Handbook on Management and Employment Practices 3030290115, 9783030290115

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Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences Series Editors: Kevin Daniels · Johannes Siegrist

Paula Brough · Elliroma Gardiner Kevin Daniels Editors

Handbook on Management and Employment Practices

Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences Series Editors Kevin Daniels, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Johannes Siegrist, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, HeinrichHeine-Universität Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

The Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences offers a unique opportunity to get acquainted with robust updated evidence on specific topics of key interest in occupational health research and practice. The series provides a venue for the large amount of significant recent scientific advances in research on occupational health due to the overriding importance of work and employment in developed and rapidly developing countries. The series is interdisciplinary, encompassing insights from: occupational medicine, epidemiology, ergonomics, economics, occupational health psychology, health and medical sociology, amongst others. Volumes in the series will cover topics such as socioeconomic determinants of occupational health; disability, work and health; management, leadership and occupational health; and health implications of new technologies at work and of new employment-related global threats. With a broad scope of chapters dealing with in-depth aspects of the volume’s themes, this handbook series complements more traditional publication formats in the field (e.g. textbooks; proceedings), using a new system of online updating and providing explanatory figures and tables. Written by an international panel of eminent experts, the volumes will be useful to academics, policy researchers, advanced students and high-level practitioners (e.g. consultants, government policy advisors). More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15678

Paula Brough • Elliroma Gardiner • Kevin Daniels Editors

Handbook on Management and Employment Practices With 26 Figures and 29 Tables

Editors Paula Brough Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing Griffith University Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Elliroma Gardiner School of Management QUT Business School Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Kevin Daniels Norwich Business School University of East Anglia Norwich, UK

ISSN 2730-7409 ISSN 2730-7417 (electronic) ISBN 978-3-030-29009-2 ISBN 978-3-030-29010-8 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-030-29011-5 (print and electronic bundle) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Series Preface

The Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences offers a unique opportunity to get acquainted with robust updated evidence on specific topics of key interest in occupational health research and practice. The series provides a venue for the large amount of significant recent scientific advances in research on occupational health due to the overriding importance of work and employment in developed and rapidly developing countries. The series is interdisciplinary, encompassing insights from: occupational medicine, epidemiology, ergonomics, economics, occupational health psychology, health and medical sociology, amongst others. Volumes in the series will cover topics such as socioeconomic determinants of occupational health; disability, work, and health; management, leadership, and occupational health; and health implications of new technologies at work and of new employment-related global threats. With a broad scope of chapters dealing with in-depth aspects of the volume’s themes, this handbook series complements more traditional publication formats in the field (e.g., textbooks; proceedings), using a new system of online updating and providing explanatory figures and tables. Written by an international panel of eminent experts, the volumes will be useful to academics, policy researchers, advanced students, and high-level practitioners (e.g., consultants, government policy advisors).

v

Volume Preface

This is the third volume in the Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences. The series presents the latest scientific evidence on relationships between occupational conditions and health, which are particularly important in our current times of global changes to employment and work. This volume is focused on the contribution of management and employment practices to the health and well-being of workers, emphasizing how these work systems directly impact workers’ health. This book provides readers with a comprehensive oversight of the latest research and thinking on these issues, with content provided by leading global researchers in their respective fields. The topics covered represent an interdisciplinary perspective, integrating psychology, social sciences, biomedical sciences, economics, employment relations, and management. The book is divided into 6 parts containing 41 chapters covering key aspects of employment practices which directly impact employee health and well-being: leadership, change management, employee well-being, managing disabilities, the worklife interface, and emerging challenges. The first introductory chapter provides an overview of the 6 parts and 40 chapters within this volume. The first part of this book includes six chapters which successfully summarize and distill current discussions of effective and productive management and leadership practices. This part summarizes what successful workplace leadership and followship is and how it relates to worker competencies and their health and safety, the concept of servant leadership, and the key managerial accommodations which impact optimal work participation and performance of workers with disabilities. The second part presents evidence of how workplace change management directly impacts workers’ well-being. The eight chapters in this part discuss the impact, for example, of recessions, downsizing, lean transformations, and redundancies, with interesting insights into the role of corporate boards, psychological contracts, and justice. The third part of this volume discusses how work systems of human resource management and performance management, and organizational issues such as work-based learning, employee voice, ethical cultures, whistleblowing, and worker diversity each influence worker’s well-being, retention, and performance. The six chapters in the fourth part specifically focus on the management and rehabilitation of workers with chronic health conditions, including aging, muscular-skeletal issues, mental health concerns, and burnout. The fifth part focuses on the work-life interface and includes considerations vii

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Volume Preface

about the impact of COVID, flexible work, and work design. The final part examines some emerging challenges for organizations in their future management of people. This includes chapters discussing the gig economy, trade unions, retention of crosscultural workers, and workplace mistreatments. Each chapter provides major insights and is a key resource of reference on its topic. As a whole, this handbook equips researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to anticipate and respond to these challenges associated with key management and employment practices and the impact they have upon the health and well-being of our workers. Importantly, we are very grateful to the authors who, as outstanding scientists, devoted their valued expertise by contributing chapters to this book. Each author provides invaluable insights and promising solutions to current issues impacting the health of our workers. We also thank Divya Nithyanandam and the team at Springer Nature for their valuable support throughout the production of this volume. We hope you, the reader, also find the contents of this volume thought provoking and that it encourages you to provide proactive responses to better support the health and well-being of our workers. Brisbane, Australia Norwich, UK Brisbane, Australia February 2022

Paula Brough Kevin Daniels Elliroma Gardiner Editors

Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paula Brough, Kevin Daniels, and Elliroma Gardiner

Part I

1

Leadership, Management Competencies, and Wellbeing . . .

13

2

Successful Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amy J. Hawkes and Jason Spedding

15

3

Servant Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathleen Bentein and Alexandra Panaccio

43

4

Leadership and Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lixin Jiang and Xiaohong Xu

67

5

Management Competencies for Health and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . Jo Yarker, Emma Donaldson-Feilder, and Rachel Lewis

91

6

Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vicki Webster

117

7

Line Managers and Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ellie Fossey and Justin Newton Scanlan

133

Part II

Management of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

157

8

Incremental and Disruptive Change and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . Christine Ipsen and Kasper Edwards

159

9

Reorganizing and Downsizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Töres Theorell

175

10

Managing OSH Through Recession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hans H. K. Sønderstrup-Andersen

189

11

Lean Management and Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Steven Kilroy and Patrick C. Flood

209 ix

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Contents

12

Corporate Boards and Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz and Caroline Lornudd

229

13

Organizational Change and Employee Health and Well-Being . . . Alannah E. Rafferty

247

14

Psychological Contracts and Employee Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacqueline A-M Coyle-Shapiro, Sandra Costa, and Chiachi Chang

269

15

Fairness at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Constanze Eib, Constanze Leineweber, and Claudia Bernhard-Oettel

285

Part III

Human Resource Management Practices and Wellbeing . . .

311

16

Work-Based Learning and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Watson and Olga Tregaskis

313

17

Management of Equity and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Katherine J. C. Sang, Jennifer Remnant, Olugbenga Abraham Babajide, and James Richards

331

18

Employee Voice as a Route to Wellbeing Sarah Brooks and Adrian Wilkinson

....................

351

19

HRM Practices, Employee Well-Being, and Organizational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chidiebere Ogbonnaya and Samuel Aryee

369

Developmental HR Practices as Tools to Support Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adelle J. Bish

393

20

21

Ethical Culture and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mari Huhtala

417

22

The Effective Management of Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paula Brough, Sandra A. Lawrence, Eva Tsahuridu, and A. J. Brown

437

23

Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sari Mansour

459

24

Challenges and Opportunities for LGBTQI+ Inclusion at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jordana Moser, Jonathan E. Booth, and T. Alexandra Beauregard

25

Performance Management and Wellbeing at the Workplace . . . . . Monica Franco-Santos, Dan Stull, and Mike Bourne

481 503

Contents

xi

Part IV Employment Practices for Occupational Health and Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

The Aging Workforce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elliroma Gardiner and Mego Kuan-Lun Chen

27

Occupational Health Services and Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deborah Roy

525 527

547

28

Common Mental Health Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Abasiama Etuknwa and Mariya Mathai

573

29

Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael P. Leiter

597

30

Workplace Fatigue: The Impact of the Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Darren Wishart and Daniell Barrett

615

31

Disruption in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Elizabeth Kendall and Vanette McLennan

639

Part V

Work-Life Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

Psychological Crossover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paula Brough, Mina Westman, Shoshi Chen, and Xi Wen (Carys) Chan

33

Flexible Work Initiatives, Employee Workplace Well-Being, and Organizational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Melanie De Ruiter and Pascale Peters

34

Extending Work-Life Balance Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Xi Wen (Carys) Chan and Shirley Tay

35

Shifting the Mental Health Conversation: Present and Future Applications of the “Thrive at Work” Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . Sharon K. Parker, Karina Jorritsma, and Mark A. Griffin

36

Workplace Well-Being Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emike Nasamu, Sara Connolly, Mark Bryan, and Andrew Bryce

Part VI

Trends and Emerging Challenges for Management

.....

663 665

687 711

727 749

767

37

The Growing “Gig Economy” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Penny Williams, Paula McDonald, and Robyn Mayes

769

38

Workplace Mistreatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tara C. Reich and Rashpal K. Dhensa-Kahlon

787

xii

39

40

Contents

Managing Health, Safety, and Well-Being at Work Within Changing Legal and Policy Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stavroula Leka and Aditya Jain

809

Psychological Adjustment and Post-arrival Cross-cultural Training for Better Expatriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheetal Gai, Paula Brough, and Elliroma Gardiner

827

The Decline of Trade Unions and Worker Representation . . . . . . . Elsa Underhill

855

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

873

41

About the Series Editors

Kevin Daniels is a professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. He has a Ph.D. in applied psychology (1992) and is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of Arts. His research covers approaches to health, safety, and wellbeing, originally with particular focus on the psychology of job design and more latterly an interest in multidisciplinary approaches to well-being. He has authored or coauthored over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, 30 book chapters, and 20 books or major reports. From 2015 to 2021, he was lead investigator for an evidence program on work and well-being, one of the foundational research programs of the UK’s What Works Centre for Wellbeing. From 2015 to 2019, he served as editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology and also in associate editor positions at the British Journal of Management, Human Relations, and the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. Johannes Siegrist is currently Senior Professor of work stress research at the Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in Germany. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Freiburg i. Br. in 1969, and he held professorships for medical sociology at the Universities of Marburg and Duesseldorf from 1973 to 2012. He was visiting professor at the Johns Hopkins University (USA) (1981) and at Utrecht University (NE) (1994). With his long-standing research on health-adverse psychosocial work environments and social inequalities in health, he has published more than 500 papers and book chapters, and has written or xiii

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About the Series Editors

edited several international books. In addition to his collaboration in distinct European research networks, he served as a consultant to the World Health Organization, and he chaired several national and international academic societies. Among other distinctions, he is a member of Academia Europaea (London) and a corresponding member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.

About the Editors

Paula Brough is a professor of Organizational Psychology and director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Her primary research and teaching areas are occupational stress and coping, employee mental health and well-being, work engagement, work-life balance, workplace conflict (bullying, harassment, toxic leadership), and the psychosocial work environment. She assesses how work environments can be improved via job redesign, supportive leadership practices, and enhanced equity to improve employee health, work commitment, and productivity. She has authored over 60 industry reports, over 150 journal articles and book chapters, and has produced 9 scholarly books based on her research. Paula is an associate editor of Work & Stress and is a board member of the Journal of Organizational Behaviour, the International Journal of Stress Management, and the BPS Work-Life Balance Bulletin. Paula is a fellow of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology and the Asia Pacific Academy for Psychosocial Factors at Work. Elliroma Gardiner is a senior lecturer in the School of Management, QUT, Australia, and an affiliated professor with IÉSEG School of Management, France. Prior to joining QUT, Elli was a fellow in the Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, and a lecturer in the School of Psychology, Griffith University. She is an endorsed organizational psychologist, with 15 years of industry experience working with public and private organizations to enhance employee engagement and productivity. She has experience providing advice to firms on key xv

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About the Editors

strategic HR functions such as recruitment and selection (including the use of psychometric assessments), learning and development, and performance management. Her broad research interests are in investigating the interplay between individual differences and contextual features in influencing employee, team, and organizational outcomes. She has published her research findings in high-quality academic journals such as the Psychological Bulletin, the Human Resource Management Journal, and the Journal of Personality. Kevin Daniels is a professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. He has a Ph.D. in applied psychology (1992) and is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Royal Society of Arts. His research covers approaches to health, safety, and well-being, originally with particular focus on the psychology of job design and more latterly an interest in multidisciplinary approaches to well-being. He has authored or coauthored over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles, 30 book chapters, and 20 books or major reports. From 2015 to 2021, he was lead investigator for an evidence program on work and well-being, one of the foundational research programs of the UK’s What Works Centre for Wellbeing. From 2015 to 2019, he served as editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology and also in associate editor positions at the British Journal of Management, Human Relations, and the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

Contributors

Samuel Aryee Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Olugbenga Abraham Babajide The Centre for Research on Employment, Work and the Professions, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Daniell Barrett Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia T. Alexandra Beauregard Department of Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK Kathleen Bentein School of Business Administration (ESG), University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), Montreal, QC, Canada Claudia Bernhard-Oettel Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Adelle J. Bish Willie Deese College of Business and Economics, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA Jonathan E. Booth Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK Mike Bourne Cranfield School of Management, Bedford, UK Sarah Brooks Sheffield University Management School, Sheffield, UK Paula Brough Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia A. J. Brown Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Mark Bryan Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Andrew Bryce Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Xi Wen (Carys) Chan Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW), Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia xvii

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Contributors

School of Applied Psychology, Griffith Health, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, QLD, Australia Chiachi Chang International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), Suzhou, China Mego Kuan-Lun Chen School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Shoshi Chen Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Sara Connolly Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Sandra Costa ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal Jacqueline A-M Coyle-Shapiro Department of Management, London School of Economics, London, UK Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA Kevin Daniels Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Rashpal K. Dhensa-Kahlon Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK Emma Donaldson-Feilder Affinity Health at Work and Affinity Coaching and Supervision, London, UK Kasper Edwards DTU Management, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark Constanze Eib Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Division of Epidemiology Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Abasiama Etuknwa Allied Professions, Sport and Exercise, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK Patrick C. Flood DCU Business School, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland Ellie Fossey Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Monash University – Peninsula Campus, Frankston, VIC, Australia Living with Disability Research Centre, School of Allied Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Monica Franco-Santos Cranfield School of Management, Bedford, UK Sheetal Gai Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing and School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Elliroma Gardiner School of Management, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Contributors

xix

Mark A. Griffin Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia Amy J. Hawkes School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Mari Huhtala Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland Christine Ipsen DTU Management, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark Aditya Jain Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Lixin Jiang School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Karina Jorritsma Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia Elizabeth Kendall The Hopkins Centre Menzies Health Institute Qld, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Steven Kilroy Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Sandra A. Lawrence Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Constanze Leineweber Stress Stockholm, Sweden

Research

Institute,

Stockholm

University,

Michael P. Leiter Deakin University, Geelong, Australia Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada Stavroula Leka Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland Rachel Lewis Affinity Health at Work and Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK Caroline Lornudd Procome, Medical Management Centre, LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Sari Mansour School of Business Administration, University TÉLUQ, Montreal, QC, Canada Mariya Mathai Norwich Business School, Norwich Research Park, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Robyn Mayes School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

xx

Contributors

Paula McDonald School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Vanette McLennan The Hopkins Centre Menzies Health Institute Qld, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Jordana Moser Ipsos MORI, London, UK Emike Nasamu Social and Political Science University, University of Chester, Chester, UK Chidiebere Ogbonnaya University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK Alexandra Panaccio John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada Sharon K. Parker Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia Pascale Peters Center for Strategy, Organization and Leadership, Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands Alannah E. Rafferty Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Tara C. Reich Kings Business School, Kings College London, London, UK Jennifer Remnant Chancellor’s Fellow, Scottish Centre for Employment Research, Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, Scotland, UK James Richards The Centre for Research on Employment, Work and the Professions, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Deborah Roy School of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK Melanie De Ruiter Center for Strategy, Organization and Leadership, Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands Katherine J. C. Sang The Centre for Research on Employment, Work and the Professions, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Justin Newton Scanlan Discipline of Occupational Therapy, Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia Hans H. K. Sønderstrup-Andersen Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark Jason Spedding School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

Contributors

xxi

Dan Stull Cranfield School of Management, Bedford, UK Shirley Tay School of Management, College of Business and Law, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Töres Theorell Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Olga Tregaskis Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Eva Tsahuridu Melbourne, VIC, Australia Elsa Underhill Department of Management, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden Procome, Medical Management Centre, LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden David Watson Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK Vicki Webster Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Mina Westman Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Adrian Wilkinson Sheffield University Management School, Sheffield, UK Business School, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia Penny Williams School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia Darren Wishart Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia Xiaohong Xu University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USA Jo Yarker Affinity Health at Work and Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

1

Introduction Paula Brough, Kevin Daniels, and Elliroma Gardiner

Contents Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Management and Employment Practices During Changing Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Handbook of Management and Employment Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Directions for Management and Employment Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 3 4 8 9

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview to the six parts and 40 other chapters of this book and emphasizes the value of this book for managers; policy makers focused on industrial strategy, labor markets, and employment relations; and management researchers. This book provides a coherent discussion of why management and good employment practices are more relevant than ever, with a particular focus on recent management developments in the six key areas of leadership, change management, employee well-being, managing disabilities, work-life interfaces, and emerging challenges.

P. Brough (*) Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: p.brough@griffith.edu.au K. Daniels Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK e-mail: [email protected] E. Gardiner School of Management, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_1

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Keywords

Management · Leadership · Well-being · Work-life interfaces · Disabilities at work · Management challenges · Change management

Overview As is evidenced by the 40 other chapters in this book, management and employment practices are directly connected to workers’ health and so cannot be considered a separate topic or area of practice independent on the management of occupational health. There are two major reasons why management and employment practices are important for employee health. First, the workplace can be a cause of ill health, through exposure to hazards. Although this is typically thought to be relevant to exposure to psychosocial hazards and risks to mental health (e.g., Cox and Cox 1993), management decisions to use certain technologies and processes, perhaps for reasons of cost, can influence workers’ exposure to physical hazards (e.g., noxious chemicals). Second, irrespective of the workplace as a potential cause of ill health, workers may have health problems not caused by work but with symptoms that are work-relevant (Kendall et al. 2015). That is to say, symptoms that have a bearing on behavior at work, including those psychological symptoms relevant to performance such as absenteeism and presenteeism. Absence management and return-to-work processes are clear examples of where occupational health professional and human resources professionals do/should work closely together in order to maximize employee health and their work performance. Moreover, given the critical role of line managers (Etuknwa et al. 2019), the relevance of management practices for employee health clearly goes beyond those with only functional expertise in human resources. A further reason for the relevance of management and employment practices to occupational health pertains to links between worker health and productivity. A worker on long-term sickness absence clearly cannot be productive. However, even if the worker can be replaced temporarily with, for example, agency staff, that worker’s tacit knowledge gained through on-the-job experience cannot easily be replicated by someone else – especially in highly skilled/knowledge-intensive work. The prospective of “mutual gains” adds further weight to the argument. “Mutual gains” occur when workers benefit from management practices that promote health and well-being and thus reciprocate the organization’s investment in workers with enhanced commitment and productivity (see, e.g., Ogbonnaya et al. 2017). Some have identified the fragility of mutual gains (Dobbins and Dundon 2017), indicating management needs to be vigilant and active in their pursuit (Butler et al. 2011). For worker health and well-being, industry standards (ISO 2018), exemplary organizational practice (Johnson et al. 2018), and the evidence base (LaMontagne et al. 2014) all indicate that active management addresses issues of prevention and

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rehabilitation. The standard differentiation is employment practices focused on prevention of ill health (Burgess et al. 2020; Richardson and Rothstein 2008) and the promotion of well-being through good management that minimizes exposure to risk (primary prevention focused on work); practices focused on promoting healthy lifestyles among workers (primary prevention focused on health behaviors, e.g., workplace health promotion focused on exercise and nutrition); providing training and development for workers to self-regulate their own health and well-being if exposed to risk (secondary prevention, e.g., mindfulness training); and practices focused on effective rehabilitation and absence management (tertiary interventions, e.g., return to work programs, access to physiotherapy, access to talking therapies for mental health programs). The management of specific practices and integrated programs covering a wide range of practices also involves many management challenges (see Daniels et al. 2021, for a review).

Management and Employment Practices During Changing Contexts The work context for many workers has rapidly changed during the current COVID19 pandemic. One outcome of the societal lockdowns has been a seismic forced shift in how and where many workers conduct their work. Intertwining both work and non-work responsibilities (work-life balance) has, however, also been a distinct challenge for many workers (Brough et al. 2021; Field and Chan 2018). For example, many employees have juggled working full time while also homeschooling children during school closures. This has profound implications for employees’ work-life balance, well-being, and work productivity. Reports also indicate an increased spread of working hours throughout the day, resulting in up to 48% more working time in comparison with standard workdays (DeFilippis et al. 2020). A pertinent point of concern here is the long-term sustainability and employer monitoring of this increased work time and its impact on workers’ well-being, which has not yet been systematically addressed. The permanence of these changed work situations post-COVID-19 remains debatable. However, due to the continual threat of subsequent outbreaks of COVID-19, predictions are for substantial disruptions to working practice across most industry sectors (Middleton et al. 2020). This work context change will be accompanied by a clear division of workers able/not able to work from home, based primarily on their type of work (Bonacini et al. 2021; Carroll and Conboy 2020), raising questions about the equity of those workers in less-privileged, low-paid, and precarious work having differential exposure to risks. The fragility of employment and the fragility of mutual gains for employers and employees are especially salient during crises (Cook et al. 2016). There is, therefore, a clear need to consider and to update, our best practices for managing workers. It is clearly apparent that further thought is required to identify how organizations can best protect and sustain the long-term performance and well-being of their workers.

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Handbook of Management and Employment Practices This Handbook of Management and Employment Practices is therefore extremely timely. The chapters, written by experienced researchers from around the world, describe 40 distinct aspects of how we can best manage our workplaces and our workers. The handbook is divided into six parts, each discussing a pertinent current management issue. The first part focuses on leadership. While the leadership literature is voluminous, the six chapters here successfully “Leadership, Management Competencies, and Wellbeing,” summarize and distil current discussions of effective and productive management and leadership practices. ▶ Chapter 2, “Successful Leadership,” provides a pertinent summary of the key leadership approaches and focus on identifying the somewhat elusive characteristics of successful leadership (Hawkes and Spedding). ▶ Chapter 3, “Servant Leadership,” discusses the unique issue of servant leadership and its direct relationship with employees’ well-being (Bentein and Panaccio). ▶ Chapter 4, “Leadership and Safety,” discusses the strong associations between leadership and safety-related outcomes, including a pertinent review of the “dark side” of safety leadership styles and its impact on workplace safety (Jiang and Xu). ▶ Chapter 5, “Management Competencies for Health and Wellbeing,” provides a valuable review of how management competencies impact employee health and well-being and describes validated competency frameworks to guide managers’ behaviors (Yarker, Donaldson-Feilder, and Lewis). Yarker et al. make the pertinent argument that managing health and well-being is not a separate activity on top of managing performance but rather is an integral part of management practices. ▶ Chapter 6, “Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy,” discusses the specific issue of followership within the leadership process, including its evolvement from being initially considered as merely a passive recipient of leadership to how followership is actively involved in shaping shared leadership practices (Webster). This chapter also provides a pertinent commentary of common followership reactions to both constructive and destructive leadership. The final chapter (▶ Chap. 7, “Line Managers and Workplace Accommodations,”) in this leadership part focuses on managers and workplace accommodations. Fossey and Scanlan review the evidence and describe a guide for managers demonstrating how key workplace accommodations can support optimal work participation and performance of workers with disabilities. The second part of this handbook contains eight chapters focusing on the management of change. Change is often considered harmful to well-being, and a major theme through this part is how change in different circumstances can be best managed to least mitigate negative effects of change on health and well-being. However, some changes are intended to benefit workers’ health and well-being. The first chapter in this part (▶ Chap. 8, “Incremental and Disruptive Change and Wellbeing,” Ipsen and Edwards) investigates both sides of change – change that may harm well-being and change intended to benefit well-being – and considers the distinction between more and less disruptive forms of change. In ▶ Chap. 9, “Reorganizing and Downsizing, Theorell reviews evidence on aspects of change that are most harmful to employee health and well-being – downsizing – and the

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impacts of those made redundant, the “survivors” of reorganizing and downsizing, and some of the ways in which the worst aspects of these change processes can be avoided. Relatedly, in ▶ Chap. 10, “Managing OSH Through Recession,” Sønderstrup-Andersen considers the effects of recessions on health and the particular public health concerns that surface. In ▶ Chap. 11, “Lean Management and Employee Well-Being” Kilroy and Flood consider a specific but prevalent form of change, which is the implementation of lean management practices, and delineate factors associated with lean transformation that can both improve well-being (e.g., autonomy/participation) and harm well-being (e.g., monitoring). Von Thiele Schwarz and Lornudd (▶ Chap. 12, “Corporate Boards and Employee Well-Being”) focus on the role corporate boards can play in enhancing employee well-being through effective governance of organizations. They define key steps to encourage boards to think more strategically about employee health and well-being. The final three chapters in this part focus on psychological factors that impact how workers respond to changes. In ▶ Chap. 13, “Organizational Change and Employee Health and Well-Being,” Rafferty makes the distinction between objective exposure to change and the subjective experience of changes and reviews research in both areas of the impact of change on health. Coyle-Shapiro, Costa, and Chang (▶ Chap. 14, “Psychological Contracts and Employee Health”) examine how psychological contract breaches can influence employee health, presenting a model of how contract breach can affect health through acute stress reactions. Finally, in ▶ Chap. 15, “Fairness at Work,” Eib, Leineweber, and Bernhard-Oettell focus on fairness and justice perceptions, which can be important to address when making organizational changes that may adversely affect employees. The third part of this handbook focuses specifically on employee well-being and particularly how human resource management (HRM) is able to support employee well-being through the application of policies concerned with learning, equity, diversity and inclusion, performance, and justice and safety. The first chapter in this part (▶ Chap. 16, “Work-Based Learning and Wellbeing”), by Watson and Tregaskis, examines the extent to which employee well-being is influenced by work-based learning processes and its associated outcomes. In ▶ Chap. 17, “Management of Equity and Diversity,” focusing on disability, Sang, Remnant, Babajide, and Richards present historical and contemporary explanations of disability at work and provide management recommendations to promote inclusion. In ▶ Chap. 18, “Employee Voice as a Route to Wellbeing,” Brooks and Wilkinson discuss the link between employee voice and well-being to understand how speaking out can enhance both individual and collective well-being in the workplace. The focus of ▶ Chap. 19, “HRM Practices, Employee Well-Being, and Organizational Performance,” written by Ogbonnaya and Aryee, is on evaluating the accumulating evidence on what constitutes HRM systems, as well as how, why, and when they influence employee well-being and organizational performance. Bish contributes ▶ Chap. 20, “Developmental HR Practices as Tools to Support Employee Well-Being,” providing a detailed guide to the research investigating the use of developmental HR practices as tools to support and enhance employee wellbeing. In ▶ Chap. 21, “Ethical Culture and Management,” Huhtala discusses what constitutes and drives an ethical culture and provides specific management

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strategies to maintain and minimize potential threats to ethical culture. ▶ Chapter 22, “The Effective Management of Whistleblowing,” by Brough, Lawrence, Tsahuridu, and Brown, integrates multidisciplinary perspectives of whistleblowing and proposes a multilevel model to inform and encourage research focused on the effective management of whistleblowing. Mansour presents the theory of psychosocial safety climate in ▶ Chap. 23, “Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)” and describes how psychosocial safety climate is measured and researched as well as applied in practice. In ▶ Chap. 24, “Challenges and Opportunities for LGBTQI+ Inclusion at Work,” Moser, Booth, and Beauregard examine inclusion in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) employees and provide an overview of the current state of play and key opportunities for employers to facilitate the full and free participation of these workers. The final chapter in this part (▶ Chap. 25, “Performance Management and Wellbeing at the Workplace”), by Franco-Santos and Stull, and Bourne, investigates the relationship between performance management practices and employee well-being and formulates a conceptual framework elucidating the conditions under which different wellbeing results are likely to occur. The fourth part of the book contains six chapters specifically focused on the management of workers with health conditions or with factors associated with an elevated risk for chronic, health conditions (entitled “Employment Practices for Occupational Health and Disability”). Many of the issues examined in this part are characterized by societal importance but a generally unclear etiology and prognosis of different treatment outcomes; thus the management of these issues is complex. In ▶ Chap. 26, “The Aging Workforce,” Gardiner and Chen examine how the aging process affects the health and performance of workers and what organizations can do to mitigate some adverse effects of aging and support workforce participation of aging workers. Roy (▶ Chap. 27, “Occupational Health Services and Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Problems”), Etuknwa and Mathai (▶ Chap. 28, “Common Mental Health Problems”), and Leiter (▶ Chap. 29, “Burnout”) in turn examine specific and prevalent employee chronic health conditions, namely, muscular-skeletal problems, common mental health problems, and burnout. ▶ Chapter 30, “Workplace Fatigue: The Impact of the Drive,” by Wishart and Barrett, discusses the serious issues of how to mitigate fatigue for those who drive as an occupation. Finally, in ▶ Chap. 31, “Disruption in the Workplace,” Kendall and McLennan examine vocational rehabilitation processes for those returning to work after major illness or injury, examining recent trends and highlighting future opportunities with the emergence of new technologies. Part 5 of this handbook is entitled Work-Life Interface contains five chapters discussing five current issues about the work-life interface. The management of work, family, and other roles is a constant juggling act for the majority of employees and directly influences employee well-being and productivity, as well as the recruitment and retention of employees. ▶ Chapter 32, “Psychological Crossover” discusses the interesting issue of how stress, resources, and emotions can be transferred via a cognitive crossover process between work and home via spouses and

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transferred within workplaces between colleagues and leaders (Brough, Westman, Chen, and Chan). ▶ Chapter 33, “Flexible Work Initiatives, Employee Workplace Well-Being, and Organizational Performance” provides a pertinent review of flexible work initiatives which have successfully demonstrated causality between employee workplace well-being and organizational performance (Ruiter and Peters). This chapter reviews flexible work practice intervention studies focusing on where and when employees perform their work and how these contexts impact their wellbeing and performance. ▶ Chapter 34, “Extending Work-Life Balance Initiatives,” discusses how work-life balance initiatives can be extended to address the often substantial gap between the provision and promise of work-life balance initiatives and their actual uptake and outcomes (Chan and Tay). This chapter also discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employee’s work-life balance and how employment practices can reduce this impact. In a discussion of work design and information technology, ▶ Chap. 35, “Shifting the Mental Health Conversation: Present and Future Applications of the “Thrive at Work” Framework,” describes the specific Thrive at Work framework that synthesizes organizational approaches to mental health and the work-life interface (Parker, Jorritsma, and Griffin). This framework emphasizes how employment practices can proactively address employee well-being via enhancing the intrinsic quality of work. The final chapter in this part, ▶ Chap. 36, “Workplace Well-Being Initiatives,” discusses the cost benefits of work-life balance initiatives. Nasamu, Connolly, Bryan, and Bryce describe a pertinent well-being cost-effectiveness analysis and illustrate its practical use with four case studies. There is a clear value to organizations to provide effective work-life balance initiatives. The final part of this handbook, part “Trends and Emerging Challenges for Management,” focuses on the key trends and emerging challenges that organizations are likely to face in the future management of people. The first chapter in this part, ▶ Chap. 37, “The Growing “Gig Economy””, by Williams, McDonald, and Mayes, focuses on the growing “gig economy” and evaluates the benefits and associated risks of digital platform work, as well as the implications of this work on the health and safety of digital platform workers. In ▶ Chap. 38, “Workplace Mistreatment”, Reich and Dhensa-Kahlon review the extant workplace mistreatment literature, highlighting some key predictors of both experienced and enacted mistreatment and the potential role of third parties to help address mistreatment. Leka and Jain present key policy approaches to managing health, safety, and well-being at the macro-, meso-, and micro-level in ▶ Chap. 39, “Managing Health, Safety, and Well-Being at Work Within Changing Legal and Policy Frameworks.” ▶ Chapter 40, “Psychological Adjustment and Post-arrival Cross-cultural Training for Better Expatriation,” by Gai, Brough, and Gardiner, details the outcome of a systematic review on the association between cross-cultural training and expatriate adjustment. In the final chapter, in this part ▶ Chap. 41, “The Decline of Trade Unions and Worker Representation,” Underhill considers the implications of changes to trade unions and independent worker representation and reviews the processes which strengthen the impact of work, health, and safety representatives on worker health and well-being.

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Future Directions for Management and Employment Practices The contents of this handbook will equip researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to better anticipate and respond to the future challenges associated with management and employment practices. Recent technological, social, and legal advances have removed many barriers to doing business. It has never been easier to access information, communicate with individuals on the other side of the world, or enter new markets. It is undeniable that the world of work is changing. While there might be some debate as to whether these changes create opportunities or barriers for workers (Kaine and Josserand 2019), the impact of global, social, technological, and legal changes on how we each experience and view work is pervasive. Indeed, the combined result of these social, technological, and legal changes is a move away from standard forms of one-to-one employment relationships to several new forms of employment, including, but not limited to, employee sharing, job sharing, platform work, portfolio work, collaborative employment, and casual work arrangements (Eurofound 2020). One major driver of change is the introduction and uptake of information and communication technologies (ICT). The growing success of work-based platforms such as Zoom, MS Teams, Slack, and Dropbox, as well as social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter, not only facilitate productivity but also highlight the importance that many of us place on staying connected as humans. Globally, surveys seem to indicate that most workers desire a “hybrid” work pattern moving forward, where they have the flexibility to work on-site as well as remotely from time to time (Cisco 2020). While it is anticipated that most companies will retain some physical offices, demand for “hybrid” work, as well as a realization by organizations of the financial savings which result from reduced office space, makes it likely that the impact of ICT on how we manage and perform our work will be strengthened. However, despite the many benefits which ICT can offer, it remains vitally important that we see a concerted effort to support workers to also disconnect from their work, to avoid fatigue and burnout. The momentum of social movements such as #metoo and #blm also has profoundly heightened societal expectations that businesses will not only comment on but adopt a stance and become involved in social issues. The rise in popularity of social sharing platforms has allowed debate of societal and political issues, which were previously reserved for private discussions with family and close friends, to cross-over to the work and public spheres. Organizations are more cognizant of and driven to meet employee expectations around closing the gender pay gap and creating workplaces that are inclusive and engaging and aspire to operate at a higher ethical standard. Indeed, opinion polls indicate that employees want organizations to take a stance on societal issues and, importantly, are willing to leave their organization if there is a cultural or value mismatch (Gartner 2021). However, while we are seeing a growing segment of empowered and vocal employees who demand and receive better conditions and standards, we also see a sizable group of workers and communities who have not benefitted from globalization and technology. Research by OECD continues to demonstrate severe inequalities in access to secure work and

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digital technology due to age, gender, and socioeconomic status, resulting in members of these groups feeling marginalized and anxious about the future (OECD 2019). With such fast-moving and pervasive social change, it is challenging but still crucially important that organizations, governments, researchers, and policy makers refocus their efforts on ensuring that those who feel left behind and vulnerable are supported holistically, though opportunities to obtain stable work, stronger social protections, and increased access to public services and universal social benefits. The rapidly changing employment landscape has also shed some doubt over what, if any, legal protections are afforded to workers in new forms of employment. Legislation, which is often out of date and difficult to amend, has been shown to be a poor instrument for regulating labor. While case law has been integral to resolving important labor issues as they arise, such as dealing with classifying who is and who is not an independent contractor, there is still much confusion when comparing case law across jurisdictions (Koutsimpogiorgos et al. 2020). We see the knock-on effect of these worker classification issues, with respect to the legal obligations of organizations to ensure the health and safety of their workers (Weber et al. 2020). With the mass move to work from home, prevention of physical and mental illness and disease has become an important concern for HRM practitioners, organizations, and governments alike. The use of soft law, such as corporate social responsibility, is emerging as an important tool for organizations to meet their social and environmental obligations. The growing number of organizations who voluntarily undertake third-party assessment, such as via the Global Reporting Initiative, provides some evidence that more organizations recognize the value placed by shareholders, customers, and society, more generally, to be accountable, transparent, and good corporate citizens (García-Sánchez et al. 2019). With health and safety firmly part of CSR, we hope to see organizations rise to evolving employment challenges, proactively responding with solutions to better support the health and well-being of their workers. Certainly, while the impact of COVID-19 on the health and well-being of workers is likely to be felt for some time, looking beyond COVID-19, it should be clear that many of the pressures we are now experiencing are the result of ongoing social, technological, and legal shifts over time. The discussions in this handbook, therefore, provide an invaluable analysis of how we have arrived at the current state of events, as well as a wealth of evidence-based insights and practical recommendations for how we can capitalize on the many different possibilities presented by the new and ever-changing future of work.

References Bonacini L, Gallo G, Scicchitano S (2021) Working from home and income inequality: risks of a ‘new normal’with COVID-19. J Popul Econ 34(1):303–360 Brough P, Kinman G, McDowall A, Chan XC (2021) ‘#Me too’ for work-life balance. Work-life Balance Bull 5(1):4–8

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Burgess MG, Brough P, Biggs A, Hawkes AJ (2020) Why interventions fail: a systematic review of occupational Health Psychology interventions. Int J Stress Manag 27(2):195–207. https://doi. org/10.1037/str0000144 Butler P, Glover L, Tregaskis O (2011) ‘When the going gets tough’...: recession and the resilience of workplace partnership. Br J Ind Relat 49:666–687 Carroll N, Conboy K (2020) Normalising the “new normal”: changing tech-driven work practices under pandemic time pressure. Int J Inf Manag 55:102186 Cisco (2020) The rise of the hybrid workplace. (cisco.com) Cook H, MacKenzie R, Forde C (2016) HRM and performance: the vulnerability of soft HRM practices during recession and retrenchment. Hum Resour Manag J 26:557–571 Cox T, Cox S (1993) Occupational health: control and monitoring of psychosocial and organisational hazards at work. J R Soc Health 113:201–205 Daniels K, Watson D, Nayani R, Tregaskis O, Hogg M, Etuknwa A, Semkina A (2021) Implementing practices focused on workplace health and psychological wellbeing: a systematic review. Soc Sci Med 277:113888 DeFilippis E, Impink SM, Singell M, Polzer JT, Sadun R (2020) Collaborating during coronavirus: the impact of COVID-19 on the nature of work (No. w27612). National Bureau of Economic Research Dobbins T, Dundon T (2017) The chimera of sustainable labour–management partnership. Br J Manag 28:519–533 Etuknwa A, Daniels K, Eib C (2019) Sustainable return to work: a systematic review focusing on personal and social factors. J Occup Rehabil 29:679–700 Eurofound (2020) New forms of employment: 2020 update, New forms of employment series. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg Field JC, Chan XW (2018) Contemporary knowledge workers and the boundaryless work–life interface: implications for the human resource management of the knowledge workforce. Front Psychol 9:2414 García-Sánchez IM, Gómez-Miranda ME, David F, Rodríguez-Ariza L (2019) Analyst coverage and forecast accuracy when CSR reports improve stakeholder engagement: the global reporting initiative-international finance corporation disclosure strategy. Corp Soc Responsib Environ Manag 26(6):1392–1406 Gartner (2021) Gartner HR research finds 65% of employees would consider leaving their employer for an organization that takes a strong stance on societyal and cultural issues. [Press release, 3 March] ISO (2018) Occupational health and safety management systems: general guidelines for the application of ISO 45001. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva Johnson S, Robertson IT, Cooper CL (2018) Well-being: productivity and happiness at work, 2nd edn. Palgrave Macmillan Kaine S, Josserand E (2019) The organisation and experience of work in the gig economy. J Ind Relat 61(4):479–501 Kendall N, Burton K, Lunt J, Mellor N, Daniels K (2015) Development of an intervention toolbox for common health problems in the workplace. HSE Books, p 554 Koutsimpogiorgos N, van Slageren J, Herrmann AM, Frenken K (2020) Conceptualizing the gig economy and its regulatory problems. Policy and Internet 12(4):525–545 LaMontagne AD, Martin A, Page KM, Reavley NJ, Noblet AJ, Milner AJ, ... Smith PM (2014) Workplace mental health: developing an integrated intervention approach. BMC Psychiatry 14: 1–11 Middleton J, Lopes H, Michelson K, Reid J (2020) Planning for a second wave pandemic of COVID-19 and planning for winter. Int J Public Health 65(9):1525–1527

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OECD (2019) The future of work OECD employment outlook 2019. Employment-outlook-2019highlight-EN.pdf (oecd.org) Ogbonnaya C, Daniels K, Connolly S, van Veldhoven M (2017) Integrated and isolated impact of high performance work practices on employee health and well-being: a comparative study. J Occup Health Psychol 22:98–114 Richardson KM, Rothstein HR (2008) Effects of occupational stress management intervention programs: a meta-analysis. J Occup Health Psychol 13:69–93 Weber C, Golding S, Ratcliffe E, Yarker J, Lewis R, Munir F (2020) Homeworking during COVID19 lockdown: relationships between the physical and social environments at home, work-related burnout, and musculoskeletal pain. Health Psychol Update 29:55–56

Part I Leadership, Management Competencies, and Wellbeing

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Successful Leadership Amy J. Hawkes and Jason Spedding

Contents Theoretical Approaches to Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trait Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Behavioral Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contingency Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relational Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charismatic and Transformational Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Modern Positive Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Integrative Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outcomes of Successful Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual Outcomes of Successful Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Team Outcomes of Successful Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Outcomes of Successful Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moderating Effects on Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Task Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power Distance, Autonomy, and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Leadership Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Causal Modelling of Leadership Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Exploring Leadership Through an Economic Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 17 18 18 19 20 20 22 24 24 27 29 31 31 32 32 32 33 34 34

Abstract

This chapter discusses the concept of successful leadership by presenting the historical and theoretical perspectives from the field. Following this, a summary model is provided to enable the reader a comprehensive view of the leadership process. In this model, individual traits, characteristics, and experiences of leaders, followers, and teams are represented at the start of the leadership process. A. J. Hawkes (*) · J. Spedding School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: a.hawkes@griffith.edu.au; jason.spedding@griffithuni.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_2

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The behaviors, interactions, and relationships form the second stage. These interactions produce outcomes for the individual (leader and follower), the team, and the organization. A feedback loop represents the reciprocal nature of leadership, such that outcomes are achieved (or fail to be achieved), which influences future behavior. Lastly, the context and external moderating factors may influence each stage of the leadership process. This summary draws together core tenets from established leadership theories. Following this, how successful leaders can influence outcomes at the individual (engagement, performance, creativity, wellbeing, burnout, and psychological capacities), team (shared mental models, team learning, psychological safety climate, team cohesion, and team potency), and organizational (psychosocial safety climate, organizational change readiness, and ethical organizational culture) levels are discussed. Finally, moderators of the leadership process and challenges for future research are discussed. Keywords

Leader · Leadership · Leadership review · Team leadership · Organizational leadership · Leadership framework · Theoretical

Leadership is a core component of a successful organization; an effective leader provides guidance, encouragement, knowledge, and influences people to come together to achieve a shared goal. The key outcomes of effective leadership include performance improvements, health and wellbeing, empowerment, team cohesion, and culture change. It is for this reason that leadership development interventions (such as training and coaching) are seen as essential investments. In 2019, $370 billion was spent on leadership development by global organizations (TrainingIndustry.com 2020). Unfortunately, many leadership development initiatives are criticized for failing to produce improvements in leadership. In order to fully understand successful leadership, both the factors that contribute to leadership and the outcomes of leadership need to be examined. This chapter will provide an overview of leadership theories, including an integrative summary of central tenets from these theories. Additionally, the evidence supporting the role of leadership influencing individual, team, and organizational outcomes will be discussed including the constraining or moderating factors, and directions for future research in the leadership field. There is an abundance of definitions in the academic and general literature for leadership. A pioneer in the leadership space, Ralph Stogdill famously commented that “there are as many definitions of leadership as there are researchers in the field” (House and Podsokoff 1994, p. 45). Despite decades of research this statement is as true now as it was then. Bryman defined leadership as “a process of social influence whereby a leader steers members of a group towards a goal” (Bryman, 1992 p. 2). Kotter defined leadership as “the process of moving a group (or groups) in some direction through mostly noncoercive means” (1988, p. 5). Shamir and Howell (1999) defined charismatic leadership as an “interaction between leaders and

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followers that results in (1) making the followers' self-esteem contingent on the vision and mission articulated by the leader, (2) strong internalization of the leader's values and goals by the followers, (3) strong personal or moral (as opposed to calculative) commitment to these values and goals, and (4) a willingness on the part of followers to transcend their self-interests for the sake of the collective (team or organization)” (p. 259). Many early definitions focused on the hierarchical position of the leader, the group context, or the influence exhibited towards goal achievement (Vroom and Jago 2007). Compared to more recent theories that have conceptualized leadership as a process. As discussed by Day and Halpin (2004), we should accept the dynamic context-specific nature of leadership, and refrain from seeking a single all-encompassing definition. Despite the difficulty in reaching a consensus on defining leadership there has been substantial progress in uncovering contributors to the leadership process and there remains little doubt about its impact and importance for organizations. Later in this chapter we will present a framework of successful leadership, summarizing ideas across the leadership literature. We contend that to understand leadership we must take an eclectic approach, integrating ideas from a variety of models and adopting a multi-level perspective. Understanding the history of leadership theories is useful when adopting an eclectic approach to leadership initiatives or interventions. Overtime, leadership theory has progressed through distinct stages including: (1) trait theories (2) behavioral theories, (3) socio-cognitive and contingency theories, (4) charismatic and transformational theories, (5) social exchange/ leader-member exchange theories, (6) authentic and ethical theories, and (7) modern perspectives (followership, distributed, and shared leadership). A brief overview of this literature will be provided, for a more detail review see Avolio et al. (2009), Day et al. (2014), and Lord et al. (2017).

Theoretical Approaches to Leadership Trait Approaches Many of the earliest approaches to leadership sought to understand what differed between “great leaders” and “ordinary men.” These approaches explored how personality traits were correlated with leadership emergence and ratings of leadership effectiveness. Unfortunately this early work failed to identify consistent traits predicting leadership effectiveness (Judge et al. 2002; Stogdill 1948). Despite early failures, the study of leader traits and individual differences still has explanatory value in understanding successful leadership. Through improvements in psychometrics, increased computing power, and new analytics, the evaluation of leadership traits has seen a resurgence. The modern approach to leadership research in this area has been to widen the focus from personality traits to include, values, skills, motives, strengths, and cognitive ability (Zaccaro 2007). Characteristics that have been identified among effective leaders include emotional intelligence (Riggio and Lee 2007), extraversion (Bono and Judge 2004), and leader self-efficacy (Anderson et al.

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2008). A comprehensive meta-analysis found an association between traits and components of transformational and transactional leadership, however these associations were weak (Judge et al. 2002). Individual characteristics that allow a leader to be aware of their context and adjust their behavior have also been linked to effective outcomes, such as openness, tolerance for ambiguity, cognitive flexibility, and emotional intelligence (Ployhart and Bliese 2006; Zaccaro 2002, 2007). A small but significant relationship between emotional intelligence and transformational leadership was also found in a meta-analysis of 62 samples (Harms and Credé 2010). Despite some success identifying individual traits related to leader effectiveness, there is consensus in the literature that there is not a single trait, or set of traits, that all leaders must possess to be effective (House and Podsokoff 1994). Further, traits may exhibit a curvilinear relationship with effectiveness, such that at a very weak or a very strong trait may be detrimental to performance, while a moderate level may be more beneficial (Zaccaro 2007). Finally, the interaction with the context needs to be considered. Successful leadership may only be apparent when traits necessary or relevant to the context are combined at appropriate levels. Overall, personality, values, morals, people skills, problem solving skills, and emotional intelligence all have a role to play in successful leadership (Riggio and Lee 2007). As leadership theories matured, we see that both leader behavior and organizational contexts should be considered in conjunction with individual characteristics.

Behavioral Approaches During the 1950s the behavioral movement was gaining traction, trait approaches to leadership (which displayed only marginal success) were being discarded in favor of more behaviorist perspectives. These early behavioral approaches (the classic Ohio and Michigan studies) concluded that balance was needed between task and relationship focused behaviors for effective leadership (Stogdill and Coons 1957). Taskfocused behaviors (also called initiating structure or production-oriented) are those focused on task completion and individual performance; while relationship focused behaviors (also referred to as consideration or employee-oriented) are those related to the social functioning of the team (Stogdill and Coons 1957). This balance is needed between both task and relational leadership behaviors to achieve effective outcomes. This distinction in task- and people-focused leadership behavior is still referred to in modern leadership training and consulting. Eventually, it was apparent that these leadership behaviors did not explain enough variance in leadership outcomes, and the environment/context in which leaders worked was explored (Kerr et al. 1974).

Contingency Approaches While contextual factors were discussed in early leadership literature these factors were rarely the focus of the success or failure of leaders to be effective. As scholars

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recognized the wide variability in the effectiveness of leader behaviors, attention turned to matching behaviors to situations (i.e., effective behaviors are contingent upon the situation; Kerr et al. 1974). The most well-known contingency theories are Fielder’s Contingency Theory (1967), Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory (1969), and House’s Path Goal Theory (1971). Fielder’s (1967) contingency theory considers individual leaders to have a set preference for behavior that is either task or relationship focused, and that this preference must be matched to the situation according to three contingency factors (task structure, positional power, and leader– member relationships). Hersey and Blanchard (1969) proposed four leadership styles, based on combinations of high/low task and relationship behaviors. Hersey and Blanchard’s approach differed from Fielders’ by allowing the leader to adapt their behaviors to suit the situation. The contingency factors in this model focus on employee characteristics, namely competence and commitment. For instance, when employees are low on both competence and commitment the leader will need to adopt a more directive style (high task, low relationship) to be effective. Finally, House’s (1971) Path Goal Theory proposes that leaders can adopt four leadership styles (again drawing on combination of low-high task and relationship behaviors), to guide followers to reach a goal. This theory recognizes both environmental and employee contingency factors that can affect the path to goal achievement. Unfortunately contingency theories have faced heavy criticisms and failed to replicate a convincing patterns of results (Wofford and Liska 1993). As discussed by Vroom and Jago (2007) situations shape the way leaders behave and also the consequences of the leaders behavior. While modern approaches have moved away from contingency approaches, the consideration of situational moderators on the effectiveness of leadership on outcomes is an important and lasting contribution of this literature (Howell et al. 1986; Paustian-Underdahl et al. 2014; Podsakoff et al. 1995).

Relational Approaches Leader-member exchange (LMX; originally named vertical dyad linkage) takes a social exchange perspective to understand the unique relationship between a leader and each individual follower (Bauer and Erdogan 2015; Dansereau et al. 1975). The concept of LMX was inspired by differences observed among followers when rating the same leader’s behavior (Graen et al. 1972 as cited by Liden et al. 2015). LMX specifies that leaders have a relationship with each follower that is either of high quality (in-group members) or poor quality (out-group members). High quality exchanges are characterized by mutual respect, trust, positive emotions, high performance, and satisfaction. In a meta-analysis of 79 studies, LMX was correlated with satisfaction, role clarity, commitment, performance, and turnover intentions (Gerstner and Day 1997). LMX has also been linked to task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and reduced counterproductive behavior (Martin et al. 2016). An ongoing issue in this literature is the small correlation between leader and member ratings of LMX (Gerstner and Day 1997); this suggests an employee’s perception of in-group membership may remain a good predictor of

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outcomes regardless of the leader’s view. The important contribution of LMX to the leadership literature is that the unique dual relationship between leaders and individual followers can shape outcomes for employees, leaders, and organizations.

Charismatic and Transformational Approaches Criticisms of the contingency and behavioral approaches include their failure to capture the inspiring and motivating components of leadership (Avolio et al. 2009). Charismatic leaders are those who are able to energize and build commitment to a vision. Transformational leadership, originally proposed by Burns (1978) and further developed by Bass and Avolio (1990), is one of the most widely researched theories of leadership (Avolio et al. 2009). The full range leadership model includes a spectrum of leadership, from laissez-faire to transactional (management by exception passive, management by exception active, contingent reward) and transformational (idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration; Bass 1999). Another widely used model of transformational leadership was described by Podsakoff et al. (1990). Transactional leadership is focused on the management and reward tasks of general supervision (Bass and Avolio 1990). While transformational leaders inspire and motivate their followers to go above and beyond organizational requirements, they challenge their employees to be creative, and show genuine care for their employees personal and professional development (Dvir et al. 2002). This approach does not present transformational leadership as the optimal or preferred approach, rather transformational leadership augments the transactional leadership behaviors (Bass and Avolio 1990). Although, recent meta-analysis has indicated the potential benefits of contingent reward beyond transformational leadership for individual task performance (see Wang et al. 2011). Multiple meta-analyses have demonstrated the positive benefits of transformational leadership for individuals, teams, and organizations (DeGroot et al. 2000; Lowe et al. 1996; Wang et al. 2011). Transformational leadership has been applied to many contexts, including military (Dvir et al. 2002), healthcare (Avolio et al. 2004; Jordan et al. 2015), and specific target behaviors, such as safety behavior (Clarke 2013). While transformational leadership may be one of the strongest approaches to leadership, there is a need for further exploration into the developmental outcomes of transformational leaders and interventions to build transformational leadership (Dvir et al. 2002; Siangchokyoo et al. 2020).

Modern Positive Approaches A set of leadership theories, in line with the positive psychology movement, grew largely out of repeated mismanagement and unethical business dealings causing corporate scandals (see for example, the chapter discussing whistleblowing in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 22, “The Effective Management of Whistleblowing”). These

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theories focus on authenticity, interpersonal relationships, trust, humility, and ethical decision making as the building blocks of effective leadership (Lord et al. 2017). Ethical leadership occurs when personal actions and interpersonal relationships are driven by appropriate standards of conduct, and that appropriate behavior is encouraged in others. Authentic leadership investigates the processes and outcomes of leaders with high moral character, positive values, an awareness of self and others, inclusive and transparent decision making, and the honest sharing of information (Luthans and Avolio 2003). Servant leadership positions the leader as someone to guide or support employees through empowerment and personal development while working toward a shared vision (Smith et al. 2004). Servant leadership is characterized by empathy and a willingness to serve, such that caring for staff will lead to organizational goals being achieved (Avolio et al. 2009; Langhof and Güldenberg 2020; van Dierendonck 2011). See also the servant leadership chapter in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 3, “Servant Leadership.” In a meta-analysis comparing ethical, servant, and authentic leadership to transformational leadership, Hoch et al. (2018) concluded that servant leadership was a promising theory as it explained variance beyond transformational leadership. In comparison, ethical and authentic leadership were highly correlated with transformational leadership but failed to account for any unique variance beyond transformational leadership. In another exploration of the discriminant validity of authentic leadership, a recent meta-analytic review reported large overlap with transformational leadership, such that neither leadership measure added incremental predictive validity beyond the other (Banks et al. 2016). Some scholars have argued these processes represent a single underlying leadership style (i.e., transformationalservant leadership; Peregrym and Wollf 2013), while others have sought to differentiate these based on their focus: organizational-focused compared to followerfocused, respectively (Hoch et al. 2018). Other theories proposed to understand leadership include: substitutes for leadership (Kerr and Jermier 1978), empowering leadership (Park et al. 2017), abusive/destructive leadership (Brender-Ilan and Sheaffer 2019; Einarsen et al. 2007), the dark side of leadership (use of influence for self-interest at the expense of others; Conger 1990). Additionally, there has been a push to understand followers in the leadership process, to move away from a leader centric view, culminating in a field focused on followership as the other half of the leadership process (see Uhl-Bien et al. 2014 for a detailed review). See also the followership chapter in this handbook; ▶ Chap. 6, “Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy.” Others have explored the concept of shared or distributed leadership, whereby leadership responsibilities are shared among followers, such processes have been linked to both increased performance, cooperation, and satisfaction (Wang et al. 2014). Leaders can also play an important role as mentors (Godshalk and Sosik 2000) and coaches (Ladyshewsky 2010) for employees. In a review of the leadership development literature, Day et al. (2014) advocated for research that presented leaders as individuals distinct from leadership as a process. This is an important distinction because it allows the process of leadership to be more fluid and move beyond traditional power structures (i.e., management) while also recognizing the role of the individual, their traits and experiences.

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An Integrative Model It is apparent that leadership is a complex phenomenon that is created via many factors, including the leader, their followers, team dynamics, and the work context. Previous theoretical approaches to leadership provide a useful foundation; however, they fail to fully capture the leadership process. The key ideas underlying these theories have been summarized and presented in Fig. 1. Drawing on trait theories, the leader brings his or her own characteristics, traits, goals, past experiences, and skills to the leadership interaction. The foundational work behind authentic leadership also recognized the importance of a leaders past experiences in shaping future behavior (Luthans and Avolio 2003). The leader will draw on these individual differences and skills to perceive their environment which, drawing on behavioral and style theories, will lead to behaviors of acting and interacting with their employees/team. The followers also bring their own individual characteristics, goals, experiences, and skills to the interaction. Similar to leaders, followers perceive the situation and behave in order to interact with others in the workplace including their leader. The team as the broader collective group also contributes to the leadership process through team dynamics such as cohesion, potency, and team efficacy. The inclusion of teams in the leadership process is often overlooked in the leadership literature. This interaction between the leader and followers captures the interactional/ relational process, drawing on relational dyadic theories (LMX and shared leadership). As noted by Deluga (1992), transformational leaders foster warm committed relationships with followers and through social exchange processes followers reciprocate with positive encouragement for the leader. This reciprocal process is the point where influence is occurring and will lead to successful or unsuccessful outcomes/results. Outcomes refer to the attitudinal, cognitive, or behavioral outputs (either positive or negative) exhibited by an individual (leaders and/or followers), a team, or an organization. In leadership research, relationships are often hypothesized to occur in one direction when in fact they could be bidirectional. For instance, Nielsen and Munir (2009) found that the relationship between transformational leadership and employee self-efficacy could be reciprocal, such that while self-efficacy remains an outcome of transformational leadership, confident staff may encourage leaders to exhibit more transformational behaviors or they may be more receptive to transformational leader behavior. Hence, it is important to include a feedback loop in Fig. 1 to represent the continuous process that occurs between leader, follower, team, and outcomes. The outcomes, successful or otherwise, will be perceived by both leaders and followers and add to their history of past experiences that shape their future perceptions and actions. Lastly, drawing on contingency theories and evidence for external moderators, the process outlined in Fig. 1 occurs within the context of the organization and the external environment. This external environment can influence every stage of this process, such that the context influences the leader and follower’s experiences, perceptions, behaviors, interactions, and success of leadership behaviors on

Fig. 1 The holistic leadership model, drawing on central ideas from historical and current leadership theories to represent ongoing leadership processes

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outcomes, the context also contributes to the feedback received by leaders and followers. Derue et al. (2011) summarized leadership theories to capture the leadership process, through combining trait and behavioral approaches. Our theoretical model shares some similarities with Derue et al. (2011), including levels of analysis (individual, team/group, and organization), leader traits/characteristics, and leader behaviors. Our model advances their ideas by including the follower (traits/characteristics, perceptions, and behaviors) and the team characteristics/dynamics within the process. The feedback loop in Fig. 1 also represents the ongoing interactional process that characterizes leadership as a continuous relationship. Due to the complex nature of leadership, particularly within constantly changing and unique contexts, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single definition or theory that completely captures all the elements of successful leadership. However, this model presents a summary of the most relevant theoretical approaches that are useful for understanding leadership and for exploring the leadership process. The next section discusses the individual, team, and organizational outcomes of successful leadership.

Outcomes of Successful Leadership Effective leadership has been linked to many outcomes for organizations, ranging from employee behaviors through to corporate social responsibility and culture. The following sections will summarize the evidence for outcomes of successful leadership. This section is not meant to be an exhaustive account of all leadership outcomes, rather it provides a summary of key leadership outcomes at the individual, team, and organizational level of analysis.

Individual Outcomes of Successful Leadership Employee Engagement Engagement refers to a positive affective emotional state of work-related motivation characterized by exhibiting vigor, dedication, and absorption in one’s work (Bakker et al. 2008). Meta-analysis investigating the effects of employee engagement have found engagement results in increased job satisfaction, more organizational commitment, more frequent organizational citizenship behaviors, and reduced intentions to quit (Borst et al. 2020). Others focusing on performance outcomes found that levels of employee engagement explained 60% of the differences observed in performance (Anitha 2014). Research has demonstrated the ability of particular leadership styles to effect greater engagement in employees. For example, Li et al. (2020) found a significant relationship between empowering, ethical, and charismatic leadership styles and increased engagement, while Hawkes et al. (2017) reported similar effects for transformational leader behaviors. Additionally, Knight et al. (2017) explored the benefits of leadership interventions on engagement and

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found a marginal relationship, such that offering leadership training resulted in an increase in reported employee engagement.

Wellbeing and Burnout The costs of stress and burnout in the Australian economy are well known to organizational researchers, once proximal stress outcomes such as absenteeism, presenteeism, sickness, and workplace injuries are included, estimate swell to roughly AU$3.08 billion annually (Safe Work Australia 2015). As with other performance and motivational outcomes, successful leaders must consider the physical and mental wellbeing of their followers. Arnold (2017) synthesized research exploring the benefits of transformational leadership on employee wellbeing, finding the relationship was mediated through a range of processes such as occupational self-efficacy, trust, role clarity, and social support. In a longitudinal study, selfefficacy significantly mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and employee wellbeing (Nielsen and Munir 2009). Transformational behaviors also benefit the leader’s personal wellbeing producing genuine positive emotions (Arnold et al. 2015). Employing biological measures of wellbeing (i.e., employee cortisol levels), Diebig et al. (2016) found leadership behaviors which increased ambiguity resulted in increased employee cortisol, while behaviors which reduced ambiguity (i.e., communicating vision) reduced these stress outcomes. Similar results are reported for shared leadership processes, when these result in reduced role ambiguity, team ratings of occupational stress are attenuated (Wood and Fields 2007). Performance A central concern for all organizations is performance and productivity. Transformational leadership, contingent reward, and positive LMX have been linked to increased follower performance (Howell and Hall-Merenda 1999; Saeed et al. 2019). In a meta-analysis of 113 studies, transformational leadership was positively related to individual, team, and organizational performance (Wang et al. 2005). Organizational citizenship behaviors are extra discretionary behaviors that support the functioning of the organization. Effective leadership has been consistently related to higher employee organizational citizenship behavior, including transformational leadership (Bottomley et al. 2016; Cho and Dansereau 2010), ethical leadership (Mostafa 2018), servant leadership (Ahmad Bodla et al. 2019), authentic leadership (Valsania et al. 2012), and empowering leadership (Little et al. 2016). For example, high quality LMX mediated the relationships between transformational leadership and performance, task and organizational citizenship behaviors (Wang et al. 2005). Leaders demonstrating authentic behaviors are also more likely to have high performing employees (Leroy et al. 2012). At the other end of the leadership spectrum, abusive leadership has been linked to increased deviant and counterproductive behavior at work (Webster et al. 2016). Employee Creativity With the observed growth in the knowledge economy, workers frequently face problems which require unique solutions, hence employee creativity and capacity

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to innovate have become increasingly valued assets (Anderson et al. 2004). Leaders are able to improve employee creativity through maintaining transformational and empowering leadership styles (Hughes et al. 2018). Interestingly, many studies adopt a unidimensional view of these transformational leadership processes, when individual subscales (i.e., intellectual stimulation) have been argued to be more predictive of employee innovation (Hughes et al. 2018). Additionally, contingent reward behaviors are particularly effective at enhancing creativity when rewards are tied to creative outputs and provided in addition to positive task-focused feedback and creative autonomy, while completion-contingent rewards exhibit a negative effect on innovation (Byron and Khazanchi 2012). Others have found similar benefits for moral leadership styles (Gu et al. 2015), authentic leadership (Rego et al. 2012), and ethical leadership (Tu and Lu 2013) to effect employee innovation. Transformational leadership has also been associated with increased innovation climate, which in turn was related to increased employee creativity (Jaiswal and Dhar 2015; Wang et al. 2013).

