. Design: A test of moderated mediation was conducted using survey data collected from 335 employees and matched performance records from the Human Resource department in a support services organization in the United Kingdom. Findings: Engagement was best predicted by the interactive model, rather than the additive model, as employees who felt a close fit with their organization and who trusted their organization were most engaged with their work. Further, engagement mediated the relationship between the interaction and task performance. Originality: This paper contributes to a refinement of engagement theory by presenting and testing a model that explains the synergistic effect of work-related factors on engagement

Reducing perceptions of overqualification and its impact on job satisfaction: The dual roles of interpersonal relationships at work

A sizeable portion of the working population perceives that they are overqualified for their jobs. This is problematic given that research consistently shows that such beliefs translate into lower levels of job satisfaction. Hence it behoves human resource management scholars to identify factors that influence perceptions of overqualification, and also moderators that may reduce the negative effect of perceived overqualification on job satisfaction. In this study, we present a moderated path model that posits that the quality of the relationships that employees hold with their leader and with their team are not only antecedents of perceived overqualification, but they also are hypothesised to weaken the negative relationship between perceived overqualification and job satisfaction. Survey data that was gathered from two organisations in the Netherlands (n=183) supported the model. Implications for theory and practice in human resource management are discussed

A long and winding road: The hard graft of scaling social change in complex systems

Advice abounds on how to implement large-scale social change, much of which emphasizes a simplistic linear process, led by a heroic central actor. Rigorous case studies have shown that social change is far more complex: it is a reciprocal, iterative, and adaptive process, with multiple stakeholders who work backstage in networked, committed teams. Despite this, the myth of the social entrepreneur as a transformative change maker capable of scaling innovations to a societal level, still holds sway over social innovation support programmes and business school curricula. Using illustrative examples of successful efforts of large-scale social change across three of the most pressing international social challenges: access to medicines, the integration of migrant populations, and reorganizing social care models, we illustrate how conceptualizing social change as driven by iconic individuals is often counter-productive in terms of achieving impact at a societal level. Based on these analyses, we present five insights which illustrate how the mythology of social entrepreneurship and simplistic scaling concepts are often contrary to the practices employed within successful efforts to bring about social impact. Three counteracting principles for those leading, evaluating and funding innovative change efforts within complex systems are discussed and contrasted with the pervasive mythology of social entrepreneurship and linear scaling processes

Purposeful leadership for the future police service

Purpose – This paper examines the prevalence of purposeful and ethical leadership in a UK county police force – referred to by the pseudonym PoliceOrg. It also evaluates the extent to which officers feel their values fit with those of the organisation, and the outcomes achieved by purposeful and ethical leaders. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey, interviews and focus groups were conducted at PoliceOrg. Findings are compared with those from a public sector case study and with a representative sample of the UK working population. Findings – Purposeful leaders at PoliceOrg have a positive impact on important outcomes for their direct reports, and provide a sense of direction and guidance to those who do not feel a strong fit between their values and those of their organisation. Research limitations/implication – The study focuses on a new construct (purposeful leadership) that has not previously been explored in the academic literature. Consequently, our findings cannot be directly compared with those of other studies. The survey focused on the views of police sergeants and constables, and only one police force participated as a case study; hence, the generalisability of the findings is limited. Practical implication – Police organisations should nurture and sustain workplace environments where leaders can translate their personal moral code and ethical values into their role behaviours to address the policing challenges of the future. Originality/value – This study elucidates the concept of purposeful leadership in the context of a police force

How Volunteerism Enhances Workplace Skills

The idea of fostering learning through service is surprisingly controversial. Employers should plan carefull

The mismanaged soul: existential labor and the erosion of meaningful work

Meaningful work has been defined as work that is personally enriching and that makes a positive contribution. There is increasing interest in how organizations can harness the meaningfulness of work to enhance productivity and performance. We explain how organizations seek to manage the meaningfulness employees experience through strategies focused on job design, leadership, HRM and culture. Employees can respond positively to employers' strategies aimed at raising their level of experienced meaningfulness when they are felt to be authentic. However, when meaningfulness is lacking, or employees perceive that the employer is seeking to manipulate their meaningfulness for performative intent, then the response of employees can be to engage in “existential labor” strategies with the potential for harmful consequences for individuals and organizations. We develop a Model of Existential Labor, drawing out a set of propositions for future research endeavors, and outline the implications for HRM practitioners

Disability status, individual variable pay, and pay satisfaction: does relational and institutional trust make a difference?

Although prior research suggests that disabled employees have different needs in the context of some human resource management (HRM) practices, we know little about their reactions to reward systems. We address this gap in the literature by testing a model using the 2011 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey (disabled employees n=1,251; nondisabled employees n=9,959; workplaces n=1806) and find that disabled employees report lower levels of pay satisfaction than nondisabled employees, and when compensated based on individual performance, the difference in pay satisfaction is larger. We suggest that relational (derived from trust in management) and institutional (derived from firm-wide policies and HRM practices, both intended to provide equitable treatment to disabled employees) forms of trust play important roles. The results of multilevel analyses show that when trust in management is high, the difference in pay satisfaction under variable pay is reduced. We find just the opposite for employees who work in organizations with a formal disability policy but without supportive HRM practices; the gap in pay satisfaction is exacerbated. However, the combination of the presence of a firm-wide policy and HRM practices reduced the difference in pay satisfaction. Implications of the findings for theory, future research, and management practice are discussed

Information, beliefs, and motivation: The antecedents to human resource attributions

Despite significant interest in the attributions employees make about their organization's human resource (HR) practices, there is little understanding of the antecedents of HR attributions. Drawing on attribution theory, we suggest that HR attributions are influenced by information (perceptions of distributive and procedural fairness), beliefs (organizational cynicism), and motivation (perceived relevance). We test a model through a two‐wave survey of 347 academic faculty in the United Kingdom, examining their attributions of the purpose of their institution's workload management framework. After two preliminary studies (an interview study and a cross‐sectional survey) to establish contextually relevant attributions, we find that fairness and cynicism are important for the formation of internal attributions of commitment but less so for cost‐saving or exploitation attributions. Fairness and cynicism also interact such that distributive fairness buffers the negative attributional effect of cynicism, and individuals are more likely to attribute fair procedures to external forces if they are cynical about their organization. This study furthers the application of attribution theory to the organizational domain while making significant contributions to our understanding of the HR‐performance process