Psychological Capacities (PsyCap, Trust, Empowerment) Many of the performance benefits outlined above can be explained by improved psychological capacity of employees including empowerment, engagement, trust, or psychological capital. Psychological capital (PsyCap) is a higher order construct consisting of self-efficacy, resilience, optimism, and hope. PsyCap has been correlated with a range of individual outcomes including: performance, satisfaction, commitment, wellbeing, and reduced turnover intentions (Avey et al. 2011a, b). PsyCap is important for motivation and achievement of goals, which is also a central tenet of successful leadership. Hence, it is not surprising that there is increasing evidence for the relationship between leadership and PsyCap, including transformational leadership (Gooty et al. 2009; Lei et al. 2020). In another study, authentic and ethical leadership also explained variance in PsyCap after accounting for individual differences, demographics, and job characteristics (Avey 2014). Interestingly, the way a leader conveys their own PsyCap may influence their team’s energy and also ratings of leadership effectiveness (Rego et al. 2019). Interventions to improve leader PsyCap has demonstrated small increases in follower PsyCap as well (Avey et al. 2011a, b). Two other relevant psychological capacities are empowerment and trust. Empowerment, a sense of completing meaningful work, has been linked to leadership, often as a mediator between leadership and organizational outcomes. In a longitudinal survey of nurses, authentic leadership was linked to empowerment, which in turn was linked to performance and satisfaction (Wong and Laschinger 2013). Trust is built over time via consistent patterns of behavior aligned with intentions and promises. In an experimental study where leadership was manipulated, performance was higher amongst those that worked for a transformational leader, with these effects mediated by trust and increased value congruence (Jung and Avolio 2000). Trust is central in transformational, ethical, authentic, and servant leadership theories (for a review on leadership and trust we recommend Bligh 2017).

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Team Outcomes of Successful Leadership Successful leadership can elicit a range of positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes for followers. However, when managing teams of individuals, leaders must also consider the complex web of team interactions through which work is completed. Rather than a collection of individuals, occupational teams enable synergistic effects, such that collective outputs can exceed the sum of individual contributions (Katz and Kahn 1978). These gains however, come at the cost of increased complexity in coordinating individual contributions to achieve team outcomes. Evidence from meta-analyses shows improving coordination by a single standard deviation results in a one-third standard deviation increase in team performance, and half a standard deviation increase in team satisfaction (LePine et al. 2008). Through these ongoing interactions teams develop a stable sense of identity. Leaders can affect these team characteristics through a range of mechanisms which are discussed below.

Shared Mental Models Shared mental models refer to the team’s level of collective familiarity with the processes employed by team members and the ability to utilize this knowledge to anticipate future team states (Converse et al. 1993). Teams with highly developed (and accurate) shared mental models can predict the actions and needs of other team members, allowing members to better coordinate their individual inputs to maximize team outcomes. Leaders can affect the development of shared mental models via communication and sharing participation in leadership processes (Gurtner et al. 2007; Kozlowski et al. 2009). In simulated combat scenarios, Marks et al. (2000) found leaders who delivered effective pre-mission team briefings increased both the similarity and accuracy of team shared mental models. Similarly, Gurtner et al. (2007) found leaders who used task-adaptive communications (opposed to more general team instructions) resulted in greater team performance, mediated via shared mental models. Self-managed teams who actively shared leadership responsibilities also exhibited more similar and accurate shared mental models resulting in increased performance outcomes (McIntyre and Foti 2013). Team Learning With the changing nature of modern workplaces, organizations are becoming reliant on teams to solve difficult organizational issues, such solutions require agile adaptation and innovative work practices. Team learning processes enable the identification of new insights, solutions, or adaptation of previous processes to achieve team outcomes. Team learning can explain up to 18% of the variance observed in supervisor ratings of team performance (Van Der Vegt and Bunderson 2005). However, team learning behaviors are not automatic, instead research indicates leaders can leverage team learning to achieve team and organizational outcomes. Use of an empowering leadership style has been shown to increase team learning, with meta-analysis suggesting that these actions explained 30% of the variance

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observed in team learning outcomes (Burke et al. 2006), furthermore these effects were buffered by perceptions of intra-team trust (Wibowo and Hayati 2019).

Psychological Safety Climate Psychological safety climate refers to the perceived consequences of interpersonal risk-taking by staff within a team environment (Edmondson 1999). Improving psychological safety allows staff to “feel secure and capable of changing” (Edmondson 1999, p. 354). Such teams will encourage greater contributions from members, as individuals feel less socially threatened for admitting an error, seeking help, or asking for feedback (Edmondson 2003; Newman et al. 2017). Formal leaders can enhance team psychological safety; for example, leader characteristics such as inclusiveness (Bienefeld and Grote 2014; Hirak et al. 2012), trustworthiness (Madjar and Ortiz-Walters 2009), and supportiveness (May et al. 2004) have been linked to psychological safety. Others have explored the effects of specific leadership styles, finding that transformational leadership (Detert and Burris 2007; Nemanich and Vera 2009), servant leadership (Schaubroeck et al. 2011), ethical leadership (Walumbwa and Schaubroeck 2009), and shared leadership processes (Liu et al. 2014) all correlated with increased levels of psychological safety. Previous systematic literature reviews highlight that collectively, leaders can enhance psychological safety through maintaining supportive environments (i.e., providing supportive leadership, encouraging supportive relationships, and developing supportive organizational practices; Newman et al. 2017).

Team Cohesion Team cohesion defined as “the tendency for a group to stick together and remain united in the pursuit of its instrumental objections” (Tekleab et al. 2009, p. 174) is among the most widely studied and cited constructs in team research (Greer 2012; Kozlowski and Chao 2012). Team cohesion is associated with a range of team benefits including: increased team learning (Tekleab et al. 2016), more team satisfaction (Tekleab et al. 2009), and explains up to 12% of the variance in team performance (DeChurch and Mesmer-Magnus 2010). Leaders can enhance organizational outcomes through assisting the development of team cohesiveness, especially in occupational environments that necessitate high levels of work interdependence. Chiniare and Bentein (Chiniara and Bentein 2018) found that managers who utilize servant leadership practices increase the consistency of intra-team relational dynamics, resulting in more cohesive work-units. Similarly, Mathieu et al. (2015) reported that increased cohesion and performance cycles were a by-product of leaders who encouraged more shared leadership behaviors. Others have highlighted the social identity aspects of cohesion, arguing that leaders can enhance cohesion through communication of socially salient aspects of group identity, through encouraging early team socialization, or creating shared experiences between team members (Kozlowski and Chao 2012; Marks et al. 2001).

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Team Potency Team potency refers to perceptions regarding a team’s capability to perform successfully across a range of tasks and contexts (Guzzo et al. 1993). Team potency has been linked to subsequent team outcomes such as group satisfaction (Lee et al. 2002; Lester et al. 2002), team learning (Widmann and Mulder 2018), organizational citizenship behaviors (Collins and Parker 2010; Hu and Liden 2011), performance (Gully et al. 2002), and the development of reciprocal potency-performance feedback cycles (Lester et al. 2002). Hu and Liden (2011) argued servant leadership led to an increased sense of team potency, specifically through enhancing the benefits of maintaining clarity regarding team goals and team processes. Charismatic leadership has also been related to increased team potency at follow-up (Le Blanc et al. 2020; Lester et al. 2002), with this effect being increased under highly interdependent work conditions (Le Blanc et al. 2020). Additionally, transformational leadership processes have been shown to enhance team members’ potency beliefs, with these effects being particularly pronounced under conditions of high-power distance or highly collective team environments (Schaubroeck et al. 2007), or mediated via team cohesion and identity (Garcia-Guiu et al. 2016). Team Viability Team viability refers to a team members’ overall satisfaction with their team and willingness to continue working together into the future (Hackman 1990). Increased team viability has been linked to various team benefits such as reduced turnover and increased performance (Hu and Liden 2015), reduced team conflict (Balkundi et al. 2009), and team engagement (Costa et al. 2015). Transformational behaviors are linked to a 14% increase in reported team viability (Tu and Liu 2017), while Foo et al. (2006) found teams which maintained more open communications and increased social integration between members also reported heightened perceptions of team viability. Other research has produced significant moderation effects, such that team viability was more strongly predictive of team performance when tasks were more interdependent (Hu and Liden 2015). Using a social network design, research has shown teams with formal leaders who freely provide advice and expertise to subordinates are seen as more viable, additionally leaders can also encourage advice networks between individual team members to further enhance perceptions of team viability (Balkundi et al. 2009).

Organizational Outcomes of Successful Leadership In addition to influencing positive individual and team outcomes, successful leaders are also able to affect beneficial outcomes at the wider organizational level. Although it seems cogent for upper management to use their power to determine organizational outcomes through formal policy and practices (Zhu et al. 2005), non-executive leadership also contributes to internal (and public) perceptions of the organization. Adopting a systems perspective, successful leaders serve as an interface between

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followers and the wider organizational ecosystem. As explained by Hui and colleagues, an employee’s relationship with their leader “may be the single most powerful connection an employee can build in an organization” (Hui et al. 2004, p. 233). The following section expands on this and demonstrates the several mechanisms through which leaders can affect positive organizational outcomes.

Psychosocial Safety Climate Psychosocial safety climate refers to the shared perceptions regarding the policies, practices, and procedures within an organization designed to protect the psychological health and wellbeing of staff (Dollard et al. 2017). Psychosocial safety climate has been linked to a reduction in workplace injuries (both directly and mediated via reduced emotional exhaustion; (Zadow et al. 2017), fewer instances of workplace bullying (Dollard et al. 2017), and increased employee engagement (Lee and Idris 2017). Although the development and maintenance of organizational climates and cultures remain the remit of senior leadership (Dollard et al. 2017), front-line leaders can enhance (or hinder) the development of psychosocial safety climates. Dollard et al. (2017) posited that these climates may be dependent on the quality of leadermember-exchange patterns; while others highlighted that leader role modelling will implicitly signal “what is valued” to both followers and also to the wider organization (Brown et al. 2005; Stouten et al. 2013). Biggs et al. (2014) utilized leadership interventions to enhance organizational climates, the authors found that interventions targeting transformational leader behaviors (in addition to effective leader communication and strategic leadership) were able to enhance perceptions of organizational psychosocial support, which in turn increased employee work engagement and job satisfaction. Qualitative research investigating the antecedents of psychosocial safety procedures found that paradoxically an absence of senior management support for psychosocial safety drove front-line leaders to “adopt the burden” of engaging in more psychosocial risk prevention (Baillien et al. 2020). Such findings are a reminder that leaders are rarely passive actors within organizational systems, but rather through their own agency can affect positive individual, team, and organizational outcomes. Organizational Change Readiness Given the ever-changing nature of modern workplaces, organizational change processes remain an important aspect of organizational success. Despite this, scholars and practitioners have found little success in understanding organizational change processes; famously, previous evaluations of organizational change programs reported a failure rate of roughly 70% (Beer and Nohria 2000; Hughes 2011). Li et al. (2016) found empowering leadership was related to employee change behaviors, with these effects enhanced when staff were granted more autonomy and greater agency to enact changes. Jordan et al. (2015) found that transformational leadership was related to positive organizational change, while others found transformational leadership processes reduced both employee cynicism to change and overall climates of cynicism, resulting in greater commitment to change processes (Bommer et al. 2005; DeCelles et al. 2013). Transformational leaders can also communicate a vision for the organization’s future aligned with these change outcomes, leading to more

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employee engagement and change championing behaviors (Faupel and Süß 2019). During change processes the leader’s ability to manage positive and negative affect via communication and staff participation is critical to change success, as highlighted by Smith “While excitement and enthusiasm for change can be contagious, so too can fear, anger and resentment. Generating enthusiasm, rather than anxiety, about change is thus critical and creating and communicating a vision of the future” (Smith 2005, p. 410).

Ethical Organizational Culture Scandals, corruption, and accounts of unethical business practices seem to be ever present in the contemporary organizational landscape, such actions have increased scholarly research into the causes and outcomes of unethical organizational behaviors. Maintaining an ethical organizational culture has been linked to reduced burnout and increased engagement (Huhtala et al. 2015), reduced management turnover (Kangas et al. 2018), and greater intentions to report wrong-doing (Zhang et al. 2009). Leaders and managers must remain vigilant to the potential erosion of these shared normative ethical beliefs (Brown et al. 2005). As outlined by Trevino and Nelson “Managers need to be careful because an organization may easily be lulled into thinking that its ethical house is soundly constructed, only to find that the roof has been leaking and it’s about to cave in” (Trevino and Nelson 2016, p. 155). Adopting an ethical leadership style, managers are able to influence employee perceptions of ethical organizational cultures (Brown et al. 2005; Mayer et al. 2010), resulting in positive outcomes such as job satisfaction (Neubert et al. 2009) and reduced deviance (Mayer et al. 2010).

Moderating Effects on Leadership Although much empirical research has explored the direct effects of successful leadership on individual, team, and organizational outcomes, less is known about the specific boundary conditions which enhance or hinder these effects. For example, the benefits of transformational leader behaviors on team adaptivity and innovation have been shown to be strongest in teams with increased organizational identity (Wang et al. 2017), or in teams with positive collective wellbeing (Miao and Cao 2019). Moderators that should be considered when applying various leadership theories in research and in practice are discussed.

Task Characteristics The characteristics of the specific task being completed will naturally effect the types of behaviors which lead to success, with more complex work exhibiting a stronger positive relationship between transformative leadership styles and task motivation (Mahmood et al. 2019). Complex and highly interdependent tasks result in more team member interaction and coordination (LePine et al. 2008). Le Blanc et al. (2020) found that task interdependence moderated the effects of charismatic

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leadership on team potency, such that no effects were found in teams characterized by low task interdependence while highly interdependent teams benefited greatly from charismatic leadership. Transformational leadership has also been linked to high quality leader–member relationships in geographically dispersed teams with highly interdependent tasks and a reliance on collaborative software (Wong and Berntzen 2019), while empowering leadership resulted in more perceived occupational fit (Erkutlu and Chafra 2015), and creativity (Byun et al. 2016) when team tasks were more interdependent. Broadly, empowering leadership styles are more effective when creative and non-routine actions are required (Lee et al. 2018). Meanwhile, Burke et al. (2006) demonstrated leadership style enhanced team effectiveness outcomes in highly interdependent teams, with person-focused leadership explaining 12% and task-focused leadership explaining 11% of the variance in team effectiveness (compared to 1% and 5%, respectively, in low interdependent teams).

Power Distance, Autonomy, and Culture Social and cultural characteristics can also enhance the benefits of specific organizational leadership styles. Lee et al. (2018) meta-analysis of empowering leader behaviors unexpectedly found that empowering leadership was only significantly related to task performance in vertical-collectivistic cultures (characterized by greater respect for authority and greater power distance). The authors suggested a ceiling effect in the data, with employees sampled from individualistic cultures already maintaining strong norms regarding workplace empowerment, thus organizations nested in collectivistic cultures benefitted more from utilizing an empowered leadership style (compared to individualistic organizations; Lee et al. 2018). Similar results have been reported, with empowering leaders having greater effects on team empowerment and employee voice outcomes when perceived power distances were larger (Jeung and Yoon 2018). Additionally, employee autonomy has been shown to moderate the effect of empowering leadership on employee engagement and organizational citizenship behaviors (Li et al. 2016); such that micro-managed teams will not receive the benefits associated with heightened team empowerment.

Future Leadership Research Despite an expansive empirical literature to draw upon, there still remains much that organizational scholars do not know about the behaviors and processes which underlie successful leadership. The following section discusses key future areas of research.

Causal Modelling of Leadership Effects When modelling relationships between organizational constructs researchers are normally interested in the specific effects (direction and effect size) of the

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independent variable(s) on the dependent variable. However, as leadership processes can affect (and are affected by) many different sources, reducing the noise in such models can become an especially difficult task. The problem of endogeneity can occur when external variables which effect these results are omitted, causing biases to occur within model estimates (Antonakis et al. 2010; Sajons 2020). For example, follower levels of extraversion have been shown to correlate with field ratings of transformational leadership (Bono et al. 2012) and ratings of job satisfaction (Judge et al. 2002); omitting extraversion in a regression analysis will bias estimates and (in this case) inflate estimated effects of transformational leadership on job satisfaction (additionally this will cause regression error terms to become correlated; Antonakis et al. 2010). To attenuate this specific example, researchers might adopt more robust and conservative estimation metrics. However, given the multitude of potential omitted variables and their combined effects on transformational leadership and job satisfaction, it is often impossible to know the direction or magnitude of these biases (as these may collectively cause under-estimation or over-estimation effects; Wooldridge 2012). Unfortunately, experimental methods used to ameliorate these biases (i.e., random assignment) are often impractical or simply not available within organizational research. The application of advanced econometric techniques, including the use of instrument variables (Sajons 2020), difference-in-differences models (Bennedsen et al. 2007), and regression discontinuity designs (Arvate et al. 2018; Grönqvist and Lindqvist 2016) are being advocated in leadership sciences, and represent a valuable avenue for leadership scholars (for an in-depth review see Sieweke and Santoni 2020). Future research is encouraged to adopt these methods when exploring the causal effects of leadership on organizational outcomes.

Exploring Leadership Through an Economic Lens In addition to the utility of econometric analysis to explore the true relationship between leadership and organizational outcomes, it has been posited that scholars should apply an economic lens to leadership processes (Garretsen et al. 2020; Zehnder et al. 2017). Garretsen et al. (2020) argued for greater alignment between economic and psychological perspectives, highlighting the potential gains generated through cross-disciplinary collaboration. Zehnder et al. (2017) observed a divergence between these fields, with economic theorists adopting a transactional perspective of leadership focusing on exchange relationships, the use of incentives, and contractual obligations (i.e., contingent reward processes); while organizational scholars have focused on the socio-affective components, such as transformational and charismatic leadership influence. For example, economic research has explored the role of CEO pay on employee outcomes (Steffens et al. 2018), finding that increased CEO remuneration was related to a decrease in personal identification with organizational leaders, which subsequently lowered ratings of charisma and the development of collective organizational identity. Bennedsen et al. (2007) investigated hereditary CEO appointments, finding that CEO selection based on familial ties resulted in decreased organizational performance, particularly in large organizations, or those based in knowledge industries. More cross-disciplinary research

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including both economic and psychological perspectives will enhance our knowledge and understanding of these allusive organizational processes.

Conclusion Overall, this chapter has provided an overview of the key leadership research evidence. These leadership theories all have mixed results predicting outcomes for individuals, teams, and organizations. It is unlikely that a unified theory of leadership will ever fit the unique and changing context of workplaces and teams. However, there is value in taking an eclectic approach to understanding leadership through summarizing central tenets from many approaches. We provided a theoretical model to summarize the contributions of leadership theories. Future leadership researchers should try to broaden their focus to include multiple components of the leadership process. Following the discussion of leadership theories, evidence for the outcomes of successful leadership was reviewed. Successful leadership has a clear relationship with individual performance variables (e.g., organizational citizenship, deviance, task performance, creativity, innovation), attitudinal and psychological variables (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, trust, PsyCap, empowerment), and occupational health variables (e.g., wellbeing, burnout). Leadership is also related to team processes and outcomes, such as shared mental models, team learning, psychological safety climate, team cohesion, and team potency. Finally, we outlined organizational outcomes of successful leadership including psychosocial safety climate, organizational change readiness, and ethical organizational culture. These individual, team, and organizational outcomes are also related to broader effective functioning of a workplace. These positive outcomes of leadership are often used to support investment in leadership development initiatives. While there is evidence for the relationship between effective leadership and these outcomes much of the evidence is correlational in nature or fails to account for external factors/moderators. This gap in knowledge presents an issue for investment into leadership development programs. Hence there is a need for more research on leadership broadly, but also on leadership development utilizing good experimental designs and assessing outcomes over time. The moderators of successful leadership were discussed and the opportunities for future research, adopting a causal modelling of leadership effects and exploring leadership through an economic lens were discussed as the challenges and opportunities for future research. Leadership can have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals, teams, and organizations and we look forward to further advancements in this field.

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Servant Leadership Influence on Well-Being Kathleen Bentein and Alexandra Panaccio

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Well-Being: An Overview of the Empirical Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Hedonic Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Eudaimonic Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Ill-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Well-Being: Theoretical Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Servant Leadership and Well-Being: What to Do Next? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Servant leadership theory puts a strong emphasis on leading by serving followers that is unique among leadership approaches and explicitly posits that organizational performance is a by-product of employees’ well-being. However, the empirical literature has only begun to explore the link between servant leadership and well-being, and our understanding of this relationship remains underdeveloped. The current chapter seeks to provide an overview of theory and empirical evidence on servant leadership and well-being, addressing the two following questions: (a) what do we know about the relationship(s) between servant leadership and well-being and (b) what theoretical mechanisms are used by researchers to explain these relationships? Based on a qualitative state of the

K. Bentein (*) School of Business Administration (ESG), University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] A. Panaccio John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_43

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science review addressing these two questions, challenges and opportunities for future research are discussed. Keywords

Servant leadership · Well-being · Job demands-resources model · Conservation of resources theory · Broaden-and-build theory · Resource allocation theories · Selfdetermination theory

Introduction Over the past decades, the concept of servant leadership has garnered increasing attention from both practitioners and academics (e.g., Eva et al. 2019). This might be explained by a current demand for more ethical, pro-social, and people-centered management leadership and for organizations to show greater concern for the community in which they are embedded (van Dierendonck 2011). Servant leadership has its roots in the seminal work of Greenleaf (1977, 1991), in which servant leadership is described not as a management technique but as a way of life, which starts with a “natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first” (Greenleaf 1977, p. 14). Eva et al. (2019) defined servant leadership as “an (1) other-oriented approach to leadership (2) manifested through one-on-one prioritizing of follower individual needs and interests, (3) and outward reorienting of their concern for self towards concern for others within the organization and the larger community” (p. 114). This definition emphasizes three key elements. First, the motive of servant leadership is serving others. Second, the mode of servant leadership is based upon the recognition that each follower is unique and has different needs and interests and that the servant leader promotes the self-growth and well-being of each ones. Finally, the mindset of servant leadership reflects that the focus on follower development occurs within an overarching concern for the larger community. While servant leadership shares conceptual similarities with other leadership styles, it is often distinguished from other approaches by its prioritization of followers’ needs above those of the organization and of the leaders themselves (Eva et al. 2019; van Dierendonck 2011). However, servant leadership further differs from other leadership styles in that the servant leader is sensitive to the needs of all stakeholders, including the community in which the organization is embedded and society as a whole (Graham 1991). In sum, servant leadership’s focus on multiple stakeholders is what distinguishes it most clearly from other approaches (e.g., Lemoine et al. 2019). Servant leadership has also been distinguished empirically from other leadership approaches. Indeed, three recent meta-analyses (Banks et al. 2018; Hoch et al. 2018; Lee et al. 2020) provided empirical evidence that servant leadership predicted additional variance in various follower outcomes above and beyond other leadership styles, such as transformational leadership (Hoch et al. 2018) or authentic and ethical leaderships (Lee et al. 2020). Comparative studies (e.g., Neubert et al. 2008; van Dierendonck et al. 2014) also demonstrated how

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servant leadership influences outcomes through distinctive mediating mechanisms. Van Dierendonck et al. (2014) specifically addressed the potential overlap between servant leadership and transformational leadership and found that servant leadership worked primarily through follower’s need satisfaction, whereas transformational leadership worked mainly through perceived leadership effectiveness. All these empirical results support the idea that servant leadership is unique and distinct from other leadership styles. While for many years servant leadership did not attract much scholarly attention, the past few years have seen a sharp increase in the number of academic publications on the topic. Unfortunately, few studies have clearly articulated the theoretical mechanisms through which servant leadership was proposed to affect the selected outcomes. Recent reviews of the servant leadership literature reveal that, among the few studies that did propose a theoretical explanation for the proposed relationships, social exchange theory and social learning theory were the two theoretical frameworks most often used (Eva et al. 2019; Lemoine et al. 2019; Madison and Eva 2019). Social exchange theory (Blau 1964) guided by the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner 1960) has been used to suggest that servant leaders develop a strong exchange relationship with their followers, by providing them with valued resources. That is, by focusing on the growth and development of each of their followers, the servant leader creates a sense of obligation within their follower, where they feel compelled to reciprocate and to return the positive behaviors the servant leader exhibits toward them. The other theory which has been used, social learning theory (Bandura 1977), suggests that followers observe their servant leaders’ behaviors because they are attractive role models and learn from them the servant leadership attitudes and behaviors through modeling. Servant leaders are seen as credible role models because they lead by putting their employees first, above their own needs, and act altruistically. This theory resonates with Greenleaf’s (1991) assertion that servant leaders are likely to transform their followers into servant leaders themselves. While social exchange theory focuses on the dyadic relationship and exchanges between the leader and the follower, social learning theory may better explain how other stakeholders might benefit from the servant leader’s actions (Bao et al. 2018). These two theoretical frameworks are promising to better understand the workings of servant leadership, but much work remains to be done to truly uncover the mechanisms involved. Indeed, even in studies where a theoretical framework is presented, it is often unclear how this framework guided the choice of variables or explains the nature of their relationships with servant leadership. Moreover, these mechanisms are not specific to servant leadership but commonly used to explain the effects of all forms of “moral” – ethical, authentic, and servant – leadership (Lemoine et al. 2019). Servant leadership explicitly posits that organizational performance is a by-product of employees’ well-being (Frick 2004; Greenleaf 1977). Thus, the questions of (a) whether/how servant leadership relates to well-being and (b) what theoretical mechanisms may explain this relationship are of paramount importance to better understand the contribution of servant leadership as a worthwhile leadership

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approach. It is thus not surprising that, with the rise in the number of academic publications on servant leadership, studies on the relationships between servant leadership and well-being – be it employee or, more rarely, team, organizational, or community well-being – have also been proliferating. The state of the literature is thus quite different from what it was just a few years ago, when scholars reflecting on the servant leadership-well-being relationship noted the glaring lack of empirical evidence on the topic (e.g., Panaccio et al. 2015). However, this body of work lacks integration and, possibly due to the absence of a clear theoretical framework, has a number of blind spots. This chapter seeks to provide an overview of theory and empirical evidence on servant leadership and well-being, addressing the questions of (a) what we know about servant leadership and well-being and (b) what theoretical mechanisms may explain these relationships, in order to then propose avenues for future research. We thus started by reviewing the literature on servant leadership and well-being. While this review does not claim to be exhaustive, we sought to produce an overview of the state of academic knowledge by including all peer-reviewed journals and adopting a broad conceptualization of the term “well-being.” We extracted the key findings from this body of work which, combined with a reflection on underlying theoretical mechanisms, would allow us to propose meaningful directions for future research on servant leadership and well-being. Drawing on our research questions, we have structured this chapter into four main sections. First, we describe the methodology used to conduct our literature review, including the way we conceptualized wellbeing for this purpose. We then present the results of this review, focusing in empirical articles and seeking to answer the first question: what do we know about servant leadership and well-being? In the following section, we explore the theoretical mechanisms that may explain these relationships, drawing on the results from our review of the servant leadership literature. In the fourth section, we conclude by proposing directions for future research.

Methodology Before describing the methodology we used to search the literature on servant leadership and well-being, it is useful to briefly present how we conceptualized and consequently captured the notion of well-being. Because there is much diversity across concepts of well-being and a considerable body of literature has developed over the past 50 years, we adopted an integrative perspective in the current paper. Consistent with the proposition of Ryan et al. (2008), we see well-being as an umbrella term that includes two broad categories of more specific constructs: hedonic well-being constructs and eudaimonic well-being constructs. Hedonic well-being constructs are concerned with the subjective experience of pleasure. Some constructs refer to this subjective experience of pleasure as an affective or emotional reaction to events, such as experiencing positive affects like happiness or joy and not experiencing negative affects like sadness, anger, and stress. Other constructs refer to this subjective experience of pleasure as a cognitive evaluation,

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such as thoughts about the quality or goodness of the life in general (life satisfaction) or the work situation in particular (job satisfaction). Often seen as complementary to the hedonic perspective (e.g., Keyes 2005), eudaimonic well-being constructs are concerned with the subjective experience of personal fulfillment and the realization of human potential, such as self-actualization, the meaning and purpose of one’s work, or thriving. The concept of flourishing has sometimes been used to encompass both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being (e.g., Keyes 2005). Note that despite the great differences between these constructs, most “well-being” researchers believe that this phenomenon is multifaceted and includes a combination, or even all, of these aspects (e.g., Diener 2009; Sirgy 2012). This broad conceptualization of wellbeing guided the choice of the search terms used in our review of the literature, as described below. To address our research questions, in order to get a picture of the state of knowledge on servant leadership and well-being, we conducted a review of scholarly articles and book chapters on the topic. We searched the ABI/Inform Collection, PsycINFO, and Web of Science databases and, for the year 2020, Google Scholar using servant leader/leadership with a series of keywords which, according the broad conceptualization which we adopted, pertained to well-being or its opposite, ill-being. For instance, on the positive side, we included keywords such as affect, eudaimonia, flourishing, health, happiness, hedonia, satisfaction, self-actualization, thriving, welfare, and well-being. To capture the negative side of well-being, we included keywords such as burnout, distress, exhaustion, ill-being, and stress. We included all countries and years of publications but restricted the search to Englishlanguage publications. We then examined the results based on relevance, for instance, eliminating articles that were neither empirical nor conceptual. Among empirical articles, we retained studies where servant leadership was included as a substantive or control variable in the model.

Servant Leadership and Well-Being: An Overview of the Empirical Literature Although non-exhaustive, our review of empirical articles published on servant leadership and well-being reveals some clear trends. First, the topic is increasingly popular among scholars, as the majority of studies on servant leadership and wellbeing topic was published in the last 10 years, with a notable increase in the past 3 years. Second, the vast majority of articles examined servant leadership as a predictor of well-being. Indeed, only a handful of studies examined servant leadership as a contextual variable which could moderate relationships between other predictors and well-being variables, and even fewer considered well-being as predictor of servant leadership behaviors. Third, the outcomes most often studied fall under the broad umbrella of employee well-being, as fewer studies examined, for instance, the well-being of other stakeholders such as the leader him-/herself. Fourth, the breadth of well-being variables studied in relation with servant leadership remains relatively limited, with one hedonic variable – satisfaction – and one

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eudaimonic variable, work engagement, receiving the most attention. Finally, very few studies addressed the team or group level of analysis, the vast majority examining individual-level variables. Having provided this general overview, we now present these studies’ findings in more detail.

Servant Leadership and Hedonic Well-Being One of the first observations that emerges from our review of the literature is that servant leadership appears to be positively related to employee hedonic positive wellbeing. Satisfaction – whether it is with one’s job, career, or life – is the most studied facet of hedonic well-being in relation to servant leadership, which is not surprising given the topic’s popularity in the management and organizational behavior literatures. Consistent with servant leadership theory, an abundance of studies suggests that employees who are supervised by a servant leader experience greater job satisfaction (e.g., Barbuto and Wheeler 2006; Donia et al. 2016; Ilkhanizadeh and Karatepe 2018; Mayer et al. 2008; van Dierendonck and Nuijten 2011; see also meta-analyses by Zhang et al. 2019b; and Stein et al. 2020). Stein et al.’s (2020) meta-analysis suggested there are no significant differences in the size of this relationship between AngloSaxon and Chinese employees. Studies also suggest servant leadership is associated with greater career satisfaction (e.g., Ilkhanizadeh and Karatepe 2018; Kaya and Karatepe 2020; Latif et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2019b) and greater life satisfaction (e.g., Hakanen and van Dierendonck 2011; Ilkhanizadeh and Karatepe 2018; Latif et al. 2020; Li et al. 2018; Upadyaya et al. 2016), and a recent study suggests employees of servant leaders experience greater satisfaction with their work-family balance (Meng et al. 2020). In one of the rare studies examining a) the servant leadership – satisfaction at the group level – and b) the satisfaction of stakeholders other than employees, Neubert et al. (2016) found unit-level servant leadership to predict unit-level job satisfaction in a sample of nurses and, via nurse job satisfaction, patient satisfaction with nursing and pain management. Scholars have proposed several variables to mediate these relationships. For instance, Mayer et al. (2008) found employee perceptions of organizational justice and need satisfaction to mediate the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction, while Chan and Mak (2014) found trust in the leader to mediate this relationship. According to Wang et al.’s (2019b) study, career skills mediated the relationship between servant leadership and career satisfaction. Hakanen and van Dierendonck’s (2011) study suggested servant leadership’s relationship with life satisfaction is mediated by justice, job control, and (negatively) burnout; Ilkhanizadeh and Karatepe’s (2018) study suggested these relationships are mediated by job and career satisfaction and Latif et al.’s (2020) by career satisfaction. In one of the few studies examining facets of hedonic employee well-being other than satisfaction, Li et al. (2018) found employee workplace positive affect to mediate the relationship between servant leadership and life satisfaction. Mindfulness was found to mediate the relationship between servant leadership and employee satisfaction with their work-life balance (Meng et al. 2020).

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Fewer studies have examined moderators of the relationships between servant leadership and satisfaction, but some studies suggest the existence of boundary conditions enhancing or reducing the strength of these relationships. For instance, Neubert et al. (2016) found that team-level servant leadership was only related to patient satisfaction via nurse job satisfaction at high levels of organizational structure or formalized prescriptions for how organizational members related to another and complete their work. Examining the role of employee motives as boundary conditions of the servant leadership-job satisfaction relationship, Donia et al. (2016) found that servant leadership was less strongly associated with job satisfaction among employees with self-serving, impression management motives. Wang et al. (2019b) found that the relationship between servant leadership and career satisfaction via career skills was stronger among highly proactive employees. Li et al. (2018) found that the positive indirect relationship between servant leadership and employee life satisfaction via workplace positive affect was stronger among employees with a high collectivistic orientation and those with high self-efficacy. Recently, looking at servant leadership as a contextual factor moderating the relationship between newcomers’ proactive behaviors and job satisfaction, Bauer et al. (2019) found that this relationship was stronger under conditions of low servant leadership. This suggests servant leaders may provide an environment which reduces the need for proactivity from followers, while conversely, proactive followers may be able to compensate for leadership deficiencies. As a whole, these results indicate that followers of servant leaders tend to experience greater satisfaction with their job, career, and life, but more research is needed to understand the mechanisms underlying these relationships. There is also a need for more research on relationships between servant leadership and facets of hedonic well-being other than employee satisfaction.

Servant Leadership and Eudaimonic Well-Being Looking beyond hedonic well-being, the most studied variable is employee work engagement, and considerable empirical evidence shows servant leadership to be positively associated with this outcome (e.g., Bao et al. 2018; Chughtai 2018; Coetzer et al. 2017; De Clercq et al. 2014; Kaya and Karatepe 2020; Ling et al. 2017; Peng and Chen 2020; Upadyaya et al. 2016; van Dierendonck and Nuijten 2011; van Dierendonck et al. 2014; Yang et al. 2017), including in particularly challenging contexts such as mergers (de Sousa and van Dierendonck 2014). Looking at mediating mechanisms, de Sousa and Van Dierendonck et al. (2014) found servant leadership to be associated with employee work engagement via organizational identification and psychological empowerment, while van Dierendonck et al. (2014) found need satisfaction to mediate this relationship. Yang et al. (2017) found job crafting to be a partial mediator of the positive relationship between servant leadership and engagement, while Bao et al. (2018) found leader member exchange (LMX) to mediate this relationship. In a recent study with public sector employees, Shim et al. (2020) found that servant leaders contributed to employee engagement via job autonomy, goal specificity, public service

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motivation, and organizational trust. In two of the rare multilevel studies of servant leadership, Ling et al. (2017) found that group-level servant leadership was positively associated with employee-level work engagement via a climate of trust, while Peng and Chen (2020) found that employee work engagement and concern climate mediated a positive relationship between branch-level servant leadership and individual employee service performance. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that followers of servant leaders tend to experience more work engagement, but the mechanisms through which this may occur are only starting to be uncovered. Finally, servant leadership may also enhance or buffer relationships between other variables and work engagement: in one of the rare studies examining servant leadership as a contextual factor moderating the impact of other predictors on well-being variables, Zhang et al. (2019a) found this leadership style to moderate the relationship between challenge stressors and work engagement such that it was positive among employees working with a servant leader and nonsignificant among those working under conditions of low servant leadership. Again, more research is needed to better understand such moderating effects, but these findings suggest servant leadership may contribute in different ways to employee well-being. While studies on servant leadership and other eudaimonic well-being variables are relatively scarce, existing evidence suggests this leadership style is beneficial in this regard. For instance, recent studies have shown servant leadership to be positively related to employee thriving at work (e.g., Iqbal et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2019a), meaningful work (e.g., Cai et al. 2018), and meaning in life (e.g., Rodríguez-Carvajal et al. 2019). Chen et al. (2013) found a marginally significant positive relationship between self-rated servant leadership and employee self-acceptance, a dimension of eudaimonic well-being. Other studies have shown positive associations between servant leadership and a global measure of employee eudaimonic well-being, combining facets such as selfacceptance, mastery, and positive relations with others (e.g., Clarence et al. 2020; der Kinderen et al. 2020). Clarence et al. (2020) found that this positive relationship between servant leadership and well-being was mediated by psychological capital, while der Kinderen et al. (2020), interestingly, found work engagement to mediate the positive relationship between servant leadership and other facets of eudaimonic well-being. In one of the few studies examining servant leadership in relation with team-level well-being outcomes, Xu and Wang (2019) found servant leadership to be positively associated with collective thriving via team high-quality member exchange (TMX). Relatedly, in one of the rare multilevel studies aimed at examining the impact of servant leadership on various stakeholders conducted to date, Giolito et al. (2020) found this leadership style to be positively associated with employee flourishing at the individual level and to contribute to unit-level profit growth via group-level employee flourishing. Interestingly, power distance orientation moderated these effects at the individual level, such that the relationship between servant leadership and flourishing was weaker among employees high on power distance but no such effects were observed at the group level.

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Servant Leadership and Ill-Being Turning to ill-being, or the negative side of well-being, one of the most frequently studied outcomes in relation to servant leadership is employee burnout, or its main component, emotional exhaustion. Studies have consistently found negative relationships between servant leadership and these outcomes (e.g., Babakus et al. 2010; Hakanen and van Dierendonck 2011; Tang et al. 2016; Upadyaya et al. 2016). Zhang et al.’s (2019b) meta-analysis, although conducted on a very small number of studies, also showed a negative relationship between servant leadership and emotional exhaustion. A study by Rivkin et al. (2014) further suggested that servant leadership is negatively related to depersonalization, another dimension of burnout, in addition to emotional exhaustion. A recent study by Obi et al. (2020) in a sample of religious sisters suggested servant leadership is indirectly (negatively) related to employee emotional exhaustion via a negative relationship with forcing behavior. In addition to burnout and its manifestations, empirical evidence suggests servant leadership is negatively related to employee depressive symptoms (e.g., Upadyaya et al. 2016) and job stress (e.g., Jaramillo et al. 2009) and, indirectly, to other mental health diagnoses and workaholism (e.g., Upadyaya et al. 2016). A study by Tang et al. (2016) suggests servant leadership is indirectly (negatively) related to workfamily conflict via emotional exhaustion. Recently, in one of the rare studies a) exploring emotions in relation with servant leadership and b) examining servant leadership behaviors as a dependent variable, Stollberger et al. (in press) found that leaders’ perception of anger from their own manager was negatively associated with manifestations of servant leadership behavior via (lower) perceived manager moral behavior. Looking beyond the direct relationships between servant leadership and ill-being variables, a handful of studies have examined servant leadership’s role as a moderating variable, buffering or enhancing relationships between predictors and facets of ill-being. Upadyaya et al. (2016) found that servant leadership moderated the association between high workload and burnout and depressive symptoms such that these relationships were weaker under conditions of high servant leadership. Similarly, Zhang et al. (2019a) found this leadership style to reduce the strength of the (positive) relationship between challenge stressors and burnout. Recently, Wu et al. (2020) also found that servant leadership reduced the strength of the positive relationship between challenge stressors and burnout but, surprisingly, found that it enhanced the strength of the positive relationship between hindrance stressors and emotional exhaustion in a sample of Chinese schoolteachers. In a rare study examining servant leadership as a moderator of relationships between well-being and other outcomes, Bande et al. (2015) found that it reduced the strength of the positive association between emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions in employees working in sales, such that this relationship became nonsignificant when these employees worked under the supervision of a servant leader. Recently, scholars have begun to examine how adopting servant leadership behaviors may impact the leader’s own well-being (e.g., Zhou et al. 2020; Liao et al. in press). Interestingly, findings suggest being a servant leader may not always

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benefit the leader. Indeed, Zhou et al. (2020) found servant leadership to be positively associated with leader emotional exhaustion, which in turn led to more perceived work-family conflict. Conscientiousness moderated this relationship, however, such that the relationship between servant leadership and emotional exhaustion was nonsignificant among highly conscientious leaders. Interestingly, in another recent study, Liao et al. (in press) found that engaging in servant leadership behaviors was associated with feelings of depletion among leaders who were low on perspective taking but reduced such feelings among leaders who were high on perspective taking. This overview of the empirical literature on servant leadership and well-being leads to the tentative general conclusion that this approach fulfils its promise of contributing positively to followers’ well-being. Indeed, most studies suggest a positive impact of servant leadership on employee well-being, either directly, indirectly, or via a moderating role. These results must be balanced against preliminary evidence suggesting that this may be, in some cases, at the expense of the leader’s own well-being. However, drawing firm conclusions from this body of work remains hazardous given the lack of integration between theoretical and empirical work, the lack of integration between the studies, the methodological limitations often stemming from the use of cross-sectional single-source research designs, and the relative small number of studies. In the next section, we turn to the theoretical mechanisms underlying the relationships between servant leadership and well-being, drawing from the servant leadership literature.

Servant Leadership and Well-Being: Theoretical Mechanisms As noted earlier, reviewed empirical studies rarely provide a strong theoretical basis for the mechanisms or processes that explain how and/or why servant leadership is related to well-being. Some studies do not mention a theoretical framework at all. Other studies, even if they mention some theoretical framework(s), do not provide well-developed theoretical justifications for the choice of the studied variables or an explanation for the mechanisms at play between servant leadership and employee well-being variables. As was noted above, among studies that provide a theoretical framework as a basis for their empirical work, many papers draw on the classical social exchange theory. These studies investigate the role of relational variables, in particular followers’ trust (i.e., Chan and Mak 2014; Ilkhanizadeh and Karatepe 2018; Kim and Kim 2017), leader-member exchange (i.e., Akdol and Arikboga 2017; Amah 2018; Bao et al. 2018), and team-member exchange (i.e., Xu and Wang 2019), in mediating relationships between servant leadership and well-being-related outcomes. As social exchange theory is built on the notion of reciprocation by the employee for positive behaviors from the leader, the use of this theory seems justified to explain what could be considered “performance-related” well-being outcomes such as work engagement. However, social exchange theory seems

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ill-fitted to explain other employee-centered well-being outcomes such as job or life satisfaction. Social learning theory, the second classical framework used to explain the workings of servant leadership, is rarely used in empirical studies linking servant leadership and well-being. Even if some studies mention it (i.e., Bao et al. 2018; Neubert et al. 2016), none of the studies included in our review used social learning theory as their main theoretical framework to support the specific link between servant leadership and well-being. This, however, is not particularly surprising as this theory focuses on how followers learn specific behaviors from leaders through role modeling and then emulate these behaviors. Like social exchange theory, this theory thus seems more appropriate to explain how servant leadership might lead to performance-related attitudes or behaviors, such as public service motivation or helping behaviors, than to explain its relationship with employee-centered wellbeing-related outcomes. Interestingly, the overwhelming majority of theoretically-grounded empirical studies linking servant leadership and well-being refer to other theoretical approaches. The job demands-resources model (JD-R, Bakker and Demerouti 2007, 2014; Demerouti et al. 2001) and conservation of resources theory (COR; Hobfoll 1989, 2001) are the two most popular theoretical frameworks. Others, such as the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson 1998, 2000; Fredrickson and Branigan 2005), resource allocation theories of self-control (Baumeister et al. 1998; Muraven and Baumeister 2000), and self-determination theory (SDT – Deci and Ryan 2000; Ryan et al. 2008) have also been used, although less often. In the next paragraphs, we briefly present each of these frameworks and describe in general terms how each one might explain the relationship between servant leadership and well-being. We then give examples of studies having used these frameworks to illustrate how these theories have been utilized in the literature. The job demands-resources model (JD-R model) is one of the leading models used by scholars to explain the relationship between servant leadership and wellbeing. The JD-R model proposes that high job demands lead – via burnout – to negative outcomes, which constitute the stress process, whereas job resources lead, via work engagement, to positive outcomes, which represents the motivational process (Bakker and Demerouti 2007, 2014; Demerouti et al. 2001). Burnout is typically described as a reaction to chronic occupational stress characterized by emotional exhaustion, a distant attitude toward work in general or toward the recipients of one’s service or care, and reduced personal accomplishment or professional efficacy (Bakker and Demerouti 2014). Engagement, in contrast, is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli et al. 2002, p. 74). Both burnout and engagement constructs thus reflect distinct but related dimensions of employees’ wellbeing. In studies using the JD-R model as the main theoretical framework, some authors position servant leadership as a “separate variable” that influences job resources and/or job demands (e.g., Coetzer et al. 2017, p. 7; Shim et al. 2020), without theorizing its specific nature, whereas other authors precisely define servant

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leadership as a job resource in the workplace (e.g., Bao et al. 2018; Upadyaya et al. 2016). However, it must be noted that this view of leadership as a resource is not specific to servant leadership and has been considered to be “leader-centric,” not necessarily accounting for the followers’ state of mind (Perko et al. 2016). Among the many empirical studies supporting a positive association between servant leadership and work engagement, a few provide preliminary evidence of the mediating role of job resources in this process. Indeed, Coetzer et al. (2017) found that the empowerment and humility dimensions of servant leadership positively influenced job resources (consisting of organizational support, supervisory support, and job clarity) and that higher job resources, in turn, predicted work engagement. More recently, Shim et al. (2020) found that resources such as job autonomy and goal specificity mediated servant leadership’s relationship with engagement. These results tend to support the idea that servant leadership fuels the motivational process proposed in the JD-R model. In a handful of empirical studies drawing on the JD-R model, servant leadership was also positioned as a moderator, proposed to weaken the relationship between job demands and burnout (e.g., Upadyaya et al. 2016; Wu et al. 2020; Zhang et al. 2019a) or to amplify the positive effects of challenging job demands on work engagement (Zhang et al. 2019a). Results of these studies provide the first empirical support to the proposition put forward by JD-R theorists that job demands and resources interact in predicting well-being (Bakker and Demerouti 2014). Based on Upadyaya et al.’s (2016) and Zhang et al.’s (2019a) findings, employees supported by a servant leader may have many job resources available to cope better with their job demands (job resources buffer the impact of job demands on burnout – first interaction). Moreover, servant leadership becomes more salient and has the strongest positive impact on work engagement when job demands are high (second interaction – see Zhang et al. 2019a). However, the surprising enhancing effect found by Wu et al. (2020) on the relationship between hindrance stressors and emotional exhaustion suggests more work is needed in this area. Conservation of resources theory (COR theory, Hobfoll 1989, 2001) is another leading model used to explain the relationship between servant leadership and well-being. This theory is complementary to the JD-R model but emphasizes the role of resources. A key premise of COR theory is that people are fundamentally motivated to gain resources or “things” (objects, personal characteristics, conditions, and energies) they value and seek to obtain new resources, protect existing ones, and restore the old ones (the resource gain premise), because those resources help them to cope with psychological stress. The theory predicts that stress might result from the actual loss of resources, threat of resource loss, or failing to gain resources following an investment of resources (Hobfoll SE 1988). It further claims that sustained psychological stress emanating from any of these three paths can lead to burnout. Some researchers have used COR theory as a framework to explain how servant leaders may provide personal resources to their employees, such as psychological capital (e.g., Karatepe and Talebzadeh 2016) or self-efficacy (e.g., Zhong et al. 2020) and via these resources impact follower well-being

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(e.g., work engagement; Karatepe and Talebzadeh 2016) or other outcomes. Others, in perfect alignment with the proposition of researchers who based their work on the JD-R model, view servant leadership itself as a resource, directly influencing well-being outcomes such as work engagement (e.g., Upadyaya and Salmela-Aro 2020; Upadyaya et al. 2016), burnout (e.g., Babakus et al. 2010; Upadyaya and Salmela-Aro 2020; Upadyaya et al. 2016), or its main dimension, emotional exhaustion (e.g., Tang et al. 2016). Relatedly, some researchers have described servant leadership as a contextual resource that shapes personal resources for employees (e.g., der Kinderen et al. 2020). Indeed, Hobfoll (2001) included among key personal resources the feeling that life has meaning or purpose, or a sense of mastery of one’s life, which correspond to the eudaimonic well-being concept. Results of der Kinderen et al.’s (2020) study showed that servant leadership is positively related to followers’ wellbeing and that as a macro resource, workplace civility climate works as a boundary condition to enable or restrain the ability of servant leaders to affect well-being. In terms of COR theory, these results seem to support the proposition that servant leadership is a contextual resource which impacts personal resources and that a macro resource may act as a boundary factor which impacts the power of this relationship. As underlined by the authors (der Kinderen et al. 2020), these results also support the categorization of different contextual resources according to their functions suggested by Ten Brummelhuis and Bakker (2012). Taken together, these empirical results support one of the basic tenets of COR theory, which is that servant leadership involves resource gains or substitutions that can help employees in coping with job burnout. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson 1998, 2000; Fredrickson and Branigan 2005) states that certain discrete positive emotions (e.g., joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love) have the ability to broaden people’s momentary thought-action repertoires, widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind (e.g., to play, to explore, to savor and integrate, or to envision future achievement). This is in direct contrast to negative emotions, which narrow a person’s momentary thought-action repertoire by calling to mind an urge to act in a particular way (e.g., to escape, to attack, to expel). These broaden mindsets have indirect and long-term adaptive benefits, as they build enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources, in which people can later draw to manage future threats. One example of an empirical study which used this theory to explain the relationship between servant leadership and well-being is Li et al. (2018). These authors suggested that servant leadership is likely to enhance employees’ positive affect in the workplace, because they act beyond self-interest and place followers and their needs at the center of their focus and form good interpersonal connections with them. By broadening individuals’ thought-action repertoires and facilitating the accumulation of resources, workplace positive affect will then spill over to the overall life domain, promoting general life satisfaction among employees. Their empirical results provided support for the mediation of the relationship between servant leadership and life satisfaction through workplace positive affect.

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Another example is Rodríguez-Carvajal et al.’s (2019) daily study which examined the role of vitality or the conscious positive experience of individuals having energy available for themselves, as a mediator between servant leadership and goal attainment. Their study showed that daily servant leadership at work during the day is positively related to meaning in life at night, which is itself positively related to daily vitality the following morning. They further found that this enhancement in vitality level increases goal attainment after work, supporting the broaden-and-build assertions. Also anchored in the broaden-and-build theory, Clarence et al.’s (2020) study showed that servant leadership is positively related to followers’ psychological well-being, through the building of a set of three enduring personal resources: hope, efficacy, and resilience, which together corresponds to psychological capital. Resource allocation theories of self-control (Baumeister et al. 1998; Johnson et al. 2017; Muraven and Baumeister 2000) posit that individuals have a finite pool of resources available for self-regulation and that exercising self-control drains individuals’ resources. When these resources are depleted, people tend to show diminished self-control on subsequent activities until they have had opportunities for rest or recovery activities (Johnson et al. 2018). These theories have been used to explain the link between servant leadership behaviors and the leader’s own wellbeing (e.g., Liao et al. in press; Zhou et al. 2020). From this perspective, engaging in servant leadership behaviors consumes self-regulatory resources of the leader, as leaders must use self-control to overcome the tendency to pursue self-interest and to take into consideration the interests of a variety of stakeholders in making their decisions. This will lead them to depletion, and eventually to a diminution of their efforts in their subsequent action. Zhou et al.’s (2020) results confirmed a positive daily relationship between servant leadership behaviors and leader emotional exhaustion and between leader emotional exhaustion and leader work-family conflict. Two experience sampling studies conducted by Liao et al. (in press) suggested that manifesting servant leadership behaviors may not be detrimental to all leaders: results showed that only managers who were generally low in perspective taking felt depleted after exhibiting servant behaviors on a given day, which in turn increased their laissez-faire behaviors the following day. Liao et al.’s (in press) results further showed not only that daily servant leadership behaviors consume less self-control resources for high-perspective-taking leaders but also that, for them, servant behaviors could be replenishing. Self-determination theory (SDT – Deci and Ryan 2000; Ryan et al. 2008) is a general theory of human motivation based on the following four premises: (a) human beings are proactive organisms that have an inherent tendency to shape and optimize their own life conditions in order to develop and grow toward their fullest potential; (b) this natural growth tendency requires specific nutriments, in the form of satisfaction of three basic psychological needs: the need for autonomy, the need for competence, and the need for relatedness; (c) satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs stems from the dialectic between the active organism and its social context. Social contexts that are supportive, congruent with, and validate an individual’s true self are particularly likely to facilitate need fulfillment; and finally, (d) there is a critical distinction between behaviors that are volitional and

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accompanied by the experience of freedom and autonomy – those that emanate from one’s sense of self-and those that are accompanied by the experience of pressure and control and are not representative of one’s self. Intrinsically motivated behaviors represent the prototype of self-determined activity as they are performed out of interest and satisfy the innate psychological needs. Extrinsically motivated behaviors, those that are executed because they are dependent on contingent outcomes that are separable from the action per se, can vary in the extent to which they represent self-determination. Internalization and integration are the processes through which extrinsically motivated behaviors become more self-determined (Deci and Ryan 2000). Drawing on SDT, Mayer et al. (2008) and van Dierendonck et al. (2014) showed a positive link between servant leadership and a global construct corresponding to “overall need satisfaction.” Going a step further, Chiniara and Bentein (2016) suggested that servant leaders’ distinctive focus on meeting followers needs leads them to recognize SDT’s three distinct basic psychological needs and contribute to their fulfillment. Their empirical results supported this assertion as they found a positive relationship between servant leadership and satisfaction of each of the three needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Also drawing on SDT, Chen et al. (2013) suggested that servant leadership, because it emphasizes trust and empowerment, provides subordinates with a higher sense of autonomy and meaningfulness, which improves their intrinsic motivation and increases their eudaimonic well-being. Their empirical results confirmed that servant leadership is positively related to subordinate’s eudaimonic well-being via employees’ intrinsic motivation. However, their study also showed that, in addition to intrinsic motivation, two other forms of work motivation, one also autonomous (identified regulation) and one controlled (external regulation), significantly mediated relationships between servant leadership and well-being. These results suggest that servant leadership might have an effect on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

Servant Leadership and Well-Being: What to Do Next? In this section, we summarize the key outcomes of our review, and, combining these with our theoretical reflection, we propose directions for future research. As our review shows, while scholars now seem to be conducting research on the links between servant leadership and well-being at an accelerated pace, several areas remain under-explored. First, empirical studies have largely focused on a few specific facets of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being (viz., satisfaction and work engagement on the positive side and burnout on the negative side), neglecting other well-being constructs. In addition, notably absent from our review were empirical studies including physical measures of well-being (e.g., physiological indicators of stress, sleep quality). This is consistent with what Inceoglu et al. (2018) concluded based on a state of the science review of the processes by which leadership behaviors in general (without focusing on one style in particular) impact employee well-being.

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Future research might thus want to explore a larger set of differentiated well-being forms, hedonic and eudaimonic, and psychological and physical. Moreover, as servant leadership’s focus on multiple stakeholders’ needs is what distinguishes it from other leadership approaches, future research might also want to develop more integrated hypotheses on distinctive forms of well-being among a broader range of stakeholders. Very recently, scholars have begun examining how adopting servant leadership behaviors may affect the leader’s own well-being and have suggested the existence of complex mechanisms underlying these relationships (e.g., Zhou et al. 2020; Liao et al. in press). However, very few studies have explored whether servant leadership could be of value in promoting the well-being of other stakeholders. Theoretical models including servant leadership’ links with the wellbeing of clients and community at large are thus needed to test the core tenet of servant leadership, that is, the emphasis on serving multiple stakeholders’ needs. Our overview of the literature on servant leadership and well-being also shows that most empirical studies implicitly assume that servant leadership may operate as both an individual and a group phenomenon. Individual-level servant leadership refers to the leadership behaviors experienced and perceived by an individual employee. That is, each follower develops his/her own perception of servant leadership based on the extent to which his/her leader focuses on his/her individual needs and the nature and quality of the one-on-one relationship the leader develops with him/her. In contrast, group-level servant leadership refers to the overall pattern of leadership behaviors displayed by the leader toward the entire work group; it can be viewed as a shared perception of a leaders’ servant leadership style among group members. To date, very few studies on servant leadership and well-being have addressed the team or group level of analysis (i.e., Ling et al. 2017; Neubert et al. 2016; Peng and Chen 2020) in their theoretical and empirical model. Following the recommendation to examine the impact of leadership approaches at multiple levels of analysis (Yammarino et al. 2005), future research might thus want to develop multilevel models that explain how servant leadership impacts well-being at both the individual and the group level. As our literature search reveals, many of the reviewed studies do not explicitly draw upon an existing theoretical perspective. This may be in part responsible for the fragmented nature of this body of work, especially when it comes to understanding the mechanisms underlying servant leadership’s relationships with well-being outcomes. For instance, a number of variables have been examined as mediators, without a clear sense of how these could be integrated in an overarching framework. Similarly, while a few studies suggest there may be boundary conditions to the effects of servant leadership on well-being, a theoretical framework justifying the choice of variables and the direction of the expected effects is needed to provide a finer-grained understanding of the conditions under which servant leadership may or may not contribute to well-being. Interestingly, while many empirical studies refer to the classical social exchange theory to explain the relationship between servant leadership and well-being variables, the great majority of empirical studies refers to other theoretical approaches. Two resource-based theories, the job demands resources model (Bakker and

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Demerouti 2007, 2014; Demerouti et al. 2001) and conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 1989, 2001), were the most popular. The reference to these theories (JD-R model and COR theory) is pertinent as they include well-being variables as focal constructs (e.g., work engagement, work burnout, personal resources). Those studies generally describe servant leadership as a job resource for the followers who benefit from these servant leadership behaviors. However, most studies use very limited parts of these theories to select only one or two variables, without taking into account the interrelationships between demands and resources, for instance, or between different demands or different resources. This is a limitation because according to the JD-R model, in addition to the dual pathways to employee well-being, in which demands cause exhaustion and resources cause engagement (Bakker and Demerouti 2007), there are buffering and coping mechanisms at play. For instance, if sufficient job resources are readily available, these can buffer the adverse effects of demands and thereby help secure high levels of work engagement. Besides, job demands might not be necessarily problematic, as challenging demands, which can contribute to work engagement, may also amplify the positive impact of job resources on engagement. This principle is also described in COR theory in the gain paradox principle, which states that resource gain increases in salience in the context of resource loss. Among the empirical studies reviewed here, only two have examined the interaction between servant leadership (as a job resource) and job demands in predicting wellbeing (e.g., Upadyaya et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2019a). With regard to servant leadership (as a resource) interacting with other resources, we reviewed only one study, examining the interaction between servant leadership as a contextual resource and workplace civility climate described as a macro resource in shaping employees’ personal resources (e.g., der Kinderen et al. 2020). Future research might thus want to continue exploring how servant leadership interacts with other resources and with job demands in the prediction of well-being. Indeed, servant leadership is only one piece of the context that surrounds the employee, and it might become more or less valuable depending on the circumstances (i.e., challenging job demands). According to COR theory, there is also an important dynamic corollary linked to the resource principles, that is, resource gain spirals tend to be weak and take time to develop, while resource loss cycles gain quickly in momentum and magnitude over time (Hobfoll et al. 2018). As the overwhelming majority of empirical studies reviewed here have relied on cross-sectional designs and treated servant leadership as an average leadership style that differs between individuals, we do not know a) how the levels of servant leadership and well-being-related variables may change over time (within individuals) and b) how these changes could be related to one another, a fortiori in resource gain spirals or in resource loss cycles. As an exception, three very recent studies demonstrated meaningful day-to-day variations in managers’ servant leadership behaviors and their effects on employees’ well-being (Rodríguez-Carvajal et al. 2019) or on the leader’s own well-being (Liao et al. in press; Zhou et al. 2020). Moreover, Liao et al. (in press) even showed that a leader might demonstrate very antagonist leadership styles, like servant leadership and laissez-faire leadership, on 2 consecutive days, depending on the state of his/her

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personal self-regulation resources and perspective-taking experience (Liao et al. in press). Future research might thus want to continue developing more process-based studies like these to help uncover the dynamic process underlying the relationships between servant leadership behaviors and well-being-related variables. For example, it might be more important for a leader to be consistent over time in manifesting servant behaviors than to demonstrate high levels of servant behaviors at one point in time. In this vein, Matta et al. (2017) demonstrated that being treated consistently unfairly is less physiologically stressful for employees than being treated fairly sometimes and unfairly at other times. As another example, servant leadership behaviors may exert a temporary effect on well-being: they may buffer the impact of job demands on burnout only for a certain period of time and then become ineffective at protecting against high job demands. McClean et al. (2019) offered interesting suggestions for researchers interested in studying servant leader behavior (and well-being) dynamism. Note that this question needs to be addressed with a very focused lens, as different types of well-being variables might change in different directions and through different (mediational) processes and might coexist (Inceoglu et al. 2018). Our review further reveals that the theoretical perspectives adopted in the reviewed empirical articles, although relevant since they explain the process of well-being, do not take into account the specificity of servant leadership to theorizing its effects on well-being. Indeed, servant leadership distinguishes itself from other theoretical leadership approaches by a focus on serving the needs of employees and other stakeholders (Lemoine et al. 2019). Drawing on SDT, some researchers show that servant leadership is positively related with global need satisfaction (Mayer et al. 2008; van Dierendonck et al. 2014) or fulfillment of each of the three basic psychological needs (Chiniara and Bentein 2016). However, we do not know what specific resources derived from a relationship with a servant leader may help employees satisfy each of their needs. Future research might thus want to develop a broader and more integrated view of the resources provided by servant leaders that directly support the fulfilment of employees’ (and other stakeholders’) needs. Colbert et al.’s (2016) taxonomy of relationship functions that support employee’s flourishing outcomes (i.e., finding meaning, experiencing positive emotions, and finding satisfaction in life) may be useful in this regard, by providing a basis for researchers to theorize on the distinctive resources provided by a servant leader. Their taxonomy identified “a full range of work-relevant relationship functions” (p. 1200) including some traditional functions (i.e., task assistance, career advancement, and emotional support) but also less studied functions (i.e., personal growth, friendship, and giving to other) that seem especially relevant for describing the types of resources that servant leadership may generate and provide to others. This chapter sought to provide an overview of the theoretical and empirical literature on servant leadership and well-being. Generally speaking, even though the number of studies exploring this link has been increasing steadily in the past few years, the literature is still in its infancy and, as such, presents exciting challenges and opportunities. We hope to have provided some useful insights and a road map to guide future research on this important topic.

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Leadership and Safety Lixin Jiang and Xiaohong Xu

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Safety-Related Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Safety Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Relationships Between Safety Leadership and Safety-Related Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why Does Safety Leadership Impact Safety-Related Outcomes: The Mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When Does Safety Leadership Impact Safety Outcomes: The Moderators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Safety Leadership Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Research Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Distinctness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Within-Person Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Dark Side of Safety Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reciprocal Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Leadership is one of the key factors that determines workplace safety. This chapter provides a comprehensive review on a wide range of safety-related outcomes and safety leadership styles and summarizes five theoretical perspectives (i.e., social exchange theory, social learning theory, social informationprocessing theory, expectancy theory, and self-regulation theory) and the empirical evidence between safety leadership and employee safety-related outcomes. The review suggests that safety leadership significantly influences employee L. Jiang (*) School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] X. Xu University of Texas, San Antonio, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_3

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safety-related outcomes via multiple mediation mechanisms (e.g., safety climate, leader-member exchange) and under different conditions (e.g., safety climate, perceived risk). Given the critical role of leadership in workplace safety, scholars have also developed interventions to improve leadership behaviours and promote employee safety-related outcomes. Building on previous research, we highlight several promising future directions, including testing the distinctiveness and usefulness of different safety leadership styles, adopting a within-person approach to understand the relationships between safety leadership and safetyrelated outcomes, examining the dark side of safety leadership with regard to workplace safety, and investigating the reciprocal relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes. Keywords

Leadership · Safety · Safety climate · Leadership interventions · Review

Introduction Because leaders determine safety-related policies and practices in the organization, such as the priority of safety over other goals (e.g., productivity) and resource allocation to achieve these goals (Zohar 2010), leadership plays a vital role in employee safety-related outcomes (Clarke 2013; Kelloway and Barling 2010). Scholars have devoted considerable effort and time to investigate the effects of leadership styles (e.g., transformational leadership, transactional leadership, servant leadership) on a wide range of employee safety behaviours and other safetyrelated outcomes, such as accidents and injuries (e.g., Christian et al. 2009; Nahrgang et al. 2011). There is also growing interest in developing safety leadership interventions to change leader behaviours, with an ultimate goal to improve employee safety-related outcomes (e.g., Kelloway and Barling 2010; von Thiele Schwarz et al. 2016; Zohar 2002). This chapter aims to provide a review on the current findings on leadership and safety. First, we review the conceptualizations of safety-related outcomes and safety leadership to establish a foundation for this review. Second, we provide an overview of existing findings on the effects of different leadership styles on safetyrelated outcomes, the mechanisms underlying these effects (i.e., mediators), as well as their boundary conditions (i.e., moderators). Third, we offer an overview of existing safety leadership interventions that are designed to change leader behaviours and promote workplace safety. Finally, while existing studies on safety leadership significantly improve our understanding of the critical role of leadership in determining workplace safety, several questions remained unaddressed in the safety leadership literature. Thus, we delineate multiple gaps in our current knowledge of safety leadership and suggest several promising directions for future research.

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Defining Safety-Related Outcomes The most commonly examined safety-related work outcomes include safety behaviours, accidents, injuries, other adverse events, and accident underreporting. There are several conceptualizations of safety-related behaviours in the safety literature. Of those, the best known one is by Griffin and Neal (2000). In line with research on task versus contextual performance in the Organizational Behaviour literature (Borman and Motowidlo 1993), Griffin and Neal (2000) distinguished between safety compliance and safety participation. Safety compliance, similar to task performance, refers to safety-related behaviours required by the employer, including following safety procedures, the use of protective equipment, and practising risk reductions, whereas safety participation, similar to contextual or organizational citizenship behaviours, reflects extra-role behaviours that go above and beyond mere compliance to improve safety within the organizational setting (Christian et al. 2009). Examples of safety participation incorporate proactively helping co-workers resolve safety problems, voluntarily participating in safety-related activities and training, attending safety meetings, and voicing safety concerns to managers. Hofmann, Morgeson, and Gerras (2003) further clarified behaviours subsumed by safety participation (or “safety citizenship behaviour”), including dimensions of helping, voice, stewardship, whistleblowing, civic virtue, and initiating safety-related change. For example, as one specific aspect of safety participation, safety initiative refers to employee personally driven and change-oriented behaviours aiming to improve safety of a working environment (e.g., Marchand et al. 1998). Another conceptualization of safety-related behaviours is proposed by Burke, Sarpy, Tesluk, and Smith-Crowe (2002). Specifically, they defined safety performance as “the actions or behaviours that individuals exhibit in almost all jobs to promote the health and safety of workers, clients, the public, and the environment” (p. 432) and identified four dimensions of safety-related behaviours: (1) using personal protective equipment, (2) engaging in work practices to reduce risk, (3) communicating health and safety information and (4) exercising employee rights and responsibilities. Thus, Burke et al.’s dimensions provide greater specificity within the broader categories of safety compliance and safety participation, where dimensions 1 and 2 are examples of safety compliance and dimensions 3 and 4 are examples of safety participation (Beus and Taylor 2018). Upon reviewing various conceptualizations of safety-related work behaviours (e.g., Burke et al. 2002; Griffin and Neal 2000; Hofmann et al. 2003), Beus and Taylor (2018) provided a goal-focused typology of safety-related behaviours where safety-focused goals aim to preserve or promote safety, but nonsafety-focused goals aim to accomplish something instead of preserving or promoting safety. Specifically, Beus and Taylor (2018, p. 403) defined safety-related work behaviours as “any workplace actions or practices that affect the degree to which persons in and immediately surrounding the workplace (e.g., employees, customers, and community members) are free from physical threat or harm.” They differentiated safety-related behaviours based on goal choice (i.e., safe vs. unsafe behaviours),

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goal-directedness (i.e., intentional vs. unintentional behaviours) and the means of goal pursuit (i.e., commission vs. omission vs. prevention-focused behaviour). In terms of goal choice, safe behaviour includes behaviours decreasing the likelihood of harm, whereas unsafe behaviour refers to those increasing the likelihood of harm. With regard to goal-directedness, intentional safe behaviours are those behaviours that employees knowingly perform to maintain or foster workplace safety, whereas intentional unsafe behaviour are those that employees knowingly perform despite the understanding that these behaviours could compromise workplace safety. Unintentional safe behaviours are those that unknowingly promote workplace safety, while unintentional unsafe behaviours are those unknowingly performed without an explicit realization that they could compromise safety. Concerning the means by which employees choose to pursue selected goals, committed (i.e., direct action) versus omitted (i.e., inaction) unsafe behaviours and promotion versus prevention-focused safe behaviours are proposed. When unsafe commission or omission is intentional, the difference between behavioural commission and omission lies in perceived causality, where it is more likely for employees who intentionally engage in unsafe behaviour to do so because of omission than commission. When unsafe commission or omission is unintentional, however, the difference between behavioural commission and omission depends on the type of deficiency causing the unsafe behaviours (e.g., lack of training or lack of attention). On the other hand, promotion-focused safe behaviours facilitate the presence of safety (e.g., encouraging co-workers to work safely), whereas prevention-focused safe behaviours prevent the absence of safety (e.g., following safety protocol). Therefore, prevention-focused safe behaviours, to some degree, correspond to safety compliance, while promotion-focused safe behaviours parallel with safety participation. In sum, Beus and Taylor’s broader conceptualization of safety-related work behaviours is multidimensional in nature, complementing the existing safety research. Although accidents and injuries are often treated interchangeably (Christian et al. 2009), a workplace accident is a broader term reflecting “any unplanned and uncontrolled event that causes injury to the persons, damage to property, plant, or equipment, or some other loss to the company” (Probst et al. 2019, p. 31). For example, an accident involving a forklift might lead to damage to the vehicle, but not an actual injury to the driver. Although previous research tends to count the number and frequency of accidents and injuries, more recent research has considered the degrees of severity of accidents and injuries, arguing that leadership may have different impacts on accidents and injuries depending on their severity and that major injuries are rare (Molnar et al. 2019). Indeed, injuries that range from minor injuries requiring mild first aid treatment all the way up to fatal injuries can vary in their severity. Additionally, other adverse events include errors, close calls, near misses and other safety-related events. Although international and national surveillance agencies collect statistics on fatal and non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses, research suggests that these statistics may greatly underrepresent the frequency of actual workplace injuries. Accident underreporting at the individual level reflects the discrepancy between the

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number of accidents, injuries and work-related illness that employees report to their employer and the number of accidents, injuries and work-related illness that employees actually experience. Thus, individual-level underreporting may reflect safety rule violations in that employees fail to report accidents when safety rules require them to report such accidents to relevant organizational officials. On the other hand, accident underreporting at the organizational level reflects that the employer fails to accurately report employee accidents, injuries and work-related illness to regulatory surveillance authorities. Both factors may contribute to the underestimation of occupational accidents and injuries (Probst et al. 2019).

Defining Safety Leadership There is no clear consensus in defining safety leadership, where each study derives their own conceptualization and definitions of safety leadership based on a particular theoretical model. Nevertheless, the full-range leadership framework (Bass 1985) dominates the leadership literature, including workplace safety (Willis et al. 2017). The most popular and well-known leadership is transformational leadership. Defined as “leader behaviours that transform and inspire followers to perform beyond expectations while transcending self-interest for the good of the organization” (Avolio et al. 2009, p. 423), transformational leadership consists of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation (Bass 1985). Applying this concept to workplace safety, safety-specific transformational leadership has four characteristics. First, transformational safety leaders emphasize the importance of safety, display idealized behaviours and behave as role models. Second, they energize employees with inspirational motivation, encourage them to transcend their individual interests for the collective benefit and drive them to achieve high safety standards. Third, transformational safety leaders provide individualized consideration and timely feedback related to workplace safety, prioritize employee safety and well-being and respond to employee safety concerns in a timely manner (Mullen and Kelloway 2009). Finally, intellectual stimulation of transformational safety leaders motivates employees to voice their concerns, discover new and better ideas and explore new approaches to solve safetyrelated issues (Barling et al. 2002). The full-range leadership framework (Bass 1985) also includes three types of transactional leadership. The first type is contingent reward leadership, or the extent to which the leader sets up constructive transactions with employees by clarifying expectations and establishing rewards for meeting these expectations. The second type is management-by-exception active (MEA) leadership where leaders set standards, monitor performance that may deviate from these standards and take corrective action as necessary (Avolio et al. 1999). The third type is managementby-exception passive (MEP) leadership where leaders do not take corrective action unless performance issues become serious. This framework (Bass 1985) also encompasses laissez-faire leadership where leaders avoid responsibilities and decisionmaking, fail to clarify performance expectations and follow up on requests and are

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absent when needed by their subordinates. MEP and laissez-faire leadership have been combined into a single higher-order factor (Avolio et al. 1999) as a type of nonresponsive, passive and destructive leadership (Nielsen et al. 2016). In contrast, active destructive leadership includes such concepts as abusive leadership (Tepper 2007), petty tyrant (Kant et al. 2013) and tyrannical leadership (Aasland et al. 2010) where leaders systematically humiliate, belittle and manipulate employees to “get the job done” and typically achieve results at the expense of employees (Einarsen et al. 2007). Three relatively new leadership concepts examined by safety researchers are authentic, empowering and servant leadership. Specifically, authentic leadership is defined as “a pattern of leader behaviour that draws upon and promotes both positive psychological capacities and a positive ethical climate to foster greater selfawareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency on the part of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development” (Walumbwa et al. 2008, p. 94). Empowering leadership is a leadership style where leaders share authority with employees in order to enhance their intrinsic motivation (Srivastava et al. 2006). Empowering leaders may encourage employees to participate in decision-making, coach employees, lead by example, show concern and interact with employees and share critical information (Srivastava et al. 2006). Finally, servant leadership builds personal relationships, provides support to team members via dialogue promotion and open communication and coaches people whose performance is suboptimal, thereby unleashing their potential (Barbuto and Wheeler 2006). The vast majority of aforementioned concepts have been more or less adapted to be more specific to workplace safety (e.g., safety-specific transformational leadership vs. general transformational leadership). Although related, safety-specific leadership tends to account for additional variance in safety outcomes above and beyond the variance explained by general leadership (Mullen and Kelloway 2009). In addition to the above research focusing on safety leadership concepts from the broad Organizational Behaviour literature, other researchers have developed their own operationalizations of safety leadership based on safety-critical environments. For example, Carrillo and Simon (1999) posited six critical safety leadership practices: to make the case for change, to create a shared vision, to build trust and open communication, to develop capabilities, to monitor progress and to recognize accomplishments. O’Dea and Flin (2001) identified four important safety leadership behaviours, namely, visibility at the worksite and leading by example; developing open, honest and trusting relationships with the workforce; workforce involvement and employment in planning and decision-making; and being proactive about safety. Bryden (2002) identified four types of critical senior managers’ behaviours in an oil company: (1) articulating an attainable vision of future safety performance, (2) demonstrating personal commitment to safety symbolically, (3) engaging everyone with relevant experience in decision-making and (4) being clear and transparent when dealing with safety issues. Wu (2005) demonstrated that safety leadership includes safety caring, safety coaching and safety controlling. Similarly, Lu and Yang (2010) described three safety leadership dimensions, including safety motivation, safety

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policy and safety concern. Griffin and Hu (2013, p. 200) defined safety leadership as “specific leader behaviours that motivate employees to achieve safety goals” and investigated leader safety inspiring, safety monitoring and safety learning. Casey, Neal, and Griffin (2019) developed an evidence-based safety leadership scale with four main “control strategies” used by team leaders to maintain employee safety performance, including the leverage strategy, the energize strategy, the adapt strategy and the defend strategy. Finally, according to Molnar et al. (2019, p. 181), safetyspecific leadership should “prioritize safety over speed and quantity, proactively focus on safety work procedures as well as the absence of accidents and injuries, keep track of potential risks and routine safety problems, provide feedback to employee safety behaviours, imitative actions to improve safety, and communicate safety issues and values during everyday work.” It is worth noting that these different leadership styles have similarities with the full-range leadership model by Bass (1985). For example, inspiring safety leadership, or “the degree to which a leader presents a positive vision of safety that is appealing and inspiring to the employees” (Griffin and Hu 2013, p. 196), is similar to the inspirational motivation dimension of safety-specific transformational leadership. Similarly, monitoring safety leadership, or “the degree to which a leader monitors and responds to mistakes and errors of team members in relation to safety” (Griffin and Hu 2013, p. 196), is similar to MEA.

The Relationships Between Safety Leadership and Safety-Related Outcomes Leadership may motivate or de-motivate employees to perform their work safely (Hofmann and Morgeson 2004; Zohar 2011). Different types of leadership may influence safety-related outcomes “in different ways and for different reasons” (Hoffmeister et al. 2014, p. 68). We summarize five theoretical perspectives to understand the relationships between safety leadership and safety outcomes. First, the norm of reciprocity based on the social exchange theory indicates that employees repay favourable workplace treatment with favourable behaviours of their own, as well as adjust their behaviours downward in response to unfavourable treatment (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005). Therefore, positive safety leadership (e.g., servant leadership) can facilitate safety practices, while neglectful and destructive leadership (e.g., MEP) can decrease safety outcomes. Second, social learning theory proposes that observations of, and interactions with, others can facilitate learning in a social context (Bandura 1977). Applying the social learning perspective to workplace safety indicates that when leaders transmit messages about the importance of safety, encourage safety behaviours and model safety behaviours, employees are more likely to follow suit. Therefore, empowering leadership, for example, may enhance safety-related behaviours, while laissez-faire leadership can be detrimental to safety outcomes. Third, the social information-processing theory (Salancik and Pfeffer 1978) argues that individuals process social cues from their work environment, especially

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those occupying leadership positions, to make sense of their work environment. Thus, when leaders communicate the importance of safety, prioritize safety over other issues during decision-making processes and personally commit to workplace safety, employees are more likely to take workplace safety seriously and display safety-related behaviours. Fourth, expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) suggests that an individual’s decision to engage in certain behaviours depends on three core cognitions: expectancy or the extent to which an individual believe in his/her capability to enact the behaviour required to achieve a particular goal, valence or the perceived desirability of the outcomes associated with the behaviour, and instrumentality or the perceived connection between the behaviour and the desired outcomes. Thus, when safety behaviours are noticed and rewarded by leaders (e.g., contingent reward leadership), employees are more likely to engage in such behaviours. Self-regulation theory from social psychology has also been used to understand the relationships between safety leadership and safety outcomes. Specifically, selfregulation is the psychological processes where individuals devote cognitive, affect and volitional resources to set and achieve goals (Karoly 1993). Employees set their own goals and monitor their progress towards their goals, thereby guiding their own goal-directed activities and performance (Carver and Scheier 1981). Employees may use different self-regulatory mechanisms to reach their goals, such as planning, monitoring, motivating and emotional control (Sitzmann and Ely 2011). Leaders may, therefore, engage in behaviours to assist employees to set and achieve safety goals (Griffin and Hu 2013). These theoretical frameworks all suggest that (safety-specific) transformational leadership (e.g., Barling et al. 2002; Kelloway et al. 2006; Zohar and Luria 2004), contingent reward leadership (e.g., Hoffmeister et al. 2014; Zohar 2002), MEA (Clarke 2013), authentic leadership (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2013), empowering leadership (e.g., Martínez-Córcoles et al. 2014) and servant leadership (Krebs 2005) are beneficial for employee safety perceptions, attitudes and behaviours, leading to fewer accidents and injuries. Similarly, the aforementioned safety leadership behaviours that are derived from safety-critical environments can also enhance safetyrelated outcomes (e.g., Griffin and Hu 2013; Molnar et al. 2019; O’Dea and Flin 2001). On the contrary, abusive supervision is detrimental to employee safety participation (Mullen et al. 2018). Similarly, based on theoretical perspectives (e.g., social exchange theory, social learning theory) and indirect evidence, we expect that petty tyrant and tyrannical leadership can lead to negative safety-related outcomes (cf. Nielsen et al. 2015). Although research has extensively investigated the linear relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes, little research has examined the curvilinear relationships between safety leadership and employee outcomes. The recent literature, however, has now started to investigate this relationship (cf. Mackey et al. 2019). For example, Katz-Navon, Kark, and Delegach (2020) found that transformational leadership produced a U-shaped curvilinear relationship with safety initiative and safety compliance in a field study, as well as with safety motivation in a scenario-based experiment. Consequently, they concluded that both

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low and high levels of transformational leadership are related to better safety-related outcomes, but intermediate levels of transformational leadership may hinder safetyrelated outcomes.

Why Does Safety Leadership Impact Safety-Related Outcomes: The Mediators In addition to having direct effects on safety-related outcomes, safety leadership may also have indirect effects on safety outcomes via a number of mediators. The most frequently examined mediator is safety climate (Clarke 2013; Mullen and Kelloway 2009; Zohar 2010). Safety climate is defined as employee shared perceptions of organizational safety policies, procedures and practices that give priority to safety issues (Zohar 2010). Meta-analytic evidence indicates that safety climate mediates the association between transformational-transactional leadership and employee safety behaviours (Clarke 2013). Recent studies have confirmed that safety climate also mediates the relationships of contingent reward leadership, MEA leadership (Martínez-Córcoles and Stephanou 2017), empowering leadership (Lee et al. 2019), safety-related passive leadership (Kelloway et al. 2006; Smith et al. 2016) and abusive supervision (Mullen et al. 2018) with various safety-related outcomes. Another set of mediators linking safety leadership and safety-related outcomes includes leader-member change based on trust, loyalty and integrity (Dulebohn et al. 2012), perceived organizational and supervisor support (Eisenberger et al. 1986; Eisenberger et al. 2002) and trust. For example, positive safety leadership (e.g., safety-specific transformational leadership) may increase employee perceptions that the organization and the supervisor care about their safety and well-being and, therefore, build high-quality leader-member exchanges. Based on social exchange theory, leader-member exchange as well as perceived organizational and supervisor support may explain the relationships between positive safety leadership and safetyrelated outcomes (cf. Hofmann et al. 2003; Kath et al. 2010). Alternatively, Conchie, Taylor, and Donald (2012) showed that affect-based trust (but not cognition-based trust) and disclosure trust intentions (but not reliance trust intentions) sequentially mediated the relationship between safety-specific transformational leadership and safety voice behaviours. That is, transformational leadership increases people’s belief that the leader will act unselfishly towards others and show care and concern for their welfare (i.e., affect-based trust), which in turn enhances employees’ willingness to disclose sensitive information to the leader, which then increases their voice behaviours. Moreover, Conchie (2013), based on self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan 1985), found that safety-specific transformational leadership influenced employee challenge safety citizenship behaviour (i.e., safety voice, whistleblowing) via intrinsic motivation (intrinsic motivation lies in the activity itself because it is challenging, interesting, or enjoyable) as well as safety compliance behaviours via identified regulation (the action is congruent with one’s personal goals, identities and values). Moreover, the relationship between empowering leadership and safety participation

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can be explained by role clarity and collaborative team learning (Martínez-Córcoles et al. 2012, 2014). In other words, empowering leaders with the aim to increase a team’s self-management skills clarify their expectations regarding safety, provide team autonomy and enhance knowledge sharing in teams, which, in turn, facilitated safety participation. Indeed, a recent study by Lee et al. (2019) confirmed that knowledge sharing is one of the mediators linking empowering leadership and safety outcomes within the medical industry. Finally, the relationship between authentic leadership and safety performance is mediated by feedback provided by leaders and sequentially perceived organizational justice (Cavazotte et al. 2013). Based on self-regulation theory, Kark, Katz-Navon, and Delegach (2015) argued that one of the underlying mechanisms linking transformational leadership with employee safety initiative is employee situational promotion focus, while one of the mediators linking transactional leadership (i.e., contingent reward, MEA and MEP) and safety compliance is prevention focus (Kark and Van Dijk 2007). In three studies, they found that employee situational promotion focus mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and safety initiative. However, transactional active leadership (i.e., contingent reward and MEA) was positively related to employee situational prevention focus. Thus, the evidence for the relationship between prevention focus and safety compliance is inconsistent where only the experimental study (but not the online and field studies) supports the proposed mediation relationship. Therefore, more research is needed regarding the mediation role of regulatory focus in the relationships between safety leadership and safetyrelated outcomes. Leader behavioural integrity for safety indicates that leaders “walk the talk” or “practice what they preach” in terms of safety (Simons 2002). Thus, leader behavioural integrity for safety where leaders align their words and actions, send consistent messages and build a trusting and safe environment may facilitate a high team priority for safety (Zohar 2010) and high team psychological safety (Edmondson 2004), which in turn improves overall safety. In a sample of 54 nursing teams, Leroy et al. (2012) found support for their hypotheses where both team priority of safety and psychological safety mediated the linkage between leader behavioural integrity for safety and reported treatment errors. Interestingly, although team priority of safety is negatively related to the number of reported treatment errors, team psychological safety where employees are more willing to report experienced errors was positively related to the number of reported treatment errors. Moreover, team psychological safety strengthened the negative association between team priority of safety and the number of reported treatment errors where a stronger, negative relationship between team priority of safety and reported treatment errors is observed under high team psychological safety. Therefore, the combination of team priority of safety and psychological safety has the strongest effect on reported treatment errors (Hofmann and Mark 2006). In other words, prioritizing safety over other aspects of performance, as well as learning from failure through error investigation (Rodriguez and Griffin 2009; Weick and Sutcliffe 2007), allows teams to achieve excellent safety outcomes.

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When Does Safety Leadership Impact Safety Outcomes: The Moderators Each leadership behaviour has its time and place, with none being absolutely good or bad. As a dynamic process, leader behaviour needs to fit the circumstances in order to be effective (Nixon et al. 2012). Such a focus on moderation of the impact of leadership aligns with the contingency approach to leadership, where contextual factors are considered when understanding the effects of leadership behaviours across various situations (Yukl 2006). Similar to the investigated mediators, the most commonly examined contextual factor altering the relationships between safety leadership and safety-related behaviours is safety climate. For example, Hofmann et al. (2003) found that safety climate strengthened the relationship between high-quality leader-member exchange and subordinate safety citizenship roles. Using a sample of 1238 employees in 33 organizations, Probst (2015), however, revealed that a positive safety climate at the organizational level attenuates the effect of supervisor enforcement of safety policies on underreporting. In other words, greater supervisor enforcement is related to decreased employee underreporting under poor safety climate; in organizations with positive safety climate, there is a low level of underreporting regardless of supervisor enforcement. Thus, when organizations do not provide a clear frame of reference for safe working, followers depend on the guidance of their leader in terms of accident reporting. Conchie (2013; also see Conchie and Donald 2009) also demonstrated that high levels of trust in leadership strengthen the indirect effect of safety-specific transformational leadership on employee challenge safety citizenship behaviour via intrinsic motivation, such that trust in leadership makes employees more receptive to a leader’s influence. Adopting a contingency perspective, Willis et al. (2017) investigated whether active leadership is functional depending on the extent to which risk is perceived to be high (i.e., perceived accident likelihood, perceived hazard exposure) within a safety-critical context. With samples from an oil and gas service companies and a food manufacturing company, they found that MEA is positively related to safety participation when accident likelihood is high, while a negative relationship between MEA and safety participation is observed when the perceived risk of accidents is low. This suggests that leadership behaviours of actively monitoring behaviours, proactively identifying adverse events and correcting errors may be more effective in encouraging safe behaviours in high-risk situations. Mullen, Kelloway, and Teed (2011) argued that leaders may alternate transformational and passive leadership styles, labelling this as inconsistent leadership. Accordingly, they noted that passive safety-specific leadership attenuated the positive relationships of transformational safety-specific leadership with safety participation and safety compliance. In Katz-Navon et al.’s (2020) field study conducted in a large security organization, under low group affective commitment to safety (i.e., an emotional attachment to safety goals and values, internalized acceptance and involvement in preserving safety), transformational leadership showed an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with workgroup accident rates, indicating

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that both low and high (vs. intermediate) levels of transformational leadership are related to better safety outcomes. When group affective commitment to safety is high, the relationship between transformational leadership and workgroup accident rates is weaker. Together, it suggests that when a leader displays a certain behaviour to a medium extent (Katz-Navon et al. 2020) and when a leader is inconsistent in his/her behaviours (i.e., exhibiting a certain leadership behaviours at high levels at times but low at other times; e.g., Mullen et al. 2011), employees are less likely to behave safely due to the lack of clarity and consistency.

Safety Leadership Interventions Given the importance of safety leadership in improving safety-related outcomes, researchers have developed interventions to improve safety leadership, enhance safety climate, promote employee safety behaviours and reduce accidents and injuries (Kelloway and Barling 2010). Existing research on leadership interventions has shown such interventions can be effective in improving workplace safety. Most safety leadership interventions are based on behaviour modification principles. This approach is known as the “behavioural safety” approach (Zohar 2002; Zohar and Luria 2003) and adopts the Antecedents-Behaviour-Consequences framework (i.e., the ABC framework, see Luthans and Kreitner 1985; Stajkovic and Luthans 1997) derived from reinforcement theory (Skinner 1974). For instance, antecedents can be safety leadership interventions, training programmes or workshops targeting managerial safety behaviours, and consequences can be feedback and incentives, which are functionally equivalent to reinforcement. Based on the ABC framework, researchers have developed feedback and communication interventions to change specific leader or managerial behaviours and subsequently employee safety-related outcomes, which in turn reinforces leaders’ newly trained behaviours (e.g., Kines et al. 2010; Zohar 2002; Zohar and Luria 2003; Zohar and Polachek 2017). For instance, Zohar (2002) demonstrated that a safety leadership intervention providing line supervisors with weekly feedback on the frequency of their safety-oriented interactions with subordinates significantly promoted line supervisors’ safety-oriented interactions, which in turn led to higher safety climate and employee safety compliance (e.g., earplug use), as well as lower injury rates. Zohar and Luria (2003) also tested a similar intervention consisting of providing supervisors with biweekly feedback about the frequency of their safety-related interactions with subordinates, coupled with communications of high safety priority from the superiors and senior management. They found that this intervention significantly improved supervisory safety practices, which in turn resulted in decreased employees’ unsafe behaviours and improved safety climate perceptions. Similarly, Kines et al. (2010) conducted a safety leadership intervention designed to coach construction site foremen to include safety in their daily verbal safety communication with their employees. As predicted, this intervention resulted in improved safety climate and higher levels of safety outcomes at the construction sites.

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Moreover, combining different intervention approaches can also be effective (Hale et al. 2010). Given that the behaviour-based approach to safety management and the safety culture-based approach are the two most effective safety intervention approaches (Lund and Aarø 2004), DeJoy (2005) proposed that an integrative approach combining these two could be more effective. Based on DeJoy’s framework (2005), researchers have developed integrative safety leadership interventions to change both leader (and employee) behaviours and safety cultures (e.g., Kines et al. 2013; Nielsen et al. 2015). For instance, Kines et al. (2013) developed and tested the effectiveness of a safety leadership intervention consisting of a participatory behaviour-based approach and safety culture initiatives. Specifically, this intervention included “safety coaching” of managers with the goal of gaining commitment from the leader(s), reflecting on their leadership role, increasing safety communication, identifying safety issues and increasing employees’ dialogue and “ownership” of dealing with current safety issues. As anticipated, this intervention results in positive leader behaviour and culture changes. Nielsen et al. (2015) developed a similar integrative intervention that involves workshops where supervisors and employees discuss safety issues, and a workshop on safety management and leadership (i.e., the behaviour-based approach), and several individual safety coaching sessions with supervisors (i.e., the culture-based approach). This intervention was found to improve safety leadership, safety knowledge, safety involvement and machine safety. Researchers have also developed safety leadership interventions based on leadership theories from the general leadership literature. Most of these interventions target transformational leadership (e.g., Mullen and Kelloway 2009). Specifically, researchers have adopted a training approach focusing on increasing supervisors’ awareness and knowledge of transformational leadership behaviours and increasing their motivation to engage in such behaviours, which in turn promote safety-related outcomes (e.g., Mullen and Kelloway 2009). For instance, Mullen and Kelloway (2009) developed a safety leadership intervention that helped managers understand how to incorporate safety-specific transformational leadership into their work context via goal setting and develop their personalized plans for setting specific, challenging, but attainable goals regarding safety-specific transformational leadership behaviours. This intervention significantly improved managers’ safety attitudes, intentions to promote safety and self-efficacy, employees’ perceptions of leader safety-specific transformational leadership practices and safety climate outcomes. Scholars (e.g., Clarke 2013) have further suggested that the effectiveness of safety leadership interventions may be improved by targeting a range of leader behaviours or styles. Indeed, researchers have developed safety leadership interventions promoting both transformational leadership and transactional leadership (e.g., Clarke and Taylor 2018; von Thiele Schwarz et al. 2016) with the expectation that interventions promoting both leadership styles can improve workplace safety through the encouragement of positive engagement with safety and via safety compliance. Doing so is also consistent with the augmentation hypothesis – the effectiveness of transformational leadership builds on the foundation of transactional leadership (e.g., Bass et al. 2003). For instance, Clarke and Taylor (2018) developed

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a leadership intervention that provided supervisor training focusing on a range of transformational and active transactional leadership behaviours and how to apply these behaviours in safety-related contexts. This training produced significant improvements in employee perceived safety climate in a high-hazard, safety-critical context (i.e., a chemical processing plant). von Thiele Schwarz et al. (2016) supported the effectiveness of a 20-day leadership training programme, which included 360-degree feedback and on-the-job practices to promote leaders’ knowledge and skills regarding both transformational leadership and transactional leadership (i.e., contingent rewards, MEA). They found that this training programme increased leaders’ safety leadership practices and employee perceived safety climate. Interestingly, when examining whether the training program had differential effects on safety-related outcomes, depending on managers’ specific focus on improvements in safety, productivity or general leadership, they found that there is no added benefit of focusing specifically on safety or productivity.

Future Research Directions While existing studies provide insights into the role of different leadership styles in safety-related outcomes, several important issues remain unaddressed in the safety leadership literature. We elaborate four major issues below and hope that our elaboration will spur researchers to address these issues and advance the literature on safety leadership.

Conceptual Distinctness Although existing research has supported the relationships between different types of safety leadership and safety-related outcomes, there is a lack of integration of leadership theories and constructs in the safety literature. In the broad leadership literature, there have been concerns regarding the conceptual distinctness among different leadership styles or behaviours (e.g., Avolio and Gardner 2005). For instance, empirical studies have supported that transformational leadership is significantly related to other constructive leadership styles, such as authentic leadership (Riggio et al. 2010), servant leadership (van Dierendonck et al. 2014) and ethical leadership (Ng and Feldman 2015). Consistently, existing safety leadership research suggests that there is considerable overlap among different safety leadership styles in terms of their underpinning behaviours and attributes (Donovan et al. 2016). This raises a concern regarding potential construct redundancy among different safety leadership styles. Thus, future research needs to examine the distinctiveness and usefulness of different safety leadership styles. We suggest several avenues through which researchers may test the conceptual distinctiveness of different safety leadership styles. First, researchers can test the incremental validity of each safety leadership style in predicting safety-related outcomes. The findings from this line of research will inform the optimal array of safety

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leadership styles and evaluate potential construct redundancy among these different leadership styles. For instance, considering that transformational leadership is the most commonly examined leadership style within the safety context (Clarke 2013) and there are significant associations between transformational leadership and other leadership styles (e.g., Ng and Feldman 2015; Riggio et al. 2010; van Dierendonck et al. 2014), researchers can explore whether other safety leadership styles make unique contributions to explaining safety-related outcomes above and beyond safety-specific transformational leadership. Once the distinctiveness of different safety leadership styles is supported, researchers can systematically investigate the relative impact (Tonidandel and LeBreton 2011) of different safety leadership styles and identify the most effective leadership style(s) in predicting safety-related outcomes. Testing the conceptual distinctiveness and identifying the relative importance of different leadership styles has important practical implications, as the results will help develop interventions that target the most impactful leadership style(s) and thus save organizational resources. A person-centred approach (e.g., latent profile analysis; Vermunt 2010) to diverse safety leadership styles can also provide insights into the conceptual distinctiveness of different leadership styles. That is, researchers may examine whether different profiles of multiple safety leadership styles exist within individuals. For instance, researchers can test the profiles of transformational leadership, empowering leadership and servant leadership, as well as the relationships between the emerged profiles and safety-related outcomes. If these profiles are qualitatively different from one another (i.e., having different shapes) and have significantly different levels of safety-related outcomes, then the distinctiveness of these safety leadership styles is supported. However, if these profiles have similar shapes (i.e., the same level of transformational leadership is associated with the same or similar levels of other safety leadership styles), then the distinctiveness of these safety leadership styles is questionable. It is worth noting that the lack of consensus on the conceptualizations of safetyrelated outcomes adds to the challenge of testing the distinctiveness of different safety leadership styles. That is, the varying conceptualizations and frameworks of safety-related outcomes also hinder the integration of the safety leadership literature. Clear conceptualizations and measurements of safety-related outcomes are crucial for our understanding of the unique contribution of each safety leadership style in predicting safety-related outcomes. Therefore, future research also needs to clarify the conceptualizations and measurements of safety-related outcomes for testing the uniqueness of each safety leadership style (cf. Donovan et al. 2016).

A Within-Person Perspective Although the mechanisms specified by leadership theories usually operate within individuals (e.g., Ashkanasy and Jordan 2008; Tepper et al. 2018), most research testing these theories examines between-person relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes (Curran and Bauer 2011; Voelkle et al. 2014). This disconnect between theories and research practices “constitutes a major threat to the conceptual integrity of the field” (Voelkle et al. 2014, p. 193). Indeed, leader

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behaviours and employee safety-related behaviours tend to vary within individuals over time as organizational policies, goals, priorities and environments constantly change (e.g., Beus and Taylor 2018; Dalal et al. 2014). For instance, an employee may behave safely (or unsafely) in one instance, but unsafely (or safely) subsequently, because his or her safety behaviours are influenced by various situational factors including leader behaviours, which may fluctuate because of organizational policies, goals and the broader social environment. Further, it is important to study the same phenomena at different levels (e.g., between-person versus within-person) as relationships between variables might not be the same across different levels (Chen et al. 2005; Kozlowski and Klein 2000). Examining the relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes at the within-person level will clarify whether the leadership-outcome relationships at the between-person level can be generalized to within-person levels (i.e., multilevel homology). Support for multilevel homology will add to the parsimony and external validity of the proposed effects of safety leadership on safety-related outcomes (Chen et al. 2005; Kozlowski and Klein 2000). However, if multilevel homology did not exist, then researchers have to refine and develop theories for within-person and between-person relationships, respectively (Chen et al. 2005; Kozlowski and Klein 2000). Therefore, we encourage researchers to explore the associations between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes at the within-person level. Perhaps not surprisingly, the commonly employed between-person approaches in the safety literature answer research questions fundamentally different from those addressed by within-person approaches (Curran and Bauer 2011). Between-person approaches focus on the associations between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes by making comparisons between individuals (i.e., inter-individual processes). For instance, individuals whose leader displays high levels of transformational leadership, compared to other employees whose leader exhibits low levels of transformational leadership, tend to have higher levels of safety performance (i.e., a between-person association between transformational leadership and safety performance). In contrast, within-person associations between safety leadership and safetyrelated outcomes occur within an individual and focus on temporal fluctuations within an individual (i.e., intra-individual processes), but not across individuals (Curran and Bauer 2011). For instance, employees may have better safety performance on days when the supervisor has more safety communication with them, compared to days when the supervisor has less safety communication with them (i.e., a within-person association between safety communication and safety performance). Therefore, within-person approaches, as opposed to between-person approaches, are able to capture leaders’ and employees’ experiences and behaviours, as well as work events as they unfold over time in the work environment (Curran and Bauer 2011).

The Dark Side of Safety Leadership Existing research has predominantly focused on the positive side of safety leadership on safety-related outcomes, ignoring the dark side of safety leadership. The overlook

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of the dark side of safety leadership is manifested in two major aspects. First, most research has focused on constructive safety leadership styles, particularly on transformational leadership or at best passive destructive leadership (e.g., Clarke 2013). There is limited research examining the effects of active, destructive leadership, such as abusive leadership, petty tyrant and tyrannical leadership, on employee safetyrelated outcomes. Future research is needed to explore how, why and when these destructive safety leadership styles may influence employee safety-related outcomes. Research findings describing destructive safety leadership could complement the existing findings on safety leadership (Kelloway et al. 2006), provide a more complete picture of the influence of safety leadership and offer practical implications for controlling the negative consequences of destructive leadership behaviours on workplace safety. Moreover, all leadership styles have their own dark side (cf. Clements and Washbush 1999; Conger 1990). Thus, constructive safety leadership (e.g., transformational leadership) might have unexpected negative impacts on safety-related outcomes. However, existing research has exclusively focused on the bright side of constructive safety leadership, ignoring its potential negative effects. For instance, the dark sides of transformational leadership (Tourish 2013), including its associations with the dark triad of personality (i.e., narcissisms, Machiavellianism, psychopathy; Conger and Kanungo 1998; Khoo and Burch 2008), callous-manipulative behaviour in interpersonal relationships (Jones and Paulhus 2010; Rauthmann 2012) and risky behaviours (e.g., Monteiro et al. 2018), may also influence employee safety-related outcomes. Future research may explore the relationships between the dark side of different constructive safety leadership styles and employee safety-related outcomes.

Reciprocal Relationships Finally, existing research has exclusively investigated safety leadership as the cause of employee safety-related behaviours, overlooking the possible reversed effects of employee safety-related outcomes on safety leadership. However, there might well be bidirectional relationships between safety leadership and employee safety-related outcomes. Indeed, scholars have long recognized that leadership is not a one-way influence process but rather a reciprocal, dynamic process between leaders and their subordinates, where leaders and their subordinates reciprocally influence one another over time (Mumford et al. 1993). Specifically, Krasikova, Green, and LeBreton (2013) argued that when leaders believe that the achievement of their (personal or organizational) goals is thwarted by their subordinates, they might adjust their leadership in order to influence the subordinates and change the situation. Adjusting their leadership behaviours based on employee safety-related outcomes may be necessary and strategic because poor safety-related outcomes may influence the productivity of the employees and the effectiveness of the organization, which may consequently jeopardize the status and power of the leader in the organization. For instance, when employees consistently display poor safety performance, or

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when workplace accidents occur more often than expected in the organization, the leader may have to adjust his or her behaviours, prioritize the safety issues and increase safety-oriented interactions with the subordinates, such as enhancing safety communications and showing more concerns for employee health and safety. This perspective illustrates that employee safety-related outcomes may in turn cause changes in safety leadership behaviours. Thus, researchers may devote their efforts to understanding the reciprocal relationships between safety leadership and employee safety-related outcomes.

Conclusions Despite the diverse conceptualizations of both safety-related outcomes and safety leadership, the existing literature generally agrees that constructive safety leadership (e.g., transformational leadership, empowering leadership) has positive impacts on safety-related outcomes, while destructive leadership (e.g., passive leadership) has negative influences on safety-related outcomes. Building on social exchange theory, social learning theory, social information-processing theory, expectancy theory and selfregulation theory, we reviewed the key mediators explaining the relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes, key moderators altering the associations between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes and organizational interventions targeting safety leadership behaviours in order to improve safety-related outcomes. Upon reviewing the rapidly growing literature on safety leadership, we offer several avenues of investigation for safety researchers and practitioners. To that end, we call for greater attention to the conceptualization and measurement of both safety leadership and safety-related outcomes. In particular, we call research to demonstrate the distinctiveness and usefulness of different safety leadership styles. Research is additionally needed to adopt a within-person approach, to better understand the relationships between safety leadership and safety-related outcomes. This review calls for greater attention to the dark side of safety leadership with regard to workplace safety and the reciprocal relationships between safety leadership and employee safety-related outcomes. These research questions demand experience sampling and longitudinal research designs, to more precisely test hypotheses and explore feedback loops. By reviewing the current state of knowledge regarding safety leadership and identifying the key gaps requiring research attention, we hope that this chapter can stimulate future research to generate improved insights into leadership and safety.

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Management Competencies for Health and Wellbeing Jo Yarker, Emma Donaldson-Feilder, and Rachel Lewis

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why are Management Competencies Relevant to Employee Health and Wellbeing? . . . . . . . . What Management Competencies are Important in this Context? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Management Competencies for Preventing and Reducing Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Management Competencies for Sustainable Employee Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Managing the Health, Safety, and Wellbeing of Distributed and Remote Workers . . . . . . . . Management Competencies for Supporting Employees to Return to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Approaches to Management with Implications for Employee Health and Wellbeing . . . Compassionate Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mindfulness and Meditation Interventions for Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Can Management Competencies for Health and Wellbeing be Developed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

A growing body of research demonstrates the impact of management behavior on a range of individual and organizational health and wellbeing outcomes; however, efforts to train and develop managers often fall short. This chapter focuses on research to identify competencies–or the collection of skills, abilities, and knowledge–required by managers to promote, protect, maintain, and support the health and wellbeing of employees. A number of specific competency frameworks are presented: for preventing and reducing work stress, enhancing engagement, managing remote workers, and supporting return to work following sickness J. Yarker (*) · R. Lewis Affinity Health at Work and Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK e-mail: jo@affinityhealthatwork.com; rachel@affinityhealthatwork.com E. Donaldson-Feilder Affinity Health at Work and Affinity Coaching and Supervision, London, UK e-mail: emma@affinityhealthatwork.com © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_4

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absence. Research examining the development of management competencies is shared and the implications of new approaches to management such as compassionate leadership and mindfulness are considered. Finally, learnings from interventions to develop management competencies for health and wellbeing are discussed. This chapter aims to provide practical insights into how we can develop managers so that they can better support their teams. We argue that if we are to equip managers to manage the health and wellbeing of others, we must not only raise awareness of health and wellbeing but also support the development of the key skills, ability, and knowledge to take action. In doing so, managing health and wellbeing is not a separate activity on top of managing performance but rather becomes an integral part of the management practices. Keywords

Line manager competencies · Manager competencies · Managing wellbeing · Managing engagement · Managing return to work · Healthy leadership · Preventing work stress

Introduction Employers are increasingly recognizing the benefits of prioritizing the health and wellbeing needs of their employees. It is well recognized that ill-health has significant costs for individuals, organizations, and society. Estimates suggest that mental ill-health alone costs the United States $1 trillion per year in lost productivity (World Health Organization 2019) while a quarter of the European working population report having a chronic disease and 44 million European Workers experience musculoskeletal pain that impacts their work (Eurofound 2019). Everyday across the globe, millions of people go to work while managing conditions such as mental ill-health, cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, hearing, and sight deterioration. Health has a significant impact on our ability to sustain work and work can, if not designed and manage well, cause or exacerbate ill-health and deplete our wellbeing. Line managers play a vital role in the promotion, prevention, maintenance, and support of health and wellbeing in the workplace. Managers are typically those individuals within the work environment in direct and regular contact with an employee. They are in a position to identify and mitigate pressures placed on the employee; to affect work and job design and can buffer or exacerbate the impact of the work environment through their actions or inaction (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2006). Managers play a central role in organizational development and change (Saksvik et al. 2002) as exemplified in a recent evaluation of a health and wellbeing evaluation, where line managers played a role in every step of the intervention process (Christensen et al. 2019). This importance of the in line manager’s role is of specific importance in the context of preventative action whereby job redesign or organizational-level interventions are used to address the sources of risk to ill-health at work.

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There is a robust and ever-growing evidence base that demonstrates the associations between line manager behaviors and employee health and wellbeing (e.g., Inceoglu et al. 2018; Montano et al. 2017; Skakon et al. 2010). Research to understand the specific manager behaviors that foster or reduce wellbeing has largely placed a focus on specific leadership styles or theories. Donaldson-Feilder et al. (2013) provided a summary of the research and identified five clusters of leadership styles relevant to health and wellbeing in the workplace including: supportive behaviors (e.g., Offerman and Hellman 1996); task-relationship focused behaviors (e.g., Nyberg et al. 2005); transactional and transformational leadership behaviors (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2008); negative leadership behaviors (e.g., Einarsen et al. 2007); and other supervisory indices (e.g., van Dierendonck et al. 2004). In addition, a less studied health-specific leadership framework has been developed by Gurt et al. (2011) who highlighted that the predominant leadership theories do not explicitly prioritize the leaders’ active engagement in health and wellbeing. Specifically, Gurt et al. (2011) proposed that health-specific leadership requires leaders to explicitly raise health topics in interactions with their followers, communicate the importance of health, role model, healthy and safe behavior, and actively support organizational health-promotion activities. Despite this compelling evidence base for placing line managers at the heart of health and wellbeing activities, efforts to train and develop managers to protect and promote health and wellbeing have been disappointing. A recent meta-analysis conducted by Kuehnl et al. (2019) sought to assess the impact of manager training on stress, wellbeing, and absenteeism. The authors examined both training aimed at improving supervisor–employee interaction and training aimed at improving the capability of designing the work environment (to mitigate risks to health and wellbeing). Despite a comprehensive search including off-the-job and on-the-job trainings, they concluded that while human resource training interventions are widely implemented to improve managers’ knowledge, skills, and ability to take responsibility and support employee health and wellbeing, few positive effects of training on employee stress, wellbeing, and absenteeism could be identified. Kuehnl et al. (2019) noted the variability of training content and design and highlighted the weak study designs as contributing factors. The reality for many employees is that they do not feel supported by their line manager to manage their health and wellbeing. In the UK, managers have been consistently cited as one of the top three sources of stress by employees in wide-scale practitioner surveys (CIPD 2008; CIPD 2018). Only 11% report that they have discussed their mental health with their line manager which is not surprising given that only 24% of managers have received some form of training on mental health at work (Stevenson 2017). This picture extends across the globe with four in ten US workers indicating that managers are committed to their health and wellbeing (APA 2016) suggesting that many workers are not being supported with their health and wellbeing needs. Together, this information points to an urgent need to explore alternative ways to equip managers with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to manage employee health and wellbeing.

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Why are Management Competencies Relevant to Employee Health and Wellbeing? The research summarized above points to a wide range of manager behaviors that are linked to the health and wellbeing, particularly those that involve individualized consideration and/or interpersonally fair treatment and the empowerment of employees (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2008). However, many of the leadership and management frameworks used in this field of research were designed to capture the behaviors that drive performance, rather than taking a specific focus on the behaviors relevant to health and wellbeing. Developing a clearer understanding of the specific behaviors relevant to employee health and wellbeing offers opportunities not only to better measure relevant behaviors when conducting research in this field, but opportunities to train and develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities specific to protecting and promoting health and wellbeing. Competency frameworks refer to a complete collection of skills and behaviors required by an individual to do their job (Boyatzis 1982). Competencies are used globally to articulate the expected outcomes of an individual’s efforts and make explicit the behaviors required to carry out activities required of their job. The concept of competency frameworks emerged in the 1980s as a response to organizational drivers to define and measure performance. In 1982, “The competent manager: a model for effective performance” written by Boyatzis provided a comprehensive introduction to the way in which competencies could be developed and described and gave insights into how competencies could be integrated into personnel practices (as they were then referred to). This work had considerable influence on the Human Resource Management profession and in the proceeding decades, competency frameworks became increasingly accepted part of modern people management practice (Rankin 2004). A proliferation of competency frameworks can now be seen, with profession specific frameworks (e.g., in critical care nursing, Zhang et al. 2001) to those competencies required to execute specific tasks (e.g., competencies for train driving Naguib 2020). Competencies frameworks are used to guide a wide range of Human Resource Management activities and are widely embedded in recruitment, training, performance management, promotion, and talent management activities and redundancy. For example: • In a recruitment context, competency frameworks form part of job descriptions and person specifications. Frameworks are used in situational interviews and assessment center exercises enabling the behavioral criteria (how people do things) to be assessed alongside task performance (what they do) and personal characteristics. Competency-based interviews have consistently been found to be the most popular method of selection (CIPD 2017). • In training and development contexts, competency frameworks can be used to identify training needs and training programs or modules can be designed and delivered to develop specific competencies. This way, learners are only required to engage in learning that is addressing a competency-gap rather than attend

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training for skills or abilities they may already hold. Furthermore, the focus on behavior enables trainers to clearly articulate the desired behavior and therefore the behavior change required to achieve the desired performance outcome. • In a performance management context, competencies, and the behaviors that underlie them, can be used to articulate what constitutes a competent performance and can be measured by others, or integrated into a “balanced scorecard” system to assess performance. • In the context of organizational and culture change, competencies can be used to drive and embed a culture shift. By articulating the competencies required by managers, and by selecting, developing, and rewarding managers to behave in these ways, these behaviors theoretically should become the norm. Competency approaches are not without limitations. Criticisms include that they exist as a “snapshot,” produced during a particular time and then used on an ongoing basis, within a role that may change rapidly; that they lack sufficient behavioral specificity; they can be lengthy and overwhelming for employees where there are many performance-critical behaviors; and create workplaces whereby all employees are selected for, and working to execute, the desired behaviors in order to achieve performance goals. In practice however, competency frameworks are only as effective as the design processes used to develop them, and the strategies used to communicate, assess, and embed them within the organization. The benefits of considering the management competencies relevant to employee health and wellbeing were highlighted by Yarker et al. (2007) and include the following: i. The clear and specific identification of the manager behaviors that are known to protect, maintain, and promote health and wellbeing. ii. The ease of integration into existing management frameworks, putting health and wellbeing into a language or format that is accessible to managers already familiar with this approach and therefore facilitating collaboration between human resources, health and safety, and managers. iii. The reduction of the cognitive load placed on managers, as managing health and wellbeing is not seen as a separate activity but an integral part of management activities. iv. The ease of identifying gaps between existing management frameworks (e.g., technical and core organizational management competencies identified as relevant to the job-specific performance) and the competencies required to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of others. v. The provision of a clear and specific set of skills, abilities, and behaviors that can be targeted for the development in training interventions. Competency frameworks are only beneficial within the context that they aim to address: a competency framework designed to consider the performance of a specific task or role, without the consideration of broader organizational objectives, is unlikely to contribute to the realization of the broader organizational goals. There

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has been a changing focus on competencies in recent years, with a move to combine softer skills or meta-cognitions alongside the behavioral elements. This provides an opportunity to align performance and health and wellbeing objectives and encourage organizations to look beyond the role, and incorporate those management competencies that are relevant to protecting and promoting health and wellbeing.

What Management Competencies are Important in this Context? Management Competencies for Preventing and Reducing Stress In recognition of the challenges experienced by managers to prevent and reduce stress and driven by the pursuit of making the management of health and wellbeing of others an integral part of the job and as straightforward as possible, a three-phase project aimed to identify the management competencies for preventing and reducing stress at work (MCPARS; Yarker et al. 2007; Yarker et al. 2008; Donaldson-Feilder et al. 2009). The program was sponsored by the UK Health and Safety Executive, Investors in People, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a consortium of participating organizations. This collaborative approach between stakeholders allowed for the differing priorities and perspectives to be represented throughout the design and development process. For example, through health and safety representation, the objective of reducing psychosocial risks in the workplace was kept front of mind. Through representation from human resources professionals, the considerations of people management practices across job design, recruitment, performance assessment, and training and development could be considered. Finally, organizational collaboration maintained a focus on enabling the embedding of the identified behaviors into interventions and into existing organizational policies and practices. In phase one (Yarker et al. 2007), a critical incident technique interview (Flanagan 1954) was used to elicit the behaviors associated with both the effective and ineffective management of stress in employees. 216 employees and 166 managers and 54 HR practitioners were involved in interviews or focus groups and completed written exercises. Participants were recruited from five sectors recognized as having the highest prevalence of work-related stress in the UK. Using an iterative approach of thematic and content analysis, the framework was developed and the final MCPARs framework included 19 competencies, all but one of which included both positive and negative behavioral indicators. This framework was mapped onto ten other management frameworks, including frequently used models of transformational leadership, to explore the overlap and gaps between existing management and leadership competency frameworks and the newly developed competencies derived with a focus on health and wellbeing. All competencies were included in at least one of the frameworks, three of the competencies appeared in all ten comparison frameworks (“Participative approach,” “Acting with Integrity,” and “Communication”) but no framework covered all the competencies. This highlighted that current measures of management competency do not include, and

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therefore do not encourage managers to enact or develop, the full complement of management competencies identified as relevant to preventing and reducing work stress. Furthermore, the approach enabled the framework to be applied and the behaviors contextualized within each sector (e.g., within healthcare, Lewis et al. 2010). In phase two, a quantitative approach was used to refine and reduce the MCPARs framework and to develop a robust psychometric measure of the competencies (Yarker et al. 2008). Following best practice principles for psychometric test development (Rust and Golombok 1999), the interviews were reviewed to extract specific observable behaviors to use as questions for an indicator tool. Stakeholders and experts (n ¼ 21) provided feedback on the initial question set and items were refined. The refined set of behaviors were quantitatively tested using a snowball sample of employees (n ¼ 292). Following reliability analyses and item reduction, the questions were used as an upward feedback measure for 152 managers and 656 direct reports working across 22 organizations. The direct report data was then subjected to exploratory factor analysis revealing a four factor solution. Stakeholders and experts (n ¼ 38) were invited to a workshop to share the findings and to name the four factors and develop sub-clusters, resulting in three sub-clusters per factor (or competency). Following final revisions, the measure was comprised of 66 questions across four competencies and was named the Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool (SMCIT). The four competencies included: “Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work,” “Managing the Individual Within the Team,” “Reasoning and Managing Difficult Situations,” and “Respectful and Responsible: Managing Emotions and Having Integrity.” Descriptions of the competencies and the sub-competencies are provided in Table 1. Usability analysis indicated that a large proportion of managers who used the SMCIT reported that it was easy to answer, relevant to their role and accurate in terms of identifying key management development areas. The MCPARs framework and SMCIT are frameworks recommended as a practical approach to supporting organizational activity to managing psychosocial risk (Eurofound 2019). While further empirical testing of the competency model and validity of the tool was required, early indications of validity and usability showed promise. In phase three, a manager training intervention using the MCPARs framework was trialed (Donaldson-Feilder et al. 2009). The intervention comprised of upward feedback and a half day workshop including exercises to facilitate the reflection on the four competencies and encourage action planning. 112 managers attended the workshops, of whom 58 completed the pre- and post-measures (including the SMCIT). Data from two timepoints was gathered from 95 managers that did not receive the intervention and formed the control group. Data was also gathered from 209 employees whose managers received the workshop and the feedback, and a further 385 employees whose managers formed control groups. The intervention was found to be moderately successful. Those managers that saw themselves as ineffective saw the most significant positive change over time. This was true whether they had received the intervention or not, suggesting that the process of completing the SMCIT may have promoted self-reflection and action. Managers who had initially

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Table 1 Overview of the management competencies for preventing and reducing stress including each of the four competencies, the sub-competencies, and descriptions of each sub-competency is shown in the table below Management competency Respectful and Responsible: Managing emotions and having integrity

Managing and communicating existing and future work

Sub-competency Integrity Managing emotions Considerate approach Proactive work management Problem solving Participative/ empowering

Reasoning/managing difficult situations

Managing the individual within the team

Managing conflict Use of organizational resources Taking responsibility for resolving issues Personally accessible Sociable Empathetic engagement

Description of sub-competency Respectful and honest to employees Behaves consistently and calmly Thoughtful in managing others and delegating Monitors and reviews existing work, allowing future prioritization and planning Deals with problems promptly, rationally, and responsibly Listens and consults with team, provides direction, autonomy, and development opportunities to individuals Deals with conflicts fairly and promptly Seeks advice when necessary from managers, HR, and occupational health Supportive and responsible approach to issues Available to talk to personally Relaxed approach, such as socializing and using humor Seeks to understand the individual in terms of their motivation, point of view, and life outside work

scored themselves as “effective” saw themselves largely unchanged by the intervention while “Effective” managers who had not received feedback or attended a workshop saw themselves as less effective at the follow-up point, perhaps more cognizant of the need to display the relevant behaviors. For managers that received no feedback, their employees’ reported their behavior largely unchanged 3 months later, while employees managed by those who had received feedback (with or without a workshop), employees felt that managers significantly improved on all competencies over the 3-month period. A number of barriers and facilitators to behavior change related to the competencies were identified during this phase and are outlined later in this chapter. Toderi et al. (2015) noted that the length of the SMCIT (66 items) limits its practical applicability and sought to reduce the measure placing a focus on the largest of competencies “Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work.” In a study of 178 employees working in two Italian public organizations (a municipality and a hospital), their study found that the SMCIT demonstrated

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sound psychometric properties and strong associations with affective wellbeing and team effectiveness. Toderi and Sarchielli (2016) sought to further test the validity of the short 36-item version of the SMCIT finding support for the factorial structure and criterion validity. Limited by the cross-sectional and self-report nature of the data gathered thus far, Toderi and Balducci (2018) studied the stress management competence of 84 supervisors, using the SMCIT, seeking upward feedback from 584 team members. Multilevel analysis suggested that the four competencies may be influenced by a meta-competence factor given the strong intercorrelations and the framework was found to affect affective wellbeing as mediated by factors in the work context such as role clarity, but not work content such as job demands. Houdmont et al. (2020) applied the SMCIT to English Policing. 263 police officers completed a survey comprising the SMCIT. Findings demonstrated that nearly half of the participants identified that their line manager had a development need in three of the competencies: Approximately half the participants reported their line manager had a development need on the “Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work,” “Managing the Individual Within the Team,” and “Reasoning and Managing Difficult Situations” competencies, while a quarter identified a development need on fourth competency, “Respectful and Responsible: Managing Emotions and Having Integrity.” Those officers that rated their line manager as requiring development across all four competencies were four times more likely to report psychological distress, resilience, and work engagement. The authors point to the limitations of the cross-sectional design, specifically around not determining causality or discounting reciprocal effects whereby poor wellbeing outcomes of subordinates impair management competence; however, the findings from this study add to our understanding of the relationship between SMCIT and wellbeing outcomes and highlight the opportunities to use the SMCIT in a targeted development program. Together, these studies demonstrate the reliability and validity of the MCPARS framework and resultant measure and show applicability across a range of organizational sectors and job roles. While developed in the UK, the findings from Toterdi et al. (2015) and Toderi and Balducci (2018) provide support for the relevance of the framework beyond the UK. Early indications also demonstrate that the MCPARS framework shows promise when used as a management development intervention although further research is required to better understand the impact of both receiving feedback on management competence alone, and focused development to build skills in the competency areas, on both the managers behavior and employee outcomes.

Management Competencies for Sustainable Employee Engagement It is generally accepted that employee engagement holds importance for organizations due to its significant and positive relationship with a broad range of organizational and individual outcomes of performance and wellbeing (i.e., Schaufeli and Bakker 2010). Lewis et al. (2011) aimed to identify the specific manager behaviors

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required to engender employee engagement. Using an evidence-based practice approach (Briner and Rousseau 2011), combining qualitative and quantitative methods (Lewis et al. 2011) 11 behavioral competencies were identified, grouped into three overarching competencies resulting in the Management Competencies for Managing Employee Engagement. The framework included the themes: “Supporting employee growth,” “interpersonal style and integrity,” and “monitoring direction” were tested with 506 employees and 126 managers working across seven organizations and resulted in a 44-item measure that demonstrated good psychometric properties. At the sub-competency level, distinctions between the MCPARS and Managing Employee Engagement could be made. As competencies are designed to drive specified behavior, the two separate frameworks offer solutions for those practitioners looking to drive behavior in a specific direction. However, given the strong relationship between engagement and wellbeing, a degree of overlap was unsurprising. With many organizations looking to prioritize engagement and wellbeing and develop an integrated strategy, the practical benefits of combining the frameworks were noted. Lewis et al. (2014) combined the 41-item Managing Employee Engagement with the 66-item SMCIT and tested a combined model in seven organizations. In this final phase of the research, a five factor, 54-item “Managing Sustainable Engagement” framework emerged and demonstrated good psychometric properties. A conceptual mapping of both the Managing Employee Engagement and the MCPARS onto the combined Managing Sustainable Engagement is shown in Fig. 1 to demonstrate the overlap between the competencies.

Managing the Health, Safety, and Wellbeing of Distributed and Remote Workers Managing the health, safety, and wellbeing of distributed and remote workers presents a challenge. Without the face-to-face contact and direct oversight that many managers are afforded and the opportunities for spontaneous conversations within the workplace environment, managers of remote workers may need additional or different competencies in order to support the health and wellbeing of employees. The majority of research examining the role of managers in managing employees working remotely is focused on driving performance-related outcomes. While the associations between specific manager behaviors and health and wellbeing outcomes is less clear, three clusters of manager behavior are clearly seen as effective in a remote working environment: providing clear communication, fostering social support, and enabling autonomy. These behaviors echo those examined throughout the health and wellbeing field. The quality and quantity of communication given by leaders to remote teams is vital. As well as reduced contact time, the nuance of communication can be lost when non-verbal cues are not available in a remote setting (Ford et al. 2017). Research highlights that managers operating in a remote context should be clear and aware of team members’ availability, deadlines, and how individual tasks fit within an overall project (Hunsaker and Hunsaker 2008) and that regular and short

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Fig. 1 An overview of the relationship between managing for sustainable employee engagement, MCPARS, and “Managing engagement” frameworks

feedback is most effective in a remote environment (Sim 2018). In addition, individuals working remotely may also require a greater degree of feedback on the process they have gone through to conduct a task, as opposed to only feedback on the performance outcome (Geister et al. 2006). Hunsaker and Hunsaker (2008) noted that managers should develop an understanding of remote team members’ social environments and that providing social support may reduce role conflict in remote workers (Nayani et al. 2018). Support at an individual level through regular contact (e.g., emails, phones, and video calls) and at a group level through developing an online community has been found to provide important opportunities for remote workers to check-in and share knowledge (Orsini

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and Rodrigues 2020). Research also suggests that managers who operate a shared leadership model, where they delegate leadership tasks to their team members (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014), increase trust and knowledge sharing, as well as improve collaborative decision-making and behavior among remote teams (Hoch and Dulebohn 2013). Nielsen et al. (2017) conducted a four-phase project to leadership behaviors required for managing the occupational safety and health (OSH) of distributed workers, i.e., workers who work at least part of the week away from the main work location. This research is particularly pertinent given the sharp increase in distributed and remote working during the coronavirus pandemic. Drawing from interviews with 51 stakeholders and questionnaires completed by 40 OSH practitioners, 112 line managers, and 822 distributed workers completed the questionnaires the study examined the leadership styles employed when managing distributed workers. Findings showed that health-and-safety-specific leadership was positively related to distributed workers’ self-rated health, safety compliance, and safety proactivity. Interestingly, line managers were not seen to model the behaviors seen by their OHS practitioner and the drivers for whether line managers display health and safety behaviors was not examined. These findings further support the argument that specific manager behaviors are required to drive specific employee and organizational outcomes. Further research is required to better understand the specific manager behaviors required to protect and sustain wellbeing of those working in remote environments. Such efforts could usefully consider the interaction between manager behavior and the individual and contextual factors that may play an intervening role. For example, do different demographic groups or employees working remotely under different conditions need different management behaviors to be displayed in order for them to fulfill their health and wellbeing goals? As yet, our understanding of the complex interactions is limited and therefore any efforts to develop managers may be thwarted if programs are implemented with the expectation that there is a shared and universal experience of remote working.

Management Competencies for Supporting Employees to Return to Work Managers do not only influence the health and wellbeing of employees at work, but they play a vital role in supporting the return to work of employees who are absent from work due to illness. Sickness absence is a significant cost for many organizations. Supporting people to return to work, and subsequently stay at work, is challenging. In relation to mental health sickness absence alone, Norder et al. (2017) found that 18% of returned employees had left employment 5 years postRTW, 25% of these resigned, 30% were dismissed, 6% were granted disability pension, and 31% retired early. Line managers are important in the return to work process for a number of reasons: they are often the employees’ first point of contact when they are unwell

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and unable to attend work; they are responsible for the day-to-day management of the employees on their return; they are the gatekeepers for implementing and reviewing work adjustments. A good relationship and ongoing communication during sick leave is crucial, and studies indicate that line managers often do communicate with workers on sick leave (Negrini et al. 2018; Nieuwenhuijsen et al. 2004). Applying learnings from the development of the MCPARS approach, Yarker et al. (2010) sought to understand the specific manager behaviors relevant to supporting a successful return to work. Providing clarity around the manager behaviors required provides an opportunity for managers to self-assess their competence, but also allows organizations to identify those employees who are at risk from receiving a lack of support or poor oversight of their return and either provide additional training for the line manager or provide an additional point of contact for the employee (e.g., from within Human Resources or from an alternative manager within the business). 26 employees and 20 managers were interviewed using a critical incident interview to develop an in-depth understanding of the role of the manager through the return to work journey. Following thematic analysis, an item-bank was developed and 347 absent or recently returned employees and 177 managers who were managing a returned employee completed the measure at time one of which, 111 employees also completed the follow-up questionnaire 6 months later. A factor analysis of the manager behavior items revealed four sub-scales: communication and support during sick leave, inclusive behavior upon initial return, negative behaviors, and general proactive support following return to work. This final competency was further grouped into three sub-competencies following a discussion with the steering group and included: managing the team, an open and sensitive approach and legal and procedural knowledge. These competencies underpin the Supervisor Support for Return to Work (SSRW) scale which was shown to have good test re-test reliability, construct validity and concurrent validity as measured by work limitations and job performance, and with wellbeing, as measured by a general wellbeing measure, psychological distress, and job satisfaction (Munir et al. 2012). The overall SSRW measure was found to predict work performance and wellbeing after 6 months. Different aspects of the competency model were associated with different work and health outcomes. This suggests that managers are required to demonstrate different behaviors at different points of the return process, and for different reasons, in order to support the employees’ return to work. Many employees who return to work following sickness absence experience reduced work functioning (e.g., Norder et al. 2017). Changes in work scheduling, task modifications, or other arrangements are cited as commonly recommended adjustments in both employee and employer guidance and practitioner literature (Yarker et al. 2020). Yet, recent findings suggest that 41% of employees experiencing a mental health problem achieve no changes or actions taken in the workplace to help them manage their condition, which may be due to the lack of manager training around reasonable adjustments and rehabilitation for mental health (only 8% of managers reported receiving training in the UK, BITC 2018). There is a clear disconnect between the need for support and the support available to employees

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from their manager to secure work adjustments. While further research is necessary to elucidate the manager behaviors relevant to the successful implementation of work adjustments, recent research points to the role managers can play in facilitating job crafting opportunities for returning employees. Job crafting “involves shaping the task boundaries of the job (either physically or cognitively), the relational boundaries of the job, or both.” (Wrzesniewski and Dutton 2001, p179). Returned employees adopt a broad range of job crafting strategies, so it is vital that managers afford returning employees the decision latitude to make the necessary adjustments (Nielsen and Yarker 2020).This again brings the competency of managing the individual within the team and the sub-competency of “participative/empowering” management noted in the MCPARS framework (Yarker et al. 2007).

New Approaches to Management with Implications for Employee Health and Wellbeing Compassionate Leadership The concept of compassion and its links with wellbeing are millennia old; however, the study and application of compassion in the workplace is a more recent phenomenon (Rynes et al. 2012). Compassion refers to “an empathetic emotional response to another person’s pain or suffering that moves people to act in a way that will either ease the person’s condition or make it more bearable” (Lilius et al. 2003, p4). There are now a number of authors and organizations arguing for the importance of creating compassionate workplace cultures, particularly in health and social care settings (e.g., Worline and Dutton 2017; West et al. 2020). There is an increasing body of evidence that suggests compassion in the workplace enhances employee health and wellbeing among other outcomes (e.g., Lilius et al. 2003; Meecham 2017). As part of this developing interest in compassion in the workplace, the role of line managers has been emphasized (e.g., Lilius et al. 2011), and models of compassionate leadership developed (Poorkavoos 2017; Shuck et al. 2019; West et al. 2017). West and Chowla (2017) proposed a model of compassionate leadership that is based on the four components of compassion set out by Atkins and Parker (2012): • Attending: paying attention to the other and noticing their suffering. • Understanding: understanding what is causing the others’ distress, by making an appraisal of the cause. • Empathizing: having an empathic response, a felt relation with the others’ distress. • Helping: taking intelligent (thoughtful and appropriate) action to help relieve the others’ suffering. This model is now widely used in UK health and social care settings and is seen as a way of improving patient outcomes through improving employee experience and

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wellbeing (e.g., NHS Improvement 2019). Direct research evidence about the link between these elements of leadership behavior and employee health and wellbeing is currently limited, but a number of authors have reviewed relevant research literature and concluded that higher levels of compassionate leadership will be linked to better employee health and wellbeing (e.g., West et al. 2020). Another model of compassionate leadership is that developed by Poorkavoos (2017), who initially conducted research to develop a Compassion at Work Index. This Index identified five factors of compassion in the workplace: being alive to the suffering of others; being non-judgmental; tolerating personal distress; being empathetic; and taking appropriate action. These factors were developed into a model of compassionate leadership that involves managers both being compassionate people themselves and aiming to create a culture in which seeking or providing help to alleviate suffering is seen as the norm. Similarly, Shuck et al. (2019) conducted a two-stage study in which they initially explored the “building blocks” of compassionate leadership behavior, then subsequently developed and validated a “Compassionate Leadership Behavior Index” (CLBI). The CLBI includes six factors: integrity, empathy, accountability, authenticity, presence, and dignity. Shuck et al.’s (ibid) data suggested that employees who reported experiencing high levels of compassionate leadership from their manager also showed high levels of wellbeing and engagement, and low intentions to turnover. Interestingly, this data also suggested that compassionate leadership behavior was a unidimensional construct, which the authors conclude to imply that the overall experience of compassion from the manager was important, rather than the individual subsets of behavior (“the sum is greater than the parts”; Shuck et al. 2019, p 557).

Mindfulness and Meditation Interventions for Managers In considering recently developed leadership models and management development approaches that are relevant to employee health and wellbeing, one area in which there is a newly established literature is the link between mindfulness, leadership, and management development. A number of models of mindful leadership have been developed (e.g., Carroll 2007; Marturano 2014; Reitz et al. 2016) in which higher levels of manager mindfulness are proposed to contribute to a range of employee outcomes, including wellbeing. Meanwhile, there is an emerging body of evidence exploring the use of mindfulness and other forms of meditation as a methodology for management development that might benefit employee outcomes such as health and wellbeing (Donaldson-Feilder et al. 2018). Mindfulness and meditation date back thousands of years and tended to be seen in a spiritual or religious context; however, mindfulness and meditation interventions have been applied in secular contexts over the past 30 years and have seen increasing use in workplace settings in more recent times (Jamieson and Tuckey 2017). There is a growing body of evidence linking mindfulness-based interventions such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Kabat-Zinn 1990) and Acceptance and

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Commitment Therapy (Hayes et al. 1999) with positive outcomes for wellbeing, and a couple of systematic reviews have shown positive effects for employee wellbeing from applying mindfulness interventions in the workplace (Jamieson and Tuckey 2017; Lomas et al. 2017). While less well established than that for individual wellbeing applications, the body of literature exploring mindfulness and meditation interventions for management development is growing (Donaldson-Feilder et al. 2018). There are now both theoretical and empirical papers suggesting that mindfulness and meditation, offered as part of a management development program, could not only benefit the health and wellbeing of manager participants, but also develop competencies that have a broader impact in the manager’s workplace. For example, various authors have suggested that mindfulness and meditation interventions for managers could: develop capabilities that contribute to leadership (e.g., Butler and Gray 2006) or are associated with particular leadership models (Reb et al. 2015); and result in positive wellbeing consequences for employees (Reb et al. 2014). Looking at evidence from intervention studies, a recent systematic review by the current authors drew together research in which mindfulness and meditation interventions had been run for leader and manager participants, and examined the outcomes these interventions were found to achieve (Donaldson-Feilder et al. 2018). The review identified 19 relevant papers and the findings from the data extracted from these studies suggest that there is promising evidence: a) that mindfulness and meditation interventions improve the wellbeing of leader and manager participants; and b) that these interventions improve capabilities that are related to leadership and capacities in keeping with particular models of leadership. Multiple studies have found positive results for these categories of outcome variables; however, the studies are highly variable and, in many cases, limited in their design and execution, so the evidence cannot yet be regarded as definitive. Given the relational nature of people management, and particularly the importance of the manager–employee relationship for employee wellbeing (e.g., Gregersen et al. 2016), a more recent study by the current authors (Donaldson-Feilder et al. in press) proposes management development interventions based on interpersonal or relational forms of mindfulness practice, may have benefits over and above personal mindfulness approaches.

How Can Management Competencies for Health and Wellbeing be Developed? The research presented so far demonstrates the associations between a range of specific manager behaviors or competencies and work and health outcomes. However, the extent to which these behaviors can be developed in managers is less understood. The review by Kuehnl et al. (2019) concluded that interventions to develop managers to improve employee work and health yield few positive outcomes. While some research has shown that managers can be equipped with behaviors that are important for employee wellbeing through provision of upward feedback and learning and development activities (e.g., Donaldson-Feilder et al.

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2009), this research also showed that developing managers and seeking to change manager behavior is hard, and that maintaining change is even harder. The context in which management development takes place plays a significant role in the successful implementation of interventions (Donaldson-Feilder and Lewis 2011; Day et al. 2014; Garavan et al. 2015). Therefore organizations need to create an appropriate context in which to support and develop managers. The experiences of learning following a workshop to develop management competencies relevant to sustainable engagement were captured by DonaldsonFeilder et al. (2014). Information was gathered from managers and stakeholders about the organizational factors that affect success of interventions designed to change manager behavior, with a specific focus on how to improve future participation rates and the learner’s experience. The following steps were identified: – Create a steering group: Include representatives from across the organization to improve visibility and buy-in. – Present a united front: Involve as many stakeholder groups as possible from across the business (HR, H&S, OH, Managers, senior managers, and direct reports) to position the intervention as part of a wider program of activity rather than a stand-alone project. – Integrate the project into existing organizational policies and practices: Link the program to existing strategy and approaches and embed into existing development programs or induction processes. – Rename the research: Identifying a name and using the right term for the organizational culture is important. Not all organizations are receptive to “stress” or “wellbeing” or “mental health.” – Choose participants strategically: Address a need rather than using the intervention as a “nice to have” through targeting at-risk groups or senior leaders first. Lewis et al. (2016) developed the Maturity Model for Management Development Programs aimed at addressing employee health, wellbeing, and engagement. In the model, manager awareness, available support, and presence of strategic and contextual factors are articulated to help practitioners determine the level of maturity within their organization. In doing so, it aims to help practitioners identify what needs to be in place to effectively support managers in their development. The research team reviewed the evidence and invited organizations to share their experience of implementing management development programs. 189 organizations completed a questionnaire that identified the range of management development activities in relation to health, wellbeing, and engagement and the context in which managers were learning and working. Conditions required before, during, and after a management development intervention were identified and combined into a checklist, to be used in a similar way to a diagnostic tool. The maturity model allows an organization to assess its methods and processes against a clear set of external benchmarks. This approach also provides insights into where best activity and improvement should be prioritized. The resulting maturity model has four levels, from “little or no capability” to “competence” and is described in Table 2. For example, those organizations

During Manager: Participating managers are not committed to, or satisfied in their role Intervention: Lack of clear objectives of the program. No real consideration for ongoing support Organization: No real consideration of the importance of job design for manager performance and application of learning from management development

Maturity Level Chronological 1 StaChroge Before Manager: Managers are not being supported or prepared for the program Intervention: Exploring relevant training courses but not thinking of them as a long-term program Organization: No consideration of the importance of organizational context

Manager: Most managers are clear about, satisfied with, and committed in their role Intervention: Program objectives are clear and intervention design has considered ongoing support and resources for program Organization: Starting to look at importance of organizational context in terms of job design for wellbeing, health, and safety

2 Manager: Has not supported or prepared managers for the program Intervention: Thinking about the format in terms of a program of activities rather than one off training Organization: Not recognizing organizational context as important

Manager: Starting to support the wider development of the manager, including behavior, values, and self-awareness Intervention: Detailed goal setting has been conducted with integration into organizational systems. Support activities focus on developing manager skills and confidence Organization: Has in place some organizational culture, policies, and other aspects that will support effective management development. Starting to focus on the wider team environment to support and improve effectiveness of managers

3 Manager: Starting to support managers around their management skills Intervention: Planning the program in detail and considering effective formats, ongoing support, and resources Organization: Has in place some organizational culture, policies, and other aspects that will support effective management development. Some understanding of supportive, meaningful, and satisfying job design

4 Manager: Preparing managers for the program and supporting them on developing selfawareness and management skills Intervention: Program is strategically embedded within the wider organization Organization: Clear about culture, role modeling, and other organizational context aspects that will support effective management development Manager: Managers are supported in developing aligned behaviors, values, and selfawareness Intervention: Program design includes both pre- and postactivities Organization: Clear about culture, role modeling, and other organizational context aspects that will support effective management development. Clear understanding of importance of, and need for, healthy team working, and employee wellbeing and engagement

Table 2 Maturity model for management development programs aimed at addressing employee health, wellbeing, and engagement (Lewis et al. 2016)

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After

Manager: Lack of evaluation in terms of whether the manager has the required skills and knowledge Intervention: Managers are asked to provide evaluation of the course via satisfaction questionnaires only (no real follow-up). Little focus on ongoing support and learning Organization: No consideration of the wider organization (such as senior management and teams) in terms of sustaining management development Manager: Managers generally have the required knowledge and skills and feel motivated to, and confident in, using them Intervention: Managers are encouraged to focus on their goals and practice new learning Organization: Starting to understand importance of wider organization such as role of senior management and teams in sustaining management development Manager: Managers have the required skills and feel motivated to, and confident in, using them Intervention: A range of supportive interventions and resources continue to be offered to managers Organization: Clear understanding of the impact of both the direct input (senior management, team) and the indirect effect (organizational change/ climate) of the organization on sustaining management development Manager: Managers have not only gained and intend to apply new knowledge and skills, but are working within roles supportive of this change Intervention: Clear continuing follow-up strategy for managers including mentoring, coaching, visual aids, and guided reflection Organization: Organizational context is entirely supportive of management development and of employee health and wellbeing including avoiding letting change impact on integration of learning

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who demonstrate competence are those who fully prepare their managers prior to the training or development event, and there is clear integration with other activities and expectations set and modeled by others. The program is likely to include pre- and postactivities and the follow-up strategy for managers may include mentoring, coaching, visual aids, and guided reflection. This maturity model provides practitioners overseeing management development programs with a quick-view checklist to ensure they have the right organizational conditions to optimize the effectiveness of the training. It also makes explicit for management development to operate within a whole-system approach to health and wellbeing—efforts to develop managers are less likely to be successful when they are done in isolation or as a stand-alone endeavor. A whole-system approach to protecting and promoting health and wellbeing is vital to the success of all interventions as noted by Nielsen et al. (2017). Their review and meta-analysis identified the workplace resources at the individual, the group, the leader, and the organizational levels as related to both employee wellbeing and organizational performance. In reviewing 84 studies, the researchers found no significant differences in employee wellbeing and organizational performance between the four levels of workplace resources. While the findings of this review suggest that interventions that focus on any of these levels have comparable standing, there are two limitations to be borne in mind: First, academics have historically adopted a siloed approach to research. Our understanding of the nature and the impact of the intervention may be limited by examining individual or leader variables in isolation. Second, research examining interventions at the manager level are in their infancy with little research that adopts a specific, competency-based approach to developing managers’ skills, abilities, and knowledge. The research presented here suggests that an increased focus on interventions to develop manager competencies for health and wellbeing may be of benefit.

Conclusions This chapter aims to position management competencies as an important component of organizational activities to support health and wellbeing. Together, the studies presented in this chapter show that specific competencies can be developed depending upon the desired health and wellbeing outcomes; that there are a number of shared competencies across the frameworks suggesting that organizations would do well to focus on these; and that competencies can be explicitly articulated, measured, developed, and integrated into wider management practices. A notable benefit of the management competencies approach is the ready integration of the behaviors that promote and protect health and wellbeing into wider organizational practices across recruitment, performance management, and development. Further research is needed to examine the impact of these competencies on others and to understand the ways in which competencies can best be developed and maintained. Future research will need to take care to employ robust designs, learning from the limitations noted by Kuehnl et al. (2019) who report the absence of well-designed studies that examine the impact of manager training. Managers play a vital role in the promotion, protection, maintenance, and support of employee health and wellbeing.

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As the prevalence of ill-health escalates across the globe, there is an urgent need to explore solutions to equip managers with the relevant skills, abilities, and knowledge to take timely action and feel confident in doing so. Management competencies to managing health and wellbeing show promise as an approach and we encourage others to contribute to this evolving body of evidence and practice.

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Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy Vicki Webster

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Followership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reviewing Followership Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Followership in the Context of Constructive Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Followership in the Context of Destructive Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Followership in the Context of Virtual Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Practical Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions/Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Over the past decade attention has been focused on the role of followership as part of the leadership process. Conceptualizations and definitions of what followership is and how it is demonstrated in the workplace have evolved over time: from follower as a passive recipient of leadership, to follower as an active participant, to followership as a form of shared leadership, then moving beyond the concepts of leadership and followership to gain a shared understanding of the process of how people organize work together. This chapter provides a review of the followership literature, in the context of both constructive and destructive leadership. Key followership theories and frameworks are reviewed, practical implications discussed, and directions for future research offered.

V. Webster (*) Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_5

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Keywords

Followership · Follower-centric · Proactive followership · Implicit followership theories · Follower typologies

Introduction This chapter will first consider the term followership, how the concept has evolved and how it is defined, before providing a review of the followership literature. Leader-centric, follower-centric, and relational views of followership will be investigated, within the contexts of constructive leadership, destructive leadership, and leadership of virtual teams. Key followership theories, frameworks, and follower typologies will be reviewed and critiqued. This chapter includes a discussion on the practical implications of the followership research to date and whether the concept of followership is still relevant in modern workplaces. It will conclude with an exploration of directions for future research. When viewed from an evolutionary approach, it has been hypothesized that followership evolved as a strategy to solve a range of cooperation and coordination problems in groups (e.g., collective movement, peacekeeping). Bastardoz and Van Vugt (2019) suggested, from a historical perspective, egalitarian, seminomadic tribes of about 150 individuals were bound together by kinship and reciprocity ties. They cooperated by sharing food or coordinating gathering and hunting activities. Decisionmaking was egalitarian, and followers formed coalitions to monitor leader decisions, so that influential individuals had no coercive power over others. With the development of agriculture and the opportunity to store food and accumulate wealth, the relationship between leaders and followers fundamentally changed. Dramatic increases in population sizes and social inequality in large-scale societies paved the way for institutionalized leader-follower structures as ways to enable coordination and cooperation. In the western world, order is associated with hierarchy, leading to an assumption that someone must be in charge. The western view of leadership has been contrasted with some eastern philosophies, such as Taoism, where power is seen as asymmetrically distributed. Rather than assuming someone must be in charge, it is simply acknowledged that some people have more power than others and how people negotiate working together is a process (Prince 2005). Bastardoz and Van Vugt (2019) suggested that, as a result of evolutionary processes, humans now have a flexible followership psychology that enables them to know under what conditions to follow and to switch from being a follower to a leader whenever appropriate.

Defining Followership In early conceptualizations of followership, it was proposed that leadership can only occur if there is followership and that without followers and following behaviors there is no leadership, suggesting following behaviors are a crucial component of the

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leadership process and that leadership and followership are interdependent (Hollander 1992). Kelley (1992) set the scene for the concept of followership being accepted as a field of study in its own right. Kelley (1998: 146–147) defined followership as follows: People who are effective in the follower role have the vision to see both the forest and the trees, the social capacity to work well with others, the strength of character to flourish without heroic status, the moral and psychological balance to pursue personal and corporate goals at no cost to others, and, above all, the desire to participate in a team effort for the accomplishment of some greater common purpose.

Rost (1995: 112) also moved away from defining follower as a passive recipient of leadership or as an experiential requirement of leadership: . . . followers do leadership, not followership. And while followers sometimes change places and become leaders, they do have to be leaders to exert influence, to use power resources to persuade others of their position. In sum, followers are active agents in the leadership relationship, not passive recipients of the leader’s influence.

Building on previous conceptualizations of followership, Carsten et al. (Carsten et al. 2010: 559) defined followership as complementing leadership, as “upward leadership”: Followership is a relational role in which followers have the ability to influence leaders and contribute to the improvement and attainment of group and organizational objectives. It is primarily a hierarchically upwards influence.

Carsten et al. (2010) distinguished between followership and follower-centric approaches to leadership. Followers were viewed as key components of the leadership process through their enactment of followership (Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). As the concept of followership has become increasingly relevant to both practitioners and academics, interest has grown in how followers use their social influence with leaders and enact their own role in the leadership relationship, with a focus on their followership (e.g., the way they communicate with the leader, comply with their instructions, and respond to their behavior; Barbuto 2000; Carsten et al. 2010; Oc and Bashshur 2013; Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). However, leader-centric approaches to followership have been criticized for being too narrow and one-sided. In many contemporary organizations, employees are seen as competent, self-confident people, who like to think for themselves. Many followers feel that they do not flourish in a hierarchical context, where the leader is seen as crucial to the organizational system. They can become increasingly frustrated targets of their manager’s leadership attempts, showing cynicism and faked acceptance of their manager’s directions (Alvesson and Blom 2018). Nevertheless, definitions of followership are often constructed in terms of how the concept relates to leadership (see Crossman and Crossman 2011).

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Reviewing Followership Research Four key reviews of the followership literature have been conducted, and their findings are summarized here. All four reviews position followership within the leadership process. Firstly, Bjugstad et al. (2006) categorized the literature into three broad theoretical areas: literature relating to follower motivations, follower values and trust, and the characteristics of effective and ineffective followers. In the second review, Baker (2007) made four key observations about followership: how followership and leadership pertain to roles, followers are active rather than passive, followers and leaders share a common purpose, and the significant relational dynamics between followers and leaders. In the third review, Crossman and Crossman (2011) divided the followership literature into three groups. The first group was descriptive, giving actual behaviors exhibited by followers (active, passive, disregarding, supporting, or in opposition to their leaders). The second group was prescriptive, concentrating on idealized behaviors that followers should exhibit, rather than those they necessarily do. The third group examined situational factors of followership, e.g., how compatible particular leadership and followership styles are when operating in relation to one another in certain contexts. In the fourth review, Uhl-Bien et al. (2014) proposed that the study of followership is not the study of leadership from the follower perspective. It is the study of how followers view and enact following behaviors in relation to leaders. They investigated followership from the perspective of a) formal hierarchical roles (e.g., followers as “subordinates”) and b) followership in the context of the leadership process (e.g., following as a behavior that helps co-construct leadership). Therefore, they suggested that the construct of followership includes a follower role (i.e., a position in relation to leaders), following behaviors (i.e., behaviors in relation to leaders), and outcomes associated with the leadership process. When adopting a constructionist (process) approach, they considered the co-constructed nature of the leadership process. Uhl-Bien et al. called for followership constructs to be operationalized and provided the following examples (p. 96): • Followership characteristics: characteristics that impact how one defines and enacts followership. (Examples may include role orientations, motivations, intellectual and analytical abilities, affect, and social constructions of followers and/or individuals identified as engaging in following behaviors.) • Followership behaviors: behaviors enacted from the standpoint of a follower role or in the act of following. (Examples include the multiple expressions of overt followership including obeying, deferring, voicing, resisting, advising, etc.) • Followership outcomes: outcomes of followership characteristics and behaviors that may occur at the individual, relationship, and work-unit levels. (Examples include leader reactions to followers, such as burnout or contempt, follower advancement or dismissal, whether leaders trust and seek advice from followers, and how followership contributes to the leadership process, e.g., leadership and organizational outcomes.)

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More recently there has been a move from traditional definitions of leadership (e.g., one individual holding hierarchical power and authority) to the concept of shared leadership. Shared leadership has been defined as follows: . . .a dynamic, interactive influence process among individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement of group or organizational goals or both. This influence process often involves peer, or lateral, influence and at other times involves upward or downward hierarchical influence. (Pearce and Conger 2003, p. 1)

This definition acknowledges that individuals may, at the same time, be followers in one team, peers in another team, and leaders in another. The shared leadership approach is based on the premise that it is neither leader-centered nor followercentered because it rejects the idea that there is a distinction between leaders and followers (Crossman and Crossman 2011). Under shared leadership, followership is dynamically determined, and team members need to develop their followership skills and the ability to clearly recognize when they should be leading and when they should be following. However, Chaleff (2009) suggested that conceptualizing leadership as a shared responsibility had limited usefulness and that we need to recognize that leaders rarely use their power wisely over long periods unless they are supported by followers who have the courage to stand up to them and help them to do so. Chaleff called for a model of “courageous followership” that recognizes the dynamic leader/follower relationship, the need for followers to show courage, power, integrity, responsibility, and a sense of service. Studies of followership have applied a number of conceptual and theoretical lenses to their studies, including followership roles, followership behaviors, relational dynamics, situational factors, follower characteristics, typologies, and styles. This chapter proceeds with an examination of followership theory within the context of leadership and then reviews the conceptualizations of followership that move beyond the leadership/ followership lens.

Followership in the Context of Constructive Leadership Employees’ perspectives on leadership and followership are informed by an individual’s implicit leadership and followership theories. Implicit leadership theories research proposed that followers have implicit beliefs for leader behavior that influences the extent to which they attribute the leader as effective and evaluate them as a “good” or “bad” leader (Hansbrough and Schyns 2010). These implicit leadership beliefs are formed through socialization and past experiences and are activated when followers match observed leader’s behaviors to preexisting prototypes of leaders that they hold in their memory. These beliefs can determine whether and when individuals are willing to follow a leader (see Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). Implicit followership theories are defined as individuals’ personal assumptions about the traits and behaviors that characterize followers, which are formed via socialization and their experiences with followers. Sy (2010) studied implicit followership

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theories by investigating subordinates’ as well as managers’ views of followership. Sy proposed that implicit followership theories are best fitted into a six-factor structure: industry (hardworking), enthusiasm (excited and outgoing), good citizen (loyal, reliable, good team player), conformity (easily influenced), insubordination (arrogant or rude), and incompetence (uneducated). He also proposed a second-order two-factor structure: followership prototype (industry, enthusiasm, and good citizen) and followership anti-prototype (conformity, insubordination, and incompetence). Understanding implicit leadership and followership theories and how they interact is important because they are associated with relationship quality and follower performance (Sy 2011). Leaders’ perceptions of followers may affect the level of trust between the dyad, whether they evaluate the follower positively or negatively, and that evaluation may influence leaders’ treatment of followers. Carsten et al. (2010) proposed a followership approach which examines followers’ perspectives of followship, rather than followers’ perspectives of leadership. Carsten et al. investigated how individuals’ schemas of followership informed the way they responded to and complied with their leader, on a continuum from passive to proactive followership. They found passive followers held hierarchical views of followership, regarding it as deference, subordination, and obedience, being less willing to speak out or take risks (e.g., likely to comply with a leader holding a highlevel position within the organizational structure). Active followers saw their role as a partner in delivering leadership outcomes and felt able to voice their opinions in a positive way. Active followers were described as emphasizing the importance of supporting their leader’s decisions, even if they didn’t agree with them. Proactive followers were less concerned with obedience, preferring to take initiative and ownership for outcomes. Proactive followers were described as being more likely to voice their concerns and offer solutions to problems before being asked to do so. So, what makes a bad follower? As discussed above, Sy (2010) identified three components: conformity, insubordination, and incompetence. Bastardoz and Van Vugt (2019) defined a bad follower as an individual who does not coordinate well with the leader and/or with other followers. Bad followership behaviors include cheating, social loafing, and self-serving behaviors, such as when followers accept bribes and support bad leaders, undermine the leadership position (e.g., an extroverted individual competing for status at the leader and group expense); or are unpredictable in their actions. Bastardoz and Van Vugt (2019) noted that while bad followers can be morally good people, it is through their undermining of group coordination that they produce suboptimal outcomes. In interdependent relationships problems arise when either party denies or hinders the other in achieving their goals, e.g., deliberately working toward their own personal ends to get ahead, rather than working on group goals, or endeavoring to maintain the status quo when resisting change (Branch et al. 2007; Salin 2003). Bad followers can misuse their power by abusing the dependency managers have on them to fulfill their organization’s objectives (Branch et al. 2007). Restructured, flatter organizations, ongoing organizational change, and levels of uncertainty can trigger followers to regularly engage in a pattern of counterproductive behaviors. These behaviors tend to escalate from subtle to overt over time and can progress to

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upward bullying (Patterson et al. 2018). Followers may use resistance and avoidance tactics or display their disrespect for the manager by their facial expression, rolling their eyes, or glaring. They can also misuse their power, for example, utilizing coercive power such as humiliation tactics (making disparaging remarks in public, engaging in gossip and rumors) and intimation tactics (making false accusations or lodging complaints and grievances), structural power (e.g., withholding information or expertise), or referent power (e.g., ingratiating themselves with influential people such as senior management or with external organizations such as unions: Patterson et al. 2018). It has been suggested that upward bullying may also be a retaliatory response to destructive leadership (Wallace 2009). Alternatively, bad followership can result from a failure to act when leaders exploit or abuse employees (Chaleff 2009; Kellerman 2008).

Followership in the Context of Destructive Leadership Followership research has hypothesized reasons why people conform with destructive leaders’ demands and fail to challenge their negative behaviors (Padilla et al. 2007; Thoroughgood et al. 2012). Despite arguments that followers, with no apparent power or authority, can influence leaders, often individuals choose not to act against destructive leaders or to report them (Chaleff 2009; Kellerman 2008). This failure to act can be due to a range of factors. It may be a specific skill or power the leader has, such as holding expert knowledge or powerful relationships. Lack of knowledge of the characteristics of destructive leadership can lead followers to believe it is themselves, and not the leader, who are at fault. They may feel that it is something about their personality or something that they have done that has caused them to be treated in such a way. Failure to recognize their leader’s behavior as toxic, reluctance to face conflict and the unpleasantness of addressing these behaviors with the leader, or a fear of retribution can lead to a failure of courage in acting (Chaleff 2009). Despite some recent theoretical exploration for how followers may cope with destructive leadership, there has been little field research to validate these theoretical frameworks (e.g., May et al. 2014; Yagil et al. 2011). As it is not always possible to remove derailing or destructive leaders, it is important to understand the coping strategies followers employ that may protect them from the harmful effects of being the target of destructive leadership behaviors or, alternatively, may contribute to further abuse from the leader. A follower-centric approach, led by the abusive supervision literature, focused on the subjective assessment that subordinates make of a leader’s hostile or abusive behavior (Martinko et al. 2013). This research investigated both the role and interaction of leader and follower personality characteristics, leader and follower motivations, and how these are activated by environmental context and opportunity (Thoroughgood et al. 2012). The followership approach can be considered a useful lens to better understand why destructive leaders retain a following. Followers’ need for safety, security, group membership, and predictability in an uncertain world may make them susceptible to destructive leadership (Padilla et al. 2007; Thoroughgood

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et al. 2012). Padilla et al. (2007) used the concept of a “toxic triangle,” to describe destructive organizational outcomes as a result of the combination of destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments. They use a “systems perspective, focusing on the confluence of leaders, followers, and circumstances rather than just the characteristics of individual leaders” (Padilla et al. 2007, p. 179). Follower Typologies Based on a relational view of leadership and followership theory, followers will comply with destructive leaders’ demands and may even support and promote destructive leadership. Padilla et al. (2007) defined two types of susceptible followers: conformers, who lack a clearly defined self-concept and comply with destructive leaders out of fear, to minimize personal consequences of noncompliance, and colluders, who may share the leader’s values and actively participate in the destructive leader’s agenda to seek personal gain through their association with the leader. Thoroughgood et al. (2012) extended Padilla et al.’s (2007) typology of conformers and colluders, to explain followership of destructive leaders. Table 1 provides a comparison of these two key typologies. Thoroughgood et al. (2012) drew on Barbuto’s theory of follower compliance in an attempt to understand the psychological processes that motivate followers to comply with destructive leaders’ demands. Barbuto (2000) proposed three conditions required to achieve follower compliance: the leader’s perceived power bases, the follower’s sources of motivation, and the follower’s resistance level. Compliance is likely to be greater when the influence trigger employed by the leader (i.e., power base, goals, or values) is aligned to the follower’s motivation (i.e., self-concept and desired outcomes), and the follower’s resistance to the influence attempt is low. Lipman-Blumen (2005), in her discussion of why followers willingly obey toxic leaders, suggested that there exist three categories of followers who enabled and supported bad leaders: (a) benign followers, gullible followers who fail to question Table 1 Two typologies of susceptible followers Padilla et al. (2007) Conformers Comply out of fear

Colluders Participate in leader’s agenda

Thoroughgood et al. (2012) Lost souls Low self-concept and strong identification with the leader (susceptible to referent power) Bystanders Passive, motivated primarily by fear to minimize costs and punishment (susceptible to coercive power) Authoritarians Obey because of rank and status of leader (susceptible to legitimate power) Opportunists Form alliance with leader as a vehicle for personal gain (susceptible to reward power) Acolytes Share congruent values and goals with the leader (susceptible to expert power)

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what the toxic leader is saying or requesting and following for pragmatic reasons such as keeping their job (conformers); (b) the leader’s entourage, committed to the leader’s agenda (colluders); and (c) malevolent followers, driven by greed, envy, or competitiveness, who work against the leader and may wish to depose the leader in order to become the leader themselves. Similar to Lipman-Blumen’s malevolent followers, Kellerman’s (2008) typology of followers of bad leaders included an additional contribution in the leader-follower interaction process: followers who may, over time, become resisters of destructive leaders, working to overthrow or remove them. Kellerman’s first two types fall into the category of submissive conformers: isolates, who are detached and strengthen leader’s position by not responding to the leader, and bystanders, who observe but do not participate. Participants, who are engaged and trying to have an impact, may be perceived as responding constructively. Activists work hard, either on behalf of their leader or to undermine them; and diehards are prepared to die for their cause and are either deeply devoted to their leaders or ready to remove them. Activists and diehards may be perceived by the leader as constructive if they support the leader’s agenda and aggressive or retaliatory if they are perceived to be working against their leader, thus perpetuating abuse by the leader (Kellerman 2008; May et al. 2014). In a similar typology to Carsten et al. (2010), Chaleff (2009) proposed four followership styles to address the power dynamics between leaders and followers, based on the level of support and challenge offered to the leader by the follower: partner (high support, high challenge), implementer (high support, low challenge), individualist (low support, high challenge), and resource (low support, low challenge). These follower taxonomies provide a possible explanation for the individual differences in responses to destructive leadership. They highlight follower characteristics and make distinctions between types of followers. However, discussion on theoretical explanations for how these different types of followers influence the interaction between leader and follower is still in its early stages (Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). The typologies for followers of destructive leaders discussed above are descriptive and help us to theorize how followers may react and behave toward a toxic leader, for example, avoid, support, challenge, or overthrow the leader. However, individuals may self-identify in more than one follower type, or their follower type may change over time depending on the context (Kellerman 2008). Perhaps due to the relatively recent growth in conceptualizations of followership and follower typologies in the context of destructive leadership, no empirical research validating these theories and typologies is yet available. Further empirical research is required to validate theoretical follower typologies in field studies, to identify how understanding follower types can assist individuals and organizations to respond more effectively to destructive leadership. Follower Coping with Destructive Leadership Follower typologies have been critiqued as leader-centric, focusing on followers’ compliance with the destructive agenda set by the leader and/or followers’ resistance to the leaders’ destructive instrumental influence attempts. May et al.’s (2014) leader-follower interaction process suggested an alternative view that follower responses to perceived

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mistreatment by their leader may either trigger or prevent further interpersonal mistreatment. If followers’ behavior is interpreted by the leader as either submissive (conformers) or aggressive and retaliatory, the leader will maintain or increase their destructive behaviors. Followers who are perceived by the leader to cope in a constructive manner (such as colluders) are likely to be the recipient of constructive leadership behaviors. May et al. argued that using this perspective enables a better understanding of how followers cope with and respond to destructive leadership. With destructive leadership shown to be related to occupational stress, it follows that targets of destructive leadership behaviors may employ a range of coping strategies when attempting to deal with this particular occupational stressor (Nandkeolyar et al. 2014; Schyns and Schilling 2013). Destructive leadership behaviors form part of the psychosocial occupational stressor antisocial behaviors, which have been found to lead to anxiety, fear, depression, and avoidance behaviors in affected individuals (O'Driscoll and Brough 2010; Yagil et al. 2011). In the occupational stress and coping literature, occupational stress is hypothesized to affect both well-being (e.g., the psychological, emotional, and physical health of an employee) and coping responses (e.g., efforts to prevent or reduce the negative effects of stress on well-being; Goh et al. 2010). Upon perceiving a threat, initially a fight-flight-freeze stress response can be triggered, a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived threat. The fight or flight response is activated when an individual believes there is a chance they can survive the threat. The freeze response, however, is activated when an individual’s coping capacity is overwhelmed, when they believe that there is no hope of dealing effectively with the stressor (Webster et al. 2016). May et al. (2014) proposed that followers of destructive leadership were likely to engage in multiple problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies, and these strategies would vary in the level to which they confronted the leader (e.g., degree of assertiveness and aggressiveness of the coping behavior). Problemfocused approach coping may include strategies such as challenging the leader’s behavior, employing upward influencing tactics such as ingratiation, or seeking instrumental support. Emotion-focused approach coping may include strategies such as cognitive restructuring (reframing) and seeking emotional support. Examples of problem-focused avoidance coping included avoiding all contact with the leader. Examples of emotion-focused avoidance coping included denial of the situation and wishful thinking. May et al. proposed perceptions by leaders of submissive and/or aggressive reactions from followers would lead to leaders engaging in further destructive leadership behavior. May et al. assumed the level of follower confrontation would influence how leaders perceived the follower was coping with their leadership and would determine their behavior in response to the follower. There are three key limitations with this approach: (a) the leader must be able to observe the follower coping strategy to be able to perceive it as submissive, aggressive, or constructive. Emotion-focused strategies (e.g., cognitive restructuring) in particular are largely unobservable; (b) the leader’s perception of the follower’s coping behavior may not be accurate; and (c) the leader must have the

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resources and inclination to follow up with constructive behavior when responding to follower coping attempts (May et al. 2014). In addition, one of the few research studies into coping with abusive supervision and well-being found employees were more likely to use avoidance-focused (nonassertive, nonconfrontational) coping strategies. Yagil et al. (2011), in their study on follower coping responses to abusive supervision in two employee samples, found that while problem-focused coping was associated with positive affect, most of their participants chose emotion-focused coping strategies and, in particular, avoidancefocused coping responses. These findings support the proposition that if an individual feels they cannot avoid the stressor, or their attempts to cope with the stressor do not work, this may lead to learned helplessness, when the individual gives up, resulting in them experiencing higher levels of stress outcomes and longer-term harm after unsuccessful coping over time (Goh et al. 2010). Yagil et al. concluded that individual employees do not know how to cope effectively with abusive supervision.

Followership in the Context of Virtual Teams Heifetz et al. (Heifetz et al. 2009:64) made the call for adaptive leadership to deal with the uncertainty created by global crises by “giving people of all levels of the organisation the opportunity to lead [and] adapt to changing times.” This is exemplified more recently by the rise of remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions (KPMG 2020). Regardless of where work is conducted, measurements of performance increasingly focus on outcomes rather than inputs. In remote working, collaboration remains important and new, more effective ways to connect and collaborate virtually are commonly required. A shift to flatter, task-based structures is likely to follow, changing traditional, implicit theories of what it means to be a leader or a follower. As employees are increasingly working in virtual teams, they become engaged in multiple leading and following roles, resulting in a call for new leading and following models and competencies in the virtual space (Cunha et al. 2013; Malakyan 2019). The concept of shared leadership (e.g., a collective within-team process, engaged in by multiple team members) is advocated as beneficial for virtual teams because it is linked with collaborative decision-making, which has been found to be a predictor of team performance in virtual teams (Hoch and Dulebohn 2017; Pearce and Conger 2003). Some studies have found that leaders tend to underestimate followers’ capacity to lead themselves. As a result, formal team leaders may provide insufficient levels of autonomy for team members to engage in shared leadership (Hoch and Dulebohn 2017). Shared leadership is typically facilitated by social interactions among team members, including informal conversations and socializing both within and outside of work. These activities create commitment, trust, and cohesion among team members. Informal interaction is less feasible in virtual teams, where interaction is often characterized by scheduled virtual meetings, structured for purposes of assigning particular tasks and reporting on progress with

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projects. Thus, organizations need to make efforts to directly encourage and facilitate shared leadership and followership. Hoegl and Muethel (2007), in their examination of dispersed innovation teams, adapted and extended the concept of shared leadership, proposing an element of proactive followership. Proactive followership comprises individuals’ behaviors that adapt to environmental circumstances. Individual team members actively seek feedback and engage in social influence processes with other team members. Proactive followership focuses on the exchange between an individual team member and other team members to deliver individual- and team-level work outcomes. A formal team leader working remotely has fewer opportunities for direct and immediate communication with team members; therefore they may not have sufficient detailed information to correctly assess everyone’s information and task needs or to initiate corrective action as needed. As a result, it is up to team members to undertake proactive followership behaviors, to actively and individually seek feedback from within and outside the team regarding the appropriateness of their own task strategies, and to initiate corrective action as needed. There is little research on followership in the context of virtual teams to guide practice in organizations. It is likely that the dichotomy of leadership and followership may become redundant in the new world of work being conducted by virtual and semi-virtual teams.

Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy Given the above discussion on the future of work, it may be useful to put aside preconceived assumptions about leadership and followership and look at how people actually relate to each other, to view leaders and followers as participants in a mutual ongoing process and embrace the idea that leadership may be distributed throughout the entire membership of a group, rather than being focused on one individual (Gronn 2002; Prince 2005). Leadership and followership may be viewed as states, conditions, or roles that can be occupied by different individuals at various times (Bligh 2011). Leadership and the use of power may be seen as a fluid set of interrelations. Followers who have the capacity to self-manage have the means necessary to direct their own activities effectively toward the achievement of their own, team, and organizational goals (Cunha et al. 2013). Alvesson and Blom (2018) suggested that in successful organizations, managers, and employees make the effort to come to a shared understanding of how best to work together by communicating their views and expectations through open dialog. Alvessen and Blom caution against taking a leader-centric view or over-relying on leadership, preferring to work with a wider spectrum of ways of organizing people to work well together, to explore other ways of providing inspiration, direction, advice, support, coordination, encouragement, and feedback. As a result, they proposed six modes of organizing: three vertical (leadership, management, power) and three horizontal (teamwork, peer influencing, and autonomy) modes (see Table 2). Horizontal modes are seen as complementing more traditional vertical modes of organization. Each mode has advantages and limitations. People will have differential impact,

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Table 2 Modes of organizing work (Alvesson and Blom 2018) Horizontal

Teamwork

Peer influencing Autonomy Vertical

Leadership Management Power

Team members share responsibility, learn from each other, and work collectively on a common task. Influence based on knowledge, ideas, and debate (sometimes referred to as shared leadership) Team members seek and provide advice, support, encouragement, and inspiration outside the immediate work team Team members are self-directed at work. Plan and evaluate own work and performance Leader and followers interpersonally influence each other – sense making of meaning, feelings, and values Authority based on hierarchy (legitimate power). Planning, supervising, controlling, and evaluating Authority based on force, political skills, rewards, sanctions, and group pressure

depending on their formal position, experience, and talent. Autonomy may be seen as the result of competent employees refusing to define themselves as followers. All parties are, to varying degrees, involved in these modes, through followership and going beyond followership.

Practical Implications The view of followership as a form of leadership has implications for leadership development programs being extended to all staff, not just managers. Leadership development programs can specifically focus on the process of leadership and the role of followership – what it means and how it is demonstrated (e.g., collaboration and cooperation skills and tactics). This may be supported by creating policies and practices that encourage proactive followership. One avenue may be the development of followership competencies or a valid and reliable questionnaire to measure followership, e.g., a modified Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which acknowledges the idea of followership as upward leadership (Bligh 2011; Crossman and Crossman 2011; Cunha et al. 2013; Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). In practical terms, descriptions of follower typologies may assist in developing some self-awareness by followers of their own needs and wants from a leader, and their responses to leader behaviors, but have limited utility in assisting individuals to develop personal initiative or resilience when dealing with the adversity caused by destructive leadership behaviors (Thoroughgood et al. 2012). In addition, many of the follower typology labels presented in the literature (e.g., colluder, malevolent, isolate, bystander) are not useful terms for practitioners to employ in their endeavors to support and assist followers to maintain well-being in the face of destructive leadership. It would be more useful, for example, to better understand the conditions that are required in order to exercise courageous followership (Chaleff 2009). Specific training in dealing with destructive leadership and building political skill

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may be a useful inclusion in resilience training. Role-playing activities could be included to help followers to interact with authority in a way that is not too assertive, while being able to raise issues in a way that they are heard (Bligh 2011). As we move away from hierarchical organizational structures toward flat, networked, matrixed organizational structures, the challenge is to identify and instigate mechanisms to help control or temper the behavior of those with power. Team building and team coaching programs can be designed based on highlighting the dynamic process between leaders and followers and the way team members organize work and hold each other to account, whether collocated or working virtually.

Conclusions/Summary The term followership still retains connotations of subordination and lack of control. Simplistic dichotomies are increasingly out of step with how organizations are being restructured and the move to diverse working arrangements. More research is needed into how organizations can break down traditional hierarchical leader/follower distinctions and refocus on the fluid boundaries between people; the dynamic, interpersonal processes by which they engage, and the power dynamics they need to navigate (Cunha et al. 2013; Prince 2005; Patterson et al. 2018). There is some debate that the term “followership” is now an outdated concept and perhaps the term follower could be replaced, e.g., member, collaborator, contributor, participant, worker, and fellow (Bligh 2011; Cunha et al. 2013). In the context of destructive leadership, more research is needed into how people might be socialized in ways that help them balance their respect for authority with the ability to challenge people in positions of power and to better understand the factors that encourage followers to exercise their authority versus being co-implicated in destructive leadership. While there are some measures of follower typologies or styles in development, no measurement of followership itself currently exists. An exploration of how the idea of followership contributes to the ethical debate around the use and misuse of power and authority would also be useful, including further research into whistle-blowing as a form of responsible followership (Bligh 2011; Chaleff 2009; Kellerman 2008). Alvesson and Blom’s (2018) work could be extended, to explore the ways people work together, to build awareness of options beyond the leadership/followership dichotomy (e.g., co-leadership, collective leadership/followership: Bligh 2011), and to better understand how followers connect to other followers (e.g., inter-follower processes: Bligh 2011), particularly in the context of working virtually. Given the increasing need for organizational agility, more research into followers as a driving force for innovation and creativity is needed (Hoegl and Muethel 2007). As we move into a future that is likely to bring marked changes to how societies and workplaces are organized, we need to find ways to update our followership psychology that match these new ways of working. This drives the call to investigate ways to better manage power disparities between individuals, to inform our understanding of what it means to be a good global and organizational citizen in the modern world.

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Line Managers and Workplace Accommodations Ellie Fossey and Justin Newton Scanlan

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disability in the Employment Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefits of Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employee Perspectives: Knowledge, Disclosure Issues, and Workplace Relationships . . . Employer and Manager Perspectives: Costs, Knowledge Gaps, and Access to Expertise . . . Whole of Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flexible Working Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flexible Work Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work-Task Allocation Based on Individual Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Idiosyncratic Deals (i-deals) as Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Universal Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Negotiating and Implementing Workplace Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recruitment and Selection Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Handling the Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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E. Fossey (*) Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Primary and Allied Health Care, Monash University – Peninsula Campus, Frankston, VIC, Australia Living with Disability Research Centre, School of Allied Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] J. N. Scanlan Discipline of Occupational Therapy, Sydney School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_41

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Initial Implementation of Accommodations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Review, Development, and Career Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Workplace accommodations are adjustments made to the work environments, schedules, or tasks that enable workers to perform their work duties more effectively. This chapter outlines the evidence for the benefits and effectiveness of workplace accommodations to support optimal work participation and performance. It also offers guidance to support managers in the process of implementing workplace accommodations. First, the extent of disability in the employment context and the nature of work disability are explored. The concept of “workplace accommodations” is then described in detail. Examples of common workplace accommodations, their benefits to workers and employers, and commonly identified implementation issues are described. A “whole of workplace” approach to accommodations is presented – these types of accommodations can be made available to all workers, including flexibility in relation to work schedule and location, and the allocation of work tasks based on individual preferences. Subsequent sections then provide a guide for managers to collaborate with workers for the implementation of workplace accommodations through the employment cycle from recruitment and selection through handling initial disclosure, devising and implementing accommodations and ongoing performance review, career development, and promotion. While the chapter focuses primarily on workplace accommodations to reduce work disability, the concepts presented in this chapter are also applicable to other workers who may benefit from workplace accommodations for a variety of other reasons. Keywords

Workplace accommodations · Disability · Inclusion · Universal design · Discrimination · Disclosure · Injured workers · Return to work · Disability/ diversity management · Human resource management practices · Person-job fit

Introduction This chapter offers guidance on workplace accommodation policies and practices that facilitate the employment of workers and potential workers with disabilities, whether long-standing or arising following injury, with benefits for employees and workers. Disabilities may be readily apparent, known, or disclosed in the workplace, but they may also be less visible. Workplace accommodations are essential to

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equality of opportunity in employment, and important to consider across the employment cycle in relation to recruiting, hiring, retaining, and enabling career advancement of workers. Wide-ranging workplace accommodation options are available to address physical, social, and attitudinal barriers within the workplace. To maximize the fit between the work, worker, and workplace, the selection of specific options needs to take into account not only the nature of impairment but also on the person’s abilities, skills, and preferences, and the nature of the job and work environment. Most workers will require workplace accommodations at some point in their working lives to secure employment on an equal footing with others, to retain their employment, or return to work following an absence. While this chapter primarily focuses on workplace accommodations for individuals with disabilities, the information presented will also be useful for workers who require accommodations for other reasons (e.g., older workers; workers with religious, cultural, family, and caring responsibilities; and workers managing ongoing health conditions). This chapter first considers the extent of disability in the employment context and the nature of work disability. It then addresses what is meant by “workplace accommodations,” followed by describing common types of workplace accommodations, their benefits to workers and employers, and commonly identified implementation issues that impact the use of workplace accommodations in practice. Subsequent sections then outline the implementation of workplace accommodations and effective processes for negotiating and implementing reasonable accommodations for individual workers across the employment cycle.

Disability in the Employment Context Worldwide, an estimated 15% of the global population live with disability, and rates of employment are consistently lower among persons living with disability than the general population of working age (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2010; World Health Organization [WHO] 2011). In 2018, under half (47.8%) of working aged Australians living with disabilities were employed, in contrast to 80% of those without disability (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] 2019); persons with sensory and speech difficulties were most likely to be employed, followed by those with physical difficulties, while persons with psychosocial difficulties were least likely to be employed (ABS 2019). Similar figures are reported in Europe, Canada, and the USA (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Persons with disabilities are also overrepresented in entry-level, part-time, and insecure jobs; many are either underemployed or unemployed (Bonaccio et al. 2020; Konrad et al. 2013; Padkapayeva et al. 2017). This unequal access to employment is of concern, because it represents discrimination from a human rights perspective, and restricts the opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, prosperity, and career development of persons with disabilities, as well as representing a substantial untapped labor force (Brzykcy et al. 2019; International Labour Organization [ILO] 2016; Padkapayeva et al. 2017; Schur et al. 2014).

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Taken together, these issues mean that employers and managers have important roles to play in implementing workplace accommodation policies and practices regarding disability and chronic illness within their workforce. At the same time, employers’ concerns about how to implement workplace accommodations and about their potential costs can limit their effectiveness in managing disability within the workplace. To discuss what is meant by workplace accommodations, their purpose, and implementation, it is useful to first consider what is meant by “disability.”

Work Disability Over recent decades, disability has increasingly been recognized as a multidimensional aspect of human life, to which personal, social, and environmental factors contribute. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO 2001) advanced a framework for considering these factors and identifying the barriers that disadvantage persons with disabilities face in everyday life, including in the context of employment. This is summarized in Box 1.

Box 1 International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF)

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) emphasizes the role of environmental factors in creating disability. In the ICF, problems with human functioning are categorized in three interconnected areas: • Impairments, that is, problems in body function or alterations in body structure – for example, paralysis, vision, or hearing problems – and may either exist prior to an employee joining the workforce or result from an injury incurred in or outside the workplace • Activity limitations are difficulties in executing activities – for example, walking or eating • Participation restrictions are problems with involvement in any area of life – for example, facing discrimination in employment or transportation Disability refers to difficulties encountered in any or all three areas of functioning. The ICF can also be used to understand the positive aspects of functioning such as body functions, activities, participation, and environmental facilitation. The ICF adopts neutral language and does not distinguish between the type and cause of disability – for instance, between “physical” and “mental” health. “Health conditions” are diseases, injuries, and disorders, while “impairments” are specific problems in body functions and structures, often identified as symptoms or signs of health conditions. (continued)

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Box 1 (continued)

Disability arises from the interaction of health conditions with contextual factors – environmental and personal factors as shown in the figure below.

The ICF contains a classification of environmental factors describing the world in which people with different levels of functioning must live and act. These factors can be either facilitators or barriers. Environmental factors include the following: products and technology; the natural and built environment; support and relationships; attitudes; and services, systems, and policies. The ICF also recognizes personal factors, such as motivation and self-esteem, which can influence how much a person participates in society. It further distinguishes between a person’s capacities to perform actions (activities) and the actual performance of those actions in real life (participation), a subtle difference that helps illuminate the effect of environment and how performance might be improved by modifying the environment. Adapted from: ILO 2016 and World Health Organization 2001, 2011, p. 5. The ICF describes disability as reflecting the negative aspects of interaction of a person’s abilities and other personal characteristics with particular social and physical features of an environment. In other words, disability is neither an attribute of a person nor synonymous with functional limitations, such as in mobility, sight, or hearing, as is often be assumed. Rather, disability is experienced when physical or social features of an environment fail to accommodate human differences in ability. That is, environments have major impacts on whether disability is experienced, through the extent to which they hinder or restrict participation on an equal basis (United Nations General Assembly 2006; WHO 2001). In regard to employment then, disability is a part of human life; it is experienced by many potential workers, as well as by many people in the workforce, and by workers who have had illness or injuries and are seeking to return to work. People with the same impairment or the same health condition can experience very different types and degrees of restriction, depending on their work context. Not only physical and social environmental barriers to work participation differ between workplaces, but also barriers to work performance will differ depending on the nature of the work

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and tasks involved. Hence, information about the interaction between a person’s impairment or health conditions, their work (job tasks), and workplace environment (barriers and facilitators) is necessary to understand the extent of disability experienced, as well as to determine the most suitable workplace accommodations. Workplace accommodations, also referred to as work adjustments, serve to address work disability by improving the fit between workers’ abilities, their work environments, and work (job tasks), so as to enable work participation, as well as safe and effective performance, on an equal footing with others in the workforce.

Workplace Accommodations Workplace accommodations are an essential component of promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace and equality of opportunity in employment, workplace training, and career development (ILO 2016). Most workers are likely to require some form of workplace accommodation during their working lives, whether arising from family and caring responsibilities, religious or cultural requirements, experiencing disability, or age-associated changes in health and functioning. Workplace accommodations allow workers to use their full work potential and in turn to contribute to business success. Disability-related legislation varies internationally (Degener and Quinn 2002). Many countries prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability and protect the rights of workers, including those with disabilities, in workplaces (e.g., Disability Discrimination Acts in Australia and UK, the Americans with Disabilities Act in the USA, and Employment Equity Acts in Canada and South Africa) (Degener and Quinn 2002; Konrad et al. 2013). This legislation requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities. What constitutes workplace accommodations being reasonable is broadly defined, so that “reasonableness” generally refers to the provision of accommodations necessary for a worker to perform essential job functions and be productive, and that their provision should not cause “undue hardship” to the employer (Konrad et al. 2013). The International Labour Organization’s (2016) guide to workplace accommodations suggests a number of factors commonly taken into account when considering the “reasonableness” of requested workplace accommodations. Some of these factors include the following: their cost relative to the size and economic turnover of the company or organization; whether more workers may benefit than solely the person making the request; access to funding to recoup costs; occupational health and safety requirements; and how the requested accommodations relate to the essential elements of the person’s job. In other words, the intent of a reasonable accommodation at work is neither to unduly burden an employer, nor to create an unfair benefit or advantage for one employee over another. Rather, by providing one or more modifications or adjustments, the intent is to accommodate difference through removing or reducing barriers to equality of opportunity in employment, and enable all workers to work safely and productively (ILO 2016).

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Wide-ranging options are available for addressing the physical, social, and attitudinal barriers to successful employment. Workplace accommodations may focus on a single person or a workplace or organization. At an individual level, their aim is to promote equal opportunity by removing barriers to work participation, safe and effective performance, achievement, and satisfaction in work. At an organizational level, the purposes of workplace accommodations include improved worker productivity, worker retention, and well-being, as well as ensuring safety in the workplace (Nevala et al. 2015). Padkapayeva et al. (2017) proposed a useful way to consider the different types of workplace accommodations. Based on their evidence review of workplace accommodations used by employers to recruit, hire, retain, and promote persons with physical disabilities since 1990, they described three broad types of workplace accommodations: • Physical and technological modifications, that is, accommodations to address physical barriers and enhance workplace and workstation accessibility for safe, comfortable, and optimal job performance • Workplace flexibility accommodations, that is, accommodations aimed at increasing workplace flexibility and a better fit between the worker and the job role • Social accommodations, that is, accommodations to promote workplace inclusion, which include both human and policy supports in the workplace Examples of each of these types of workplace accommodations are provided in Table 1.

Benefits of Workplace Accommodations Workplace accommodations can have a range of benefits for employers and workers with disabilities that include not only upholding rights and enhancing workforce diversity, but also reputational and economic benefits for businesses (Bonaccio et al. 2020; ILO 2016). For workers with physical and psychosocial disabilities, reported benefits of individual workplace accommodations include access to employment, job retention, improved job tenure, and lower job turnover intentions, as well as an easing of workplace limitations and improved worker well-being (Brzykcy et al. 2019; Konrad et al. 2013; Nevala et al. 2015; Zafar et al. 2019). Conversely, given the known benefits of employment, a lack of access to needed accommodations is likely to not only limit employment opportunities and work participation, but also undermine well-being through restricting personal growth and career development, mastery, and status, as well as contributing to economic stress (Konrad et al. 2013; Williams et al. 2016). Furthermore, active involvement in developing inclusive workplaces at an organizational level may increase commitment, performance, and a sense of being valued within the workplace (Bonaccio et al. 2020).

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Table 1 Examples of differing types of workplace accommodations Workplace accommodation options Physical and technological modifications

Workplace flexibility accommodations to support a better fit between the worker and the role

Social accommodations

Examples Assistive devices, equipment, tools, and software – new custom-built, modified, and commercially available Access to quiet spaces, rest area Change to spatial arrangements (e.g., ergonomic setup, desk setup to reduce distractions or alter noise levels) Job restructuring (e.g., task order, pace, and workload to adjust physical or cognitive task demands/intensity) Task planning and prioritizing (e.g., to provide familiar routine, to alter the amount of interactions with others, and to enable forward planning) Scheduling accommodations (e.g., changing work schedules, reducing hours, additional breaks, and discretionary leave) Work location and transport (e.g., work from home/telework, accessible parking) Alternative communication methods (e.g., verbal, written, and visual) Personal assistance (e.g., note-taker, sign language interpreter, driver, and service animal) Job training and coaching options Customized job tasks during graded return to work Creating specifically designed job positions Workplace supports (e.g., coworker support, supervision, mentorship, and career development) Universal accommodations Inclusive recruitment and hiring practices Inclusive workplace culture: policies, procedures, and training in inclusive practices Employee Assistance Program resources and support

Adapted from: Australian Human Rights Commission (2010), Padkapayeva et al. (2017), Mellifont et al. (2016), Prince (2017), Schur et al. (2014)

Workplace accommodations have a number of benefits for businesses too (Carers Australia 2014; ILO and United Nations Global Compact 2017). Evidence from a number of studies highlight that accommodating disability makes good sense for businesses. For instance, among employers, and human resource professionals surveyed in large and small businesses in the USA, the most frequently reported direct benefits from implementing workplace accommodations were employee retention, increased worker productivity, and elimination of the costs related to training a new employee (Solvieva et al. 2011). Indirect benefits of making workplace accommodations also extend beyond the individual workers, notably including

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improved interactions among coworkers and positive effects on company morale, productivity, and workplace culture (Hartnett et al. 2011; Schur et al. 2014; Solvieva et al. 2011). In addition, hiring and accommodating workers with disabilities provides access to broader sources of talent, skills, and experiences (Bonaccio et al. 2020; ILO 2016). In these respects, it may be more helpful for employers and managers to view workplace accommodations broadly as focused on accommodating the diverse abilities and needs of the workforce, rather than solely on disabilities (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Indeed, universal accommodations are thought advantageous for all workers given their aim is to accommodate persons with diverse abilities in work environments; they may also be beneficial in minimizing the necessity for individualized accommodations for workers with disabilities through enhanced inclusive practices (Padkapayeva et al. 2017). Other identified benefits for businesses include the following: ensuring compliance with legal and occupational health and safety obligations, including reduced insurance costs, as well as enhanced public image and reputational benefits associated with offering inclusive working environments (Australian Human Rights Commission 2010; Bonaccio et al. 2020; ILO 2016). Given these benefits to employers and workers, when and how should workplace accommodations be provided?

Implementation Issues Research suggests variable access to workplace accommodations, with less than half of surveyed workers with physical, sensory, and mental health-related disabilities reporting that they receive the accommodations needed (Schur et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2011). Contributing personal, attitudinal, and organizational/systemic factors that impact the implementation of workplace accommodations from the perspectives of workers, and of employers or managers, are summarized below.

Employee Perspectives: Knowledge, Disclosure Issues, and Workplace Relationships Factors influencing workers’ access to workplace accommodations include lack of knowledge regarding their rights to request accommodations, specific needs, or the available options (Wang et al. 2011). This may be especially an issue during job seeking and for workers who have had long absences from the workforce during return to work processes (Gourdeau et al. 2020; Lindsay et al. 2018). In addition, workers with disabilities may receive little training or counseling about workplace accommodations, which may in turn limit a person’s ability to effectively request and self-advocate for suitable accommodations (Gourdeau et al. 2020; Lindsay et al. 2018; Nevala et al. 2015). Commonly reported reasons for not requesting workplace accommodations include privacy, not wanting special treatment, and concerns about the consequences

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(e.g., negative reactions, being treated differently, and job loss; Mellifont et al. 2016). A key factor here is that access to workplace accommodation relies on disclosing disability in the workplace. This creates a dilemma for workers with disabilities who may fear negative repercussions, given negative attitudes and misunderstandings about disability as well as the potential for discriminatory responses (Bonaccio et al. 2020; Lindsay et al. 2018). The invisible or less obvious nature of the difficulties experienced by some people, such as those associated with pain, fatigue, memory, anxiety, or depression, makes this process more challenging both as job seekers and as workers (Bonaccio et al. 2020; Gourdeau et al. 2020; Prince 2017). As a result, the need for disclosure means individuals need to weigh a complex set of challenges against the potential advantages of access to workplace accommodations during the employment cycle, so as to enable their safe and productive working and well-being. While this can also create frustration for employers and managers, it does not necessarily mean an employee has been misleading, given disability may change or emerge at differing points over a career. Hence, managers have an important role in creating an organizational culture whereby disclosure can be safely and constructively discussed (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Relationships between workers and coworkers, line managers, or employers may also impede or facilitate the implementation of workplace accommodations. For instances, satisfactory negotiation of workplace accommodations may be more challenging when a poor prior working relationship or lack of workplace support exists, whereas successful experiences in accessing accommodations are more likely among workers with long-standing, constructive, and supportive working relationships with employers and coworkers (Gourdeau et al. 2020; Kensbock et al. 2017).

Employer and Manager Perspectives: Costs, Knowledge Gaps, and Access to Expertise Employer concerns about the employment of workers with disabilities are important contextual influences on the implementation of workplace accommodations. These include assumptions about the kinds of jobs and careers that workers with disabilities are seeking; hiring practices as a potential barrier in themselves; and concerns about the responses of coworkers, the integration of workers with disabilities within the workplace, and the management of their performance (Bonaccio et al. 2020). More directly related to workplace accommodations, their potential cost is a frequently reported concern among employers, although employers’ fears of high costs and negative reactions of coworkers are not necessarily realized (Bonaccio et al. 2020; Schur et al. 2014). Indeed, the benefits of workplace accommodations, whether provided for workers with physical disabilities or workers with mental illness, in general, outweigh the costs to employers, and most are inexpensive (McDowell and Fossey 2015; Nevala et al. 2015; Padkapayeva et al. 2017; Schur et al. 2014), especially if costs of staff turnover and hiring new staff are also considered. Nevertheless, the costs may depend on the type of accommodations.

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For instance, physical and technological accommodations may be more likely to require one-off expense, whereas the costs of social accommodations may be more hidden, and require ongoing effort by employers to support work flexibility, promote and sustain an inclusive workplace culture (Gewurtz and Kirsh 2009; Zafar et al. 2019). Businesses and organizations may vary too in their scope for flexibility of work schedules and other accommodations for disability (Nevala et al. 2015). Hence, the implementation of workplace accommodations is not necessarily costneutral, but, as previously noted, many accommodations can have positive benefits for the whole workforce and the business itself. Knowledge gaps and attitudinal issues related to disability among employers and managers are identified as barriers to implementation of workplace accommodations. These issues may include limited knowledge and understanding about the disability, and disbelief or negative attitudes regarding the impacts of disability (Gewurtz and Kirsh 2009; Lindsay et al. 2018; Nevala et al. 2015). They also include negative views about the capability of workers with disabilities, even though poor performance may in fact reflect a lack of needed accommodations or other job task or support-related issues (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Employers also report a need for more training, access to expertise, and best practices related to accommodating disability in the workplace (Bonaccio et al. 2020; Padkapayeva et al. 2017). To increase their use, this suggests the importance for employers and managers of understanding the business case for workplace accommodations, their potential benefits for all workers, and the minimal costs associated with many accommodations, as well as guidance on how to implement workplace accommodations. Evidence suggests that best practice requires a “whole of workplace” strategies focused on inclusiveness, such as those referred to as “social accommodations” in Table 1, combined with individual accommodations for disability or other reasons (Bonaccio et al. 2020; LaMontagne et al. 2014; Padkapayeva et al. 2017). The following sections first consider the implementation of organizational strategies by employers and managers to foster inclusive workplaces. Then, the processes for negotiating and implementing reasonable workplace accommodations across the employment cycle are reviewed, with attention to the roles of managers in hiring workers and during their employment.

Whole of Workplace Accommodations Workplace accommodations that are available to all workers can have widespread benefits, promote diversity, and support inclusion of workers with varied backgrounds and experiences. The International Labour Organization (2016) has developed a guide that is freely available and very useful when considering “whole of workplace” accommodations to support a diverse workforce. Some examples of whole of workplace accommodations include flexible working times, flexible work locations, work-task allocation based on individual preferences, and implementation of universal design principles.

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Flexible Working Times Flexible work times allow team members to work outside of the standard “9 to 5” working day. This can have multiple benefits for a wide range of workers, including those who have caring responsibilities, cultural or religious commitments. These flexible arrangements demonstrate an organization’s commitment to workers and recognize them as “whole people” rather than only as “workers.” This flexibility can promote increased satisfaction, productivity, and retention (Azar et al. 2018). Flexible working hours can include adjusted start and finish times and can allow for increased numbers of breaks through the working day. For example, rather than the usual 9–5 working hours, a parent might find it more useful to commence work at 10 a.m., work through until 3 p.m., and then work again from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Likewise, a worker with fatigue may find it useful to spread their working hours over a longer period to enable regular, extended breaks for recuperation. Despite the potential benefits of flexible working times, there are some downsides. Where organizational policy supports flexible work times, but team culture does not accept flexible work hours, this can be challenging for workers, and the use of flexible working hours may be associated with lower levels of work engagement (Timms et al. 2015).

Flexible Work Locations Referred to as “telework,” “telecommuting,” “remote working,” or “working from home,” flexibility in terms of locations where work is performed can also be very useful for a variety of workers (Igeltjørn and Habib 2020; Smith et al. 2018). Allowing workers to work remotely can reduce commuting time and provide flexibility for workers juggling work and caring responsibilities. For workers with disabilities, remote working can also reduce barriers such as inaccessible, irregular, or costly transport and allow workers to use already-established home-based modifications (e.g., accessible workstations/facilities or psychologically calming environmental setups) to support their work. Remote working may also reduce barriers for those individuals who find social or public settings stressful. One consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was the widespread adoption of remote working and technology to support this. Many job roles previously considered impractical to complete remotely were discovered to be possible, particularly with previously uncommon practices such as videoconferencing becoming ubiquitous. This dramatic change has been seen as creating many opportunities to enhance inclusion in the workplace (Jesus et al. 2020). There are also downsides to remote working that need to be considered. When only a small proportion of the workforce works remotely, then this can lead to reduced opportunities for informal networking and isolation of the remote worker (ILO 2020; Smith et al. 2018). Meetings held with a mix of in-person and remote attendees can inadvertently reduce the opportunity for remote workers to participate. Additionally, remote working can also blur the work-home boundary and reduce opportunities for recuperation (Igeltjørn and Habib 2020; ILO 2020; Brough et al. 2020).

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Work-Task Allocation Based on Individual Preferences Within a team, each individual will have a unique set of skills, interests, and preferences. What is mundane for one individual may be captivating for another. Based on this principle, individualized work-task allocation considers the full breadth of tasks undertaken by a team, their frequency, and duration. Rather than each worker taking up a similar range of work tasks, individualized allocations allow individuals to identify those work activities that are most enjoyable to them (and those that are least enjoyable) so that work tasks can be allocated accordingly. Processes whereby workers can identify their own work preferences and set their own individual goals are sometimes referred to as “job crafting” (Oprea et al. 2019). While this job crafting process results in individualized work-task allocations, it is generally preferable to complete the process as a team to avoid perceptions of “favoritism” or injustice in allocations. This approach can be time-consuming to establish and requires regular review (e.g., in response to changes in work duties or when new workers join the team) but can return benefits in terms of increased work engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. A recent systematic review and metaanalysis of job crafting interventions found that job crafting interventions supported increased productivity through greater work engagement and that the productivity gains outweighed the initial cost of implementation (Oprea et al. 2019).

Idiosyncratic Deals (i-deals) as Workplace Accommodations Combining features of flexible work times, locations, and work-task allocations, idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) in workplaces have gained prominence over the last decade. Much research has explored the potential benefits of i-deals for workers and organizations. A meta-analysis (Liao et al. 2016) found that i-deals were associated with increased commitment, increased satisfaction, and reduced turnover intention for workers with i-deals. However, an important issue for consideration is “perceived fairness” and “justice” where i-deals are only available to a small number of workers and may lead to resentment and dissatisfaction in coworkers (Kong et al. 2020; Laulié et al. 2019; Liao et al. 2016; Rofcanin et al. 2018; Marescaux et al. 2019). When considering the impact of i-deals on the overall organizations, there is some suggestion that outcomes are best when i-deals are broadly available (Liao et al. 2016). I-deals can also be particularly valuable for accommodating disability in the workplace. Brzykcy et al. (2019) completed a large study exploring the association between i-deals and turnover intention (workers’ desire to leave their jobs). They found that having an i-deal was associated with reduced turnover intention and stronger sense of attachment to the organization for all employee types (those experiencing disability, and those not). However, the effect of i-deals on reduced turnover intention was greatest for workers experiencing disability associated with a psychological condition and related to an increased sense of work ability gained through the i-deal.

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Universal Design The concept of “universal design” is based on the understanding that disability is caused by environmental barriers rather than individual attributes or impairments. Universal design principles support the design of environments that enable access by a range of people with a range of abilities without the need for specific alterations (International Labour Organization 2016). Seven principles of universal design have been identified: (1) equitable use; (2) flexibility in use; (3) simple and intuitive use; (4) perceptible information; (5) tolerance for error; (6) low physical effort; (7) and size and space for approach (Story 1998). Where workplaces are designed using universal design principles, the need for individual adjustments is substantially reduced. This includes designs that incorporate alternatives to stairs; private spaces for breastfeeding, prayer, or time-out; and automated doors and signage that can be understood by individuals with vision impairment (ILO 2016). While principles of universal design can be challenging to implement within an existing workplace, even small changes such as the provision of height-adjustable or sit to stand desks can be advantageous for a variety of workers.

Negotiating and Implementing Workplace Accommodations Rather than seeing implementation of accommodations as a “once off” event, it is generally more helpful to consider the implementation process as ongoing throughout the employment cycle (Bonaccio et al. 2020). While their order will vary for individual workers, key areas to consider include the following: recruitment and selection; handling the disclosure; initial implementation of accommodations; and performance review, development, and career planning.

Recruitment and Selection Processes Building an inclusive organization starts before you even meet a potential worker. To ensure that the most talented people can apply for positions, it is essential to consider the recruitment process. There are several questions to consider. For example, are application processes accessible? It is important to ensure that job postings are listed on websites that are accessible (e.g., are compatible with screen readers) and that any preemployment screening tests are unbiased (Bonaccio et al. 2020; ILO 2016; Erickson et al. 2014). If job postings are inaccessible or preemployment screening is biased against people with disabilities, then your potential pool of candidates will be limited from the very beginning (McKinney and Swartz 2019). Are work roles described clearly and explicitly? Being explicit about the work roles can help potential applicants determine whether they have suitable skills and capabilities to do the job and potentially start thinking about accommodations that could be requested. At the point of “shortlisting” and interviews, it is also important to recognize that other recruitment members may hold biases against individuals

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with disabilities, and it is important to ensure that these do not influence the decisionmaking process (Gewurtz et al. 2016; McKinney and Swartz 2019). Having a clear outline of the requirements of the position (including those that are essential and those that could be changed, removed, or adjusted) will support fair decision-making processes, so that candidates are evaluated according to the requirements of the position, rather than other potentially irrelevant factors. Are your positions attractive to people with disabilities? Organizations or businesses that specifically indicate people experiencing disability (along with other diversity groups) are encouraged to apply, and have systems in place to encourage applicants to indicate accommodations required for interviews or in the workplace, are more likely to be perceived as “good” prospective employers by applicants with disabilities, leading to higher quality applicant pools (Bonaccio et al. 2020). One study related to disclosure in the workplace suggested that individuals were more confident when the organization had previously employed people with disabilities, when the organization participated in disability-related events and when workers with disabilities were involved in recruitment events (von Schrader et al. 2014). Offering internships for individuals with disabilities and developing partnerships with local disability employment services are also strategies that have been effective in attracting a diverse pool of applicants (Erickson et al. 2014; Gewurtz et al. 2016).

Handling the Disclosure As previously noted, the process of disclosing disability in the workplace can be challenging, especially for those workers whose condition or impairment is not immediately apparent (Lindsay et al. 2018; McKinney and Swartz 2019). Therefore, the way a manager handles the initial disclosure is of critical importance. While the most common reason for making a disclosure is due to the need to request accommodations, workplace culture is also important (Lindsay et al. 2018; von Schrader et al. 2014). Individuals are more likely to disclose when they have a good relationship with their manager, are aware that the organization is making active steps to recruit and support people with disabilities, and have seen positive responses to other workers’ disclosures (Lindsay et al. 2018; von Schrader et al. 2014). When disclosures occur, it is important to acknowledge the disclosure, express appreciation for the disclosure, and commit to working with the employee to find appropriate accommodations. This sets a positive environment for planning and will relieve some of the stress the employee is experiencing (Employer Disability Information 2020). When disclosures are not handled effectively, this can have a detrimental effect on well-being and satisfaction (Kensbock et al. 2017). During the disclosure conversation, it can be challenging for the worker to know what information should be provided. Equally, it can be challenging for the manager to know what questions to ask. There are resources that can be helpful to assist in this process (e.g., AHEAD 2013; Employer Disability Information 2020). A key consideration is to be open to listening to the worker and giving sufficient time for the worker to explain their situation. Going into great detail about medical diagnoses,

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signs, and symptoms is generally unnecessary and almost always unhelpful, as the same condition will impact on different workers and work roles in different ways. Key things to explore are the ways in which the condition impacts on the person’s ability to participate in work tasks. It is also important to focus on the individual’s strengths and capabilities in this process (Lindsay et al. 2018). Using a detailed job description or list of tasks can be helpful in this process as this can aid in the process of thinking through individual work tasks and how the condition might impact on the various responsibilities (Employer Disability Information 2020). These initial conversations are very constructive in starting to think through what accommodations might be helpful as well.

Initial Implementation of Accommodations Depending on when disclosure occurs, establishing workplace accommodations can be completed as part of the onboarding process but can also occur at any time in the employment cycle following initial disclosure. During this process, it is important to seek advice and support. The individual employee will be an excellent source of information – they are likely to have strategies that they already use in other areas of their life that they have found useful (AHEAD 2013). Other supports that will be available to individual managers could include specialized support from occupational therapists, ergonomists, or return to work coordinators in human resources departments, from specialized disability employment services and from government departments. When seeking support and advice, it is important to remember to maintain the privacy of the worker, unless you have their consent to discuss the details of their situation. Some governments and insurance providers will also offer financial assistance to implement workplace accommodations. Many countries also have specific advice services for employers to implement workplace accommodations (e.g., Job Accommodation Network in the USA, Employer Disability Information in Ireland, and Job Access in Australia), and disability advocacy services can provide guidance and support to find the most appropriate services. The most important factor for managers to remain aware of throughout this process is that you are not expected to be the “expert” in workplace accommodations, but that a supportive and willing attitude will promote positive outcomes for the employee and work team (Employer Disability Information 2020). As noted previously, when considering what adjustments might be necessary, it is important to think broadly, considering the “fit” between the individual, their skills, strengths, and limitations, and their work tasks and the workplace (both in terms of the physical design and setup as well as relationships with colleagues). Implementing accommodations can sometimes be challenging in terms of the perceptions of coworkers (Kensbock et al. 2017). This is especially the case where the nature of the disability is not visible. Some coworkers may perceive that the worker with a disability is receiving “special treatment” which could cause discontent or conflict. This potential issue can be managed by workplace flexibility being available for all, as noted above, so that the changes for the person after disclosure

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are seen as a usual part of workplace processes (ILO 2016; Bonaccio et al. 2020). Additionally, many coworkers are actually very accepting of accommodations provided for others as it reflects the company’s commitment to its workers and can build workers’ trust and commitment, giving them confidence that accommodations may be provided for them if required in the future (Bonaccio et al. 2020). The specific types of accommodations are quite varied, and their implementation may also vary according to the type of work activities undertaken, the work environment, and the specific impacts of the condition. Some examples are listed in Table 1. Other reviews have summarized the types of workplace accommodations that can be helpful in particular contexts. For instance, several previous reviews have provided guidance on the selection of assistive technology (Gamble et al. 2006), personal assistance services, and natural supports in the workplace (Dowler et al. 2011; Storey 2003). While no one size fits all, several recent reviews and studies have also addressed workplace accommodations in the context of specific health conditions. These include useful accommodations for workers with autism spectrum disorder (Khalifa et al. 2020), traumatic brain injury (Gourdeau et al. 2020), as well as mental illness and other conditions that are less visible in the workplace (Mellifont et al. 2016; McDowell and Fossey 2015; Prince 2017; Zafar et al. 2019). When implementing accommodations, it is important to review their use regularly with workers to ensure the desired benefits are being realized. This review can be integrated into regular performance review, development, and career planning processes.

Performance Review, Development, and Career Planning Regular reviews of performance and career development are important for all workers, but this can be especially so for workers experiencing disability because evidence suggests these workers often face numerous barriers in the workplace that can undermine optimal performance, limit social interactions, and prevent workers from progressing beyond “entry-level” positions (Gupta and Priyadarshi 2020; Van Laer et al. 2019). Regular reviews allow for open communication between the worker and line manager and for issues and opportunities for improvement to be identified early. One of the issues that can be concerning for line managers is raising issues of work performance for individuals with disabilities (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Regular, less formal meetings allow issues to be raised early, before they become problematic. This is also an opportunity to review the effectiveness of accommodations. Perhaps there were unforeseen issues that are interfering with work performance, and further adjustments may support enhanced work performance (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Exploring ongoing relationships with colleagues is also important, as the social environment of the workplace can be a disabling factor impeding work performance (Nevala et al. 2015). Sometimes, training and development is necessary to support colleagues to better understand the needs and capabilities of their coworkers which promotes greater levels of support and collaboration. Review meetings can also serve to highlight the workers’ strengths. Given that workers

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Table 2 Summary of facilitators of successful implementation of accommodations according to stage of the employment cycle Stage of employment cycle Recruitment and selection

Disclosure

Implementation of accommodations

Performance review, development, and career planning

Facilitators of successful implementation of accommodations Organizational support for recruitment of diverse workforce, including people experiencing disabilities Staff awareness and acceptance of diversity Recruitment panel training and awareness of antidiscrimination legislation and processes Recruitment panel awareness of availability and types of workplace accommodations Accessible job advertisements Job postings include clear statement that people experiencing disability are encouraged to apply Preemployment screening is nonbiased Relationships with disability organizations Opportunities to request accommodations for interviews Job descriptions clearly articulate essential tasks and responsibilities Interview questions focused on core requirements of the job Workplace culture demonstrates acceptance of disability and diversity Availability of workplace flexibility for all workers All staff provided training in how to request accommodations Manager responsiveness to disclosure Focusing on strengths of the worker Focusing on the impact of disability on work performance rather than on the specifics of the condition/impairment Individual discussion with the worker about work tasks and accommodations that would support Timely on-site workplace evaluation of a worker’s needs Access to knowledge of accommodation options and expert supports to explore options and customize workplace flexibility accommodations Open discussions with employee to find accommodations that will lead to most productivity/safe and effective performance Consider job restructuring and training options Appropriate explanation of adjustments to coworkers Consider how to reduce potential negative impacts of modifications on opportunities for interaction among workers Focus on strengths to foster organization-related self-esteem of worker Review effectiveness of accommodations and make changes if required Review team relationships and address issues early Highlight worker’s strengths and support work-related selfefficacy Explore opportunities for taking on additional responsibilities and work tasks (continued)

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Table 2 (continued) Stage of employment cycle

Other facilitators

Facilitators of successful implementation of accommodations Explore opportunities for training and development Review each new vacancy to determine if core responsibilities could be undertaken by workers experiencing disability to enable promotion and career development “Universal design” principles taken into consideration in workplace refurbishment/building Completion of accessibility audits by individuals with disabilities to identify changes that would enhance accessibility for all Consider accessibility (universal design) when procuring equipment (e.g., information technology), refurbishing, or relocating

experiencing disability have often experienced work-related challenges, they may have a lower belief in their own capabilities (Gupta and Priyadarshi 2020). Focusing on the strengths of the worker and promoting work-related self-efficacy are important and can support job tenure (Williams et al. 2016). One study found that transformational leadership style was related to higher organization-based self-esteem for employees experiencing disability, and this in turn was related to lower levels of emotional exhaustion which was associated with higher productivity (Kensbock and Boehm 2016). Finally, regularly exploring growth opportunities (e.g., taking on additional responsibilities, training opportunities, and career progression opportunities) for workers experiencing disabilities, as with all workers, will support job retention and optimize the employee’s contribution to the work team and overall organization.

Summary The above processes across the employment cycle, together with facilitators of successful implementation of accommodations, are summarized in Table 2 below. While it can be daunting to undertake this process for the first time, remember that having a positive, supportive approach is the most important element. Getting the optimal “fit” in terms of the optimal kinds of workplace accommodations might take some time but will generally create substantial benefits for the worker and the business. Even though implementing workplace accommodations for the first time can be challenging, the more often it is conducted, the easier it becomes. Additionally, it is likely that through this process, similar to other change processes, “champions” will emerge and support sustainability. Additionally, workers’ experiences of successfully implemented workplace accommodations become positive examples of inclusive work practices and attract others to the organization, supporting the development of a rich and diverse workforce.

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Conclusions The World Report on Disability (WHO 2011) highlights not only the legal and human rights obligations of managers and organizations to provide workplace accommodations but also the benefits of employment for workers experiencing disability. Evidence also demonstrates that workplace accommodations make good sense for business (Bonaccio et al. 2020; ILO 2016). This chapter has provided an overview of work disability, the nature and benefits of workplace accommodations. It has offered practical suggestions in relation to how managers can support workers experiencing work disability through the design and implementation of work accommodations to promote optimal work participation and performance. Knowledge gained from this chapter will enable managers to enhance work environments by providing responsive, flexible working arrangements and by attracting a diverse and capable workforce.

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Part II Management of Change

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Incremental and Disruptive Change and Wellbeing Christine Ipsen and Kasper Edwards

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Incremental Change: Planned or Emergent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disruptive Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Wellbeing: The Primary or Secondary Objective of an Organizational Change . . . . Wellbeing Is the Secondary Objective of an Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . When Wellbeing Is the Primary Objective of an Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linking Wellbeing and Organizational Performance to Organizational Changes . . . . . . . . . . Sustainable Management of Change: How to Design for Wellbeing and Performance in Organizational Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Capability to Change: Balancing Organizational Performance and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications for Future Research and Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions/Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

This chapter covers two main topics: types of changes (i.e., incremental and disruptive) and employee wellbeing. We provide in detail how to understand different organizational changes and wellbeing, and their relations. Organizational changes run on a continuum from incremental to transformational change, where the latter includes disruptive changes. Although this topic is important, there is still a lack of understanding of the role of wellbeing in organizational change processes, as the intended target or unsolicited effect, which we term the primary or secondary objective of an organizational change. Irrespective of the type of organizational change, whether disruptive or incremental and the role of C. Ipsen (*) · K. Edwards DTU Management, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_6

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wellbeing it involves changes in the organizational design. We therefore find that the theory of organizational design is a valuable tool as it includes the concern for wellbeing and performance. Following this, sustainable management of changes that include concern for organizational performance and employee wellbeing is essential if organizations aim for capabilities that will allow the organization to respond to challenges and opportunities in the business environment while including concern for employee wellbeing. Therefore, managers must learn how to understand the role of wellbeing in organizational changes and the organizational capabilities and prerequisites required to plan and execute change. Keywords

Change management · Organizational change · Incremental change · Disruptive change · Wellbeing · Organizational design · Sustainable management · Organizational capability · Maturity

Introduction Organizations change due to different reasons or forces, internal or external, demanding or allowing changes to happen. Thus, organizational change is an important part of management that tries to ensure that the workplace/corporation responds to the input it gets and/or the environment in which the organization operates. In practice, organizational change is the process in which an organization changes its structure, strategy, work processes/practices, technologies, etc. Over the years, the phenomenon of change management and management of organizational change has become a recognized discipline but also one of the most difficult to conduct and understand. One reason is that organizational changes have a high risk of failing. One of the explanations relates to people and how they respond and act as part of the change. Therefore, it is also widely acknowledged that successful and sustainable organizational changes are dependent on people and they require attention. Thus, the literature has been concerned with people’s reactions to change, job satisfaction, motivation, and how to minimize resistance, and therefore, support better implementation. In organizations in general, there is also an emerging consensus on the role of health and wellbeing for individual and organizational performance in organizations and vice versa. That places the role people’s wellbeing at the forefront of how to understand and support wellbeing in organizational and sustainable changes. In this chapter, we aim to provide insights into how organizational change, that is, as a process, is linked to people’s wellbeing and how to understand the role of wellbeing in different types of organizational changes. By gaining a better understanding of the role in the processes and the organizational design, it is possible to support sustainable change to benefit organizational performance and employee wellbeing and where the organizational goal is achieved without being at the expense of wellbeing.

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First, we consider two different understandings of organizational change processes. We also describe how employee health and wellbeing are linked to organizational changes. Then, we provide a holistic approach to sustainable management of organizational changes that includes concern for wellbeing and organizational performance and acts as a guide for future studies of sustainable management of changes. In the last part of the chapter, we discuss new challenges, trends, and suggestions for actions.

Defining Organizational Change Organizational change has always been a central subject in management and is as old as organizations themselves. An early description of organizational change is found in the Old Testament in the Bible (Ex. 18:13-17). Having escaped the Pharaoh of Egypt and now living in the desert, the Israelites approached their leader Moses directly. Perhaps because Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, was concerned with Moses’ mental health or saw him as a bottle-neck for decisions to be made, he suggested a reorganization. The organizational change implied that only a few men would report directly to Moses, and they would then be responsible for hundreds. A hierarchical organizational structure was implemented. In the industrial age, Frederick Taylor introduced “the principles of scientific management” in 1911 as a management theory that analyzes workflows with the main objective to improve efficiency and effectiveness (productivity; (Taylor 1998)). The new theory set the stage for a systematic approach to organizational change but also a separation between operations management and people (Human Resources) where humans became a factor in optimizing processes and operations. In the 1920s, the Hawthorne studies (Gillespie 1991) showed the importance of the human dimension of organizational change and contributed to a new understanding of the role of people in change processes. The new understanding of people’s role later laid the foundation for organizational development which emphasizes the whole system, clear steps and phases, and an underlying set of values to guide the process (Burke 2017). In addition, an understanding of social-technical systems acknowledges the interdependence of people and technical systems in an organization (Burnes 2009). Based on the vast literature of change management and organizational change, there exist numerous understandings and models intended to guide, instruct, and manage implementation of changes in organizations. In short, today organizational change is an established field where scholars have tried to define what change is. Organizational changes may be initiated with either a reactive approach, where the organization reacts to a problem or challenge that the organization faces, or a proactive approach, where the organization plans and implements changes to avoid a (potential) misalignment. The typical foci of organizational changes are processes, for example, information flows, resource allocation, production systems, people, for example, competences, skills, or the organizational structure, for example, authority lines, job roles, characteristics of business units, and internal groups (Van de Ven and Poole 2005; Burnes 2009). Burnes (2009) viewed

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change as “running along a continuum” from being “incremental to transformational change” where the former is about adjusting and redesigning the organization, and the latter implies a substantial disruption of the organization and business. The focus of this chapter is the two end points of Burnes’ continuum, in particular the transformational changes that are disruptive.

Incremental Change: Planned or Emergent There are a number of ways in which organizational change can be categorized. Ackerman (1997) distinguished between different types of organizational change, where an incremental change is a first-order change that may be either planned or emergent. Emergent change, however, can be characterized as bottom-up, as it is driven by employees making needed changes in their daily work (Van de Ven and Poole 1995; Weick and Quinn 1999; Beer and Nohria 2000; Palmer et al. 2009). Planned changes are infrequent and driven by senior management who have developed a plan for implementing the desired change. Planned means that an organization identifies an area where it believes a change is required and initiates a change process that is linear with a number of rational stages that are meant to guide the process from start to finish. This type of change enhances or corrects existing aspects of an organization, often focusing on the improvement of a skill or process (Ackerman 1997). Kurt Lewin was the first to coin the term “planned,” in 1947. The term aims to distinguish changes that are deliberately planned by an organization as opposed to unplanned changes (Cummings and Worley 2001). Lewin’s (1947) widely used framework for planned change describes change as taking place in three distinct stages: unfreeze, move, and refreeze (Cummings and Worley 2001; Burnes 2004; Al-Haddad and Kotnour 2015). The unfreeze stage characterizes the starting point where the organization prepares for change. This can be inspired by an idea or a challenge that highlights problems in the current organization that are desirable to change. The deliberate and purposeful development of alternative solutions to the problem is the move stage. When the organization chooses one of the possible alternatives, it makes a deliberate choice and refreezes (Edwards et al. 2020). Change models that rely on distinct stages can be referred to as n-step guides with Lewin’s three-step model unfreeze, move, and refreeze (Burnes 2004) and Kotter’s (1995) eight steps for leading change. David Collins (1998) raised a critique of the well-known change management models and labeled these schematic models “nstep guides” (p. 83). The key features of n-step guides include the following (p. 85): • A “rational” analysis of organizational change • A sequential approach to planning and managing change • A generally upbeat and prescriptive tone Part of his critique was the models’ inability to demonstrate sensitivity to the “complexities and problems associated with planning, managing and researching

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change within organizations” but also the “closed systems” approach to change. Thus, these understandings fail to examine the context in which the change takes place. Given that organizations are open systems, interacting with the wider society, Collins called for models that are better able to “make sense of, and make room for human agency and interpretation” (p 100) (Collins 1998). Thus, Collins questioned whether organizational changes always are rational, sequential, and prescriptive. He also pointed out that organizational changes can have an emergent side, where there are no planned changes; the changes occur by themselves. The dynamic and uncertain nature of the business environment undermines the case for planned change and emphasizes the need for an alternative approach. The theory of the emergent approach to change is based on the understanding that change is not a linear process or an isolated event of incrementally planned changes. Instead, organizational changes happen continuously in an open-ended, nonprescriptive, and nonsequential unpredictable process of (re)aligning an organization (Burnes 2009). Briefly, as organizational change is about changing structure, processes, and people to support implementing the strategy, the terms realign or redesign of an organization are used interchangeably in the literature. Weick (2009) connected emergent organizational changes to sense-making and saw them as “ongoing accommodations, adaptations, and alterations the produce fundamental change without a priori intention to do so.” (p 238) Weick (2001) differentiated between a change process as an architectural design that translates into “blueprints,” planned change, and stable solutions to a current problem that will change only incrementally (p. 57) or change as an improvisation. This metaphor views an organizational design (i.e., organizational change) as a recipe, where the process is continuously reconstructed and developed in accordance with the environment (p. 60) (Weick 2001). The key point is that if organizations consider the redesign of an organization as a fixed process, this could lead to lower performance.

Disruptive Change Burnes’ continuum for organizational change has two ends. Having described the key characteristics of incremental change, as planned or emergent, we discuss disruptive changes, the other end of the organizational change continuum. Disruptive change stems from the theory of disruptive innovation (Bower and Christensen 1995). In organizations, disruption has emerged as a new type and pace of organizational changes and is, for example, associated with economic variation, supply randomness, and product innovation (Donald 2019). Incremental change refers to efficiency and sustainability improvements in a company’s processes, operations, and supply chains, all within the existing business model. However, disruptive change occurs when business models are fundamentally challenged, changed, and (re-)invented (Gilbert and Bower 2002). In contrast to planned changes, disruptive changes may be completely unpredictable with little or no planning. Consequently, the outcomes are also impossible to predict, which may create various issues for the organization and

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people involved. However, organizations can plan and prepare for unpredictable and disruptive factors, like environmental, societal incidents, safety (Donald 2019). Given that organizational changes, independent of the type of change process, affect the structures and work process, etc., people’s wellbeing is a key part of the change. Thus, there is much knowledge of the role of employees and people, and concern for them, such as how to include and empower them in the change process to minimize resistance to the change. It has been argued that to improve the effectiveness of organizational changes is to understand the influences on employee satisfaction. It thus becomes essential for any leader, or manager, to interact with their employees/ subordinates to understand the best possible way to interact and satisfy them (Huppert and So 2013). Accordingly the change management literature focuses on managers’ actions and traits (Brown 2012) and managing of change resistance (Kotter and Schlesinger 2008). Determining how employee wellbeing relates and resonates with change processes is thus an important research agenda.

Defining Wellbeing: The Primary or Secondary Objective of an Organizational Change Wellbeing is important to people in general and in the workplace as it has implications on both mental and physical health (Fisher 2014; Litchfield et al. 2016). Historically organizations continue to search for improving or sustaining wellbeing at the individual or organizational level with the aim to improve the performance of daily operations and the organization (Taris and Schaufeli 2015a). Despite this focus on wellbeing in organizations, one still sees challenges with wellbeing and the price is high for both organizations, people, and society if there is poor wellbeing. Therefore, wellbeing plays an important role on the international stage where the UN have identified health and wellbeing (SDG 3) as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to ensure a sustainable development across the world. Alagaraja states in a recent review of wellbeing in the workplace (2020) that the literature includes several definitions of wellbeing and can be understood as subjective wellbeing, quality of life, mental health, hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing, or life satisfaction (p.20) (Alagaraja 2020). According to Huppert and So (2013), several studies show that high levels of wellbeing are good for individuals and for society and result in, for example, effective learning, productivity, and creativity (Huppert and So 2013). Similar outcomes are reported by Daniels (2019) who states that there is strong business case for employee wellbeing (Daniels 2019). To achieve this, organizations should focus on incentives, the social environment of people management (Daniels 2019), and appeal to the strategy (Liversedge 2020). Following this brief overview of how we can understand wellbeing, we are able to draw the conclusion that the different understandings of wellbeing and its role in organizations view wellbeing as part of the daily operations where it acts as a means to achieve performance and organizational goals. It was noted earlier that in the organizational change literature wellbeing is about reducing people’s resistance and

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ensure successful implementation by involving them. Again, wellbeing takes the same role, as a means or an enabler to ensure easier implementation of organizational changes. Although wellbeing is an important topic, there is a still a lack of understanding of the role of wellbeing in organizational change processes, as an intended or deliberate target or an unsolicited effect, a primary or secondary objective of an organizational change. Is it the main target or a concern to include in changes?

Wellbeing Is the Secondary Objective of an Organizational Change Studies have explored the effects of organizational changes on employee wellbeing and resistance (Bryson et al. 2013), that is, when wellbeing becomes the secondary objective of the change. Within the scope of incremental changes, the n-step guides are characterized by many phases each with a different purpose conducted in a linear order to make a successful organizational change but without considering the effect on the people involved. An alternative approach to organizational change that considers the effects of an organizational change is to look at which activities are required independent of their sequence. Knoster (2002) developed such a framework that consists of six activities or elements that are required for successful change. The framework differs from the existing n-step guides in that this model includes possible negative outcomes in addition to necessary activities. Other guides focus on the phases for ensuring a successful outcome. In Knoster’s framework, the six elements are vision, consensus, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan. When the elements are collectively built together, they form the basis for a successful organizational change. However, if any of these elements is missing, the change effort will fail, with varying negative experiences, such as confusion, anxiety, resistance, frustration, or “treadmill.” The link between an element and its effect is as follows: • If there is no vision, there is a risk of ending up with confusion because there is no direction to guide the change process. • If consensus is not established, the unwilling or unconvinced can actively work against the change. • If there is a plan for a change in the organization, but the skills needed in the new setup are not in place, then people will be anxious as they are unprepared to do the work and/or implement the new situations. • If all the other elements are in place, but the incentives to go in the new direction are omitted (i.e., recognition, rewards, acknowledgment, and praise), the process will slow down, and people will direct their actions toward the existing way of doing things, as the benefits or meaning of the change is not clear to them. • If the physical or emotional resources are missing, but there is a plan, etc., people will be frustrated, as it is not possible to work toward the new goals because staff, time, or knowledge is missing. • Finally, if the other elements are in place, but there is no action plan, there is a risk that the process will be slower, and people will do as they have always done.

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Table 1 A framework for thinking about systems change Vision + Consensus + Consensus + Vision + Vision + Consensus + Vision + Consensus + Vision + Consensus + Vision + Consensus +

Skills + Incentives + Skills + Incentives+ Skills + Incentives+ Incentives+ Skills + Skills + Incentives+ Skills + Incentives+

Resources+ Resources+ Resources+ Resources+ Resources+ Resources+

Action Plan Action Plan Action Plan Action Plan Action Plan Action Plan

¼ Change ¼ Confusion ¼ Sabotage ¼ Anxiety ¼ Resistance ¼ Frustration ¼ Treadmill

Table 1 illustrates the link between the elements and the effects on people (Knoster et al. 2000; Knoster 2002). This framework is relevant to consider in organizational changes as it considers outcomes and can be applied prescriptively when planning an organizational change. The framework can also be used as an analytical and diagnostic tool to understand why a change process failed building on people’s experiences of the change process. Thus, this framework offers a potential remedy by identifying effects and insights into the missing component of the change process that can then be restored. The approaches to wellbeing in organizational change processes described thus far are mainly concerned with how to minimize the negative effects and can be considered the secondary objective of a change. However, from stress prevention research, we know that employee wellbeing can also play a key role in organizational changes as the primary objective of the change.

When Wellbeing Is the Primary Objective of an Organizational Change Interventions to alleviate work-related problems and stress can have numerous forms and can be categorized in three approaches to stress management, labeled primary, secondary and tertiary interventions. These approaches focus on the organization (primary), the interrelation between the individual and the organization (secondary), or the individual (tertiary) (Hurrell and Murphy 1996; DeFrank and Cooper 2013) See Table 2. In organizational-level intervention research, we argue that wellbeing is the primary objective as the starting point for the organizational change. This approach to prevention and organizational change has spawned numerous intervention studies and methods (Nielsen and Noblet 2018) and a continued discussion of what works (Lamontagne et al. 2005; Nielsen et al. 2010; Daniels et al. 2017). Because primary interventions are essentially organizational change initiatives, their success and sustainability depend on their comprehensiveness and integration into daily operations (Ipsen and Jensen 2012; Nardelli and Broumels 2018). However, addressing primary stress-preventative actions through organizational development and changes requires an understanding of the relation between the sources of work-related problems and the organizational design of the workplace (Smith and Sainfort 1989; Dettinger and Smith 2006; Salvendy and Karwowski 2011; Sørensen and

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Table 2 Three stress intervention levels Intervention level 1. Primary Goal: Reducing potential risk factors or altering the nature of the stressor before workers experience stress-related symptoms or disease 2. Secondary Goal: To help equip workers with knowledge, skills, and resources to cope with stressful conditions 3. Tertiary Goal: To treat, compensate, and rehabilitate workers enduring stress-related symptoms or disease

Intervention targets Stressors at their source; organization of the work; work conditions

Examples Job redesign, load reduction, reorganizing the authority lines and restructuring construction of a supporting climate, re-design, or establishing a reward system

Employee responses to stressors

Cognitive behavioral therapy, coping classes

Short term and enduring adverse health effects of job

Return-to-work programs, occupational therapy, medical intervention stress

Holman 2014). This is discussed in the following section about sustainable management following how wellbeing and organizational performance are interlinked and can be addressed in tandem in primary interventions.

Linking Wellbeing and Organizational Performance to Organizational Changes As a concept, organizational performance reflects the function and outputs of an organization, from its profitability and productivity to its competitive advantage. By definition, an organization’s output depends on how effectively it functions, including how effectively its people, or human capital, functions (Neely 2005). This means that employee wellbeing and organizational performance are inherently interconnected (Peccei and Van De Voorde 2016). Essentially, any organizational change initiative that aims to improve organizational performance must attend to employee wellbeing, and any organizational intervention targeting wellbeing must attend to organizational concerns and targets. Thus, organizational interventions (i.e., organizational changes) present important opportunities to align wellbeing and organizational performance. Westgaard and Winkel (2011) called organizations with a joint focus of employee wellbeing and organizational performance sustainable production systems. However, organizations and managers still tend to think of wellbeing and organizational performance as disconnected (Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Although businesses prioritize organizational performance, they give less priority to wellbeing and address it in an ad hoc manner (Jensen 2000; Hasle et al. 2019). Several scholars suggested that wellbeing and organizational performance would benefit from being managed together (Edwards and Jensen 2014; Taris and Schaufeli 2015b; Ipsen et al. 2020). Daniels adds to this and suggests linking wellbeing in an organization to the

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company’s strategy (Daniels 2019), where Pfeffer suggests to focus on job-(re) design in the pursuit of lasting preventative solutions (Pfeffer 2019) to ensure successful changes. Therefore, taking the understanding of sustainability a step further and connecting it to organizational changes, sustainable management is about being proactive to prevent stress and ensure wellbeing by redesigning work and how it is organized and managed in relation to the overall goals, thus balancing organizational performance and wellbeing. To conclude, studies have explored the effects of organizational changes on employee wellbeing and resistance, where wellbeing is an unsolicited or unintended objective of the change (i.e., the secondary objective of the change). In contrast, wellbeing is the primary objective in organizational-level interventions via workplace wellbeing. From that, we can deduce that there are two roles that wellbeing can take in organizational changes – as the primary or secondary objective. Building on the literature and the two objectives of wellbeing in organizational changes (i.e., disruptive or incremental change), we can provide a foundation for understanding how change processes and wellbeing are related. This foundation can guide the understanding of people’s wellbeing in change processes and develop management processes to design for sustainability, that is, including the perspective of employee wellbeing and organizational performance be it directly as the main objective or indirectly (as the secondary objective). The role of wellbeing in organizational changes leads us to the question of how to include concern for wellbeing in change processes. That concern should be viewed from the perspective of the growing recognition that sustainable changes and work include concern for employee wellbeing and organizational performance. The question is not only how to ensure a joint focus on organizational performance and employee wellbeing during change processes but also how to change work and workplaces and ensure organizational performance and wellbeing. Thus, there is a need for new knowledge about how job redesign can include concern for organizational performance and employee wellbeing together. We find that including theory on organizational design creates a valuable tool for bridging the gap to preventative interventions that aim to redesign jobs and ensure organizational performance and healthy workplaces (Ipsen et al. 2020).

Sustainable Management of Change: How to Design for Wellbeing and Performance in Organizational Changes Irrespective of the type of organizational change, it is evident that organizational changes involve changes in the organizational design and can have an intended or unsolicited effect on organizational performance and employee wellbeing. To include concern about wellbeing in organizational changes, be it disruptive or incremental, and ensure a link to an organization’s strategy, we find that the theory of organizational design is a valuable tool. An organizational design can bridge the gap to organizational changes that involve redesign of work and at the same time, ensure organizational performance and wellbeing that is sustainable management of change.

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Fig. 1 The Star Model by J. Galbraith et al. (2002)

The Star Model by Jay Galbraith (1975) is a framework for thinking holistically about five interdependent major components of an organization’s design (see Fig. 1). The model works particularly well when designing and implementing changes, and in business development when executing a business model (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). When all components are in alignment, the organization is most effective. That is, the structure, processes, rewards, and people practices support the strategy and form the foundation for the organization’s behavior, productivity, and performance (Galbraith 1975; Galbraith et al. 2002). One of the characteristics of the Star Model, compared to other systems models, is that managers control and can influence the components directly. The strategy sets the organization’s direction, the structure determines where formal power and authority are located, and the processes support the collaboration. The reward systems help align individual behaviors and performance with the organizational goals and finally, people practices, an organization’s human resource policies that govern recruitment, promotion, rotation, training, and development. Different organizational designs result in different outcomes (i.e., “behavior” and “performance”). If one component is changed, it is important to consider the changes that will occur in the rest of the organizational design and what changes are needed in the other components if a certain outcome is anticipated to avoid misalignment. Acknowledging an organization as a system, the Star Model provides the opportunity to address the mutual interdependencies in an organization which are all affected in an organizational change. Depending on how an organization is designed and the alignment of the components, they form the basis for the success of an organizational change and wellbeing and organizational performance. Acting as an analytical tool, the framework can identify a misaligned design that has an unsolicited effect on wellbeing and performance, as well as identify which components are affected by a strategic change and must be adapted to fit the new situation.

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By taking a systemic approach to organizational changes, it is possible to include consideration for wellbeing and organizational performance, as well as ensure that there is a clear link to the strategy if the organizational design is aligned.

Organizational Capability to Change: Balancing Organizational Performance and Wellbeing It is well-known that many organizations experience obstacles when implementing organizational changes (Kotter 1995) which may affect the outcome, time frame, people’s wellbeing, and performance. One explanation could be that organizations have different capabilities to change, and therefore, organizations have different risks of failing with the implementation. Thus, what characterizes an organizational capability to change should be considered. According to Anderson and Anderson (2010), the capability to change is “the ability of an organization to plan, design and implement all types of change efficiently with committed stakeholders, causing minimal negative impacts on people and operations, so that desired business and cultural results from change are consistently achieved and integrated seamlessly into operations” (p. 107). This understanding is process-oriented and focuses on being able to change, which means that the better the organization is at implementing a change, the better the results (Anderson and Anderson 2010). In organizational change and intervention literature, there is consensus that one of the most important ingredients for changes is strong leadership (Nielsen and Abildgaard 2013; Havermans et al. 2016; Lundmark et al. 2017). As organizational changes are about changing the organizational design affecting tasks, processes, structures, etc., leadership is concerned with the organizational development, process, and transformation to a new design. However, leadership of change processes is more than supporting the process and achieving the results. It is also a dynamic that evolves in tandem with the organizational change itself (Ipsen et al. 2018). The effect of synchronous development is that the leadership matches the new situation, as feedback and input are continuously given to what is needed in terms of management. Therefore, organizational capability to change is also about the organization supporting the leader in this change, and developing intervention leadership and organizational resources is necessary to build effective intervention leadership. In sum, there is a need for a more detailed understanding of the organizational capabilities to change and implement organizational changes, including concern for wellbeing and organizational performance, and the role of leadership during the changes.

Implications for Future Research and Practice The aim of this chapter was to address the relationship between organizational changes and wellbeing. We examined existing knowledge about these topics focusing on how they are linked. We conclude by briefly presenting several directions for future research and potential implications for practice.

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As this chapter is exploratory and interpretive, it raises opportunities for future research. More research is necessary to refine and further elaborate our findings. First, future research projects would benefit from explicating the understanding of the role of wellbeing in the organizational change. For example, is it the primary or secondary objective of the change? This will allow scholars to understand potential or avoid unintended impacts of wellbeing in organizational change projects. Second, by acknowledging that wellbeing is linked to strategy, and by approaching organizational changes from an organizational design perspective, it is possible to explicitly include concern for wellbeing from a proactive perspective. Therefore, further exploration of the understanding that organizational change is not just about the design of change processes but also involves the entire organization, expressed by organizational design, is needed. Finally, the findings point to the need for researchers and practitioners to investigate in more detail the organizational capabilities to change but also the understanding that intervention leadership is a dynamic process that evolves in tandem with the change. Thus, this process requires attention, so that the new leadership fits the implemented change. The findings presented in this chapter can also be applied to practice. The results advance awareness of the role of wellbeing in organizational changes and importantly, invite practitioners to understand the role of the organizational design as a means of linking wellbeing to the business strategy while designing and implementing organizational changes.

Conclusions/Summary What is the link between organizational changes, for example, incremental or disruptive changes and employee wellbeing? We introduced the different types of change and the role of wellbeing in change processes and examined how organizational changes and employee wellbeing are related. In particular, we investigated what characterizes organizational changes (i.e., incremental and disruptive changes), how we can understand wellbeing, and in particular, what characterizes the relation (between organizational changes and wellbeing). The analysis suggested that wellbeing takes different roles as the primary or secondary objective in both types of changes, and further, that wellbeing is interdependent with organizational performance and thus, linked to the business strategy. Therefore, organizational design is a useful concept for studying organizational changes and wellbeing. Future studies should aim to explore the redesigning of jobs and how this is linked to the organizational design and the business model to understand the sustainable potential of the changes. In conclusion, if organizations aim to be able to respond to challenges and opportunities in the context of the organizations’ business environment, while including concern for employee wellbeing, organizations and managers must learn how to understand the role of wellbeing in organizational changes and the organizational capabilities and prerequisites required to plan and execute organizational changes.

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Reorganizing and Downsizing How Employees’ Health Is Affected According to Epidemiological Research To¨res Theorell

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Background in Stress and Leadership Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Earlier Research on Unemployment Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More Recent Research on Full Spectrum Effects of Downsizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Kinds of Health Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Downsizing and Prescription of Medication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More Complex Effects of Downsizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of Downsizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Youth Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Downsizing and Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Whereas there has been extensive research on the health consequences of unemployment, there has been less research on the wider health aspects of downsizing, in particular for those who remain employed in the workplace. During the later years, case-control and prospective epidemiological studies have been published including both groups. They indicate that both the unemployed and those who remain in the workplace (survivors) after downsizing may suffer from depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion as well as physiological changes related to exhaustion. Increased prescription of medication for anxiety, depression, and sleeping difficulties has also been described for these groups. The research indicates that downsizing is often poorly organized. With a better planning, many health problems can be prevented. T. Theorell (*) Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_7

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Keywords

Downsizing · Reorganising · Burnout · Depression · Ischemic heart disease · Sick leave · Survival · Unemployment

Introduction Our labor market is changing constantly. Historically, labor has changed slowly in a process starting with work in small units in villages to the creation of big factories based upon larger areas, then national conglomerates, and during later decades international companies competing on a large-scale basis, supported by modern communication technology. The result is that processes on the world market have an increasing influence on local production. This also means increasing unpredictability. As a consequence, needs for reorganization, reallocation, and downsizing increase. It also means that there is an increasing need to do research on possible health effects of such processes on employees. First of all, we need to know if and how health is affected by downsizing, and we also need to know whether there are possibilities in work organizations to prevent adverse effects on health when these kinds of changes take place. Research in this area has been relatively scarce, although the need for improved knowledge has increased during later years, mainly because the rapid growth of the world market and the modern information technology influence all levels of industrial activity. This leads to unpredictable processes and sudden needs for downsizing and reorganization. Downsizing mostly occurs as a response to decreasing possibilities for a company or agency to market a product or a service. It is only one of several possible outcomes of such a process. The workplace could become reorganized which means that most employees will have to change roles and/or workplaces. They could also become unemployed, and finally their company could merge with another organization. All of these situations create insecurity and role changes. In the worst possible scenario for the individual subject, it could mean long-lasting unemployment. In the other end of the spectrum, staying in the employment (¼“survival”), the individual who might have to cope with a reduced number of colleagues might face excessive workload. The main focus of the present review is the evidence in epidemiological research on health effects of downsizing.

Theoretical Background in Stress and Leadership Research Why should we expect adverse health effects of downsizing? Findings in stress research give us several clues. The whole downsizing process should be taken into account, from early signs of company crises ultimately leading to downsizing up to the final stages including long-term unemployment.

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In the early phases of downsizing, characterized by rumors and insecurity, the underlying crisis may induce conflicts, worsened social support at work, poor balance between demands and decision latitude (job strain) as well as between effort and reward (effort-reward imbalance), high-pressure work, long working hours, a feeling of job insecurity, and bullying. In a systematic review of longitudinal studies of work environment factors in relation to depressive feelings among employees, all of these factors (Theorell et al. 2015) were shown to have possible impact on the risk of worsened depressive feelings in employees. Mainly because the number of published high-quality studies has been small, the degree of evidence was relatively low for most of the factors (evidence grade 2 out of 4), but job strain and bullying had a stronger evidence degree (grade 3). In similar reviews of evidence regarding work environment factors and development of ischemic heart disease, there is a three-graded evidence for job strain and effort-reward imbalance (Siegrist and Wege 2020), as well grade 2 evidence for low support, job insecurity, and long working hours (Theorell et al. 2016a). Finally, in a similar review for the development of burnout symptoms, we came to similar conclusions (Aronsson et al. 2017). There is evidence based upon longitudinal data showing that organizational change as such increases the risk of bullying in a work site (Oxenstierna et al. 2012). This is important because bullying is one of the strongest predictors of development of depressive feelings. Thus, when the downsizing process starts, a number of processes are triggered which could increase the risk of ill health development among employees. What employees may fear is not only losing their jobs; they may also fear changes in work tasks and roles as well as adverse changes in working schedules. Conflicts may arise because some individuals may want to improve their chances of retaining their jobs – which may have adverse consequences for colleagues. Supervisors will have increased importance in these situations. Unfortunately, in a longitudinal study of the general working population (Theorell et al. 2012), we saw a parallel process on a societal level: When unemployment rates increased between 2006 and 2008, the willingness among managers to listen to their employees decreased. In the early phases of downsizing, the stress mechanisms that dominate have to do with the activation of the sympathetic nervous system mirrored in increased excretion of the “immediate” stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline. It also results in the activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis which corresponds to an increased excretion of cortisol, the body’s own hydrocortisone. These early activation mechanisms serve the body’s and the brain’s alertness and ability to handle immediate challenges. One of the consequences of this is that the threshold for psychological reactions is lowered, for instance, aggressive and anxious reactions. This in turn increases the risk of conflicts in a worksite. One of the early adverse consequences may be impaired sleep. This adversely affects health in several ways. First of all, the resulting fatigue activates excretion of adrenaline and noradrenaline adding to the low psychological thresholds. Secondly, sufficient sleep is a necessary condition for the system of regeneration and anabolism that protects the body from adverse effects of stress. The system responsible for that is the hypothalamo-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. Thus, if the stress reactions become

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long-lasting with rising conflict and stress levels and activation of the HPA axis, the protective activity of the HPG axis is inhibited. This results in a general increase in vulnerability to disease (summaries in Theorell (2016, 2020) and Mc Ewen (2012)), partly due to the deterioration of sleep duration and quality. There is a difference between the initial pattern of reactions when a stress period starts with rumors about downsizing and the long-term effects that arise after a longer period of exposure. If such a stress period with constant activation of the HPA axis and depression of the HPG axis has been going on for many weeks or months, two important consequences may arise. First of all, the regulation of the stress response itself is affected, and this may result either in a depressed stress response (no response when the accelerator is activated; which is common in depressive states) or in lack of ability to downregulate the stress level (the brake does not work) adding even more sleep difficulties. Secondly the lack of HPG axis activity makes the body vulnerable. This affects many organ systems and could result in deteriorated functions such as impaired memory function, increased sensitivity to mechanical injury in muscles, disturbed gastrointestinal function, decreased ability to heal wounds, etc. This explains why so many different kinds of illness risks may increase in employees exposed to downsizing. An important scientific discussion relates to the possible role of genetic factors in the relationship between work environment factors and mental health. In a large twin-based study, self-reported working conditions were analyzed in relation to a standardized measure of depressive feelings. The results showed that the central associations between work psychological demands, decision authority, and skill discretion on one hand and self-reported depressive symptoms could not be explained away by genetic factors despite that there was a genetic contribution to both the self-reported work environment and to the depressive symptom score (Theorell et al. 2016b). Another way of saying this is that all deteriorating health in employees during downsizing cannot be blamed on individual genetic vulnerability. Thus, the environmental conditions are significant, and this is of course an important basis for organizational prevention of complications during downsizing. From a stress theoretical point of view, it should be possible to reduce many of the threats that may arise during downsizing by means of improved work organization. Several of the research findings to be reported below give ideas about how this could be done. In this review I will focus on such organizational efforts, but it is also possible to reduce employee risks by other means. Of course, general advice regarding eating, smoking, and drinking habits as well as physical activity is important. But such advice could not be isolated from the effort to provide a good work environment in a crisis situation. Employees going through a crisis in their workplace might even be negatively provoked by such health propaganda. Another area with prevention potential is the provision to the employees of arts stimulation. Employees who are offered participation in cultural activities together with workmates may find that this increases togetherness and creativity, and this may even help them in finding solutions (Theorell 2016). The managers themselves may also benefit from such a program in their role in the crisis situation. In a randomized control trial (Romanowska et al. 2011, 2016), we compared a year-long art-based

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intervention program for managers with a more conventional manager education intervention. The art-based intervention had significantly better effects 18 months after start on employee health (regenerative hormone in blood, mental health, and coping pattern) than the more conventional program which was not based on arts. The crucial effect benefiting the employees may have been that the managers in the art program became more sociable and hence more engaged in their employees. In the following presentation, a number of epidemiological studies of organizational aspects on downsizing will be described and discussed.

Earlier Research on Unemployment Effects Health consequences of unemployment have been studied for a long time. One of the first authors examining the relationship between unemployment and poor health was Marie Jahoda et al. (1974) who published findings on an Austrian village where a substantial part of the inhabitants had become unemployed (Linn et al. 1985). The initial projects examining unemployment-health relationships were conducted by sociologists. In addition, economists became interested in the field. In a series of econometric analyses performed in several countries, M. Harvey Brenner could show (Brenner 1977) that sudden increases in the unemployment rate in a country was followed by increased suicide rates and also by increased cardiac mortality in that country. These studies showed that the observations were generalizable across countries and after adjustment for several country-based indicators such as selling of tobacco and alcohol and demographic characteristics. They also showed that some of the health consequences of increased unemployment could have a delay of a couple of years. These studies were criticized methodologically because ecological correlations cannot be applied to individuals. However, from national points of view, the studies did show that increased unemployment in a country leads to increased suicide rates and costs related to increased morbidity. During a later period, longitudinal studies following subjects through different phases of unemployment beginning with anticipation had been published. They showed (see Arnetz et al. 1991) a number of short-term changes in stress endocrinology (cortisol and prolactin) and immunology (reactivity) as well as more long-lasting changes in cardiovascular risk factors. There seemed to be identifiable phases in the responses to unemployment, with anxiety-related reactions during early phases and reactions related to depression in later phases when subjects did not find new jobs for months.

More Recent Research on Full Spectrum Effects of Downsizing During most downsizing or restructuring processes, unemployment is a frequent consequence for some employees, and this has been studied rather extensively, as described. However, those employees who stay as employees in the downsizing company could also experience considerable changes which might affect health. These are the survivors who may suffer after downsizing because they might have to

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manage the same workload as before with a more limited workforce. They might also have to endure effects of reorganization. In addition, they may have bad conscience because they have been allowed to stay and also feel anxiety because they anticipate further downsizing in the near future. The survivors represent a group that had not been in focus in unemployment research. One might say that research on health effects of downsizing and restructuring comprise two groups, of whom the first one, those becoming unemployed, has been in focus for several decades. This research has shown that there are health effects of unemployment related to anxiety (mainly in early phases, not the least during anticipation) and depression (mainly in later phases) and that these effects can be observed on a societal level in the form of very serious consequences, such as increased suicide rate and cardiovascular mortality and also in the form of physiological changes. The second group, the survivors, on the other hand, has been largely neglected until recently. During later years, these groups have been examined together in a number of studies. Accordingly, the questions that this area of research is trying to address could be summarized in the following way: 1. What is the extent of adverse health changes during and after downsizing/ reconstruction experiences? 2. Are there differences in health outcomes and their timing between those who become unemployed and those who remain (the survivors)? 3. What is the nature of the mental health consequences with regard to exhaustion, anxiety, and depression? 4. Do the preparations for downsizing in the company make a difference and do employees’ ideas regarding the necessity of the reconstruction process make a difference to the health outcomes? 5. Are there differences between countries with regard to health consequences? It could be that in countries with a poor social safety net the consequences of reconstruction and downsizing are worse than in other countries. In my efforts to summarize possible answers to these questions, I shall rely heavily on a study initiated by Harvey M Brenner – a European collaborative study on the health effects of downsizing. The European collaborative study (Andreeva et al. 2017) was designed as a case referent study with data collected in four European countries, France, Sweden, Hungary, and Great Britain. There were altogether 681 “cases” of participants who had experienced compulsory recent (recent 2 years) redundancies and 775 “referents” who had not had this experience. Adjustments were made for country, age, gender, and education as well as smoking and alcohol habits. Separate analyses were made for those who went through medium-sized (10–19%) and large-scale (>19%) downsizing, respectively, and in each case the mental health effects were studied separately for those who survived, those who were reemployed, and those who remained unemployed. In addition, symptoms of anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion were separated in the analyses. The participants in one of the

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participating countries, Great Britain, took part in a “strategic” process which means that the employees were told about the organizational changes in advance and that there were individual plans for redeployment of them – which also took place. In the other countries, the processes were reactive restructuring/downsizing processes which means that they happened in the “usual way.” The most striking result in the European collaborative study was that “strategic” downsizing had no significant effect on the mental health of the participants, neither in medium-sized nor in large-scale downsizing. In reactive downsizing, on the other hand, there were statistically significant effects on all the three outcomes. With regard to depressive symptoms, medium-sized downsizing was associated with a threefold increase in depressive symptoms (Odds ratio, OR ¼ 3.42) among the unemployed with no effect on survivors. Large-scale downsizing, on the other hand, was statistically associated with increased depression among survivors (OR ¼ 2.87) but not among unemployed. Anxiety symptoms followed the same pattern as depressive symptoms in the case of medium-sized downsizing – OR ¼ 4.2 among unemployed. However, there was no excess of anxiety in survivors in medium-sized downsizing. On the other hand, in large-scale downsizing, both survivors (OR ¼ 1.77) and unemployed (OR ¼ 3.81) had significantly elevated anxiety levels. An interesting observation was that symptoms of emotional exhaustion were in excess only in large-scale downsizing and then only among the survivors (OR ¼ 2.00), thus not at all in medium-sized downsizing. These findings illustrate that the survival role particularly during a large-scale downsizing process – confirming other research (Dragano et al. 2005; Kivimäki et al. 2000; Sigursteinsdottir and Rafnsdottir 2015) – can be extremely taxing for employees. Depletion of energy resources may be one consequence, particularly when the downsizing experiences are repeated. Noer (1993) has emphasized the destabilizing effects of repeated downsizing.

Other Kinds of Health Effects That downsizing may also result in endocrinological changes in employees was illustrated by a follow-up of endocrinological status in female healthcare staff employed in a Swedish regional hospital during the Swedish national financial crisis of the 1990s (Hertting and Theorell 2002). They had been exposed to repeated episodes of downsizing starting in 1990. Blood samples were collected in 1997 when additional downsizing was planned (after promises from politicians that no more downsizing would take place!), and then new blood samples were collected 1 year later. All the participants were survivors. The findings after the final downsizing showed flattened cortisol curves (morning to midday) which is a possible indicator of physiological exhaustion (see above – poorer response when the accelerator is activated). They also showed lowered levels of oestradiol which has anabolic functions and therefore protects against adverse effects of stress. Finally, there was a lowering of the levels of a protein that protects against atherosclerosis (apolipoprotein A1). During the national financial crisis in Sweden, another

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epidemiological cross-sectional study (Westerlund et al. 2004) of 3904 white collar workers in the Stockholm area showed that employees in the “questioned public sector” as well as those in the “threatened private sector” workers (both categories experiencing downsizing) had higher atherogenic blood lipid levels than other employees. These observations are in line with the finding in the European collaborative study that large-scale reactive downsizing is associated with emotional exhaustion in the survivors resulting in adverse physiological reactions. The first four questions on the list above thus could be tentatively answered in the following way, with the limitation that most of the studies reported so far in this text have been cross-sectional which decreases possibilities to draw conclusions about direction of causality: 1. There seem to be mental and physiological health consequences of downsizing/ restructuring for employees. 2. There seem to be differences in health outcomes for survivors and unemployed. An interesting observation was that when the downsizing had been extensive, the survivors seemed to suffer particularly from emotional exhaustion. 3. There was no excess level of depression and emotional exhaustion in those participants who were unemployed after large-scale downsizing. The reason for this is unknown, but one possibility is that during large-scale downsizing, being unemployed is so common that there is less individual humiliation and less individual effort than when the downsizing is less extensive. 4. When the downsizing was part of a strategic planning, the mental health of the employees did not seem to be affected by the process. This will be discussed below. Possible cross-country comparisons will also be discussed.

Methodological Questions Before proceeding to more questions regarding organizational preparations and differences between countries, we need to address an important methodological question. It could be argued that a cross-sectional study like the European collaborative study cannot prove evidence of causality and not even temporality. What comes first, the survival or unemployment or the mental symptoms? In order to address this question, our group performed a longitudinal study (Andreeva et al. 2015) based upon Swedish employees, with a 2-year follow-up perspective (2008–2010), both “forwards” (downsizing preceding depressive symptoms) and “backwords” (depressive symptoms preceding unemployment). One hundred ninety six of the participants had lost their jobs due to downsizing (at least medium-sized), and 1462 were “survivors” after such an experience. One thousand eight hundred forty five participants had not experienced downsizing. As in other studies, the degree of depressive symptoms was assessed by means of a standardized internationally accepted questionnaire.

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In initially depression-free subjects experiencing downsizing (medium- and large-scale analyzed together), unemployment consistently predicted increased risk of subsequent major depression among men (relative risk ratio, RRR ¼ 4.92) and women (RRR ¼ 3.17). “Surviving” the downsizing, on the other hand, was significantly associated with subsequent major depression in women (RRR ¼ 1.59) but not in men. It was also shown that women with major depression at start had increased risks of exclusion from employment during follow-up (RRR ¼ 2.18) when organizations downsized, whereas job loss in men was not significantly influenced by this aspect of their mental health. The most important conclusions from this longitudinal study are that the directions forwards and backwords seem to exist together and also that effects on depressive symptoms can be shown in both unemployment and survival during downsizing, with strong effects during resulting unemployment but also clear effects at least for women during survival. That depression at the time of downsizing diminished the likelihood of obtaining a new job in women but not in men was an interesting observation which if supported by other research would mean that employers tolerate depression in women less well than they tolerate depression in men when they assess employability.

Downsizing and Prescription of Medication Recently changes in prescriptions of anxiolytic and sedative drugs have been studied (Blomqvist et al. 2018) in the Swedish working population (2,306,000 participants) during the 4 years before to the 4 years following major (at least 18%) downsizing of staff. The odds of purchasing anxiolytics increased significantly more for “stayers” (¼ “survivors”), OR ¼ 1.03, and for unemployed, OR ¼ 1.08, than for unexposed subjects. The findings were similar but weaker for purchases of sedatives. A parallel study (using approximately the same study population but only 2 years before and 2 years after the period of major downsizing) of purchases of antidepressants using a very similar design (Magnusson Hanson et al. 2016) was also performed. The results showed that major downsizing was statistically significantly associated with a slight increase in the odds of prescribed antidepressants among people without previous sickness absence or disability pension. These are more indirect measures of health change. The associations are quantitatively small on an individual basis but clearly of interest in the societal evaluation of the consequences of downsizing.

More Complex Effects of Downsizing A large-scale tax registry study combined with a national work environment survey of a random sample of the entire Swedish working population (Ferrie et al. 2007) during the national financial crisis years 1991–1996 provided a nuanced and diversified picture of the national consequences for the work environment of downsizing. For instance, during those years there were more beneficial than adverse effects on the work environment in the public sector. In the private sector, on the other hand,

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the overall effect on the work environment of downsizing was negative. The effects of major downsizing were mainly positive for men in the private sector but negative for women in the public sector. Accordingly, the effects of downsizing could be different for different groups and during different historical periods. In another Swedish study (Theorell et al. 2003), sick leave patterns were studied in relation to downsizing as well as expansion of staff. Five thousand seven hundred twenty employed men and women were followed during the years 1992–1995. In multiple logistic regressions, women with a high cardiovascular risk score were shown to have a reduced likelihood of medically certified sick leave (15 days or more) following both downsizing and expansion. The common denominator may perhaps be that, during major changes in staff, women with vulnerable health status may feel that their employment is being threatened and therefore avoid sick leave despite their vulnerability. There were no such findings in men.

Organization of Downsizing In the European collaborative study, Brenner et al. (2014) also asked the participants how the conditions of the downsizing were perceived. Among the results, one could note that only 39% considered the downsizing they had gone through as fair and unbiased. Fifty percent described the experience as chaotic and disorganized, and only 46% described it as transparent and understandable. Forty seven percent agreed with management that the downsizing had been necessary. Only 11% thought that they had had any influence, and 67% reported that they had received no forewarning. Forty three percent reported that personal factors influenced the layoffs. In multivariate analysis, the perceived organizational factors that were statistically significantly associated with a low prevalence of depressive feelings were transparent as well as well-planned, democratic, fair, and unbiased conditions. Other significantly protective factors were agreement that the downsizing was necessary, early warning and financial compensation. Chaotic conditions increased the likelihood that the participants would report depressive feelings. When the findings regarding managerial context surrounding downsizing are added to the observation that strategic downsizing was not associated with any adverse changes in health among employees, it becomes obvious that good planning, forewarning, organized financial compensation, and feeling of trust in the arguments that the management presents regarding the downsizing are all factors that could decrease adverse health changes.

Youth Unemployment Research on long-term health effects of youth unemployment is important because employment in early adult years may have a profound importance for health. On the basis of longitudinally collected data from a cohort of young men and women

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followed from their last compulsory school year at age 16 up to age 42, Brydsten et al. (2017) concluded that youth unemployment has long-lasting health consequences particularly up to age 30. In addition, the same group (Strandh et al. 2015) showed that special local programs providing alternative labor market jobs (despite not being “real” jobs) do prevent some of the adverse health consequences of unemployment in young years. These studies provide evidence that particular attention should be paid to younger men and women during periods when downsizing becomes common.

Downsizing and Country Does the surrounding societal environment have any influence on the health consequences of downsizing? This question was also given attention in the European Collaborative Study (European Commission 2011). Since the British participants were employed in a company with a special beneficial program for employees threatened by the downsizing process while participants in Hungary, France, and Sweden represented the total population, the most relevant comparisons are between the three latter countries. With regard to sleep deficit, depression, and anxiety, there were no clear country-specific differences in the participants who had experienced downsizing. However, with regard to life dissatisfaction, the Hungarian unemployed subjects had much higher scores than participants in the other countries, particularly when compared to the control subjects (not going through downsizing). Forty four percent of the Hungarian participants who had become unemployed during the downsizing reported life dissatisfaction. Corresponding numbers for unemployed subjects in France and Sweden were 19 and 10%. Thus, although these national comparisons are incomplete and methodologically flawed, it seems to us that the mental health reactions in survivors and unemployed are similar cross-nationally while the general social situation in the country (particularly perhaps with regard to financial support programs which were worse in Hungary than in the other two countries) may result in country differences in life satisfaction during downsizing.

Conclusions Whereas there has been extensive research on the health consequences of unemployment, there has been less scientific activity on the health consequences of wider aspects of downsizing, in particular survival. However, the few studies that have been published indicate that survival at the workplace after downsizing may result in depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion as well as physiological changes related to exhaustion and also in increased prescription of medication for anxiety, depression, and sleeping difficulties. The research also indicates that downsizing is often poorly organized. With a better planning, many health problems can be prevented.

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Linn MW, Sandifer R, Stein S (1985) Effects of unemployment on mental and physical health. Am J Public Health 75(5):502–506. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.75.5.502 Magnusson Hanson LL, Westerlund H, Chungkham HS, Vahtera J, Sverke M, Alexanderson K (2016) Purchases of prescription antidepressants in the Swedish population in relation to major workplace downsizing. Epidemiology 27(2):257–264. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE. 0000000000000414. PMID: 2650115 McEwen BS (2012) Brain on stress: how the social environment gets under the skin. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 109(Suppl 2):17180–17185. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1121254109. Epub 2012 Oct 8 Noer D (1993) Healing the wounds: overcoming the trauma of layoffs and revitalizing downsized organizations. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco Oxenstierna G, Elofsson S, Gjerde M, Magnusson Hanson L, Theorell T (2012) Workplace bullying, working environment and health. Ind Health 50(3):180–188. https://doi.org/10.2486/ indhealth.ms1300. Epub 2012 Mar 28 Romanowska J, Larsson G, Eriksson M, Wikström B-M, Westerlund H, Theorell T (2011) Health effects on leaders and co-workers of an art-based leadership program sychother. Psychosom 80(2):78–87. https://doi.org/10.1159/000321557. Epub 2010 Dec 23 Romanowska J, Nyberg A, Theorell T (2016) Developing leadership and employee health through the arts – improving leader-employee relationships. Springer Books, Cham Siegrist J, Wege N (2020) Adverse psychosocial work environments and depression: a narrative review of selected theoretical models. Front Psychol 11:66. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020. 00066 Sigursteinsdóttir H, Rafnsdóttir GL (2015) Sickness and sickness absence of remaining employees in a time of economic crisis: a study among employees of municipalities in Iceland. Soc Sci Med 132:95–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.023 Strandh M, Nilsson K, Nordlund M, Hammarström A (2015) Do open youth unemployment and youth programs leave the same mental health scars?–evidence from a Swedish 27-year cohort study. BMC Public Health 15:1151. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-2496-5. PMID: 26589399 Theorell T (2016) Arts, health and job stress. In: Romanowska J, Nyberg A, Theorell T (eds) Developing leadership and employee health through the arts - improving leader-employee relationships. Springer Books, Cham, pp 1–45 Theorell T (2020) Regeneration and anabolism: the good perspective. In: Theorell T (ed) Handbook of socioeconomic determinants of occupational health. Springer Books, London Theorell T, Oxenstierna G, Westerlund H, Ferrie J, Hagberg J, Alfredsson L (2003) Downsizing of staff is associated with lowered medically certified sick leave in female employees. Occup Environ Med 60(9):E9. https://doi.org/10.1136/oem.60.9.e9 Theorell T, Nyberg A, Leineweber C, Magnusson Hanson LL, Oxenstierna G, Westerlund H (2012) Non-listening and self-centered leadership–relationships to socioeconomic conditions and employee mental health. PLoS One 7(9):e44119. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone. 0044119. Epub 2012 Sep 24 Theorell T, Hammarström A, Aronsson G, Träskman Bendz L, Grape T, Hogstedt C, Marteinsdottir I, Skoog I, Hall C (2015) A systematic review including meta-analysis of work environment and depressive symptoms. BMC Public Health 15:738. https://doi.org/10.1186/ s12889-015-1954-4 Theorell T, Jood K, Järvholm LS, Vingård E, Perk J, Östergren PO, Hall C (2016a) A systematic review of studies in the contributions of the work environment to ischaemic heart disease development. Eur J Pub Health 26(3):470–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckw025. Epub 2016 Mar 31 Theorell T, De Manzano Ö, Lennartsson AK, Pedersen NL, Ullén F (2016b) Self-reported psychological demands, skill discretion and decision authority at work: a twin study. Scand J Public Health 44(4):354–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494815626610. Epub 2016 Jan 29 Westerlund H, Theorell T, Alfredsson L (2004) Organizational instability and cardiovascular risk factors in white-collar employees. Eur J Pub Health 14:37–42

Managing OSH Through Recession

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theories and Models of the Effect on Safety and Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Effects and Management of Economic Recession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The onset of the Great Recession in 2008 has put pressure on enterprises that in turn have downsized, restructured, and reorganized. Research has shown that economic recession has an effect on psychological and behavioral health that is attributed to both general health and occupational safety and health. The objective of this study is to unravel whether the onset of economic recession has had an impact on public health and especially enterprises’ and public institutions’ management of occupational safety and health activities. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of research covering the recessional influence on the management, on occupational safety, and on health and public health in general. Moreover, insights are given on theories and models of the effect on safety and health, and the chapter provides insights to research contributions that discuss a series of determining factors that play a central role in understanding managing through recession. Based on the reviewed research, it is concluded that all stakeholders must have a focus on the management of both public health and especially the management of safety and health activities in enterprises during a period of economic recession. The literature points at a few procyclical effects that need to be managed like, for example, a decline in accidents at work. H. H. K. Sønderstrup-Andersen (*) Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_8

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However, the majority of effects of the recession are countercyclical like, for example, worsened suicide rates, increase in depression disorders, and increase in psychosocial risk and physical health including worsened occupational safety and health for lay-off survivors.

Keywords

Recession · Occupational safety and health management · Mental health · Physical heath · Public health · Unemployment · Psychosocial risk · Accidents at work · Layoff survivors · Downsizing

Introduction In everyday life, employed people spend a significant amount of time working. How work is shaped and how the quality of work is perceived are closely related to how quality of life and health in general is perceived. The quality of work life depends on elements like, for example, meaning giving, variety, autonomy, sense of belonging, and the collective at work not forgetting wages and employment security. However, it also depends on institutional factors at the workplace and in society as a whole, and how conflicting interests between these factors are recognized and handled by the different interested social parties (Hvid and Falkum 2018). Several studies scrutinizing the psychological consequences of economic events have provided evidence suggesting that objective living conditions such as income and macro-economic societal anomaly factors like inflation or unemployment have a significant influence on individuals’ evaluation of quality of life (see Frey and Stutzer 2007; Di Tella et al. 2001; Andersen 2009). Most countries in the world have suffered from the worst financial crisis (now named “The Great Recession”) since World War II (ILO 2012). The reasons for the onset of the crisis have been much debated, but the International Monetary Fund in their World Economic Outlook (April 2009) states that the outbreak of the US subprime crisis in August 2007 led to mild economic recessions in mid-2008. However, the Fund states that the fall of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers, the deep financial problems of and the intervention into the leading US insurance company American International Group, and a range of other major financial institutions in USA and Europe led to the historic onset of a full-blown financial crisis in the fourth quarter of 2008. As such, the developed countries witnessed deep recessions with a 7½% drop in the economies. Apart from the financial problems in the western part of Europe, trade in various countries also suffered severely. Housing correction was a factor, and in several countries, major banks experienced deep economic problems and some even collapsed. The crisis was combined with severe real estate market problems due to a housing price bubble. A preceding generally good economy, low interest rates, and innovative lending forms caused this price bubble (Rangvid 2013).

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In the last century, there were three severe recessions: the Great Depression in 1929, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and East Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Looking at the history of these preceding international economic crises might be useful for understanding the impact of the 2008 recession on public health and thus guide future approaches. However, it is not so easy to learn from earlier recessions, because each one differs from the others and in addition they vary due to a series of multifarious contextual factors (Stuckler et al. 2009b) that influences the public health effects of economic recession. These are factors like recession scale, government interventions, the conditions preceding the recession, and the extent to which populations are exposed. Regardless of the problems in comparing the different crisis, a range of existing studies have examined the impact of the 2008 recession and found a series of negative effects. That is, several studies found that the 2008 recession led to a rise in poor health status in many countries and among the factors, data point to an increase in the proliferation of some infectious diseases along with the fact that the rate of suicide has increased significantly. With respect to the association between suicide rates and recession, Chang et al. (2013) in a time trend analysis of suicides in 54 countries found that there was an excess of suicides in 2009 compared to the 2000–2007 trend. The highest increase in the number of suicides was in men in the 15–24 years age group (European countries), and in the 45–64 years age group (American countries). There seems to be an association between the increase in suicides and the magnitude of unemployment. In a study of Google search queries, Althouse et al. (2014) identified how health concerns changed during the Great Recession in the USA. The Google search queries were used to identify the concern by the query content and their prevalence by the query volume. Excess health concerns were estimated between December 2008 and 2011. Data indicate excess physical health concerns during the Great Recession. A significant increase was found in queries on stomach ulcer symptoms, congestion, gastric pain, headache, joint pain, hernia, chest pain, and arrhythmia. These results seem to differ from findings by Kondo et al. (2008) which shows that following the East Asian financial crisis, there was an improvement in self-rated health throughout the recession for Japanese men and women. On the other hand, the study also reveals that occupational class-based inequalities in poor health widened during the same period. Middle-class male workers and female homemakers were particularly adversely affected by the crisis, compared with the highest-class workers, while unemployed people had persistently poor health throughout the period. The recession also appears to have resulted in a higher incidence rate of mental health diseases such as depression, anxiety, and psychosocial stress among those hit by the recession and unemployment (McDaid et al. 2013; Wang et al. 2010; Quaglio et al. 2013; Stuckler et al. 2009a; Karanikolos et al. 2013; Barr et al. 2012; Lopez Bernal et al. 2013; Katikireddi et al. 2012). These results were supplemented by findings in a survey study carried out by Gili et al. (2013) of patients attending primary care centers in 2006 and 2010 respectively. Compared with the pre-crisis period, the 2010 survey demonstrated a substantial

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increase in the frequency of patients attending primary care centers with mood disorders (especially major depressive disorders), dysthymia (persistent depressive disorders), anxiety disorders, somatic symptom disorders, panic attacks, dependence, and occasional abuse of alcohol. Approximately one-third of these risks were associated with household unemployment and mortgage payment difficulties. The studies also show that not only does recession affect factors that determine health, but it also affects the societal financial capacity to respond accordingly. On the one hand, the impact on mortality is aggravated where people have easy access to the means to harm themselves. On the other hand, the mortality rate declines in societies with strong social cohesion and social protection systems. While the abovementioned studies focused on the relation between recession and public health, the next section will scrutinize the associations between economic decline and occupational safety and health.

Theories and Models of the Effect on Safety and Health At the World Day for Safety and Health at Work in April 2009, the International Labour Organization (ILO) put the focus on the impact on a changing world and a changing workforce (ILO 2009). The ILO argue that the rapid technological advances and the scale of these achievements have an immense impact on how companies and other organizations can be characterized and act. Moreover, the demand for greater flexibility in the production to meet dynamic changes in the markets affect employment patterns, the relationship between the management in companies, other organizations, and their workforce. As a result, enterprises outsource certain functions and in general downsize. In addition, there is an increase of precarious work, people involved in informal work arrangements and demographic change in the workforce towards older workers and more women working. These and other changes sure influence the management of occupational safety and health. On an overall basis, a recession affects the socioeconomic balance and this in turns add to the changes in labor relations described (see Fig. 1). The recession has put substantial pressure on companies that in turn have downsized and reorganized business functions. The International Labour Office (ILO 2009) has documented the effect of downscaling. Here ILO ascertained that descaling has led to more part-time and temporary work, outsourcing, and subcontracting including business functions like the management of occupational safety and health activities. In the same vein, ILO have later stressed that there is evidence that the recession has had a negative impact on a series of occupational mental health and risk factors. ILO further states that that there is a need for a more profound understanding of the impact of recession on the management of the occupational safety and health activities (ILO, Machida, 2013). ILO points out that during recession, management in enterprises might look for all possibilities to reduce overall cost. This includes managing safety and health at work in terms of paying less attention and worse management of traditional risks at the workplaces. Further, outsourcing, precarious work, more part-time work, and

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Fig. 1 The financial crisis and its potential impact on safety and healthy at work. (Adapted from ILO “Health and life at work: A basic human right,” 2009)

subcontracting lead to a more unpredictable working environment with more uncertainty and misunderstandings with respect to responsibilities for managing occupational safety and health especially at large construction sites. Reducing production might loosen up dense deadlines and intensification of work in production or services before the onset of a recession. On the other hand, many companies downsize and thereby make severe financial and staffing cuts. This means that remaining employees might risk working longer hours and experience an escalation in scale and pace of work that again could lead to physical and mental workload, and fatigue. Moreover, management may give lower priority to the management of safety and health activities. Small companies in particular might turn in to this solution because of the lack of resources and expertise with respect to managing occupational safety and health. Finally, the ILO stresses that a decline in public spending will affect the occupational safety and health services and labor inspectorates in countries around the world. Not much research has focused on psychosocial working environment factors and the national or international economy. This has been documented by a systematic analysis of the content of two influential journals within the area of occupational

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health psychology. Here it was found that only a very limited number of the research papers paid attention to the impact of economic factors on occupational factors in the workplace (Kang et al. 2008). Nonetheless, in a UK work force survey initiated during times of economic recession it was found that a significant part of the workers share the opinion that economic conditions have an influence on working environment factors, for example, relationships with colleagues or working longer and harder (Mind/Populus Workplace Health and Stress Survey 2010). Moreover, in the Stormont study it was found that several psychosocial factors are negatively correlated with the onset of economic recession (Houdmont et al. 2012). One of the conclusions brought forth in the study is that there is a need for more focus on the management of preventive safety activities in enterprises during a period of economic recession. From a theoretical point of view models explain that several working environment psychosocial factors are negatively related to economic stress in two ways. First, workers may be affected directly, depending on their ability to cope with economic stress. Second, workers may be affected indirectly by enterprise organizational changes with respect to managing occupational preventive safety activities. In addition, Houdmont et al. (2012) demonstrate that much research within the field of occupational safety and health has focused on work context. Houdmont and colleagues’ argument is that this focus may be due to certain hegemonic research paradigms that favor theoretical models of occupational stress that build upon contextual features of work. The job demand–control model has, for example, been very influential (Karasek 1979, Karasek and Theorell 1990; for a critical approach see, for example, Kristensen 1995). The model has later been refined to incorporate social support (Johnson and Hall 1988). Doef and Maes (1999) have carried out a systematic review of 20 years of studies applying the model and its refined version. They found that employees exposed to high job demand, low control, and low social support have the highest risk of experiencing the most negative psychological wellbeing. However, as pointed out by Kristensen (1995), the model may carry theoretical and methodological problems with it. Moreover, there is a growing body of research that recognizes that occupational mental safety and health depends on local work context in a combination of external global factors like international economy (Kang et al. 2008). Wallis and Dollard (2008) have stressed that the job demand-control model needs further refinement to incorporate job external factors. These could be national globalization or free market forces including economic factors on a national or international level. It could be argued that the same issues apply when it comes to the companies’ and public institutions’ management of occupational safety and health activities. Research has shown that economic recession influences psychological and behavioral health attributed to working environment problems (Catalano 1979; Boone and Ours 2006; Goldman-Mellor et al. 2010). On the one hand, research suggests that one of the mechanisms involved has a “countercyclical” effect. This means that a financial crisis can lead to an increase in occupational safety and health problems

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induced by, for example, stress caused by expectation of job loss. On the other hand, it is suggested that recession can have “procyclical” effect. This means that the decline in economy results in a decrease of occupational safety and health problems. Boone and Ours (2006) point out that pro-cyclicality is at stake where workplace accident rates seem to decrease during recessions, which again means that occupational safety and health seems to increase during financial crises. Ruhm (2000) found strong evidence that occupational health increases in cases of economic decline. In addition, pro-cyclical research points out that employees’ capacity to manage occupational health safety increases when job demands in terms of time and quantity decrease (Catalano et al. 2011). This in is line with findings in a study by de la Fuente et al. (2014) scrutinizing the impact of recession on all occupational injuries in Spain throughout the period 2000– 2009. The researchers found that from 2007, the unemployment rate started to grow, while the rate of workplace injuries and injury rate began to reduce. The sectors with the greatest decrease in workplace accidents were the construction and industrial sectors. There was a rise in the average age of injured workers, a rise of injured workers with more work experience, and a greater decrease in injuries of workers with temporary contracts. On this basis, the study concludes that the recession seemed to instigate natural selection of layoff survivors. That is, only the suited employees will survive downsizing activities. These tend to be females, be older, be more experienced, and on permanent contracts.

Effects and Management of Economic Recession The effects discussed above on occupational safety and health were confirmed by a study carried out by Devereux (2017). Based on a scientific literature review, a review of annual reports from of 45 multinational enterprises with headquarters in USA, UK, France, and Germany and semi-structured interview with representatives from 13 multinational enterprises. Through a thematic analysis of the data, Devereux identifies four emergent themes: distraction from safety and health to focus on growth to meet market forces, increase in psychosocial risks among layoff survivors due to organizational restructuring, budget costs, and losing skills and experience needed to maintain safety and health system integrity. It was found that the MNE included in the study had a decline in market fund of more than 50% during the recession meaning strong pressure to reorganize resources including labor force. The average revenue turndown was approximately 9% and employee size dropped nearly 5%. Downsizing personnel was the most common organizational restructuring strategy leaving layoff survivors in a difficult situation since there is scientific evidence that layoff survivors have an increased risk for negative health outcomes and sickness absence (see summary of Westgaard and Winkel 2011 study below). This is in line with findings from a longitudinal industrial study by Modrek and Cullen (2013) of 13,000 employees in aluminum manufacturing. The study showed that layoff survivors and downsizing were linked to increased risk of developing

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hypertension and diabetes among salaried workers at the plants with the highest level of layoffs. The study also concludes that the general health impact of the Great Recession is considerable larger than expected from earlier estimations. Devereux (2017) outlines multiple risks that could influence layoff survivors’ psychosocial health. Workload intensification due to increased demands with less access to organizational and/or individual resources especially means that layoff survivors could be significantly affected by psychological distress like burnout, lack of motivation, and losing job engagement. Moreover, increased workload has been found to correlate with causes of accidents at work. Evidence on the linking between work intensification, psychological distress, and accidents at work can be found in the Devereux et al. study (2011) on the link between high job demands, need for recovery after work, and employees experiencing psychological distress. Evidence can also be found in the Crawford et al. study (2010) on the link between job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout. Finally Devereux points to the study by Amati and Scaife (2006) on the links between psychological ill-health, stress, and safety. Other studies have shown that employees in general are exposed to higher mental and physical workload and fatigue due to a lack of financial resources. Westgaard and Winkel (2011) carried out a systematic review of production system rationalization in terms of general restructuring (n ¼ 67 studies) and downsizing (n ¼ 34 studies) measures and their association to health and risk factors in the area of musculoskeletal and mental health. The review showed that 76% of the studies point to negative downsizing health effects. Only 6% of the studies included showed a positive effect of downsizing, while 11% showed mixed results. Moreover, the review revealed that in terms of general organizational restructuring measures with downsizing excluded, 16% showed a positive effect and 16% showed mixed results while an overwhelming 67% of the studies pointed to negative health outcomes. In line with this research, Snorradóttir et al. (2013) in a study of surviving Icelandic bank employees differently involved in downsizing and organizational restructuring following the Great Recession found that being directly involved in organizational and structural change, as a cause of economic recession, was associated with the development of psychological distress. Both organizational restructuring and psychosocial work environment factors were associated with psychological distress. Being exposed to downsizing within own department, salary cut, and transfer to another department were independently related to increased psychological distress, though the negative effects of psychological distress could be partly attenuated by empowering leadership and the psychosocial work environment factors of job control and job demands. Further, a systematic review of the correlation between stress and recession found that the 19 studies included pointed at negative impact on workers’ mental health (Mucci et al. 2016). A majority of the studies documented that salary reduction schemes, increase in workload, downsizing, organizational restructuring, and rise in unemployment rate correlate with worsened mental health especially in terms of depressive disorders.

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Frasquilho et al. (2015) have scrutinized the possible association between economic recessions and general mental health outcomes in a comprehensive systematic review. The review included 101 studies from Europe, North America, Australasia, South America, and Asia. Table 1 shows the key findings from the review. The researchers underline that the findings give a global perspective and allow hypotheses to emerge that could serve as a framework for future research on economic recessions and mental health outcomes. Overall, the study concludes that recession is related with negative mental health outcomes in terms of common mental disorders, psychological wellbeing, substance disorders, and suicidal behavior. Some people are especially vulnerable during recession like those experiencing financial trouble, those that have lost their jobs, those that suffer from poor mental health prior to the onset of recession, and families with children. Sickness absence patterns can be affected by recession. A study by Sigurdsteinsdóttir and Rafnsdóttir (2015) among employees in Icelandic municipalities showed that the proportion of employees who had never been absent due to sickness dropped. Moreover, there was an increase in the number of days employees remained off work due to sickness. Further, the proportion of those who had gone to work while sick was higher at downsized workplaces. Finally, there were clear indications that the increase in sickness was due to recession. In a 2008 survey approximately half of the human resources and people development professionals included in the survey reported that individual staff workload increased because of the economic recession. In addition, a similar proportion of the Table 1 Key findings from a systematic review of association between recession and mental health. (Adapted from Frasquilho et al. (2015), page 36) It is plausible that the actual recession increased the population’s psychological distress. According to the evidence reviewed, periods of recession correlate with higher prevalence of common mental disorders, substance disorders, and ultimately suicidal behavior. That in order to cope with psychosocial stress people might turn to substance misuse. Some key factors seem to make people more vulnerable to the effects of the recession: being unemployed, having a precarious work situation, facing debts and economic strain, and having a pre-existing mental illness. Economic recession may also have a severe and long-term impact on mental health in children and young people, especially if they face stress within the family because of economic hardship or parental unemployment. Some specific differences between countries and regions were found in this review. The authors hypothesize that this may be explained by the socioeconomic response policy to recession (the presence of unemployment benefits or social programs) which could influence changes in the mental health outcomes of the populations; more research is needed concerning mediating factors between the determinants of a recession and mental health outcomes. More research from countries badly hit by the economic recession and from low- and middleincome countries is needed. The links between recession and direct effects on health appear to be very complex, and the lagged effects have not been systematically studied because of a lack of longitudinal studies and therefore a scarcity of long data series persists

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respondents said that employee stress levels increased (Wisdom et al. 2008). On the other hand, statistics that are more positive indicate that in the USA and the UK, there has been a decline of fatal work-induced accidents in the period just prior to 2008 compared to period just after (ILO 2013). Accordingly, the result of the Europe-wide survey carried out by the European Agency for Safety and Health shows that nearly two-thirds of the respondents claim that the recession could adversely have a great (21%) or some (40%) effect on occupational safety and health. In response to these findings, the ILO claims that the decline could be due to the reductions in economic activities in for example the construction sector. In addition, results from a survey carried out by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) in 2009 among the contributing organizations in its members’ states show mixed results with respect to the consequence of economic recession on occupational health (ISSA 2010). One of the key findings in the survey was that health costs are rising as an added effect to the financial crisis. However, the survey also showed that different countries’ different social security systems seem to play an important role in “buffering” elements of the crisis. In this way, social security systems strengthen social cohesion, socio-economic stability, and public confidence. On the other hand, ISSA also points out that recession can lead to less spending on occupational preventive measures by employers. At the same time, employees may be more reluctant to claim safe and healthy working conditions. As such, the ISSA survey showed that during the crisis some countries (Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Poland, and Spain) experienced fewer investments in preventive occupational safety and health management systems, while other countries did not. However, the ISSA survey is a snapshot of the situation in early 2009 before the full-scale intensification of the economic recession. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach (2018) also argue that the economic recession had an effect on mental and behavioral health that is attributed to management of occupational safety and health problems. The objective of their study is to unravel whether the onset of a general economic recession has had an impact on enterprises’ and public organizations’ preventive occupational health and safety activities. A central research question in their research is whether the onset of a general economic recession has had an impact on enterprises’ preventive occupational activities. They discuss trends in a period spanning from non-recession in 2006 to a full-scale recession in 2011. The research introduced above on the hypotheses of pro-cyclicality and counter-cyclicality indicate that the areas of overall safety administration, industrial accidents, and the psychosocial work environment are especially vulnerable to changes in economic factors. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach explore changes in practices in the administration of the so-called workplace assessments in Danish companies and public organizations. Likewise, the study explores trends in the management of preventive actions primarily related to the occupational risks within the areas of psychosocial work environment, occupational accidents, and physical working environment. The history behind the study is that in 2005 the Danish government initiated an occupational safety and health activity action program. Accordingly, during a 5-year period

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focus was placed on four problem areas: psychosocial work environment, occupational accidents, noise at the workplace, and muscle-skeletal distress. In addition, it was decided to follow the development of Danish enterprises’ occupational safety and health activities through the 5-year period based on a survey questionnaire (Sønderstrup-Andersen et al. 2010). A baseline for the Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach study named “Surveillance of health and safety activities in enterprises” was established in 2006. Follow-up data was collected in 2011 during the recession period. The 2006 sample consists of 9720 enterprises and public organizations and the 2011 sample consists of 6724 enterprises and public organizations. The participants were randomly selected from the Danish national register of enterprises and public organizations. The survey was anonymously administered and the organizations were free to answer and did not receive any participation fees. The survey contains 80 items designed to measure the general management of preventive occupational safety and health activities and to measure preventive activities within the following occupational safety and health areas: Work accidents, psychosocial working environment, physical working environment, noise, and substances and materials. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach (2018) found that that more enterprises in 2011 compared to 2006 recorded psychosocial occupational safety and health problems and that as part of the analysis the companies have produced plans to take action to solve the problems. Another finding is that more enterprises implemented appraisal interviews and job satisfaction surveys. They stress that such actions are quite costly and resource intensive for the enterprises and organizations. Nevertheless, they posit that during economic recession the enterprises seem to keep a focus on learning to operate more effectively with respect to occupational safety and health. This could indicate that the enterprises and institutions do not solely focus on cost cutting strategies. Overall, Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach stress that these findings within the psychosocial safety and health area support the countercyclical hypothesis that economic recessions result in an increase of occupational safety and health problems. Furthermore, the study shows that fewer enterprises in 2011 produced a register of occupational safety and health problems in relation to the area of accidents at work compared to 2006 and fewer enterprises produced plans to deal with the problems. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach argue that this could indicate that fewer accidents at work are detected. In addition, fewer enterprises had implemented safety rounds as part of the prevention of accidents at work and fewer enterprises had initiated actions to prevent accidents caused by falling from heights like falling from ladders and scaffolds. When looking in more detail at the enterprises’ psychosocial work environment in terms of industrial trades at risk, Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach found an increase of preventive activities initiated within several of these trades with respect to employees’ possibilities for individual development at work and influence on own work tasks. Based on the findings, Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach argue that it is difficult to assess the role of variations of managing preventive activities related to safety and

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health introduced by the recession. This is, they say, because the enterprises suffer from risk of reduction of activities and have to compete even harder and this could again affect the management of preventive occupational safety and health activities. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach emphasize that the regulatory agencies in different societies play an important role in this respect and that the problem is that during recessions state tax income is reduced making governments look for areas where activities can be reduced. The line in their argumentation is that if the enterprises compete in a way that makes the management of preventive occupational safety and health activities suffer, which parts of the data from the study indicate, and the regulatory authorities suffer from reductions, which happened in Denmark in the period following 2008, then this could result in more accidents and in a worsened psychosocial working environment. Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach found indications that enterprises have put more focus on the psychosocial working environment and noise at the workplace during the recession period. At the same time, a decrease was found in management activities within the areas of work accidents and physical safety and health. In many countries, there is an increased societal interest in decreasing psychosocial risk at work. The hypothesis brought forth in the study is that enterprises may put less focus on other occupational safety and health areas. Overall, the results of Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach study show that enterprises in 2011 have had more focus on managing psychosocial risk factors than they did in 2006. It was found that this was the for preventive activities in terms of increasing employees’ possibilities for personal development, for increasing the possibility to exert an influence over own work, the initiation of plans for preventive occupational safety and health actions, appraisal interviews, and job satisfaction surveys. In addition, it was found that with respect to the management of preventive activities within the area of occupational accidents, the picture is a bit different since 2011; fewer enterprises and public organizations have prepared occupational accident plans for preventive actions as part of their work assessments schedules. In addition, the study points out that fewer enterprises in 2011 compared to 2006 have initiated safety rounds on a regular basis. Finally, it was found that there has been a decrease in several categories of preventive occupational safety and health activities with respect to preventing falls form heights. With respect to this theme on the recessionary effect on the management of safety and health system integrity, Devereux (2017) in line with Sønderstrup-Andersen and Bach (2018) found that the enterprises included in the investigation have made specific changes to several safety and health management systems. For example, changes were made with respect to stress or fatigue prevention programs, ergonomic prevention programs, and establishment of health committees to take care of preventive safety and health activities within the enterprises (se also ILO 2013) Devereux highlights several emergent themes that could affect the safety and health managing activities in enterprises: • Budget costs. Could lead to a negative influence on enterprise safety culture that again affect safety and health prevention policies.

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• Policy changes. Together with the reduction in safety and health professionals in the enterprises, remaining professionals have witnessed a severe workload increase due to more individual employee inquiries and enterprise recessioninduced policy changes especially focusing on psychosocial risk management. • Management responsibility and accountability. A focus on growth and productivity and the many recession-induced restructuring activities might affect management in a way that leads to distraction on safety and health. Moreover, a focus on outsourcing can destabilize system integrity increasing safety and health risks. • Staff levels and training. Reduction of skill levels and experience of staff can increase the risk of organizational or operational hazards resulting in increased risk for severe accidents (especially in high hazard industries) and problems that in the longer terms result in poorer health outcomes for employees. • Planning, development, implementation, and audit procedures. Due to recession constraint multinational enterprises have been forced (by government or government agencies) to initiate a number of preventive activities. Such interventions imply an increase in workload for management and professionals in planning to access safety and health risks, performing audits, and taking part of safety and health committees. • Worker participation and investigation processes. Personnel at risk of losing their jobs may be less likely to report on safety and health incidents, which means that the company will not be able to learn from a given incident and to establish means to prevent such incidents from happening again. With respect to the mental health of general population, the World Health Organization (2011) recommends that the mental health effects of economic crises depend on action in five key areas: • Active labor market programs that seek to keep or get workers people back in jobs. In the study previously mentioned by Stuckler et al. (2009a) it was found that that a 1% rise in unemployment makes the suicide rate grow 0.8%. Moreover, it was found that in the EU each additional US$100 per person spent on active labor market programs per year reduced the effect of a 1% rise in unemployment rate on the suicide rate by 0.4 percentage points. • Family support programs. Especially families with children and low income suffer during economic downturns. In the study by Stuckler et al. (2009a), it was found that each US$ 100 per person spent on family support programs reduced the effect of unemployment on the suicide rate by 0.2 percentage points. • Regulation of the marketing of alcoholic beverages. A report by WHO (2009) shows that there is extensive and consistent evidence that alcohol policy and especially policies that increase the price restrictions and taxation reduces alcohol-related harm. • Provision of quality and equitable access to primary care for those people at high risk of mental health problems. Dealing with the mental health challenges of recession entails not only protecting spending on mental health services but also restructuring services to meet the needs of the population. Health services must

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improve responsiveness to impact of recession on factors like peoples social, employment, and income status, and early recognition of mental health problems, suicide, and alcohol abuse. This has been confirmed in a Finnish study on the association between community mental-health services and suicide rate where Pirkola et al. (2009) found that mental-health service-related factors such as 24-h emergency services and prominence of outpatient services were associated with decreased suicide risk. Moreover, WHO underline that offering psychological support in health services can modify the effects of unemployment and indebtedness. • Debt relief programs and debt relief legislation on a national scale will assist in decreasing mental health effects of recession. Pleasence et al. (2007) in a study on the impact of debt advice on people’s lives confirmed that there are a variety of causes of debt problems, with the most common being changing circumstances like for example, ill-health relationship breakdown and loss of employment, and particularly distressing impacts on parents’ relationships with their children. The study found clear evidence of a positive impact of debt advice and that the participants’ financial circumstances improved as well as their housing stability, and general health relationships benefited from advice. Managing occupational safety and health is very complex and depend on the environment and context in which an enterprise or organization operates. The goal of the European Framework Directive 89/391/EEC aims is to secure employees in all states in the European Union (EU) with a common minimum level of protection from occupational health risks. In a follow up analysis of data from the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER). Walters and Wadsworth found some national effects that could not be explained by other variables such as workplace size or industry sector. That is, ESENER data showed that with respect to the management of occupational health and safety the implementation level of the Directive 89/391/EEC differ from country to country as well as work-place size and trade. To explain these differences in the practice of managing health and safety risks between European workplaces Walters and Wadsworth has identified and developed an explanatory representation of the relationships between a number of contextual and environmental factors that affect the occupational safety and health management practices in EU member states (Walters et al. 2013; Walters and Wadsworth 2014). These are shown in Table 2 below. Walters and Wadsworth stress that the way enterprises react to the EU and supranational influences showed in Table 2 is determined by the interaction between the determining factors in the different groupings of contexts and influences. In addition, beyond the fact that the different determining factors directly affect management of occupational safety and health at the enterprises Walters and Wadsworth emphasize they in addition affect each other in a traversing manner that affects that actual management practices (Walters and Wadsworth 2014). The determining factors are under influence of the recession and the effects of the resulting financial crisis. Walters et al. (2013) show that the recession has deteriorated improvements in occupational safety and health in many EU member states

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Table 2 Factors determining enterprises occupational safety and health practices bases on findings from ESENER national reports. (Adapted from Walters et al. 2013) Contexts and influences EU and supra-national influences, including:

National governance and regulation and the occupational safety and health system, including:

Labor relations, trades unions, and employers’ organizations and processes, including:

Other related systems for example social welfare, health etc., including:

Determining factors The European Framework Directive 89/391/ EEC and other Directives that aim to introduce measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work securing a common minimum level of protection from work-related risks in all EU Member States. Wider political and policy influences such as the level of emphasis on occupational safety and health and the minimal implementation of, for example, the EU social partners’ agreement on work-related stress. The “Europeanisation” requirements of compliance. The economic recession. Regulatory approach. In particular, the degree to which process orientated participatory systems are embedded in traditional approaches, and structures and provisions for various forms of participation and consultation. Wider political and policy influences, for example, the level of emphasis on occupational safety and health, deregulation, and the role of occupational health professionals, as well as the length and depth of research and political focus on specific areas such as psychosocial risks. The labor inspectorate for example, traditions and changes in relation to their provision of support, focus of attention, enforcement style, and resourcing. Employee voice, for example, arrangements for worker representation and consultation and the balance of power between labor and capital. Social dialogue in particular the traditions and relative maturity of labor relations systems and social partners’ support provision. The priority of and data available on occupational safety and health, for example, workplace level understanding of the concepts and practicalities of process-based occupational safety and health management, and the availability of reliable occupational safety and health data. Specialist services. Including their quality, independence, and implications for enterprise level expertise. Insurance and other institutional agencies.

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that are striving to live up to EU directives and legislation but also the recession has had a negative impact on policy and regulatory measures. Moreover, there has been an immense pressure to cut budgets of regulatory agency resources and in general downsize the public sector, which in turn has negative consequences for managing occupational safety and health.

Conclusion The overall conclusion to be drawn from the included literature is, that there a need for more focus on the management of both general health in the population and especially the management of occupational safety and health in enterprises during economic recession. Based on the reviewed research it is concluded that all stakeholders must focus on the management of both public health and especially the management of safety and health activities in enterprises during a period of economic recession. The scrutinized literature points at a few procyclical effects that need to be managed like for example a decline in accidents at work. However, the reviewed literature provides strong evidence that the majority of effects of the recession are countercyclical like for example worsened suicide rates, increase in depression disorders, increase in psychosocial risk, and physical health at work including worsened occupational safety and health for lay-off survivors. The examined literature show that managing occupational safety and health is multifarious and is determined by a series of factors in the environment and context in which an enterprise operates. Important enterprise factors are: budget costs; policy changes; management responsibility and accountability; staff levels and training; planning, development, implementation and audit procedures; and worker participation and investigation processes. In addition, the scrutinized research show that in general the management of occupational safety and health depend a multifaceted interplay between: EU and supra-national influences; national governance and regulation and the occupational safety and health system; labor relations; trades unions and employers’ organizations and processes; and other related systems, for example, social welfare, health, etc.. More research waits ahead to dig further into these mechanisms and the impact of economic recession on the management of occupational safety and health activities and general health in the population.

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Lean Management and Employee Well-Being

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Reconciling Conflicting Findings and Ensuring Successful Implementation Steven Kilroy and Patrick C. Flood

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Impact of Lean Management on Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Impact of Lean Management on Employee Well-Being: A Job Demands-Resources Model Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Effective Implementation of Lean Management for Sustainable Employee Well-Being . . . Conclusions/Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

“Lean management” is a management system that focuses on ensuring the efficient use of resources and eliminating waste, for the purpose of improving product quality, efficiency of processes, and better responsiveness to customers. At every step of the lean process, the question asked is “what value is being added to the customer?”. The performance advantages of lean management have been widely studied and consensus is emerging that lean management can pay dividends for multiple stakeholders. However, the impact of lean management on employee well-being is a current topic of lively debate. There is no consensus in the literature as to whether lean management improves or impairs employee wellbeing. Also, how to effectively implement lean to leverage improved and sustainable employee well-being remains an important yet nascent topic of research inquiry. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the topic (and appeal) of lean management before briefly reviewing the competing theoretical perspectives and S. Kilroy (*) Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] P. C. Flood DCU Business School, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland e-mail: patrick.fl[email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_9

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empirical evidence on its impact on well-being. Following this, the chapter has two central aims. First, it introduces a framework, based on recent empirical research, which (1) helps reconcile the aforementioned conflicting findings, (2) provides a platform for future research to more comprehensively investigate the effects of lean management on employees, and (3) helps managers understand what specific actions can maximize the benefits while minimizing the potential harmful effects of lean management. Second, the chapter discusses some of the central emerging themes explaining how lean management can be effectively implemented so that employee well-being is sustainably maintained. Keywords

Lean management · JD-R model · Lean job demands · Lean job resources · Lean implementation · Well-being · HRM · HR practices

Introduction Lean management is a multidimensional concept comprising a wide range of management practices, for instance work teams, supplier management, just-in-time (JIT) quality systems, and cellular manufacturing, which are all embedded into one, integrated system (Shah and Ward 2003). Lean management was first implemented in Japan, in the Toyota Motor Corporation (Pil and MacDuffie 1996). The Toyota Motor Corporation production line was designed to enable continuous process improvement, structured inventory management, waste reduction, and quality improvement techniques (Black and Miller 2008). The success of the system which was widely celebrated and often referred to as Toyotism left many American companies struggling to compete (Handel 2014). Consequently, many corporations in the USA and around the world commenced implementing lean principles and practices themselves (Crute et al. 2003; Hasle et al. 2012). Lean management was seen as the antithesis of corporate bureaucracy and the new competitive weapon to deal with increased competition, changing markets, and economic crises that predominated in the 1970s and 1980s (Handel 2014). In this new work paradigm, success was not embedded in work practices associated with scientific management, but in making faster decisions, being flexible, and innovative as well as ensuring employees were motivated, satisfied, and thrive at work. Naturally, lean management became a central topic of academic research among scholars, with early results demonstrating evidence for its positive performance effects (e.g., Dalton et al. 1980). Subsequent studies reveal copious performance advantages associated with lean management including increased operational performance (e.g., Brown et al. 2006), financial performance (e.g., Eroglu and Hoffer 2014), marketing performance (e.g., Kou et al. 2015), and entire supply chain performance (e.g., Agarwal et al. 2006). In fact, the operational improvements and organizational performance advantages associated with lean management are apparent in much of the empirical research although the performance gains are still not universally accepted (Samuel

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et al. 2015). While the interest in lean management originated in manufacturing with many positive results (Parker 2003), it is not surprising to see its adoption has spread to health care (e.g., Lawal et al. 2014), service organizations such as call centers (Sprigg and Jackson 2006), banks (Bortolotti and Romano 2012), and public administration (Radnor and Walley 2008) among many other contexts. Despite the growing optimism about the potential performance effects of lean management, its effects on employee well-being are significantly under-researched and this research domain is an ambiguous one given that the existing empirical evidence to date has yielded conflicting results (Bamber et al. 2014). We now turn to this debate, present the competing theoretical perspectives, and provide a flavor of the competing empirical evidence permeating the literature to date. The rest of the chapter will articulate a key theoretical framework introduced into the lean management literature which represents significant progress in reconciling these conflicting findings before more concretely addressing the key themes of how lean management can be effectively implemented to ensure well-being is enhanced in a sustainable way.

The Impact of Lean Management on Employee Well-Being Introducing lean management principles promised to change everything for the better; eliminate waste, improve product quality, increase employee and customer satisfaction, and bring productivity to a higher level (Womack et al. 1990; Womack and Jones 1996). However, the effects that lean management actually has on the employee’s experience are vigorously debated by scholars, and from a theoretical and empirical standpoint, are highly under-researched (e.g., Bamber et al. 2014; Cullinane et al. 2014; Handel 2014). The lean management ideology has both its advocates and critics, and these views can be broadly classified into two perspectives: the unitarist perspective and the pluralist perspective, respectively (Bamber et al. 2014). The field of operations management, for example, tends to opt for a unitarist perspective, emphasizing that lean management benefits organizations in terms of performance and employees in terms of well-being. Many social scientists, on the other hand, tend to adopt a pluralist perspective, and drawing from labor process theory, argue that while lean management may be good for organizations, it ultimately seeks to gain control over employees, and in doing so frequently and significantly impairs their well-being (Anderson-Connoly et al. 2002). From the more optimistic unitarist perspective, workers are believed to benefit from lean management through enhanced participation and teamworking, which enables them to engage in greater problem-solving, thereby improving task performance (Taira 1996). Thus, lean management is viewed by many to benefit workers through enhancing their skills development and by providing them with greater autonomy, meaning, and involvement in process improvement decisions (Turner 2012). From its inception, the introduction of lean management sought to make tasks more challenging and meaningful, thereby removing the “mind-numbing stress” associated with mass production (Womack et al. 1990) and eliminating the possibility of strained working conditions more generally (Batt and Appelbaum 1995). For

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example, the focus of lean management on reducing waste, errors, and rework could reduce employees job demands such as workload and reduce the need for recovery after a work day (de Koeijer et al. 2014). In the same vein, lean management has been touted to improve other personal work outcomes for employees such as their work characteristics (Parker 2003), morale (Bhamu and Sangwan 2014), intrinsic motivation (De Treville and Antonakis 2006), satisfaction and commitment (Graban 2008; Holden 2011), and health and safety (Longoni et al. 2013). Departing from the more optimistic view of lean management, an alternative pluralist perspective challenges the notion that lean management is beneficial for employee well-being. This view purports that the cost savings associated with lean management are achieved by imposing excessive workloads on employees rather than through real efficiencies such as shorter decision times, thereby simply amounting to a “management by stress” managerial tactic (Parker and Slaughter 1988). A number of studies have indeed supported this negative perspective, demonstrating how lean management leads to work intensification and heightened levels of stress among employees (Anderson-Connelly et al. 2002; Bruno and Jordan 2002; Carter et al. 2011; Lewchuk and Robertson 1996). Prior research has also revealed that employees perceive higher levels of stress, fatigue, and tension working under a lean management regime when compared to traditional operating companies (Landsbergis et al. 1999). In this study, the demise in well-being was attributed to the fast pace of work, the highly repetitive nature of the work, long working hours, and the minimal rest breaks associated with lean management. In effect, this is why the common question arises “Is lean mean?” (e.g., Conti et al. 2006). Reviews on the topic of lean management have largely concluded that lean management produces negative effects for employees’ health and well-being although there are quite a few studies and reviews which reveal a mixture of positive and negative effects (e.g., Bhaumu and Sangwan 2014; Hasle et al. 2012). In fact, many scholars, rather than adopting a purely unitarist or more nuanced pluralist perspective, point out the contextual nature of lean management and highlight its multifaceted nature, whereby some aspects of lean can positively affect, while others can negatively affect, employee well-being (Anderson-Connoly et al. 2002; Beraldin et al. 2019; Cullinane et al. 2013; Seppala and Klemola 2004). In this regard, many researchers highlight that the effects of lean management might have different impacts and meanings for different groups of workers (e.g., Kashefi 2009). For example, Seppala and Klemola (2004) revealed that, on average, white-collar employees (production managers) perceived that their work had variety and offered opportunities for one’s skills and knowledge utilization, albeit they also perceived constant time pressure. On the other hand, blue-collar workers did not perceive greater job variety, use of knowledge and skills, and had less opportunities for decision-making and development. Similarly, Proctor and Radnor (2014) found that while lean management lead to deskilling, task simplification, and much greater work standardization, which significantly undermined worker satisfaction, at the same time workers expressed satisfaction with the increased levels of teamworking. In another study, Conti et al. (2006) found among 1,391 workers from 21 manufacturing sites in four UK industry sectors that while some lean

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management practices can be stressful, lean management as a whole is not inherently stressful for workers. In fact, their study found evidence for a nonlinear effect whereby the implementation of lean management was initially stressful but this dissipated over time. Their study revealed that the important factor with respect to the impact of lean management on employee well-being is the managerial decisions taken in designing and implementing lean management. Indeed, job resources such as supervisor support and colleague support were believed to play a critical role in ensuring lean management eventually yielded positive outcomes for employees. An additional interesting and perhaps rather surprising finding from their study is that although lean management was characterized by a low control environment, this benefited workers via increased automation, increased pride in the quality of products, and heightened job security, thereby reducing their stress levels. The findings from the research reviewed here highlight a number of important insights in relation to disentangling the effects of lean management on employee well-being. First, they identify the multifaceted nature of lean management, which can simultaneously include practices categorized as either soft or hard, and this can explain the potential positive or negative effects on employee well-being (e.g., Beraldin et al. 2019). In the same vein, because lean management practices may be pushing employee well-being in different directions, there is a high probability of employee well-being trade-offs. For example, lean management might enhance employees’ knowledge and skills, thereby improving well-being in the form of job satisfaction, but at the same time increase their workload, thereby undermining their health-related well-being indicators such as stress. This possibility of trade-offs arising from management practices on different aspects of employee well-being, i.e., happiness (e.g., job satisfaction), health (e.g., burnout), and relationship (e.g., trust) dimensions, is widely acknowledged in the strategic human resource management literature (e.g., Van de Voorde et al. 2012) and represents an important area of future research that needs to be entangled in the context of lean management (de Koeijer et al. 2014). Overall, this means that viewing lean management in its totality as well-being enhancing or well-being impairing may be myopic. In addition, the amount or the extent to which the practices are adopted may also be an important factor to take into account, as it is possible that lean management practices are beneficial but, after they reach an inflection point, may then be harmful for employee well-being (Conti et al. 2006). The possibility that the effect of management practices is curvilinear has been widely stressed in the management literature in recent years and referred to as the “too much of a good thing effect” (e.g., Pierce and Aguinis 2013). Second, the findings also demonstrate the necessity to encapsulate the wide range of contextual factors to better understand the effects of lean management in all its complexity. The role of context has been neglected in much of the organizational behavior literature (Rousseau and Fried 2001) and has been often “controlled away” by researchers rather than being empirically tested to understand its impact (Johns 2006, p. 289). In fact, the effects of lean management on employee well-being varies according to many contingencies including the type of organization, the type of job that employees perform (e.g., blue-collar vs. white-collar workers), and even the

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particular national culture in which it is practiced (Wong 2007). Finally, related to the contextual argument, the findings presented solidify the point that lean management is rarely experienced by employees in isolation and the practices associated with lean management are experienced by employees within a much broader organizational context. There are many strategies that organizations can take, such as the provision of appropriate job resources, which may enhance the positive effects or protect against the negative effects, of lean management on employee well-being (Beraldin et al. 2019; Cullinane et al. 2013) and these need to be borne out in future research on this topic. Indeed, the context of lean management implementation cannot be ignored (Fournier and Jobin 2018) and the type of managerial choices made in the design and management of the actual change (Conti et al. 2006) will also have profound implications for its effects on employee well-being. In the following sections, we outline a contextual framework which encapsulates these aforementioned contingencies and, in particular, helps us reconcile the conflicting findings on the relationship between lean management and employee well-being. The proposed framework offers practitioners guidelines to maximize the benefits and avoid the perils of lean management, while at the same time offering a comprehensive avenue for future research pursuits. Following this, we discuss the key challenges for employee well-being with respect to the implementation of lean management, and offer concrete strategies based on previous research, to indicate how a sustainable culture change embodying lean management can be achieved whereby employee well-being can be maintained and thrive.

The Impact of Lean Management on Employee Well-Being: A Job Demands-Resources Model Perspective In the quest to better understand the conflicting results regarding the effects of lean management on employee well-being, scholars in recent years have applied a comprehensive framework to the lean management context. Specifically, Cullinane et al. (2014) suggest that the job demands-resources model (JD-R; Demerouti et al. 2001), a well-known and influential model in the field of occupational health psychology, can be applied to the lean management context, in order to better understand the mixed effects of lean management on employee well-being. The job demands-resources model proposes that each workplace has its own specific job demands and job resources. Job demands represent the physical, psychological, or organizational aspects of the job that require effort which may have psychological, social, and physiological costs for employees. Job resources are defined as those physical, psychological, or organizational aspects of the job that are (1) functional in achieving work-related goals, (2) reduce job demands and their associated physiological, social, and psychological costs, and (3) stimulate personal growth and development. The JD-R model highlights that job demands and job resources are expected to lead to two distinct psychological processes, i.e., a health impairment pathway whereby job demands lead to impoverished health/burnout and a motivational pathway whereby job resources lead to motivation/engagement (Bakker et al.

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2004). In addition, the model proposes an interactive role of job demands and resources such that the negative effects of job demands on employee health/burnout can be buffered by job resources (the “buffering effect”), while the positive effects of job resources on employee motivation/engagement become increasingly salient in the presence of high job demands (the “coping effect”; Bakker et al. 2007). Notwithstanding its limitations and criticisms (see Schaufeli and Taris 2014), the core propositions of the JD-R model have largely gained widespread empirical support in the literature and therefore it represents one of the leading models to explain employee well-being in the workplace (Bakker et al. 2004; Demerouti et al. 2001; Schaufeli et al. 2009). Applying the JD-R model to the lean management context, Cullinane et al. (2014) demonstrated that there are lean management–related job demands and resources, both aspects of lean job design, which have the potential to activate the health impairment and motivational JD-R pathways. In Table 1, we outline some of the most common lean-specific job demands and resources (which also represent hard and soft lean management practices, respectively). Some examples of challenging job demands are also provided. In line with the traditional JD-R model and in particular the adaptations of Cullinane et al. (2014), we apply the JD-R model to the lean management context as depicted in Fig. 1. The figure demonstrates how Table 1 Lean-related job demands and resources Lean hindrance job demands JIT demands Monitoring Physical demands Role overload Accountability Standardization

Lean job demands

Lean challenge job demands Problem-solving Production responsibility Learning and development Work pace Task interdependence Work complexity

Lean job resources Boundary control Performance feedback Social support Autonomy/Participation Training and development Feedback

Burnout

Organisational Outcomes

Lean job resources

Engagement

Fig. 1 The JD-R model in the lean management context. (Source: Adapted from Cullinane et al. (2014))

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there are lean management–specific job demands and job resources which activate health and motivational outcomes for employees in the form of burnout and engagement, respectively. Burnout and engagement, in turn, are expected to be negatively and positively related to organizational outcomes, respectively. The diagram further depicts how lean-specific job resources may protect or buffer against lean-specific job demands and how lean-specific job resources become increasingly pertinent in the face of lean-specific demands. The application of the JD-R model to the lean context has profound implications for understanding the effects of lean management on employee well-being. First, the fact that the JD-R model can simultaneously evoke a motivational and health impairment pathway means that we cannot regard lean management as a technique which has uniform positive or negative effects on employee well-being (Hasle et al. 2012). Instead, lean management has job design features that produce an environment which is demanding and resourceful, thus having both exhausting and motivational properties (Cullinane et al. 2014). As a result, researchers are now much more attuned to the important distinction between the “soft” and “hard” practices which together comprise a lean management strategy (Beraldin et al. 2019). Second, the propositions of the JD-R model suggest interactive relationships. This further emphasizes that lean management is unlikely to have universal positive or negative effects but instead raises the question of how it can be implemented such that its benefits are maximized and its costs minimized (Hasle et al. 2012; Huo and Boxall 2018). Indeed the JD-R model shows, in a comprehensive way, how the impact of lean management on employee well-being is likely to depend on whether employees have sufficient and appropriate resources to combat the specific leanrelated job demands experienced. Specifically, lean-specific job resources can buffer against the potentially negative effects of lean-specific job demands on employee burnout. In addition, lean-specific job demands can interact with lean-specific job resources such that the full benefits of resources can be reaped when employees are confronted with demands. The rationale for this interactive effect emanates from the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 2002) and proposes that the effects of job resources on outcomes can be modest but become increasingly important when employees really need them (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). That is, in highly stressful situations, it is likely that employees will require resources to cope with the specific demands they are confronted with to reduce their stress. For researchers, the propositions of the JD-R model involving such interactive relationships highlight how important it is to go beyond testing direct relationships between lean management and employee well-being to fully understand its effects. Third, the application of the JD-R model to the lean management context draws attention to the fact that the demanding nature of lean management is not necessarily always a bad thing for employee well-being (Cullinane et al. 2013). Building on the work of Crawford et al. (2010), Schaufeli and Taris (2014) have distinguished between “hindrance” and “challenging” job demands in the JD-R model and note how they can have differential effects on employee outcomes. In this respect, hindrance demands are those demands that constrain individual’s development and work accomplishment and consequently can cause burnout and result in a passive

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coping response manifested in disengagement (LePine et al. 2005). Examples of lean-specific hindrance demands might include work overload (Huo and Boxall 2017), physical demands, work pace, and monitoring pressure (Cullinane et al. 2013). Demands of this nature can cause negative emotions and impoverish employees’ capacity to deal with such demands and to accomplish their work goals. On the other hand, challenging demands can be energy depleting but at the same time motivational in nature. Indeed, while challenging demands can be stressful, they are also viewed as motivational because they are linked to prospects for advancement and achievement (Crawford et al. 2010). In other words, such demands are viewed by employees as opportunities to learn, grow, achieve, and display their skills that may be rewarded in the future. Examples of lean-specific challenging demands might include heightened work complexity (Huo et al. 2019), problemsolving demands and production responsibility (Cullinane et al. 2013), and work pace and task interdependencies (Beraldin et al. 2019). In the meta-analysis of Crawford et al. (2010), the authors were able to demonstrate more generally how challenges were positively related to both work engagement and exhaustion. In the lean context, the potential of lean-specific job demands to represent either a “hindrance” or “challenge” has been acknowledged in the literature (Cullinane et al. 2013). Subsequent research has also acknowledged the complexity of demands in the lean context and highlight that in the case of challenging demands, which can be simultaneously motivational and exhausting, it is important that they are also accompanied by the appropriate resources to maximize their advantages and minimize their disadvantages. For example, Huo and Boxall (2018) found that job resources (training, participation in decision-making, and line manager support) had a “buffering effect” in the relationship between problem-solving demands and emotional exhaustion in a lean management context. The authors also found empirical support for the “coping effect” whereby the aforementioned resources were more strongly related to employee engagement when problem-solving demands increased. Similar findings were borne out by Beraldin et al. (2019) who found that softer lean management practices (SLPs) in the form of participation and managerial support, framed as positive resources, reduce the effects of just-in-time (JIT) hindrance job demands on exhaustion, and JIT-related hindrance demands enhance the positive effects of SLPs on work engagement. As a whole, this important advancement in the JD-R model in general and in the lean management context in particular highlights that demands are not always harmful and that to understand the effects of lean-specific job demands on employee well-being, it is paramount to consider the accompanying job resources and in particular to acknowledge the specific type of job demand considered, because such demands have the potential to be simultaneously motivational and energy depleting. The above discussion pinpoints the important role of the JD-R model in reconciling the conflicting results on the impact of lean management on employee wellbeing. The core message is that lean management is unlikely to lead to uniform positive or negative employee outcomes. Instead, the question concerns how lean management is actually supported by the organization and more broadly, how it is implemented. We now turn to a discussion of some of the key themes which have

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emerged advising on what can be done to ensure lean management is successfully implemented so that employee well-being prospers in a sustainable fashion.

The Effective Implementation of Lean Management for Sustainable Employee Well-Being The effects of lean management on employee well-being, as depicted above, invariably depends on which particular lean management practices are used, contextual factors, and whether job resources are balanced with, or buffer against, lean-specific job demands that could threaten employee well-being. One thing which is hard to find evidence on is how lean management is actually implemented and, in particular, what strategies are used to ensure employees’ needs are catered for, so that the potential benefits of lean management materialize and are sustained. While there are countless examples of where lean management has been successfully implemented and sustainable outcomes achieved, there are as many examples where lean management has drastically failed to deliver for all the stakeholders involved. A seminal case on organizational benefits can be seen in the example of Virginal Mason Medical Center in the USA, whereby lean management implementation was a success story, with benefits including improved quality of patient services care, reduced waiting times, optimization of space, and scheduling of operating rooms, as well as improved well-being outcomes (Danese et al. 2018). However, there are also cases which depict a bleaker picture in terms of lean management implementation. In Saskatchewen in Canada in 2008, the ministry of health implemented a multimillion dollar investment which brought lean management to the provinces health care system. Evaluating the subsequent impact of lean management, research revealed that for every one dollar saved by lean management, Saskatchewan spent $1,511, while patient outcomes did not improve, workload increased, and staff morale declined (Moraros et al. 2016). The latter example highlights that lean management implementation is not straightforward and “getting it right” is important, in order to avoid negative outcomes for both organizations and employees. In fact, the implementation of lean management is believed to be fraught with difficulties and the rates of successful lean initiatives are rather low (Bhamu and Sangwan 2014). The evidence suggests that positive and sustainable outcomes from lean management often fail to materialize because of inadequate attention to and concern for employees’ needs and wellbeing in the process. Indeed, as the above review illustrates, lean management in itself has the potential to impair employee well-being without the appropriate conditions. Asked whether lean management is compatible with employees health standards, Adler and Landsbergis (1998) responded with a “maybe-conditional on good implementation.” In a large-scale study in the USA involving surveys and focus groups of over 1,000 employees and union leaders, employees reported widespread dissatisfaction with lean management and noted a drastic change in the levels of support by the organization and many broken promises (Bruno and Jordan 2002). The researched

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employees noted a drastic change in the levels of support and care by their organization after implementation. While initially promising daily meetings, new workplace practices which were reasonable, and greater empowerment, these conditions did not arise and amounted to broken promises. Employees instead described their new working life under lean management as having less say over work processes, having little time to accomplish good work because of the pace of the production line, that safety had been neglected, and that the accelerated physical demands were draining (Bruno and Jordan 2002). In another study, Lewchuk and Robertson’s (1996) research among 1,670 workers revealed that while workers were promised more control over work, as well as more varied and challenging tasks, the conditions at work had severely worsened with control dissipating, work pace and load increasing, tasks becoming more repetitive, and increased performance expectations introduced which significantly undermined the employees health. These studies highlight the management and implementation challenges surrounding lean management inducing employee grievances and impaired well-being. In particular, it appears that more often than not, successful lean management implementation is dependent on whether the “soft” or people-oriented issues are center stage or not (McMackin and Flood 2019). How to successfully manage the implementation of lean management and how to ensure the sustainability of such changes while maximizing employee well-being is still not fully understood (Bamber et al. 2014). A systematic literature review consisting of 240 studies from 2003–2015 indicated that very few studies have attempted to develop models for lean management implementation (Danese et al. 2018). We now discuss some of the central and recurring themes which have emerged in this scant literature, in order to explain what can be done to ensure that people issues are highlighted as a critical aspect of sustainable lean management. Our review of suggestions is by no means exhaustive but covers a relatively broad spectrum of the latest thinking on how to ensure the effective implementation of lean management for maximizing employee well-being in a sustainable manner. A general but central theme which emerges to account for why implementation problems arise with respect to lean management is the overemphasis on the technical pillar at the expense of the social (people) pillar of lean implementation (Danese et al. 2018; McMackin and Flood 2019). The neglect of such social issues goes against the prescriptions of socio-technical systems theory which purports that work design, including lean management, should equally attend to the human and technical context in which the work is undertaken (Mumford 2006). Failing to do so is akin to a form of ultra-Taylorism with detrimental ramifications for employee well-being (Adler and Cole 1993). Reviewing selected systematic reviews on the topic, McMackin and Flood (2019) highlighted that there has been a welcome increase in studies examining the relevant factors associated with the social pillar of lean management implementation. These important factors, regarded as essential for successful lean implementation, include: organizational culture, team empowerment, continuous learning, leadership and manager behaviors, HR strategy, and change management. Integrating these factors, among others, they propose an overarching theoretical framework for the social pillar of lean management, whereby relational

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coordination theory is integrated as a crucial component for successful lean management implementation. Relational coordination theory postulates that for successful work coordination, it is paramount that employees have shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect, which are supported by and enable frequent, timely, and accurate information. In an environment characterized by high levels of relational coordination, McMackin and Flood (2019) argued that shared problemsolving, rather than a blame culture, is critically necessary in the challenging situations of lean management implementation. At the same time, the process of implementation will be smoother and maintain employee well-being in the long term. This is because the relationship/people or social pillar of lean implementation is given priority, with a focus on the relationships between workers, the relationship between workers and their leaders, and the relationship between workers and customers. The full model is depicted in Fig. 2. The model specifically highlights how organizational factors referred to as “lean foundations” (which include HR strategy and a lean culture) affect employee behaviors at the group level (which are in essence “relational coordination” and the “lean change process,” i.e., how the change process of transitioning to lean management is managed), which in turn influence employee responses (in the form of attitudes, behaviors, and performance). The recursive arrows in the diagram also recognize that the proposed relationships are not necessarily linear but simultaneously occur in both directions. In doing so, the model encapsulates the complex and interdependent relationship between the HR strategy and lean management culture. More broadly, the model showcases the wide

Fig. 2 Theoretical framework for the lean social pillar.. (Source: Adopted from McMackin and Flood (2019))

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spectrum of management actions that can be deployed to successfully implement lean management, so that performance in addition to positive employee reactions such as employee well-being will be enhanced. Related to the aforementioned model and in particular the important link between HR strategy and lean management, another predominant theme of the HR function has emerged to explain the conditions for successful lean management implementation (Danese et al. 2018). What role (if any) HR specialists play (or should play) in the introduction of lean management and the implications for HR policies and practices is still not fully clear (Bamber et al. 2014). However, scholars have suggested that “the extent to which an organisation’s HR system and culture are aligned with lean requirements will be positively related to employee reactions to lean implementation” (McMackin and Flood 2019, p. 49). Although focusing on performance rather than employee well-being per se, de Menezes et al. (2010) found that a high degree of integration between operations management and HRM is crucial to the success of lean management implementation. Specifically, the authors found that the continuous improvement required by lean management cannot be achieved, without employee participation and involvement. This is not surprising since adapting to and adhering to lean management requires employee commitment, motivation, and attitude, thus workers cannot be disassociated from the implementation process if real cultural change is to be achieved (e.g., Fournier and Jobin 2018). Focusing on employee well-being, de Treville and Antonakis (2006) argued that when there is too much of a focus on slack reduction without appropriate employee involvement, lean management will have negative consequences for employee well-being. The challenge, however, is that production systems based on lean management imply standardization of routines and operational uncertainty which, although they may produce efficiency, often manifests in lower levels of employee involvement and control. Indeed, practices such as total preventative maintenance (TPM), JIT inventory control, and cycle time-time reduction facilitate managerial, rather than employee, control over the pace of work and the production process (Huo et al. 2019). In essence, this is why the influential job demands-control model of Karasek (1979) was found to be of limited use in the lean management context for explaining employee health and well-being (Conti et al. 2006). Therefore, within the confines of lean management principles, managers need to creatively make use of empowering or involvement-oriented HR practices, both in the implementation of lean management and in combination with other lean management practices in the long term. The feeling of such empowerment will be paramount for a sustainable lean management culture which maintains employee well-being in the process (Jones et al. 2013). Similarly, to maintain employee being, at the implementation stage and beyond, HR professionals have an important role in cooperating with unions when implementing change, and ensuring the HR practices of hiring, performance management, rewards, and empowerment are compatible with the principles of lean management (Fournier and Jobin 2018). HR plays a key role in facilitating lean management by ensuring employees are ready for the associated organizational changes and that the practices are complementary rather than opposing (Bamber

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et al. 2014). To better understand this complementary nature of HR practices in the lean management implementation process, the framework of de Koeijer et al. (2014) is informative. de Koeijer et al. (2014) introduced a theoretically driven conceptual framework which links lean management, enabling HRM, strategic climate, and well-being outcomes. The central tenet of the framework is that when lean management is combined with enabling HRM, mutual gains can be created in the form of improved organizational performance and well-being. The enabling bundle of HR practices consist of the following: training and development, performance appraisal and rewards, teamworking and autonomy, participation and job design, recruitment and selection as well as work-life balance and employment security. These HR practices are typically considered progressive HR practices in the strategic HRM literature and are typically referred to as high-performance work practices, high commitment HR practices, or high involvement work practices. Such practices have been found to yield positive performance outcomes and improve employee wellbeing (See Peccei and Van de Voorde 2019 for a review of studies). The added value of adopting enabling HR practices in the context of lean management implementation is that they signal and reinforce the values of the lean management strategy and make it more meaningful for employees by paying attention to the social pillar (people aspects) of work. Indeed, a climate of continuous improvement is more likely to materialize in a tangible way when HR practices encourage and reinforce employees to respond and behave in ways that support the objectives of lean management (de Koeijer et al. 2014). In addition (and in line with the previously presented JD-R model), such HR practices can constitute vital job resources in themselves, which may buffer against the potential negative aspects of lean management for employee well-being, while at the same time enhancing their potential positive effects. For instance, providing employees with job security may buffer against the negative effects of lean management on relationship well-being in the form of trusting relationships (Graban 2008). Similarly, advanced training and development practices linked to the specific requirements of lean management can be seen by employees as a growth and learning opportunity (challenge demand) and as a positive resource enabling them to better accomplish their tasks and successfully adhere to lean protocols (Cullinane et al. 2014; Huo and Boxall 2017). This could manifest in terms of higher satisfaction (improved happiness well-being) and lower stress (improved health-related well-being). The use of empowerment-/involvement-oriented HR practices could also constitute a valuable resource, instrumental in helping employees cope with the new lean management–specific requirements. Indeed, if employees are involved and empowered to champion lean management from the outset, they will have a greater say in what the procedures will be, how they will be accomplished, and when they will be accomplished, thereby having profound implications for their happiness and health-related well-being. In summary, enabling HR practices are likely to buffer against the potential negative effects, and enhance the positive aspects, of lean management on employees’ well-being (Koeijer et al. 2014). The final prominent theme associated with successful lean management implementation concerns the role of the frontline manager (e.g., Huo et al. 2019; Huo and Boxall 2018). Related to the role of enabling HRM discussed above, it should be

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noted that frontline managers are the ones who are actually charged with the responsibility for implementing HR practices (Purcell and Hutchinson 2007). For example, line managers play a central role in offering training and development, carrying out the performance appraisal (and performance management more generally), and making pay decisions for employees. In effect, lean management cannot be implemented successfully without the support of frontline managers (Huo and Boxall 2017). In addition to their role in enacting lean management practices and enabling HRM practices, frontline managers also act as a pivotal resource to help employees deal with the accompanying demands associated with lean management. Frontline managers are likely to have a deep understanding of the particular demands faced by their employees and are thus in the best position to help them and offer support (Ray and Miller 1994). Support of such kind can be instrumental, i.e., filling in for absent workers or directly helping employees with their heightened workload caused by certain lean management practices. However, support could also be emotional in nature, whereby frontline managers show empathy to employees and listen to their concerns, thereby demonstrating care for their well-being. Huo et al. (2019) found that line manager support represents a vital job resource that helps employees cope with the work intensity under lean management settings, which in turn protects against the development of burnout and impaired well-being. Beraldin et al. (2019) also found that managerial support buffered against the negative effects of JIT job demands on burnout. Conti et al. (2006) found that support from the line manager was central in ensuring that the implementation of lean management eventually lead to successful employee outcomes, i.e., improved well-being. Therefore, in the context of lean management implementation, the role of the frontline manager in endorsing lean management (in addition to providing the appropriate support to employees) and successfully implementing HR practices which are synchronized with the lean management philosophy, is imperative for success. However, given the increased expectations put on frontline managers in the context of lean management whereby they need to implement and manage lean management practices, and enact and deal with a broader spectrum of people management issues (Townsend and Russell 2013), their own workload is likely to escalate and their own well-being may also deteriorate. Therefore, it is critical that senior managers pay attention to this issue and provide the appropriate support, training, and rewards for line managers so that they have the ability, skills, and motivation to support their own employees and successfully implement the lean management– related and general HRM policies and practices (Huo et al. 2019). Empirical support has found that providing frontline managers with lean management–related training, top management support, and higher levels of remuneration is especially relevant for enhancing their engagement in a lean context (Huo and Boxall 2017).

Conclusions/Summary Lean management has become a ubiquitous term in organizational life and is practiced across virtually all sectors of today’s industry and service sectors. The appeal of lean management lies in its performance advantages which empirical

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research has widely substantiated across many organizational and cultural contexts. However, the performance advantages of lean management can sometimes outweigh the advantages for employees and especially their well-being. As depicted by the wide variety of studies reviewed in this chapter, there is fierce and ongoing debate about whether lean management improves or impairs employee well-being. To reconcile the conflicting evidence which permeates the literature, this chapter draws on recent work which integrates the JD-R model to the lean management context. This all-encompassing contextual model recognizes the multifaceted nature of lean management practices and, in particular, acknowledges that lean management is unlikely to lead to uniform positive or negative consequences for employees. Instead, lean management can have both motivational and exhausting properties and the central priority for managers should be to ensure that there is an adequate and appropriate balance of lean job demands and job resources. The integration of the JD-R model, however, also shows us the complexity of understanding the effects of lean management from a research and practical point of view, as the model assumes any job demand and job resource is likely to influence employee well-being. Therefore, this is only the start of the journey for researchers to ascertain what specific lean job demands and job resources, and their combination, is likely to work best to enhance employee well-being in a specific context. We are in special need of future empirical studies to examine the interrelationship between lean management and HR strategy, to decipher how they can support each other to ensure sustainable employee well-being. What also becomes clear from anecdotal cases depicting organizational failures with lean management as well growing empirical evidence on the topic, is that “getting right” the implementation process of lean management is imperative. In particular, focusing on the technical aspects of lean management from the outset while neglecting the social (people) aspects is a recipe for failure. On the basis of accumulating conceptual and empirical work, this chapter pinpoints what can be done to address these people aspects. Specifically, we see significant promise arising from lean management when it is implemented with a supporting culture and with a supporting HR strategy aimed at fostering relational coordination in the organization. In addition, HR professionals, historical guardians of employee well-being, will play a vital role in ensuring the social (people) aspects of lean management are not neglected at the implementation stage and beyond, and that line managers are equipped to deal with the change process and strategy implications of lean management initiatives.

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why OHS Matters for Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Four Ways in Which Employee Health and Well-Being Affect Organizational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of OHS: From Sidetrack to Integrated Business Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Governing OHS and Employee Health and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Incentivizing and Controlling CEOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supporting and Encouraging CEOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socially Influencing CEOs’ Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Champagne Tower of Influence and Enablement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Do Boards Do to Influence Employee Health and Well-Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Making OHS a Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Establishing a Culture of Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Measuring and Rewarding What You Want to See More Of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overseeing Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Influences Boards’ Engagement in OHS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Board Members’ OHS Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Five Drivers of Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opportunities and Constraints Impacting Boards’ Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Practical Guide to Increase Board Engagement in Employee Health and Well-Being . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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U. von Thiele Schwarz (*) School of Health, Care and Social Welfare, Mälardalen University, Västerås, Sweden Procome, Medical Management Centre, LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] C. Lornudd Procome, Medical Management Centre, LIME, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_10

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Abstract

Management and employment practices affect the health and well-being of millions of people around the world. Much of the working population is employed in the private sector, and the way companies manage employee health and well-being impacts a significant portion of the workforce and, thus, society at large. Private companies are governed by boards of directors. They represent shareholders, are legally responsible for companies, and set strategic agendas to ensure profitability. Through chief executive officers and top management, boards’ actions have cascading impacts on operative organizational levels, throughout their organizations. They set the tone and influence whether employee health and well-being are priorities. A board may reinforce a focus on employee health and well-being by making occupational health and safety a strategy, establishing a healthy culture, setting and measuring priorities and rewarding people for meeting them, and overseeing what is going on in the organization so action can be taken when necessary. Yet, some boards regard employee health as an operative question and only engage in issues reactively. Others view health as a business opportunity or even a moral obligation. Specific occupational health and safety competence among board members is uncommon, but developing it is one way of ensuring boards understand their role in employee health and well-being. Keywords

Board of directors · Corporate boards · Governance · Health · Human resource management · Leadership · Management · Occupational health and safety · Private companies · Strategic leadership

Introduction I feel that the board’s commitment should come with an impact. There should be a force, a sun should shine on these issues – both on profitability and on employees, on other issues. A sun should glow from the board. Chairperson, construction industry

In private corporations, the board of directors is ultimately responsible for governing the company (Boardman and Lyon 2006). Board responsibilities are regulated by corporate laws, and although they differ somewhat between countries, boards tend to be fundamentally responsible for companies’ legal compliance and long-term value. A multitude of studies have suggested that boards impact a range of organizational processes and outcomes (Dalton et al. 1999; Sarto and Veronesi 2016; De Villiers et al. 2011). Yet, when it comes to how organizations impact their employees’ health and wellbeing, little attention has been paid to the role of boards. Rather, health and wellbeing has been largely considered a matter for operative management (Boardman and Lyon 2006). Particularly focus has been on first-line managers, the managerial level closest to employees (e.g., Skakon et al. 2010), but also higher operative

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managers such as chief executive officers (CEOs) have received some attention (Hasson et al. 2018). This one-sided focus on operative management may be the consequence of a traditional view of employee health and well-being as separate from organizational performance – the business – which is definitely a concern for strategic boards. However, the relationship between employee well-being and financial performance has been increasingly recognized, and there is today little doubt about the existence of a relationship between employee health and well-being and organizational performance (Krekel et al. 2019). As the bodies with the ultimate responsibility in private companies, boards are in a position to influence both individuals’ health and well-being and the performance of companies. However, the boards’ impact does not stop there. The negative influence of work-related ill health is also felt at the societal level, with economic costs estimated at an average of 4% of national GDP across the world (Takala et al. 2014). Private companies play a big part in driving that number, as many employees work in the private sector. Over 90% of workers in the developing world, 84% in the United Kingdom, and 70% in Sweden work in a company that is privately owned, funded, and/or controlled (International Labour Organization). Thus, private companies and their boards can either be a part of the problem with work-related ill-health or a significant part of the solution. Compared to public organizations, private companies start from a disadvantaged position when it comes to promoting employee health. The private sector has more precarious employment conditions, including lower wages, temporary contracts, and less job security. It offers more low-skilled jobs, less access to continuing education, less health coverage, and lower pensions, and the unions are weaker (Hugrée et al. 2015). Yet, from a governance perspective, private companies also have the advantage of operating in a less political and regulatory environment, which means less bureaucracy, fewer organizational levels, less top-down command, and clearer governance goals. All this adds up to an opportunity for boards of directors to assert a significant impact on employee health and well-being. This chapter focuses on the role of corporate boards in employee health and wellbeing and occupational health and safety (OHS) (we will use the words interchangeably in the text). We begin with an explanation of why employee health and OHS matter for companies, including how employee health and well-being can affect the bottom line. Then, to set the context within which boards operate, we describe how OHS is commonly organized and managed in organizations. Further, we discuss through which means boards can exert their influence before we elaborate on what motivates engagement in OHS from the perspective of boards. Finally, we present some ideas on what boards might want to start with to level up their involvement in OHS.

Why OHS Matters for Companies Every year, 2.78 million people die from occupational accidents or diseases and 374 million suffer from nonfatal accidents or illnesses (International Labour Organization 2019). These are conservative estimates of the suffering caused by poor

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working conditions, since “softer” outcomes such as pain and distress, which are harder to quantify, are not included in these numbers (Schulte et al. 2017). Physical problems (e.g., low back pain) and physical risks (e.g., exposure to asbestos, risk of injury, and poor ergonomics) have historically received more attention than psychosocial risks, but this is gradually changing (Wang et al. 2020). With a growing awareness of psychosocial and organizational risks associated with increased time pressure, deskilling of work tasks, and insecure employment contracts, expectations on organizations to focus on occupational stress, mental health, and quality of life and promote a healthy organizational culture have increased. This shift from avoiding ill health to promoting health in a broader sense is in line with the WHO 1948 definition of health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being,” not only absence of disease or illness (Jain et al. 2018). Thus, it is now widely acknowledged that OHS encompasses both prevention of risks and promotion of health and well-being of employees through employment and working conditions (physical, social, and organizational). It is also acknowledged that employee health and well-being are affected by a multitude of business decisions, whether that is the intention or not (Jain et al. 2018). OHS permeates operations in companies and has significant consequences from a human perspective. However, it can be argued that there also is a business case – not only a moral case – for why employee health and well-being matter for companies.

Four Ways in Which Employee Health and Well-Being Affect Organizational Performance A growing body of research shows that employee health and well-being are linked to business outcomes, including productivity, quality, and cost of production as well as financial metrics, such as profitability (Pagell et al. 2014; McLellan 2017; Krekel et al. 2019). Employee health and well-being may impact organizational performance in four ways: (1) through direct and indirect costs associated with sickness absences, (2) through decreased productivity when people are present at work but not in good health, (3) through motivational processes, and (4) through employer branding (i.e., when excellent working conditions are viewed as an asset that can attract and retain talent). The first three are related to the existing pool of employees, whereas the fourth relates to other stakeholders, such as future employees and customers. First, poor working conditions can cause employee ill health and thus increase sickness absences and the costs associated with that. Depending on governmental regulations that may vary between countries, this may include sickness benefits for employees, health insurance, and/or medical costs. Companies generally also need to cover the time lost by absent employees, adding additional expenses for replacements in terms of overtime or temporary workers who seldom achieve the same productivity levels as the more experienced employees they replace. In addition to the direct costs associated with sickness absences, indirect costs are also a concern,

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particularly related to decreased productivity. For example, it has been suggested that every 1% increase in sickness absences results in 0.66% decrease in productivity (Grinza and Rycx 2020). Second, poor working conditions also result in increased sickness presenteeism, which is when employees are at work despite being sick. This has negative impacts on organizational performance. For example, a Swedish study reported that an employee with a salary of 3000 euros a month costs the employer about 100 euros a day when working while sick due to lower performance (Strömberg et al. 2017). Thus, for an employee attending work for 5 months (100 working days) with stress symptoms, such as exhaustion and problems with memory, concentration, and decision-making, the cost is 10,000 euros. Multiply that by the number of employees that suffer from work-related illnesses, and the financial impact is significant. Third, working conditions may affect employee ability, opportunity, and willingness to perform. For example, social, structural, and infrastructural conditions that make doing a job difficult (organizational constraints) may inhibit performance by decreasing motivation and increasing workload and strain (Pindek et al. 2019; Pindek and Spector 2016). At the same time, organizations that are perceived as fair and just, give employees room for job crafting, and nurture good quality relationships between employees and leaders may see the positive implications of the connection between employee well-being and organizational performance (Nielsen et al. 2017). Factors such as increased work engagement (Kim et al. 2013) and organizational citizenship behavior – that is, employees’ willingness to do more of what is required (i.e., extra-role performance; Aggarwal and Singh 2016) – may be part of the explanation. Finally, the relationship between organizational performance and employee health may not only be about current employees’ wellness and performance. A company that serves its employees well may itself be seen as an asset because such a reputation gives the company a competitive advantage on the market. For example, being perceived by current and future employees as a desirable employer and a great place to work is one way of improving business performance by attracting and retaining talent (Backhaus and Tikoo 2004). From this perspective, OSH can be viewed as part of a strategic ambition to create an attractive workplace, not merely an operative task of avoiding harm or mitigating risks. The idea that employees are assets with economic value can be traced back to the human capital model, which outlines the collective value of employees’ capabilities, knowledge, skills, and motivations in a company (Grossman 2000). This notion is reinforced in sustainability concepts, including corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line (planet, people, profit), both of which suggest that a business’s performance includes outcomes for the planet and people as well as profit (Elkington 1994). In summary, both individuals and companies suffer the consequences of poor work conditions, and both employees and employers can benefit from a wellfunctioning workplace. Yet, so far, OHS and employee well-being have tended to be managed separately from the core business. However, the silo approach to managing employee health and well-being is being challenged in new ways of organizing OHS.

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Organization of OHS: From Sidetrack to Integrated Business Component Companies often have separate systems and processes for managing OHS and operations (Pagell et al. 2014). A company may even have separate processes and structures for managing the different ways in which it influences employee health and well-being: one human resource unit focuses on training and development, another on employee relations, and a third on health protection and promotion. Many companies even split health protection (the focus on prevention of risks) and health promotion (the focus on broader employee health, including off-the-job factors) (Hymel et al. 2011). This means that the factors an organization can influence that matter to employee health and wellbeing often have separate budgets, personnel, and policies with little or no coordination or integration (Baker et al. 1996). This piecemeal approach to the management of employee well-being has several disadvantages. First, it can prevent an overview of different aspects of employee well-being that are in fact interrelated. Second, it can lead to unnecessarily complex bureaucracy with redundant or conflicting procedures and, therefore, higher costs (Hymel et al. 2011; Shain and Kramer 2004). Finally, this approach may also retain OHS as a purely operational concern, thus limiting reasons for it to be a concern for the board of directors. However, recent decades have seen some developments toward integrated systems (Kontogiannis et al. 2017), which may facilitate the shift of OHS from purely operational to more strategic. Through these systemic approaches, OHS is no longer managed in a silo. Instead, it is integrated into other management, business, and/or quality management systems. As such, it has become more strategic and performance oriented. The shift toward the triple bottom line (planet, people, profit), employee branding, and other initiatives that point to employees as fundamental to business performance further accentuates OHS’s potential from a business perspective, aligning it with other key business objectives and pushing it toward the strategic world of boards of directors.

Governing OHS and Employee Health and Well-Being Boards of directors are normally responsible for establishing a strategic direction, setting standards and values for operations and defining boundaries for operative management, holding management accountable, overseeing internal controls, and accounting for owners’ and other stakeholders’ interests. Boards’ influence on strategy and business performance is primarily enacted through interactions with CEOs and top management. There are at least three different roles that a board may take in these interactions, according to three governance theories described below.

Incentivizing and Controlling CEOs According to agency theory (Jensen and Meckling 1976), boards have a primarily controlling function. Operative managers are viewed as agents for owners but are not necessarily expected to share the same agenda. Instead, they are assumed to act in self-

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interest. This is based on the view of humans as rational homo economicus engaged in maximizing their own profit. The task of boards, therefore, is to control the top operative management and hold them accountable (Jensen and Meckling 1976). In relation to employee health and well-being, this may, for example, entail setting up a performance management system that incentivizes managers to improve employee well-being or by holding management accountable for poor OHS performance.

Supporting and Encouraging CEOs Boards may also take on a more supportive and encouraging role in relation to management, as outlined in stewardship theory (Davis et al. 1997). Stewardship theory posits that people – including CEOs and other top managers – will normally act in the interest of the organization and may very well be intrinsically motivated to perform well instead of motivated only by tangible and monetary rewards. From this perspective, boards assume that they share an agenda with management, so there is little need for control mechanisms. Instead, boards adopt more of an advisory and collaborative role to jointly develop strategies and oversee performance. In relation to OHS, boards might, for example, work with operative management to set priorities, develop a vision, and offer advice on how to improve employee health.

Socially Influencing CEOs’ Priorities The agency and stewardship theories indicate that CEOs and other executive directors do not operate in a vacuum – they are expected to be impacted by the controlling or collaborative actions boards take. To illuminate how this influence translates into CEOs taking certain actions, we turn to a third theory – behavioral governance theory (Westphal and Zajac 2013). This theory puts the spotlight on social context and notes that in order to understand a person’s actions, we need to acknowledge that perceptions, decisions, and actions are based on interpretations that are influenced by social surroundings (i.e., we need to understand that CEOs are socially situated and constituted agents; Westphal and Zajac 2013). What happens in the interaction between boards and CEOs may thus shape CEOs’ actions. In terms of employee health and well-being, this could take the form of a board requesting that the CEO focus on increasing safety observation reports until the next board meeting. The behavioral result of the CEO undertaking this task is a pleased board at the next board meeting, which increases the likelihood of the CEO continuing to engage in the issue. Thus, boards may consciously try to use the social context they constitute to influence CEOs to prioritize employee health and well-being.

A Champagne Tower of Influence and Enablement This kind of social influence on behaviors and activities does not solely take place at the highest organizational levels but throughout the hierarchy, with higher levels influencing lower ones more so than vice versa (Malott 2003).

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For example, an integrated review concluded that managers’ willingness to be involved in employee wellness programs is to a large extent influenced by factors such as support from senior management (Passey et al. 2018). In line with this, another study reported that first-line managers need senior managers to clearly and consistently show that OHS is prioritized in order to prioritize it themselves (Hasson et al. 2014). The first-line managers in that study pointed out that senior managers tend to be invisible once the decision had been made, leading to a sense that other things are more important. This social influence higher organizational levels have on lower ones can be likened to a champagne tower, a tower of glasses filled with champagne layer by layer by pouring champagne into the top glass (Lornudd et al. 2021). The champagne trickles downward and is analogous to the priorities transmitted from higher organizational levels and distributed downward. The issues that an upper organizational level focus and follow up on influence the actions of the level below. In this way, what boards put the spotlight on and follow closely impacts CEOs’ actions, which in turn impacts the actions of senior management, which impacts middle management, and so on. Hence, the direct impact of first-line managers – the next lowest level in the champagne tower – on employees’ health and wellbeing needs to be understood in light of the cascading impacts of all the organizational levels above, which provide cues as to whether employee health and wellbeing are important. Does employee health have to be prioritized at the strategic board level to be satisfactory? No. CEOs can pursue better employee health without support from boards. However, if a company’s ambitions in this regard is solely placed on the shoulders of the CEO, it will be highly influenced by the CEO’s personal interests. Instead, a more robust solution is integrating OHS work in a corporate governance model. In such cases, OHS is the tone from the top (Lornudd et al. 2021). We will now turn to how such a cascading effect can be enacted – that is, what can boards do to influence the organizations’ performance in relation to employee health and well-being?

What Do Boards Do to Influence Employee Health and WellBeing? As outlined above, boards are ultimately responsible for governing companies (Boardman and Lyon 2006). Thus, boards can be expected to be involved in issues that impact companies’ performance. The ways in which boards assert their influence in general applies to OHS as well. In the following section, we describe what research suggests boards can do regarding OHS in relation to four broad areas of influence: (1) making OHS a strategy, (2) establishing a culture of health, (3) determining what is measured and rewarded, and (4) overseeing operations. The section is based on a scoping review of the literature on the role and influence boards have in OHS work (Ebbevi et al. 2021).

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Making OHS a Strategy Boards with knowledge of the relationship between employee well-being and longterm profitability can incorporate OHS into strategies for long-term value creation. In such an integrated approach, employees are seen as a long-term strategic resources (Clarke 2015). Compared to companies with short-term profitability horizons, companies with long-term profitability horizons may refrain from risky high-profitability projects, make investments without expectations of instant return on investment, and adopt a pace of organizational change relevant to both employees and business. This provides a more stable and predictable context for employees, which in turn fosters good work conditions and a safe and healthy workplace. OHS as part of a strategy for long-term profitability could also include plans for recruitment (e.g., when appointing senior managers) and communication strategies, ensuring that it becomes part of the company’s identity and brand, thus contributing to the establishment of the organization as an attractive place to work (Ferguson 2015). Yet, many boards stop short of that and retain a strategic view of OHS as one of daily operations’ risk mitigation, management, and legal compliance issues (Klettner et al. 2014), rather than viewing it as vital for business.

Establishing a Culture of Health Another way in which boards can support employee health and well-being is by setting standards and values that show the organization that OHS is considered important and valuable. Creating a culture is, of course, not a one-time action but an ongoing process involving consistent communication and actions that show that the health and well-being of employees are important. A culture supportive of OHS can be facilitated by developing safety/OHS visions, policies, and goals (Ferguson 2015) and by encouraging a safety first attitude that goes beyond compliance with regulations. It may also include an openness to and encouragement of reports on OHS problems; this primarily pertains to CEOs and other executive directors but also includes risk observations reported by employees. Part of the culture further includes responding to reports and performance measures (Wright et al. 2006) and celebrating good OHS performance. It may further entail advocating for and supporting OHS initiatives, showing commitment by prioritizing safety in the agenda, and doing safety walk-arounds. Yet, it is not sufficient to communicate a healthy culture only in situations of obvious relevance to employee health. Boards aspiring to create a culture supportive of employee health need to enact their culture across different situations, showing that they understand that employee health and well-being are affected by myriad decisions sometimes seemingly unrelated to OHS. Thus, an OHS culture needs to be reflected across boards’ actions.

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Measuring and Rewarding What You Want to See More Of A third way through which boards traditionally try to influence operative managers is with performance management systems. There is a general agreement that boards should set key objectives and develop performance indicators related to health and safety (Ferguson 2015; Boardman and Lyon 2006; Bunn et al. 2001). Performance indicators for health and safety can include strategic measures, such as safety performance and culture; outcome measures, such as sickness absences, accidents, and injuries; and process measures, including training measures and employee surveys. There is more disagreement around whether boards should also create OHS incentive structures for CEOs and senior management. In favor of incentive schemas, it has been argued that organizations get what they measure, including OHS performance (Boardman and Lyon 2006). On the other hand, it has also been argued to be morally questionable to incentivize something that should be a part of human decency and reside in organizational DNA (Lornudd et al. 2021). The efficiency of incentive for OHS has also been questioned (Mackenzie 2007). By tying a bonus to certain OHS aspects, CEOs have little motivation to act upon new OHS issues that emerge during the year. Nevertheless, whether in favor of incentives or not, boards may want to ensure that the general incentive structure does not contradict and hence disincentive OHS performance, and they can do this by focusing on the potential trade-off between OHS and other indicators, such as financial performance (Klettner et al. 2014).

Overseeing Operations Fourth, boards may influence employee health through their regulatory role, which is what they use to oversee how companies are run. In the case of OHS, this may entail ensuring that they have insights into how risks are managed (Ferguson 2015; Boardman and Lyon 2006). To assert internal control, boards need information about how organizations are doing. Boards are generally aware that there is an information asymmetry they need to address (a board has less information about the business than operative management). Most of boards’ information comes from direct communication with CEOs and reports from executives. For example, 70% of UK boards of companies with >250 employees received audit and performance reports related to health and safety (Wright et al. 2006). Many boards consciously attempt to add to such reports by engaging directly with other stakeholders, such as employees, when they have the opportunity. This may include participating in safety walks and inspecting sites (Ferguson 2015). Boards that have employee representatives as members may find that such engagements offer valuable perspectives on how companies are doing in relation to employee health and wellbeing. A CEO in the trade industry that was interviewed from one of our studies described it like this:

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I think the model with employee representatives generates significant value. If the CEO, and also the chairperson, develop a good relationship with them, you get incredibly valuable input.

Boards may also request specific reports in the form of audits, reviews, or diligence reports (Ferguson 2015). Such reports may include trends in OHS indicators, statistical data, a detailed description of OHS in one business unit (another unit is the focus of the following month), details on major risks, analyses based on themes (such as safety culture, vehicle risks, or plant maintenance), and the indicators of comparable industries. Having a system for internal control of OHS means that executives can be held accountable for employee health and well-being (Boardman and Lyon 2006). This helps establishing a culture that puts health and safety first.

What Influences Boards’ Engagement in OHS? Boards’ differ in their degree of engagement in employee health and well-being, both between different boards, and within the same board, over time. Both internal and external factors influence engagement: board members’ OHS competence, motives for engaging in OHS, and the contextual constraints or opportunities that impact the priority OHS is given (Lornudd et al. 2020).

Board Members’ OHS Competence Boards’ level of OHS competence is vital to their engagement. There is also some evidence that when boards’ OHS knowledge and engagement increase, organizations’ OHS performance does too (Bunn et al. 2001). There seem to be general agreement that boards need at least a basic understanding of OHS and that they also need to specifically understand their legal and formal responsibilities. Nevertheless, when it comes to the recruitment of board members, OHS seems to be an underprioritized competence. For example, a Canadian study found that members of an OHS subcommittee lacked any formal OHS education or qualifications, and the authors concluded that this situation would never be accepted in, for example, a financial subcommittee (Murphy 2016).

Five Drivers of Engagement One consequence of OHS competence on boards is that OHS will more likely be considered as a part of a solution to business challenges. This was suggested in an interview study that focused on boards’ motives for engaging in OHS (Lornudd et al. 2020). Five reasons that drive board engagement were identified: legal compliance, untoward events, external demands, business beliefs, and moral standpoints.

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First, most boards are motivated to ensure that their legal obligations are fulfilled (although this is sometimes a belief rather than a reality). Second, many boards take action if there is an untoward event, as such events pose immediate threats not only to daily operations but also long-term value development. This is particularly true in high-risk industries in which an accident can cause irreparable damage to a company’s reputation or production (Smallman and John 2001). Third, boards may realize that they need to engage in employee wellness because there are external pressures to do so: stakeholders, such as consumers or the local community, may expect them to, or competitors may drive changes in market expectations and demands. For example, companies on the Scandinavian market are expected to work collaboratively with stakeholders and are under significant pressure from the public to act with consideration for sustainability, transparency, and workplace equity (Strand et al. 2015). In addition to these drivers and the reactive approaches they spark (complying with legislation, dealing with untoward events, meeting external demands), there are two drivers that elicit more proactive and strategic approaches. The first is business related. Some boards, particularly those with OHS competence, believe that promoting employee health and well-being is good for business in terms of high employee performance, talent attraction, lower sickness absence, and less sickness presenteeism. The second is a moral standpoint that may include both a perceived moral obligation toward the broader community of which the company is a part and toward individual employees. Thus, boards see many different reasons to engage in OHS. It has been suggested that these reasons can be understood as organized on a continuum from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated (Smallman and John 2001; Lornudd et al. 2020). Drivers are added, rather than replaced, along the continuum. Rudimentary drivers are those related to legislation, untoward events, and external requirements, which a majority of boards acknowledge. Sophisticated drivers require a deeper understanding of the relationship between employee well-being and company value maximization or a more reflective and philosophical outlook on the role employers play related to people and society at large.

Opportunities and Constraints Impacting Boards’ Engagement Having OHS competence and a set of drivers that motivates engagement may be necessary but not sufficient for action. The degree to which boards engage in OHS is also influenced by factors that may amplify or dampen that engagement.

An Enabling Organizational Structure Both board structure and organization of OHS may influence how boards engage in matters related to employee health and well-being. For example, the formation of the board can have an impact. Having employee representation on the board can be a way of mitigating the information asymmetry boards often face by giving them access to information about what happens “on the floor.” Electing a human resource

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director as an executive director is another way of introducing an employee perspective to the discussions and decision-making in the boardroom. Another structure that influences boards’ engagement is if it is part of a multinational corporate group. National boards in these companies can have limited decision authority, and in such instances, the corporate group board and the executive management team above the national boards is the body that sets the tone from the top (Lornudd et al. 2021). The way OHS is organized within a company can also influence how OHS is enacted. It can be organized so it is handled by the whole board, in subcommittees specific to OHS, or in other subcommittees, such as renumeration or audit committee (e.g., concerning whistleblowing or code of conduct-oversight). There are pros and cons to each. On the one hand, OHS subcommittee can be disassociated from business issues. On the other, keeping it on the main board may ensure OHS does not play second fiddle or lead to exactly that when it has to compete with, and may lose to, all other potential foci (Boardman and Lyon 2006). Specific OHS committees are more common in companies with high-risk operations (e.g., the mining and oil industries) and are a way of ensuring that those managing and governing OHS have specific competence to manage it and that it does not get lost among more pressing issues. At the same, subcommittees may reinforce the view of OHS as disassociated from the core business.

OHS-Interested Owners and Stakeholders In the same way that first-line managers’ engagement in OHS is influenced by senior managers and senior managers by boards, boards influence owners, i.e., shareholders. In for-profit companies, the focus is on generating profit for shareholders. This is stipulated in the corporate legislation of most countries and reflected in the neoclassical theory of shareholder primacy, which postulates that the role of a corporation is to maximize shareholders’ value (Berle Jr 1930). Because of this tenet, it has been argued that any investment that withholds profit from shareholders is not only beyond the corporation’s responsibility but may even be considered illegal (Skog 2015). This implies that boards are likely to be sensitive to signals from owners about whether they consider engagement in employee health and well-being a priority. For example, being a model company with an explicit concern for employees and having expectations of short-term profitability are signals shareholders may send. Owners can influence boards both directly through an owner directive and indirectly as investors with certain requirements tied to their investments. For example, in 2020, the CEO of a world-leading asset management company for the first time publicly recommended investors invest in companies who pursue sustainability, including employee safety, since such companies are believed to maintain long-term profitability and growth. Yet, other stakeholders also affect boards’ engagement in employee health and well-being (Bower and Paine 2017). This is in line with stakeholder theory, which emphasizes that boards represent all stakeholders whose participation is central to the survival of the corporation, such as employees, customers, suppliers, the public, regulators, and communities (Clarke 1998; Friedman and Miles 2002). This suggests

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that a corporation’s long-term survival and value creation are dependent on its board’s ability to understand, integrate, or make trade-offs between shareholders and other stakeholders’ interests. (Klettner et al. 2014). The theory has influenced the sustainability movement, including corporate social responsibility, by pointing to broader responsibilities related to the planet and people as well as profit (Kolk and Van Tulder 2010). From these perspectives, boards may be inclined to go further to ensure employee health and well-being than what is required by legislation or called for by a narrow profit perspective (Klettner et al. 2014). There is indeed some empirical support for boards considering the perspectives of other stakeholders rather than only shareholders (Parmar et al. 2010). Yet, though companies have faced increased pressure to embrace a broader social responsibility in the last decade through new legislation and increased pressure from media, consumer groups, and employees (Gulyás 2009), the focus have been more on the well-being of the planet and people in the society the company operates in (e.g., the environment, the work environment along the production chain, etc.) than on the health and well-being of its own employees.

When Other Things Are More Urgent Finally, boards have a lot on their tables. OHS will never be the only or even most predominant issue that they need to attend to. Therefore, there will always be competition for boards’ attention, and thus, the time and effort they spend on employee well-being issues will always be determined in relation to other issues. The board has to prioritize between competing needs. A pandemic that forces people into lockdown will detract focus from the board of a retail company that no longer has any customers, but the same pandemic may push employee health and safety to the very top of the agenda for a health-care organization that needs to ensure its employees can work safely. OHS is always at risk of being underprioritized when it is not seen as a solution to current problems.

A Practical Guide to Increase Board Engagement in Employee Health and Well-Being Of all the things boards can do to improve employee well-being, which one should they start with? A good starting point is identifying activities that are both expected to have a large impact on OHS performance and be easy to implement. This has been called a go-zone (Trochim and Kane 2005). In the following section, we present five ways boards can move toward a greater focus on employee health and well-being (This list was developed as part of a research project on the role of boards for a sustainable working life. In the project, a group of experienced board members worked together to identify where boards that want to focus more on employee health and well-being can start. https://www.afaforsakring.se/forskning/pro jektkatalog/Projekt/38701/).

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1. Develop the board’s competence: As outlined above, competence in OHS will affect the degree of board engagement. Ensuring that a board is competent will increase its ability to make an informed prioritization of OHS in relation to other organizational challenges, and it will also likely ensure that boards perceive employee health and well-being solutions to other challenges. A board’s OHS competence also affects what it demands of the CEO and other executive directors, which is in line with the champagne analogy outlined above. 2. Use key performance indicators to promote health and well-being: Continuous follow-up of key performance indicators is one of a board’s most important tools for obtaining information on a company’s performance. However, key figures also influence management’s choice of focus. They are therefore also powerful tools that a board can use to influence OSH work. Reactive key indicators should be combined with more proactive and activity-based indicators. 3. Set the agenda to ensure attention from the CEO, management, and organization: Directing the attention of the CEO and management to health and well-being is about integrating the issue into the board’s usual way of working. It sets the tone from the top, from executive directors to the rest of the organization. This is not done via a fancy yearly event or an item on the agenda once a year – it is done via assiduous repetition throughout the year. 4. Act actively for an open conversation climate in the boardroom: A board is dependent on getting relevant information about the business operations in order to prioritize and make informed strategic decisions. This requires trust between the board and those who have good insights into the operative business, such as the CEO and other executive directors. An open-discussion climate can be developed by pointing out that problems are shared and by members striving to be solution oriented rather than blame oriented. 5. Let employee health and well-being drive long-term profitability: A company should generate profits for its owners. Since good working conditions are associated with higher employee performance and increase the opportunities for recruiting the best employees, the issue of employee health and well-being is strategically important for long-term growth and profitability. In line with this, companies may see a competitive advantage in creating a brand that is associated with sustainable employee practices.

Conclusions Promoting employee health and well-being is not only an operative question for firstline managers and human resource specialists. How companies manage OHS has widespread implications for their company’s ability to perform, meet its objectives, and have the long-term impact it intends to have. This makes employee health and well-being and working conditions matter for the organ that has the final responsibility for the performance of the company: the board of directors. Boards set the tone from the top by how they act, both within and outside the boardroom. In this, they

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determine if employees, first-line managers, specialists in OHS and human resources, and others that work to facilitate employee health and well-being thrive or fight uphill battles.

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A Review and Recommendations for Future Research Alannah E. Rafferty

Contents Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Objective Measures of Organizational Change Events and Employee Health and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions: Research Using Objective Indicators of Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Subjective Measures of Organizational Change and Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subjective Measures of Other Aspects of Organizational Change Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions: Research Using Subjective Measures of Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recommendations for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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In this chapter, I review research that examines the relationship between exposure to an organizational change event and employee health and well-being. Consideration of the work in the area reveals two types of studies have been conducted. One group of researchers have focused on objective measures of exposure to change, while a second group of researchers have assessed change recipients’ subjective experience of change exposure. I consider whether consistent findings have emerged in these bodies of work. I also examine the extent to which research in these areas has identified similar or different mediating and moderating factors. My review suggests that organizational change events – regardless of whether they are assessed with objective or subjective measures – have a negative impact on a wide range of measures of employee health and well-being. However, recent research reveals that some aspects of change (e.g., the planning of change) also A. E. Rafferty (*) Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: a.rafferty@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_11

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may be positively associated with employee health and well-being. This review identifies directions for future research including the need to consider additional aspects of the context of change and the processes used when introducing change as antecedents of employee health and well-being. There is also a need to consider a more consistent and wider range of mediating and moderating processes that link organizational change events with employee health and well-being. Keywords

Organizational change and employee health and well-being · Exposure to organizational change · Objective measures of exposure to organizational change · Subjective measures of exposure to organizational change

Technological advances, a global workforce, and deregulation of markets have resulted in rapidly shifting and complex environments (De Meuse et al. 2010; Worley and Mohrman 2014), which require organizations to continuously change in order to survive (Ford et al. 2020; Gordon et al. 2000). Research indicates that companies made moderate to major changes at least every 4–5 years (Ford et al. 2020; Lewis 2000), and that up to 70% of change efforts fail to achieve their intended goals (Aiken and Keller 2009; Jacquemont et al. 2014; Meaney and Pung 2008). Traditionally, researchers focused on performance outcomes when studying change. However, there also is a considerable body of recent research addressing the consequences of change for employee health and well-being. There is a clear moral imperative to address employee health and well-being before, during, and after change is implemented. However, there are also pragmatic reasons to focus on employee health and well-being before, during, and after change implementation. Specifically, some theorists have argued that poor employee health may reduce the likelihood of change success and act as an impediment to future change efforts (Loretto et al. 2010). Danna and Griffin (1999) suggested that “health” generally encompasses both physiological and psychological symptomology. In contrast, well-being tends to be a broader and more encompassing concept that takes into consideration the “whole person.” In organizational research, well-being has generally been used when referring to generalized job-related experiences (e.g., job satisfaction, job commitment, and turnover intentions), and facet-specific dimensions (e.g., satisfaction with pay or coworkers) (Danna and Griffin 1999). In this chapter, I focus on empirical studies that consider the influence of exposure to organizational change on employees’ health and well-being. Existing reviews have concluded that organizational change events have a somewhat mixed impact on employees’ health and well-being (Bamberger et al. 2012; de Jong et al. 2016; Quinlan and Bohle 2009). Bamberger et al. considered the impact of exposure to transformational change, as determined by the authors’ assessment that employees had been exposed to large-scale change, on mental health. Based on 17 studies, Bamberger et al. concluded that their review did not

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provide strong evidence of an association between organizational change and elevated risk of mental health problems. In contrast, Quinlan and Bohle examined exposure to downsizing and the accompanying job insecurity on occupational health and safety outcomes. Their analyses suggested that 85% of the studies examined revealed poorer occupational health and safety outcomes occurred after downsizing. Similarly, in a review of the impact of restructuring between 2000 and 2012, de Jong et al. reported that restructuring (with and without job losses) had a negative influence on employee well-being. One potential explanation for the mixed results from these reviews is that the way in which exposure to organizational change is assessed is a potential influence on study outcomes. However, researchers have not yet considered whether the measurement of exposure to change influences study outcomes. I undertake this task in this chapter. I identify two distinct approaches that have been adopted when considering the impact of exposure to organizational change event(s) on employee health and wellbeing. One group of studies has adopted “objective” measures of change. Examples of objective measures of change exposure include classifying individuals into groups experiencing “minor” versus “major” downsizing based on government registry data (Østhus 2012; Theorell et al. 2003). Other authors have identified change exposure groups based on departmental membership (Axtell et al. 2002; Ferrie et al. 1998, 2002; Hansson et al. 2008; Probst 2003). In contrast, other researchers have linked the number of change activities experienced with employee health and well-being (Greenglass and Burke 2000; Ingelsrud 2014; Jensen et al. 2018; Loretto et al. 2010; Tsutsumi et al. 2002). In contrast, a second group of authors have used “subjective” measures of change exposure. I define a subjective measure of change exposure as one that requires a manager’s or employee’s personal judgment of their own experience of change or the experience of their team members. Examples of subjective measures of change that have been used include change recipients’ assessments that they have been exposed to a change event(s) (Bernstrøm and Kjekshus 2015; Fløvik et al. 2019; Verhaeghe et al. 2006), the degree of change they have experienced (Dahl 2011; Loretto et al. 2010; Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017), the planning involved in change (Nery et al. 2019; Rafferty and Griffin 2006), and the extent of “direct” versus “indirect” contact with change (Grunberg et al. 2001; Moore et al. 2004, 2006). To date, researchers have not considered whether studies using objective measures of change exposure versus those using subjective measures of change exposure result in similar findings regarding the influence of change on employee health and well-being. In addition, it also is not clear whether researchers adopting an objective versus subjective approach to the study of organizational change and employee health and well-being have examined similar mediating and moderating processes through which change exposure influences health and well-being. I address these issues in this chapter with the aim of identifying directions for future research. Below, I first consider empirical research addressing relationships between objective measures of exposure to change events and employee health and well-being.

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Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Objective Measures of Organizational Change Events and Employee Health and Well-Being Researchers have considered exposure to a range of different types of organizational change events using objective measures. Researchers have focused on a range of different types of objectively assessed changes including downsizing (Kivimäki et al. 1997, 1998, 2000; Theorell et al. 2003; Vahtera et al. 1997) and upsizing (Theorell et al. 2003), restructuring (Bourbonnais et al. 2005), privatization (Ferrie et al. 1995), reorganization (Hansson et al. 2008), and mergers (Kjekshus et al. 2014; Netterstrøm et al. 2010) on employee health and well-being. Recently, several authors have collected objective measures of exposure to different types of changes that have been implemented under the umbrella of a single large-scale change (Grønstad et al. 2019; Netterstrøm et al. 2010). I consider research on these different types of objectively assessed change in more detail below. Downsizing. Several studies reveal that objectively assessed downsizing has a negative impact on employee health and well-being (Kivimäki et al. 1997, 1998, 2000; Vahtera et al. 1997, 2004). In particular, objectively assessed downsizing has been positively associated with certified sick leave (Kivimäki et al. 1997, 1998, 2000; Vahtera et al. 1997, 2004), cardiovascular deaths (Vahtera et al. 2004), the rate of disability pensions (Vahtera et al. 2005), musculoskeletal pain and disorders (Kivimäki et al. 2001, 2003;Vahtera et al. 1997, 2005), psychotropic drug prescriptions (Kivimäki et al. 2007), trauma (Vahtera et al. 1997), and poor self-rated health (Kivmäki et al. 2001, 2003). In contrast, several studies that use objective measures of downsizing have reported minimal or no effects of this type of change on employee health and well-being (Netterstrøm et al. 2010; Østhus 2012; Østhus and Mastekaasa 2010; Theorell et al. 2003). Several issues may at least partially explain why objectively assessed downsizing in these studies was not significantly associated with poor health and reduced well-being. First, Østhus (2007) and Theorell et al. (2003) conducted cross-sectional studies, which contrast with the longitudinal designs of many of the studies that reported that downsizing has negative effects on employee health and well-being. It may be that the health and well-being impacts of change only emerge after an extended time period. Second, most studies supporting a link between the extent of downsizing and employee health and well-being have been conducted in Finland. In contrast, the studies that are not supportive of a link between objectively assessed exposure to downsizing and employee health and well-being were conducted in Norway and Sweden. It may be that there are differences between countries in the influence of downsizing on employee health and well-being. Third, two of the studies that did not reveal a negative impact of exposure to downsizing on employee health and well-being (Østhus 2012; Østhus and Mastekaasa 2010) combined an objective and a subjective rating of change exposure. It is not clear that it is appropriate to combine such measures as they appear to capture different types of information about change.

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Researchers have identified several factors that mediate relationships between objectively assessed downsizing and employee health and well-being. Kivimäki et al. (2000) found that the relationship between downsizing and employee health was partially mediated by increased physical demands and job insecurity and a reduction in job control that accompanied the downsizing process. Kivmäki et al. (2001) reported that increases in physical demands (especially for women and lowerincome earners), increased job insecurity, reductions in skill discretion, and changes in health-related behaviors mediated relationships between exposure to downsizing and musculoskeletal issues. In contrast, Kivmäki et al. (2001) found that decreased job control was the single most important mediator of the relationship between downsizing and self-rated health. However, the largest proportion of the association between downsizing and health was explained by all the changes in work combined (i.e., decreased job control, high job insecurity, and increased physical demands). Some attention has considered moderators of relationships between objectively assessed downsizing and employee health and well-being. Most attention has concentrated on the role of gender. Kivimäki et al. (1997) reported that the relationship between downsizing and absence was moderated by gender such that women were more vulnerable to the effects of downsizing. In contrast, Kivimäki et al. (2003) reported that downsizing increased the risk of mental distress but only for male employees who stayed in the organization. Kivmäki et al. (2007) reported that the relationship between downsizing and psychotropic drug prescriptions differed for men and women. The relationship between downsizing and hypnotics was strongest for men while the association between downsizing and anxiolytics was strongest for women. Other researchers have considered the role of employee personality (Kivimaki et al. 1998) and age (Vahtera et al. 1997) as moderators of relationships between objectively assessed exposure to downsizing and employee health and well-being. Kivimaki et al. found that in men, hostility increased the risk of sickness absence after change exposure for cases of absence due to trauma. In women, hostility increased the risk of absence through overall sickness and due to musculoskeletal disorders. Vahtera et al. reported that when the proportion of employees who were older than 50 years was high, downsizing increased the individual risk of absence because of ill-health by 3–14 times, depending on whether the absence was for musculoskeletal disease or trauma. In contrast, when the proportion of employees over 50 years was low, downsizing only had slight effects of health. Restructuring. Several researchers have considered the influence of restructuring (which also has been labeled reorganization in some studies) on employee health and well-being. Bourbonnais et al. (2005) reported that restructuring negatively influenced sick leave (mean and duration) over the course of restructuring. In contrast, Hansson et al. (2008) found no significant differences between an exposure versus a control group in terms of self-reported health, work satisfaction, or work-related exhaustion. However, Hansson et al. did find hormonal differences between the groups at Time 2, which the authors argued indicates that there was a lower possibility of recovery for those involved in the restructuring compared to those in the control group. Overall, both studies revealed a negative influence of objectively assessed restructuring on employee health and well-being.

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While Bourbonnais et al. (2005) do not test mediated relationships, they suggest that psychosocial characteristics including low-decision latitude, high job strain, and low support may act as mediators of the relationships between restructuring and poor employee health and well-being. In contrast, Bourbonnais et al. did examine the moderating role of rewards. Results suggested that rewards moderated relationships between restructuring and job strain and sick leave for all diagnoses. Nurses who reported high rewards were no longer at risk of sick leave after restructuring. Privatization. I was only able to identify one study that used an objective measure of privatization and considered the health and well-being effects of this change. Ferrie et al. (1995) conducted a 4-year longitudinal study with civil servants in the UK in a department expected to experience privatization. Employees were classified (exposed to change versus a control group) based on departmental membership. Findings highlighted that there were consistent negative effects of privatization on men’s health and well-being in the exposure group compared to men in the control group. In contrast, there were fewer consistent differences between women in the exposure and control groups. These results suggest that gender is a moderator of relationships between objectively assessed privatization and employee health and well-being. Mergers. Several authors have utilized objective measures of mergers and considered the influence of these changes on employee health and well-being. This research has revealed mixed findings. Kjekshus et al. (2014) conducted a study of 23 mergers that occurred over a 9-year period in Norway. The occurrence of a merger was determined based on data obtained from a national registry. The authors concluded that there was a significant but modest effect of mergers on long-term sickness absence in the year of the merger, and in years 2, 3, and 4 after the merger. This effect was significant for women but was only significant in year 4 after the merger for men, suggesting that gender is a moderator of relationships. In contrast, Netterstrøm et al. (2010) conducted a study of Danish public servants 8 months before a merger and 16 months after a merger. The type of organizational change experienced by employees (i.e., membership of merger, new job, or no change) was determined based on departmental membership. Netterstrøm et al. reported that there was not a significantly increased risk of depression or increase in depressive symptomology among employees exposed to a merger. Other Aspects of Organizational Change Events. Several researchers have considered exposure to different types of change events within a larger change using objective measures (Grønstad et al. 2019; Netterstrøm et al. 2010; Westerlund et al. 2004). For example, Grønstad et al. conducted a study in a large Norwegian hospital. Employees’ exposure to six types of changes including mergers, downsizing, spinoff, upsizing, outsourcing, or stability was identified based on hospital records. Different types of change were differentially related to employee health and wellbeing. For example, unit-level upsizing resulted in a significantly reduced risk of both short- and long-term sickness absence in the change quarter and in the subsequent quarter. In addition, unit-level downsizing was significantly associated with a reduced likelihood of short-term sickness absence in the quarter prior to change, compared to stability. However, unit-level downsizing correlated significantly with

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increased risk of short-term sickness absence in the change quarter and in the following quarter, compared to stability. Westerlund et al. (2004) conducted a study in Sweden over a 6-year period with the extent of downsizing or upsizing determined based on data obtained from a national registry. Data were used to classify organizations as experiencing moderate expansion, major expansion, moderate downsizing, and major downsizing. Results revealed that a large expansion of the workplace (greater than 18%) was related to increased sickness absence and hospital admissions. Moderate downsizing (between 8% and 18%) was associated with a decreased risk of hospital admission. Results also revealed that gender and industry (private vs. public sector) affected relationships. For example, the strongest associated between repeated exposure to change in workplace size and long-term sickness absence was for women in the public sector. Researchers have considered how employee health and well-being vary at different points in the change process (Bourbonnais et al. 2005; Grønstad et al. 2019). Bourbonnais et al. conducted a 6-year longitudinal study of health facilities in Canada. Five distinct stages of stage were identified based on the occurrence of objectively assessed organizational change events. Findings revealed variations in sick leave at different points in the restructuring process. For example, mean certified sick leave was lower before restructuring and higher during the anticipation period and the first year after restructuring. During the second year after restructuring, mean certified sick leave dropped 7.5 days from the preceding period but was still 24 days above the baseline level, before the restructuring. For mental health sick leave, there was a significant increase in the sick leave incidence rate over the five stages. For the last two periods after restructuring, the incidence rate was higher than during the period before restructuring.

Conclusions: Research Using Objective Indicators of Organizational Change The largest number of studies adopting objective measures of change exposure focused on the impact of downsizing on employee health and well-being. This research reveals that objectively assessed downsizing is negatively associated with a wide range of health and well-being outcomes. Several factors that mediate relationships between downsizing and employee health and well-being have been identified including psychosocial factors (Kivimäki et al. 2000, Kivimäki, Vahtera, Ferrie, et al. 2001, Kivmäki, Vahtera, Pentti, et al. 2001), impaired support from one’s spouse (Kivimäki et al. 2000), and changes in health behaviors (Kivimäki et al. 2000). In addition, several moderating factors have been identified with most research focused on gender (Kivimaki et al. 1998, 2001, 2003, 2007; Theorell et al. 2003), although the age distribution of staff (Vahtera et al. 1997) also has been examined. Research using objective measures of change also has examined the impact of restructuring on health and well-being (Bourbonnais et al. 2005; Hansson et al. 2008). There was not a clear set of consistent negative effects of restructuring on all

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the measures of health and well-being considered. Only one study (Ferrie et al. 1995) using an objective measure has examined the influence of privatization. This study revealed negative effects of privatization on employee health and well-being, although these effects were primarily found in women. Two studies (Kjekshus et al. 2014; Netterstrøm et al. 2010) objectively assessed mergers, and these studies reveal somewhat mixed findings. Kjekshus et al. found that exposure to a merger consistently increased long-term sickness absence for women over time. In contrast, Netterstrøm et al. found that mergers did not significantly influence employee depression. Researchers also have used objective measures to assess other aspects of change. This research revealed that the effects of change depend on the type of change experienced (Grønstad et al. 2019; Netterstrøm et al. 2010; Westerlund et al. 2004), and the health and well-being impacts of change vary depending on the stage of change (Bourbonnais et al. 2005; Grønstad et al. 2019). In summary, there is evidence that objective exposure to organizational change events negatively influences employee health and well-being. However, apart from research using objective measures of downsizing, attention has not generally identified the mediators or moderators of relationships between objectively assessed change events and employee health and well-being.

Empirical Research on the Relationship Between Subjective Measures of Organizational Change and Employee Well-Being A considerable number of studies have examined relationships between employees and managers’ perceptions of the content of organizational change events and employee health and well-being. Authors have focused on exposure to different types of change as reported by change recipients (Axtell et al. 2002; Bernstrøm and Kjekshus 2015; Ferrie et al. 1998; Kalimo et al. 2003; Østhus 2007; Virtanen et al. 2010). Research also has considered the effects of exposure to change at different time points (Geuskens et al. 2012). A range of other aspects of the content of change events have been considered including individuals’ perceptions concerning the degree of change (Dahl 2011; Loretto et al. 2010; Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017), the planning involved in change (Nery et al. 2019; Rafferty and Griffin 2006), the occurrence of “negative” change (Väänänen et al. 2011), “direct” versus “indirect” contact with layoffs (Grunberg et al. 2001; Moore et al. 2004, 2006), the number of changes experienced (Tsutsumi et al. 2002), the breadth of change (Dahl 2011), and the experience of a decline in job position as a result of change (Väänänen et al. 2004). In contrast, some research has bypassed a consideration of the content of change and has instead focused on psychosocial indicators such as the experience of job insecurity (Ferrie et al. 2002) that are likely to be impacted by change. Other researchers have asked change recipients to report on characteristics of the context in which change is implemented (Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017). Finally, some researchers have considered the influence of the change processes used when

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implementing change on employee health and well-being (Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017; Rafferty and Restubog 2010), rather than considering the influence of the change event itself, on employee health and well-being. Change processes refer to the specific methods used to implement organizational change (Self et al. 2007). Downsizing. A number of studies have considered change recipients’ subjective assessments of the content of downsizing events and their impact on employee health and well-being (Burke and Greenglass 1999; Fløvik et al. 2019; Greubel and Kecklund 2011; Grunberg et al. 2001; Kalimo et al. 2003; Moore et al. 2004, 2006; Østhus 2007; Sigursteinsdóttir and Rafnsdóttir 2015). Authors have considered individuals’ subjective exposure to a single type of change (Kalimo et al. 2003; Sigursteinsdóttir and Rafnsdóttir 2015), exposure to different types of changes during downsizing (Fløvik et al. 2019; Greubel and Kecklund 2011; Moore et al. 2004; Østhus 2007), and the extent of direct or indirect contact with downsizing (Grunberg et al. 2001; Moore et al. 2006). Overall, this research suggests that subjectively assessed exposure to downsizing is negatively associated with job satisfaction (Burke and Greenglass 1999; Greubel and Kecklund 2011; Østhus 2007), psychological well-being (Burke and Greenglass 1999), subjective health (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), sleep (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), and recovery (Greubel and Kecklund 2011). In contrast, studies have found that subjectively assessed downsizing is positively associated with role ambiguity (Moore et al. 2004), work demands (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), intent to quit (Moore et al. 2004, 2006), work stress (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), sleepiness (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), work-related health problems (Østhus 2007), symptoms of poor health (Grunberg et al. 2001), being sick at work (Sigursteinsdóttir and Rafnsdóttir 2015), visiting a doctor because of illness or ill health (Sigursteinsdóttir and Rafnsdóttir 2015), eating changes (Grunberg et al. 2001), alcohol consumption (Grunberg et al. 2001), mental distress (Fløvik et al. 2019), and depression (Grunberg et al. 2001; Moore et al. 2006). In addition, studies reveal subjectively assessed downsizing has negative relationships with psychosocial work characteristics including job security (Grunberg et al. 2001; Moore et al. 2004, 2006; Østhus 2007), work demands (Østhus 2007), social support (Greubel and Kecklund 2011), and decision latitude (Greubel and Kecklund 2011). Surprisingly little attention has considered variables that mediate relationships between subjectively assessed downsizing and employee health and well-being. Grunberg et al. (2001) reported that job security partially mediated the effects of downsizing contact on health-related outcomes. Similarly, little attention has been directed to identification of moderators. While there is some suggestion in Greubel and Kecklund’s (2011) study that the stage of change may moderate relationships between the extent of downsizing and employee health and wellbeing, this hypothesis was not tested. Burke and Greenglass (2000) considered whether employment status moderated the relationship between subjectively assessed downsizing and employee health and well-being. Results indicated that full-time staff reported significantly more negative effects of restructuring efforts on maintenance and physical aspects of the workplace than did part-time workers.

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Restructuring. Authors have considered a range of subjective measures of the content (i.e., what is changed) of restructuring such as employees’ rating of their exposure to restructuring at different points in the change process (Geuskens et al. 2012), the extent of restructuring experienced (Burke and Greenglass 2000), and managerial ratings of the extent of restructuring (Ingelsrud 2014; Jensen et al. 2018; Probst 2003). Overall, research suggests that restructuring has a negative relationship with a range of indicators of employee health and well-being including satisfaction (Burke and Greenglass 2000; Probst 2003), affective reactions (Probst 2003), psychological well-being (Burke and Greenglass 2000), general health (Geuskens et al. 2012), emotional exhaustion (Geuskens et al. 2012), absence due to sickness (Ingelsrud 2014; Jensen et al. 2018), organizational commitment (Probst 2003), time pressure (Probst 2003), and job security (Probst 2003). In addition, empirical research also suggests that restructuring is positively associated with turnover intentions (Probst 2003) and voluntary turnover (Jensen et al. 2018). Only one study by Geuskens et al. identified mediating processes. These authors found that job insecurity partly explained the negative impact of prolonged restructuring on general health and emotional exhaustion. None of the studies in this area considered moderators of relationships. Privatization. Two studies have adopted subjective measures of exposure to privatization and its impact on employee health and well-being (Ferrie et al. 1998; Virtanen et al. 2010). Ferrie et al. assessed exposure to change based on employees’ response to a survey question. In a multiple wave survey study with medical data collected on employees in a civil service agency in the UK, Ferrie et al. found a range of significant negative health effects due to change exposure. For example, at Time 3, compared to the control group, men in both exposure groups (i.e., exposure to change and anticipation of change groups) experienced significant increases for health self-rated as average or worse, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) caseness, and mean number of symptoms experienced in the last fortnight. Adverse changes were seen in blood pressure and body mass index (BMI) for men in both exposure groups compared to control men. Adverse changes were seen in all clinical measures among women in both exposure groups, except for diastolic blood pressure among women anticipating change. These findings suggest that gender and stage of change may be potential moderators of relationships between subjectively assessed privatization and health and well-being. Virtanen et al. conducted a multiwave study over an 8-year period with civil servants in the UK, who reported on whether they had experienced privatization. Results revealed that the risk of work disability was higher among employees who reported that they were transferred to an executive agency compared with the employees whose job was not transferred. No mediators or moderators of relationships were identified in this study. Mergers. Two studies have explored relationships between subjective measures of the content of a merger and employee health and well-being (Väänänen et al. 2004, 2011). These studies provide support for the negative influence of mergers on exhaustion (Väänänen et al. 2004), functional incapacity (Väänänen et al. 2004), psychiatric events (Väänänen et al. 2011), and depression (Väänänen et al. 2011). Väänänen et al. (2004) conducted a study of a merger with data collected twice

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before the merger began and once after the merger. The authors assessed change subjectively by asking change recipients to indicate how their standing at work changed over the last 2 years. A subjective decline in job position was positively associated with exhaustion and functional incapacity after the merger. Blue-collar workers, who had a higher rate of sickness absence prior to the merger, and who experienced a decline in their job position, were at higher risk of suffering from poor subjective health after the merger compared to white-collar workers. Strong coworker support increased exhaustion and functional incapacity when an employee reported a decline in their job position due to change. In a later study, Väänänen et al. (2011) examined a merger that occurred between two companies originally from Finland and Sweden. Data were collected twice before the merger and twice after the merger. Employees’ experience of the merger was assessed at Time 3 by asking them to answer three survey items assessing changes in their personal standing at work, the development of the work unit, and trends in the whole organization during the preceding 1–2-year period. Responses to these items were used to create a scale assessing individuals’ experience of “negative change.” As individuals’ perception of negative change increased, so did the risk of psychiatric events. Nonmanual employees who reported negative organizational change had a twofold increased risk of subsequent psychiatric events whereas manual employees were not significantly affected by the organizational changes. Again, these findings suggest that blue- versus white-collar employment status acted as a moderator. Results revealed that the subjective experience of negative change was related to subsequent depression

Subjective Measures of Other Aspects of Organizational Change Events Several other studies utilizing subjective measures of change exposure have occurred including a study focused on the implementation of technology. Axtell et al. (2002) considered change recipients’ subjective perceptions of the implementation of new technology. The effects of exposure to new technology varied by occupational group. For operators, openness to change improved among the highexposure group while the low-exposure group experienced a slight decrease in openness. Managers and engineers displayed the opposite pattern. Overall, these results suggest that occupational group acted as a moderator of relationships between subjectively assessed implementation of technology and employee health and wellbeing. Other researchers have recognized that a single large-scale change event such as a “merger” may involve multiple changes and have considered individuals’ subjective exposure to a range of changes that occur when experiencing a large-scale transformation (Breinegaard et al. 2017; Tsutsumi et al. 2002; Verhaeghe et al. 2006). Breinegaard et al. conducted a cross-sectional study of public servants in Denmark, with data on organizational change obtained from heads of work. After adjustment for characteristics of the psychosocial work environment, the rate of early retirement

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was significantly higher among employees who experienced a change of management. Tsutsumi et al. conducted two surveys separated by a year with employees’ subjective experience of different types of change collected in the second survey. Findings indicated a potentially stronger effect of restructuring changes for those employees who experienced multiple organizational changes. Verhaeghe conducted a cross-sectional study of registered nurses in Belgium. Results revealed that the occurrence of different types of change was related to psychological distress. Changes appraised as threatening were negatively related to job satisfaction and eustress, and positively related to distress and sickness absence (frequency and duration). Authors also have considered change recipients’ subjective reactions to a range of other aspects of the content of change. For example, researchers have considered change recipients’ assessments of the degree of change (Dahl 2011; Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017), the breadth of change (Dahl 2011) (Bernstrøm and Kjekshus 2015), the planning involved in change (Nery et al. 2019; Rafferty and Griffin 2006), and the degree of risk involved in change (Nery et al. 2019). Some research also has considered the influence of an aspect of the context of change – the circumstances surrounding the implementation of a change – on employee health and well-being. Specifically, Rafferty and her colleagues (Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017) considered the influence of the frequency of change on employee health and well-being. In a study in an Australian public sector organization, Rafferty and Griffin (2006) found that employees’ perceptions that change involved high levels of planning were indirectly positively related to job satisfaction and indirectly negatively related to turnover intentions though psychological uncertainty. Transformational change (i.e., an assessment of the degree of change) displayed a direct positive relationship with intentions to turnover. In contrast, the perception that change occurred very frequently – an aspect of the change context – was indirectly negatively associated with satisfaction and positively associated with turnover intentions via uncertainty. Dahl (2011) conducted a study in Denmark and collected data on organizational change from a survey completed by company CEOs. Results revealed that employees employed in organizations changing along multiple dimensions simultaneously were more likely to receive stress-related medicine prescriptions for insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Change implemented to increase coordination and cooperation across the organization had significant and negative effects on stress. Rafferty and Jimmieson (2017) collected data from a range of employees from different organizations experiencing a wide array of change events. Results revealed that employees’ subjective perceptions that they had experienced transformational change and frequent change were indirectly positively associated with insomnia and negatively associated with psychological well-being through affective resistance to change. Nery et al. (2019) conducted a three-wave study in a public organization in Brazil undergoing a strategic reorientation. These authors assessed change recipients’ subjective assessment of the planning involved in change and the degree of risk involved in change. When employees reported that change involved planning, it was positively associated with well-being at all three time points.

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Bernstrøm and Kjekshus (2015) collected data over 2 years from Norwegian hospitals. Direct care providers reported whether they had experienced eight types of changes (four patient care changes and four structural changes) in the preceding 12 months. Results revealed that a higher frequency of structural changes within hospitals was associated with an increased likelihood of sickness absence among employees. Härenstam et al. (2004) drew on manager descriptions of change to identify four different types of organizational change. Conversion to a lean organization was the most negative of the changes in terms of outcomes including extrinsic rewards, obstacles at work, and strenuous work, and for women worry and conflict. However, employees in these organizations also reported increased control and opportunities for development. Ferrie et al. (2002) focused on the impact of a change event on job insecurity, rather than assessing employees’ subjective reactions to a change event itself. However, one limitation of focusing on psychosocial characteristics likely to be impacted by a change event is that researchers are unable to determine what it is about the change that influences psychosocial characteristics. So, while Ferrie et al. found, for example, that loss of job security was associated with poor self-rated health and minor psychiatric morbidity, they were not able to establish what it was about the change event itself that resulted in heightened job insecurity. Another group of studies have focused on the influence on the change processes used when implementing change (e.g.., information, participation, and fairness) (Amiot et al. 2006, 2007; Jimmieson et al. 2004; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017; Rafferty and Restubog 2010), rather than considering the influence of the change event itself, on employee health and well-being. In an 18-month study of regionalization in the Australian public sector, Jimmieson et al. focused on the influence of change information on burnout, client engagement, and job satisfaction. Findings revealed that the provision of change information was indirectly positively related to employee psychological well-being, client engagement, and job satisfaction, through employee self-efficacy. Amiot et al. (2006) conducted a two-wave survey study of an airline engaged in a merger. Results revealed that change recipients who perceived that the change had been implemented in a positive manner (i.e., they felt consulted, perceived that leadership had been effective, and felt informed) reported stronger self-efficacy at the beginning of the merger and appraised the change as being less stressful compared to change recipients who reported that the change had been implemented poorly.

Conclusions: Research Using Subjective Measures of Organizational Change A good deal of research has utilized change recipients’ subjective assessments of their exposure to different types of organizational change events including downsizing, mergers, and restructures. This research has revealed that these change events are consistently negatively associated with a wide range of indicators of employee health and well-being. Other researchers have focused on other aspects of

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individuals’ subjective experience of the content of change. This research has identified some aspects of the content of change that are positively associated with employee health and well-being such as planning (Nery et al. 2019; Rafferty and Griffin 2006). In contrast, other research has enabled identification of those aspects of organizational change that have a negative impact on employee health and wellbeing such as subjective perceptions that transformational change has occurred (Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017). In addition, when employees report that change involves multiple organizational dimensions (Dahl 2011), employees’ health and well-being are negatively affected. Research focused on subjective measures of change; recipients’ experience of change also has identified several mediating factors. There is some evidence that job security (Geuskens et al. 2012; Grunberg et al. 2001), psychological uncertainty (Rafferty and Griffin 2006), affective resistance to change (Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017), employees’ appraisals of change (Verhaeghe et al. 2006), and changes in employees’ health-related behaviors (Ferrie et al. 1998; Grunberg et al. 2001) mediate relationships between the subjective experience of change and employee health and well-being. Researchers also have identified several moderators of relationships between subjectively assessed change and employee health and wellbeing. There is some evidence to suggest that occupational group (Axtell et al. 2002), having a blue-collar versus white-collar job (Väänänen et al. 2011), and the type of changes experienced (Breinegaard et al. 2017; Dahl 2011; Tsutsumi et al. 2002) may moderate relationships between subjective measures of change and employee health and well-being.

Discussion In this chapter, I examined research that has utilized objective and subjective measures of exposure to organizational change events and linked this with employee health and well-being. Several key points have become evident when reviewing this research. First, until recently, relatively little attention has been directed toward considering the content of the change event beyond that provided using a broad description of the change (e.g., downsizing, restructuring, and merger). However, researchers have begun to consider change recipients’ subjective assessments of a wider range of aspects of the content of change such as the planning involved in change (Nery et al. 2019; Rafferty and Griffin 2006), the degree of change (Dahl 2011), and the breadth of change (Dahl 2011). With few exceptions (Amiot et al. 2007; Jimmieson et al. 2004; Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017; Rafferty and Restubog 2010), most studies examining the impact of change on employee health and well-being have not considered that characteristics of the change context or the processes used to implement change may impact on employee health and well-being. This is an important omission as research in the change field indicates that all three aspects of change – the content and context of change, and change processes – are likely to influence change outcomes including employee health and well-being (Amiot et al. 2006, 2007; Armenakis and Bedeian

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1999; Jimmieson et al. 2004; Pettigrew et al. 2001; Rafferty and Restubog 2010, 2017). Such findings suggest that all three aspects of change should be considered as antecedents of employee health and well-being during change. As such, it is recommended that these three sets of factors are incorporated into models of the health and well-being of employees experiencing change. Failure to consider the content, context, and the processes used to implement change means that researchers are ignoring important sources of variation in employee health and well-being during change and therefore mis-specifying models. Second, although empirical research using objective and subjective measures of change exposure rarely reference the other body of work, the findings from these two bodies of work reveal broadly consistent conclusions about the negative influence of change on employee health and well-being. For example, most research on downsizing, whether it adopts an objective or subjective approach to change exposure, suggests that downsizing has negative effects on employee health and well-being. Studies using objective measures of change exposure have identified several mediators of relationships between experience of change and employee health and wellbeing including psychosocial factors such as job insecurity and job control (Kivimäki, Vahtera, and Ferrie et al. 2001; Kivmäki, Vahtera, and Pentti et al. 2001), impaired support from one’s spouse (Kivimäki et al. 2000), and changes in employee health behaviors (Kivimäki et al. 2000). In contrast, studies using subjective measures of exposure to change events have identified job insecurity (Geuskens et al. 2012) as a mediator. In terms of moderators of relationships between objective measures of change and employee health and well-being, factors that have been identified include gender (Kivimaki et al. 1998, 2001, 2003, 2007; Theorell et al. 2003), the age distribution of staff (Vahtera et al. 1997), income (Kivimäki et al. 2001; Vahtera et al. 1997), workplace size (Vahtera et al. 1997), poor health prior to change (Vahtera et al. 1997), socioeconomic status (Vahtera et al. 2005), and employment status (Vahtera et al. 2004). Studies using subjective measures of change events have focused on several moderators including the stage of change (Ferrie et al. 1998; Greubel and Kecklund 2011), gender (Ferrie et al. 1998), blue- versus white-collar position (Väänänen et al. 2004, 2011), coworker support (Väänänen et al. 2004), and occupational group (Axtell et al. 2002). Except for gender, there is little overlap in the factors identified as moderators in the two areas of research.

Recommendations for Future Research Several recommendations for future research emerge out of my review of the literature. First, it is surprising that researchers have not simultaneously considered the influence of objective and subjective measures of change exposure on employee health and well-being in a single study. Recent theorizing in the change field suggests that a focus on objective measures of change exposure may result in an underestimation of the effects of organizational change on employee well-being. In particular, researchers have argued that the key to understanding organizational

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change processes is the way in which individuals acquire, organize, and make sense of change (George and Jones 2001; Loretto et al. 2010; Rafferty and Griffin 2006; Weber and Manning 2001). This perspective suggests that the world does not consist of events that are meaningful in themselves (Bartunek and Moch 1987; Weber and Manning 2001). Rather, organizational members interact with and affirm the existence of events, casting them in a particular light through the process of sensemaking (Dutton 1993). As such, individual sensemaking processes are essential to understanding employees’ experience of and reactions to organizational change. However, objective measures of change exposure do not capture employee sensemaking during change. This suggests that it would be useful for future research to consider relationships between objective and subjective measures of organizational change. Loretto et al. (2010) suggested that they examine both objective and subjective measures of an organizational change event. However, all the measures of the change event assessed in this study were based on employees’ ratings of the change, which would then suggest that these are subjective measures. It is critical that we begin to compare relationships between objective and subjective measures of change and different measures of employee health and well-being. By including both objective and subjective measures of change exposure within a single study, researchers can then directly answer questions about whether objective measures underestimate the effects of organizational change on employee health and wellbeing. Practically, it is essential that we assess the extent to which different types of measures of organizational change events are associated with employee health and well-being so that we are better able to manage the implications of change. If we are underestimating the impact of change events on health and well-being when using objective measures, this will require change practitioners and managers to reconsider how they implement and manage change to reduce the negative impacts of change on employee health and well-being. A second recommendation for future research concerns the need for models of the antecedents of employee health and well-being during or after change to account for a much broader range of factors that have been identified as influencing change outcomes. Research in the change field suggests that change processes used when introducing organizational change (e.g., information, participation, and justice) influence employee health and well-being (Bordia et al. 2004; Miller et al. 1994; Schweiger and DeNisi 1991). In addition, other research suggests that aspects of the change context such as an employee’s perceptions that change occurs very frequently (Rafferty and Jimmieson 2017; Rafferty and Restubog 2010) and that their organization has a poor change history (Rafferty and Restubog 2010) influence employee health and well-being. Overall, there are several antecedents of employee health and well-being during change that have been largely ignored by researchers in both the objective and subjective exposure to change areas. I argue that there is a need to consider not only the content of change, which is what current models have focused on, but also on the context of change and the processes used when implementing change. The third recommendation for future research is that there is an enhanced focus on identifying mediating and moderating factors that influence relationships between

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exposure to change and employee health and well-being. Some attention has considered mediators and moderators of relationships between objectively and subjectively assessed organizational change and employee health and well-being. However, as noted earlier, there is little commonality in terms of the variables identified by researchers using objective versus subjective measures of change. Apart from a focus on psychosocial work characteristics such as job insecurity, there is little overlap in the mediators identified by authors focused on objective versus subjective measures of change. Except for gender, there is little overlap in the factors identified as moderators in the two areas of research. It would be useful to consider the broad range of moderators that could influence the strength and/or direction of relationships between change exposure and employee health and well-being. Also, of note, is that there has been a distinct lack of focus on the role of individuals’ personality characteristics when developing models of the factors that predict employee health and well-being during and after change. Only one study (Kivimaki et al. 1998) explored the role of an employee personality characteristic – hostility – as a moderator of relationships. However, it is likely that a range of employee personality characteristics and other individual differences are important in determining their responses to change. For example, research has identified employee dispositional resistance to change (DRTC) as an important predictor of employees’ responses to change events (Oreg 2003, 2006). People who are high on DRTC prefer to stick to a routine, are more likely to experience a negative emotional reaction to change, focus on short-term outcomes of change events, and are cognitively rigid in that they do not like to change their thinking. DRTC has been found to be associated with resistance to change attitudes (Oreg 2006). Evidence suggests that dispositional resistance to change is likely to be associated with poor well-being (Turgut et al. 2016). It is likely, for example, that DRTC will moderate relationships between exposure to change (assessed objectively and subjectively) and poor employee well-being such that people who are higher on this characteristic will experience poorer health and well-being when confronted with change. As such, I would suggest that future research needs to incorporate relevant personality characteristics and individual difference variables as moderators of relationships between exposure to change and employee health and well-being.

Conclusion This review suggests, in general, change events – regardless of whether they are assessed with objective or subjective measures – have a negative impact on a wide range of measures of employee health and well-being. More recent research that has focused on a wider range of aspects of the subjective content of change reveals that some aspects of change also may be positively associated with employee health and well-being. This review identifies several directions for future research in the area such as inclusion of a wider range of aspects of the content of change, and consideration of the change context and the change processes used when introducing change as antecedents of employee health and well-being. Future research also

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should consider including objective and subjective measures of change in a single study to enable comparison of the relationships between these measures and employee health and well-being. Finally, there is a need to consider a wider range of mediating and moderating processes that link organizational change events with employee health and well-being.

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Psychological Contracts and Employee Health

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Jacqueline A-M Coyle-Shapiro, Sandra Costa, and Chiachi Chang

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychological Contracts: Conceptualization and Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Evidence: What Do We Know? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Links Between Psychological Contract Breach and Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Evidence Linking Psychological Contracts and Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moderators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PC Breach and Post-Breach States: Acute Versus Chronic Health Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Research Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The primary thrust of psychological contract (PC) research has focused on employees’ outward directed responses when they experience contract breach and violation. These responses have been primarily directed at the organization as the source of the psychological contract breach. In doing so, the inward-focused J. A.-M. Coyle-Shapiro (*) Department of Management, London School of Economics, London, UK Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Costa ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] C. Chang International Business School Suzhou (IBSS), Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), Suzhou, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_12

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consequences of breach on employees’ health have been relegated to the sidelines. We place the spotlight on the health consequences of psychological contracts and, in particular, employees’ experience of contract breach and violation. In this chapter, we begin with a brief review of the conceptualization of psychological contracts and examine the theoretical links between psychological contracts and health. We present the emerging empirical evidence on the deleterious effects of breach and violation on employee health. We review potential moderators that may strengthen or weaken the effects of contract breach/violation on health. Given that contract breach occurs regularly, how do individuals cope postbreach and what are the effects on their health? Finally, we outline a number of avenues for future research to advance knowledge on the relationship between psychological contracts and employee health. Keywords

Psychological contract breach · Psychological contract violation · Health and well-being · Job demands-resources model · Effort-reward imbalance model · Conservation of resources theory · Acute and chronic health · Post-violation model

Introduction The employee-organization relationship is a fundamental one for employees (CoyleShapiro et al. 2004), and the exchange relationship that develops has important consequences for both the organization and employees. Psychological contracts capture “an individual’s beliefs regarding the terms of conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between the focal person and another party” (Rousseau 1989, p. 123). The predominant theory is the social exchange (Blau 1964) and the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner 1960), and to this end, it provides a relevant explanation for the consequences of an individual’s evaluation of their psychological contract and, in particular, contract breach and violation. However, the emphasis of research attention has been on examining the outward-oriented consequences of psychological contract breach to the detriment of understanding the inward-focused consequences – employee health. To stimulate research attention, we place the spotlight on the health consequences of psychological contracts. To start, we provide a brief review of the psychological contract, its conceptualization prior to examining the theoretical links between psychological contract breach and health. We then examine the emerging empirical evidence and potential moderators that could accentuate or dampen the effects of contract breach on health. In light of the prevalence of contract breach, how do individuals “live with contract breach” and when it is likely to have a deleterious effect on health? We present an initial conceptual model to explore this. Finally, we outline avenues for future research to help advance knowledge on how psychological contracts affect employee health.

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Psychological Contracts: Conceptualization and Consequences Psychological contract breach and violation are the primary mechanisms for the association between psychological contract and negative outcomes. Psychological contract breach is defined as “the cognition that one’s organization has failed to meet one or more obligations within one’s psychological contract in a manner commensurate with one’s contributions” (Morrison and Robinson 1997, p. 230). Psychological contract violation is described as “an intense reaction of outrage, shock, resentment, and anger” (Rousseau 1989, p. 129) and captures the emotional and affective response that may arise from a breach (Morrison and Robinson 1997; Zhao et al. 2007; Dulac et al. 2008). Psychological contract breach can be experienced in different ways: as a discrete event (i.e., promised promotion did not materialize) or the ongoingness of micro-incidents or events (Conway and Briner 2002; Chang et al. 2015) that accumulate to form an overall perception of psychological contract breach.

Empirical Evidence: What Do We Know? Psychological contract breach has dominated empirical investigations in the pursuit of understanding how employees react to “broken promises” by their organization. The bulk of the research has focused on outward-directed attitudes and behavior toward the organization – psychological contract breach is associated with decreased attitudes toward the organization such as lower commitment (Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000), lower trust in the organization (Robinson 1996; Zhao et al. 2007), lower job satisfaction (Raja et al. 2004; Robinson and Rousseau 1994), and more cynical attitudes toward the organization (e.g., Johnson and O’Leary-Kelly 2003). A corresponding effect exists with employee behavior. Employees are less willing to engage in positive work behaviors (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior, work performance), more likely to increase negative behavior (e.g., counterproductive work behavior) as a form of revenge seeking to rebalance the perceived inequity in the exchange relationship (Bordia et al. 2008; Coyle-Shapiro and Kessler 2000; Doden et al. 2018; Lester et al. 2002; Robinson 1996; Robinson and Morrison 2000). Overall, these findings and those from the meta-analyses (Bal et al. 2008; Zhao et al. 2007) are consistent in demonstrating that employees reciprocate the perceived behavior of their employer through adjusting their attitudes and behavior. Given the emphasis on a “tit for tat” explanation, why would psychological contract breach and violation affect employees’ health?

Theoretical Links Between Psychological Contract Breach and Health Research exploring the linkage between psychological contract breach and health is on the ascendency, and potential theoretical explanations have been uncovered to include job demands-resources model (Demerouti et al. 2001), effort-reward imbalance model (Siegrist 1996), and conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll 1989).

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Job demands-resources model (Demerouti et al. 2001) posits that job demands and job resources determine employees’ well-being. Job demands refer to any aspect of the job that requires physical or psychological effort for employees. On the contrary, job resources include aspects of the job that can reduce physical and/or psychological costs, facilitate the attainment of work goals, or contribute to an individual’s growth (Hakanen et al. 2008). Higher job resources trigger employee engagement, leading to other positive work outcomes (Schaufeli and Bakker 2004). Drawing on these insights, Parzefall and Hakanen (2010) conceptualize psychological contract fulfillment as a job resource providing employees with a sense of being cared for and promoting their safety. Such fulfillment would enhance employee health. In a sample of Finnish public sector employees, they found that psychological contract fulfillment facilitated greater employee engagement, which had enhancing effects on their mental health. Siegrist (1996) proposed the effort-reward imbalance model to explain how the psychosocial work environment at work impacts employees’ health outcomes. Specifically, this model focuses on the balance between the effort, such as spent energy and working hours, and the reward, such as pay, job security, and recognition, for employees. High effort and low reward are detrimental to employees’ health and well-being. Noordin and Panatik (2015) posited that the imbalance of effort and reward itself would lead to psychological contract breach, and Reimann and Guzy (2017, p. 3) stated that “psychological contract breach is a perceived imbalance that acts as a psychosocial work stressor and affects employee health as a result of negative stress reactions, similar to the imbalance between efforts and rewards.” In an empirical study of German employees, the authors found that psychological contract breach affected mental and physical health, and these effects were contingent upon the nature of the contract breach. Their findings demonstrate that mental health partially explained the impact of psychological contract breach on physical health. A nuanced finding was that psychological contract breach of long-term job security and job autonomy significantly predicted both mental and physical health, whereas psychological contract breach of career opportunities and high pay did not predict any health outcomes. Hobfoll (1989) introduced conservation of resources theory to explain how individuals experience stress. Individuals strive to maintain or gain internal and external resources that foster goal attainment, and factors that induce the loss of or threaten the loss of resources are regarded as stressors. Based on conservation of resources theory, Deng et al. (2018) argued that psychological contract violation acts as an organizational stressor because it engenders emotional and cognitive challenges for employees as they strive to acquire, retain, and protect psychological resources. Along similar lines, Priesemuth and Taylor (2016) proposed that psychological contract violation induces depressive moods because broken promises deplete and drain employee resources, leading to a state of depression. Their findings reveal that psychological contract violation was a positive predictor of depressive moods, and this effect was stronger for employees with high psychological entitlement as their sense of deservingness amplifies the perceptions of resource loss.

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Empirical Evidence Linking Psychological Contracts and Health An early meta-analysis (Robbins et al. 2012) found that psychological contract breach explained additional variance in burnout, stress, and negative emotions above that accounted for by distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. When employees experience broken promises, this acts as a psychosocial stressor leading to psychological stress reactions. Broken promises can reduce predictability and control in the employment relationship as employees no longer know what to expect (Chambel and Oliveira-Cruz 2010). Empirical examination of the relationship between psychological contract breach and health is still in its infancy, but the evidence to date supports the tenet that psychological contract breach leads to negative health outcomes. Conway and Briner (2002) found that psychological contract breach was associated with reduced well-being. In addition, two studies found that psychological contract breach was associated with employee burnout (Cantisano et al. 2007; Chambel and Oliveira-Cruz 2010), and Guest and Clinton (2010) found that unfulfilled obligations were associated with increased sickness absence and poorer general health. Reimann and Guzy (2017) found that mental health partially mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and physical health, suggesting that psychological contract breach is a harmful stressor. Duran et al. (2020) extend this line of investigation by demonstrating that unfairness and self-efficacy mediated the relationship between psychological contract violation and stress and anxiety. Therefore, the experience of psychological contract violation undermines an employee’s self-efficacy because of the absence of job resources, while the lack of perceived organizational reciprocation creates unfairness. The resultant outcomes are stress and anxiety. The emerging and growing evidence suggests that employees’ experience of psychological contract breach and violation has an effect on their mental and physical health. We now turn to exploring some of the boundary conditions that may attenuate or accentuate this relationship.

Moderators We explore three types of moderators: individuals’ characteristics, employment relationship, and the macro context in which they are embedded. These may provide additional insights on the factors that promote or reduce the negative impact of psychological contract breach and violation on health outcomes. Individual Characteristics. Regarding individual characteristics, two types of moderators can be identified: stable dispositions and personal resources. Previous research has shown that dispositions may play an important role in how psychological contract breach impacts one’s health. Specifically, Karagonlar et al. (2016) examined reciprocation wariness, which is a stable disposition concerning a suspiciousness of other’s willingness to follow the norm of reciprocity (Cotterell et al. 1992; Lynch et al. 1999), as a moderator in the psychological contract fulfilment-

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perceived organizational support relationship. High reciprocation wariness was found to eliminate the positive effects of psychological contract fulfillment and exert additional influence on psychosomatic strain and voluntary turnover. This occurs because high-wary employees interpret psychological contract fulfillment as a way for the organization to take advantage of the norm of reciprocity to promote its own objectives (Karagonlar et al. 2016). Psychosomatic strain reflects the experience of physical complaints such as fatigue, sleep problems, and headache. Other research examined the role of personal resources (or lack of) as moderators. On the one hand, drawing from the job demands-resources model, Costa and Neves (2017a) tested revenge and forgiveness cognitions as personal resources that strengthen or dimmish the relationship between psychological contract breach and emotional exhaustion. Findings indicate that forgiveness cognitions have a buffering effect, which suggests that individuals who forgive the organization for the transgression feel less emotionally exhausted (Costa and Neves 2017a). In addition, Garcia et al. (2018) studied the relationship between PC breach and insomnia among older workers (above 40 years old) drawing on conservation of resources theory. They further assessed generativity concerns as a personal resource that would buffer the negative impact of psychological contract breach. Generativity is “the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation” (Erikson 1963, p. 267). In two studies using employee-spouse dyads, they reported that psychological contract breach is related to insomnia via psychological distress for those with low levels of generativity concerns. On the other hand, Achnak et al. (2018) also drawing from conservation of resources theory argued that fatigue, as a result of lack of resources, moderates the relationship between psychological contract breach and negative emotions with further implications to stress levels, because “the levels of energy available when facing an affective work event such as a psychological contract breach, will influence the intensity of the emotional reaction” (p. 3) and the ability to effectively cope with the event. Organizational Context. How individuals perceive their employment relationship in terms of commitment and identification can also influence how their health is impacted following psychological contract breach. Specifically, Reimann (2016) found that overcommitted employees are at a higher risk of developing poor mental health if they experience psychological contract breach compared to those who are not overly committed to their work. Because overcommitted employees exert increased effort on behalf of the organization and sustain that effort for a long time, they find it harder to make sense of and cope with imbalanced situations (Reimann 2016) and find it harder to deal with negative experiences. Deng et al. (2018) found that the relationship between psychological contract violation and resource depletion is stronger among those individuals who strongly identify with their organization. The opposite pattern was found for those who strongly identify with their profession. Another important perception of the organizational context to consider is job insecurity. So far, three studies reported job insecurity as an antecedent of psychological contract breach (Costa and Neves 2017b; Piccoli and De Witte 2015; Shoss et al. 2018). Both job insecurity and psychological contract breach have been conceptualized as stressors that further impact one’s health (Cheng and Chan

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2008; Costa and Neves 2017b). Accordingly, the accumulation of stressors can exacerbate the negative impact on an individual’s health and well-being. Macro Context. The employee-organization context is rarely examined yet provides important insights about how individuals interpret their exchange relationship with their employer and reciprocity. Most studies on psychological contracts and health have been conducted in Western countries. Preliminary evidence shows that culture impacts the intensity of relationships between psychological contract breach and outcomes (Costa et al. 2017). However, due to the paucity of studies capturing health outcomes, it is not possible to gauge whether there are any differences between PC breach and health-related constructs across cultural contexts. It is plausible that, for instance, individuals in high power distance countries feel less stressed when they experience a breach because they are more accepting of negative events out of respect, esteem to authority figures, and loyalty (Farh et al. 2007). The industry in which the studies take place is rarely considered in the discussion of the findings. An exception is Garcia et al. (2018), who upon reflecting on the fact that the effects of psychological contract breach on distress and insomnia may have been intensified by compassion fatigue (i.e., less capable of being empathetic toward other’s suffering, Figley 1995), representative of caring professionals and influences the experience of psychological distress (Adams et al. 2006). The empirical evidence that exists conceptualizes the experience of psychological contract breach and violation as a harmful stressor that damages psychological and physical health. That said, there is an absence of empirical investigations that examine when this is more likely to occur and what counteracting factors can nullify this effect. As employees’ experience of psychological contract breach occurs frequently (Conway and Briner 2002; Reimann and Guzy 2017), are the effects on health short-lived or do they linger over time?

PC Breach and Post-Breach States: Acute Versus Chronic Health Problems After a negative disruption of psychological contract (i.e., breach), some employees quit their organization (Turnley and Feldman 1999), but other employees stay employed with the same employer (Tomprou et al. 2015). For those who stay, they need to cope with the disruption of their psychological contract. The coping process and the organization’s actions are critical to reaching a resolution and a positive psychological contract status (i.e., psychological contract reactivation or thriving; Tomprou et al. 2015). However, if the post-breach events are not focused on a resolution, the employee’s psychological contract may remain impaired or even be dissolved (Tomprou et al. 2015). This section will discuss the possible health outcomes of a positive or a no resolution of the psychological contract breach. The distinction between acute and chronic health problems conveys a more comprehensive and granulated view of the impact of psychological contract breach and subsequent psychological contract status on individuals’ health. Acute health problems are those that are of short duration and tend not to involve restriction of

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activities nor medical attendance, whereas chronic health problems are defined broadly as conditions that last 1 year and require ongoing medical attention or limit activities of daily living or both (CDC 2021). To develop an understanding of how psychological contract breach leads to acute and chronic health problems, we draw on the effort-recovery model (Meijman and Mulder 1998), previous knowledge about psychological contract breach as a stressor (Costa and Neves 2017; Gakovic and Tetrick 2003), and the post-violation model (Tomprou et al. 2015). The effort-recovery model states that events requiring individual effort lead to stress reactions such as fatigue and that once the individual is no longer exposed to the stressful event, the reactions are reversed and recovery follows (Meijman and Mulder 1998). Putting this model in the context of psychological contract breach, acute health-related problems may occur after the individual experiences a psychological contract breach event. Positive resolution of the psychological contract breach only happens if the organization provides an effective remedy and if the individual copes effectively and accepts the situation. A positive resolution means that the psychological contract can go back to its previous terms or be better than the previous version (reactivation or thriving, respectively; Tomprou et al. 2015). Consequently, the psychophysiological processes activated during the psychological contract breach return to the baseline, and the individual recovers (Meijman and Mulder 1998) (Fig. 1). A completely different scenario materializes when following a psychological contract breach and acute reaction: there is no resolution. No resolution means that the organization does not intend to provide a remedy or solution and the individual is not able to cope with the situation. In worse cases, individuals can also perceive accumulated psychological contract breaches. As a consequence, the psychological contract will be impaired (i.e., psychological contract is less beneficial than before) or dissolved (i.e., continuous, chronic, and dysfunctional state of felt violation) (Tomprou et al. 2015). Individuals who remain in these states are likely to develop chronic health-related issues. The main underlying reason is linked to the activation of psychophysiological systems, which are maintained over long periods (Meijman

PC Reactivation

Organizational response

PC breach

Positive Resolution

PC Thriving

Recovery Baseline

Acute stress reaction

Individual coping

No Resolution

Sustained Activation

PC Impairment

Chronic Health Problems

PC Dissolution

Fig. 1 Model of psychological contract breach and psychological contract states on acute and chronic health problems

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and Mulder 1998). This prolonged and sustained activation with no return to the baseline levels leads to an accumulative process, which in turn results in chronic health problems (Meijman and Mulder 1998), such as chronic fatigue, tension, and persistent sleep problems (Sluiter et al. 2001; van Hooff et al. 2005). Whether an employee’s health suffers as a consequence of psychological contract breach is also contingent upon the organization’s subsequent actions in terms of remedies. Recently, Henderson et al. (2020) found that repair tactics, such as full penance (i.e., offering full reparation), partial penance, apologies, and excuses, were effective in the mitigation of the negative effects of psychological contract breach on outwardly focused outcomes. Costa and Neves (2017a) also found that when individuals forgive the organization, they feel less emotionally exhausted after the experience of a psychological contract breach. Combining these preliminary findings, it is possible that the remedies put in place by the organization may “fix” the psychological contract and prevent or minimize negative health outcomes.

Future Research Directions Theoretical development and empirical investigation into the impact of psychological contract breach and violation on health are still in its infancy. We highlight future research directions that pertain to (a) psychological contract breach as a stressor, (b) potential operationalizations of these links (mediators), (c) factors that can exacerbate or ameliorate the relationship between psychological contract breach and health outcomes, (d) attention to differential outcomes of post-breach states, and (e) appropriate methodologies. Building on current frameworks viewing psychological contract breach as a psychosocial stressor influencing employee health, future research could examine these theoretical links and unpack the nature of such stressors. Wheaton (1996) differentiated event stressors (discrete and observable events with clear onset and offset points) from chronic stressors (the accumulative stress from everyday transactions with the environment). Following Wheaton’s conceptualization, Chang et al. (2015) argued that event-based psychological contract breach (salient and discrete perception of a broken promise) should be differentiated from an accumulative psychological contract breach process (ambiguous, continuous, and minor erosion of promises). They suggested that the discussion of accumulative psychological contract breach process may add value to the understanding of psychological contract breach and health, because there may be different mechanisms leading to differential health outcomes. Specifically, they have posited that event-based psychological contract breach may trigger instant and intensive physical response (e.g., blood pressure change), whereas accumulative psychological contract breach process induces prolonged physiological change (e.g., immune response). Future research should tackle whether the two types of psychological contract breach stressors have differential effects on employees’ health.

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Additional research examining factors that can exacerbate or minimize the effects of psychological contract breach on health-related outcomes is needed. Based on previous research on personality and psychological contract (e.g., Ho et al. 2004; Orvis et al. 2008), traits such as conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness may explain variance in health reactions to psychological contract breach events. For instance, neuroticism has been found to differentially influence cognitive and emotional responses to breach (Ho et al. 2004) and also to be related to physical and mental health outcomes (Hooker et al. 1992). Following the conceptualization of psychological contract breach as a stressor (Costa and Neves 2017; Lapointe et al. 2013) and job demands-resources model (Demerouti et al. 2001), personal and job resources enhance the individual’s ability to control and cope with stress at the workplace (Hobfoll et al. 2003) and buffer the relationship between stressors and outcomes. Personal resources such as resilience or positive psychological capital are malleable and open to development, and therefore, they can be trained (Luthans et al. 2008). For instance, PsyCap (which comprises self-efficacy, hope, resilience, and optimism) have been shown to minimize the impact of PC breach on performance and deviant behaviors (Costa and Neves 2017b), and an individual’s PsyCap is also associated with employee well-being (Avey et al. 2010). Having social support promotes health by acting as a protective buffer from stress as it helps individuals reframe the situation as well as providing the individual with instrumental resources to cope (Heaphy and Dutton 2008). Therefore, social support is likely to dampen the effects of contract breach on health. Physical exercise is another buffer in developing psychological resistance to psychological stress (Schmidt et al. 2016). The inclusion of these types of moderators would help identify which employees are more susceptible to experiencing negative health outcomes following psychological contract breach. Research on the post-breach state of psychological contract is mostly conceptual (Tomprou et al. 2015; Rousseau et al. 2018), and thus empirical investigations are warranted. In the previous section, we propose a model that combines Tomprou et al.’s (2015) work with the effort-recovery framework (Meijman and Mulder 1998), which we hope will foster further research on the impact of psychological contract breach and psychological contract states on individuals’ health. Moreover, understanding the impact of a single psychological contract breach versus accumulated psychological contract breaches without resolutions may also provide interesting insights into this relationship. Previous research found that mistreatment leads to rumination (Rafaeli et al. 2012). Intense sense-making activity may lead to rumination, which in turn has the potential to explain the heightened effects of psychological contract breach on one’s health. This may happen because rumination is associated with personal distress (Vough and Caza 2017), impaired somatic health (Marcus et al. 2008), and chronic illness (Soo et al. 2009). Finally, evidence from public health demonstrates a positive relationship between paid work and health, and these effects endure over a 10-year period into retirement (Di Gessa et al. 2020). However, what is missing is an account of the quality of the employment relationship, which if characterized by the prolonged accumulation of

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psychological contract breach or regular events of breach may nullify the healthenhancing benefits of being employed. Future longitudinal research could explore the relative effects of paid work vis-a-vis the longevity of psychological contract disturbances on subsequent health outcomes in the short and longer term. Field research that combines employee perceptions of psychological contract breach with capturing cortisol and oxytocin concentrations, blood pressure, and heart rate would uncover the physiological effects on the cardiovascular and neuroendocrine systems. Studying the effects of psychological contract breach and violation on health outcomes poses relevant questions about what methodologies researchers should use. Previous research relied in self-reported methodologies asking participants through surveys or interviews to rate their health (somatic complaints, sleep quality, burnout, etc.). To achieve a more comprehensive view of the impact of psychological contract breach, alternative research designs are needed, for instance, daily measures of breach events as well as different health indicators that go beyond self-reported measures. For example, a currently available option is the use of technologies such as smart watches which have the ability to register information regarding sleep quality, exercise time, blood pressure, and breathing quality. Finally, proxies for health outcomes such as frequency of sick absences may be gathered from organizational records.

Conclusion Our goal was to highlight how an employee’s evaluation of their psychological contract impacts their psychological and physical health. We reviewed the existing empirical evidence which points to the experience of psychological contract breach and violation as having a deleterious effect on employees’ health. As an extension, we examine potential moderators that may facilitate or dampen the negative impact of breach and violation. We outline how contract breach may lead to chronic health problems by integrating effort-recovery model and the post-violation model. In closing, we provide a number of directions for future research to help advance our understanding of how and when organizations’ broken promises have a damaging effect on employees’ health.

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Fairness at Work

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Constanze Eib, Constanze Leineweber, and Claudia Bernhard-Oettel

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Is Fairness at Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Definitions and Measurement of Organizational Justice and Fairness at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . Relevance of Fairness at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Consequences of Fairness at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work-Related Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Health-Related Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Wider Consequences of Fairness at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fairness at Work and Organizational Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fairness at Work Before the Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fairness at Work During and After the Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Change and Stability in Fairness Due to Organizational Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Can Organizations Manage Fairness Effectively During Organizational Changes? . . . . . Boundary Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intervention Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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C. Eib (*) Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden Division of Epidemiology Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] C. Leineweber Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] C. Bernhard-Oettel Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_13

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Abstract

Fairness at work is a crucial factor for lasting work performance and well-being at work. The chapter begins with the conceptualizations of fairness at work and organizational justice, its different dimensions and developments over time, as well as the multiple ways on how to measure the concepts. Next, the chapter condenses the extensive empirical evidence on the consequences of fairness at work for employees’ work-related attitudes and behaviors as well as the consequences for groups, customers, and other stakeholders. We particularly highlight the growing literature on fairness and health, providing an account of longitudinal studies on a selection of health outcomes, underlying mechanisms for the justice-health relationships, and evidence of reversed effects. The chapter focuses on several aspects of fairness at work that are relevant at different stages of organizational changes. It is outlined how fairness at work can help employees manage uncertainties, threatened identities, and changed inputs and outputs that organizational changes often trigger. It is presented how, why, and when fairness perceptions may themselves undergo a change, triggered by organizational changes. Lastly, we briefly present issues relevant for implementing fairness at work effectively, outlining relevant boundary conditions and available intervention studies. Keywords

Justice · Organizational justice · Fairness · Occupational health · Organizational change

Introduction In this chapter, we present fairness at work as a crucial factor to well-being and health and as an important aspect to consider during organizational changes. Although there are vast amounts of evidence that fairness at work is important, there is far less knowledge on how to manage fairness effectively. Scholars describe fairness at work often in relation to organizational justice. Byrne and Cropanzano (2001, p. 4) defined organizational justice “at its most general level, [. . .] [as] an area of psychological inquiry that focuses on perceptions of fairness in the workplace.” Much of the literature uses the terms organizational justice and fairness at work interchangeably but emphasizes that any inquiry is always a subjective perception and personal judgement made by an individual. In addition to the concepts of justice and fairness (In this chapter, when referring to a specific study, we use the word justice when the study participants were asked to evaluate whether justice rules were adhered to or were violated. We use the word fairness, when study participants were asked directly to evaluate the fairness of the conduct by, for instance, a supervisor or an organization. However, even though we

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aim for consistency as much as possible, the breadth in scales and measurement options made it difficult to reliably denote a concept as justice or fairness), scholars regularly use the expressions injustice and unfairness as well as low justice and low fairness to refer to violations of justice rules or the absence of fairness. Since there is a validated scale on injustice (Colquitt et al. 2014), providing evidence that justice and injustice are not the diametrical opposite, we will use the expressions of low justice/low fairness when describing study results based on justice measures and use the expressions of injustice when study results were based on the validated scale of injustice. The chapter is organized as follows. First, we give an introduction to the organizational justice and fairness at work literature, outlining the concept developments and relevance. Second, we provide an overview of the consequences of organizational justice and fairness at work. Here, we focus particularly on healthrelated consequences and review mostly longitudinal studies, which provide stronger evidence for possible causal relationships. We also discuss reversed effects, that is, health may influence subsequent justice perceptions and possible mechanisms that may underlie the justice-health relationship. Third, we focus on the role of organizational justice and fairness in times of organizational change. We conclude with a brief outlook on how to manage fairness at work effectively, highlighting studies on conditions that can alter justice effects and on interventions.

What Is Fairness at Work? Definitions and Measurement of Organizational Justice and Fairness at Work The organizational justice and fairness literature has a long scientific tradition (Colquitt et al. 2005). Between 1949 and 1976, most scholars focused on aspects of distributive justice, and several theoretical models (relative deprivation, social exchange theory, equity theory) were proposed relating to this aspect. Distributive justice refers to the appropriateness of outcome allocations. For instance, employees may assess whether the outcomes they receive are appropriate given their effort, contribution, and performance. There are various rules to guide outcome allocations, among others, the equity rule (rewarding employees according to contributions), the equality rule (allocating similar resources to all employees), and the need rule (providing compensation based on personal need) (Deutsch 1975). Distributive justice is a relevant issue during performance appraisals and salary negotiations but also work task allocations among team members, promotion decisions, and layoffs and terminations during organizational change initiatives. The fairness of outcome allocations is a highly sensitive topic for employees and regularly leads to conflicts, frustrations, and negative employee reactions. Despite the relevance of outcome fairness to employees, scholars recognized that the procedures that lead to outcome allocations are another crucial factor in understanding employee reactions. In the years until the late 1990s, empirical findings in

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relation to procedural justice were prominent in the organizational literature. Procedural justice refers to the appropriateness of the procedures in decision contexts. Employees judge whether procedures that lead to outcome allocations follow rules of consistency (all employees are treated in the same way), accuracy (accurate information is used as basis for decisions), correctability (mistakes can be revoked), ethicality (professional conduct is upheld), bias suppression (no discrimination), and representativeness (relevant groups have a say) (Leventhal 1980; Thibaut and Walker 1975). From the 1980 to the early 2000, various theoretical models were introduced, which integrated the different justice dimensions (e.g., fairness theory, fairness heuristics theory, group engagement model). Another important development in the literature regards the growing consensus that interpersonal treatment is an additional major ingredient to employees’ fairness perceptions. Research on interactional justice (sometimes also called relational justice) appeared after the 1990s (Bies 2001), and with it, extensive debates on how many different dimensions or facets of justice exist. Interactional justice refers to the appropriateness of the conduct of organizational members, and it was later split into two separate dimensions: interpersonal and informational justice. Interpersonal justice is characterized by the conduct of a supervisor who follows rules of respect and dignity (treating employees with politeness) and propriety (refrain from improper remarks). Informational justice is about whether adequate accounts, sufficient, timely, and truthful explanations are given to employees when communicating outcome allocations. Since Colquitt’s work in 2001, it has been widely accepted to consider organizational justice as consisting of four dimensions: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. He summarized different conceptualizations and justice rules and proposed items for each dimension that assess whether a specific justice rule is adhered to or not (Colquitt 2001). Another extensive debate among scholars followed adding to the depth of the concept and measurement. Specifically, it was cast into doubt to what extent individuals go through the cognitively burdening process of evaluating whether, for instance, a supervisor has followed each of the various justice rules. Instead, several scholars proposed that individuals form a general sense of fairness. This movement gained real momentum when Ambrose and Schminke (2009) developed a measure for overall justice, defined as global assessment of the fairness of social entities. To keep with our definitions provided in the introduction part and in line with Colquitt and Rodell (2015), we label this concept overall fairness: the items ask individuals to evaluate the appropriateness of conduct of social entities and do not ask whether specific justice rules were adhered to or not. Most often, overall fairness is considered in relation to the whole organization, yet it also can pertain to different sources, such as the supervisor. An open question is whether overall fairness can also pertain to specific events, such as whether a restructuring process was generally fair (for a discussion, see Colquitt and Rodell 2015). Several theoretical and practical advantages of focusing on overall fairness instead of the four justice dimensions have led to an increase in the number of studies on overall fairness (Ambrose et al. 2015). Overall fairness is considered a more accurate reflection of the fairness employees experience in the workplace. It is also assumed to be a stronger predictor

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for outcomes as it summarizes different justice dimensions, and it may provide better predictions when the outcomes of interest are rather broad, such as job satisfaction or performance. To date, the examination of the four justice dimensions remains popular and relevant, yet the amount of studies using overall fairness also increases. Given the various definitions and concepts, different measurements are available to capture justice or fairness at work. Figure 1 presents two well-known approaches to measure justice and fairness. It is possible to adapt Colquitt’s 2001 measure to several entities, such as the organization or the supervisor, or to refer to multiple or single events, such as decision outcomes in general or specific organizational change programs, performance appraisals, and promotion decisions. The overall fairness measure can be easily adapted to various entities.

Relevance of Fairness at Work The organizational justice literature has put forth several perspectives of why individuals care about justice. The three most well-known perspectives are of instrumental, relational, and deontic nature (Cropanzano et al. 2001). The instrumental perspective suggests that individuals value justice as far as it guarantees them favorable outcomes in the long run. The idea was based on studies on conflict resolution, where individual’s justice perceptions were impacted by how much voice and input they had in the decision-making (Thibaut and Walker 1975). Within the instrumental perspective, we also include the idea that justice is relevant for employees as it can help to manage uncertainty and increase predictability of the actions from decision-makers (Lind and van den Bos 2002). The relational perspective puts the focus on the idea that an adherence to justice rules by decision-makers provides individuals with information about their identity, such that it reassures them

Fig. 1 Sample items for two measures of justice and fairness perceptions. (*Items taken from Colquitt 2001. **Item taken from Ambrose and Schminke 2009)

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of their self-worth and self-esteem. Fair treatment conveys information about the individual’s relationship quality with decision-makers and group members (Tyler and Lind 1992). The deonance perspective highlights that people also value justice in and of itself. The model emerged from studies showing that individuals can behave against their own self-interest in order to punish unfair decision-making of others (Folger and Glerum 2015). At this point, the reader may wonder, why unfairness and injustice still persist in organizations, when justice and fairness are so important to employees for various reasons. Indeed, most of the literature has so far focused on the recipient of treatment, the employee. Justice enactment concerns the active role of the manager. Box 1 gives a brief summary of the justice enactment literature.

Box 1: Justice Enactment

Most of the literature on organizational justice/fairness at work has focused on the role of the recipient (i.e., the employee). However, the actor (i.e., the manager) and the observer (e.g., co-workers, customers) have been given more focus in recent years (for an overview, see Brockner et al. 2015). It is argued that the literature on organizational justice is limited when not taking into consideration managers’ motivation, ability, and discretion to behave fairly (Graso et al. 2019). Similar to employees, managers may act fairly out of instrumental, relational, or moral reasons (Scott et al. 2009). For instance, managers may adhere to justice rules as an impression management tactic to create a specific reputation of oneself, receive social approval, or as a power tactic. Managers may also behave fairly in order to create trustful relationships with their subordinates and increase positive attitudes and behaviors from them. Moral reasons may also be a motive for managers to adhere to justice rules, because they think it is the right thing to do. One of the challenges with the enactment of justice is that managers often lack the discretion from their organization to behave in a certain way. It has been argued that managers have the most discretion over interpersonal justice and the least over distributive justice (Scott et al. 2009). Being fair also takes a toll on the managers themselves, such that following procedural justice rules is associated with a depletion of self-regulatory resources (Johnson et al. 2014). However, there are also benefits to enacting justice to the managers themselves, for instance, they may enhance their own psychological well-being if they succeed in creating a justice climate within their work groups (Bernerth et al. 2016).

While this chapter focuses on the employees’ perspective, like much of the organizational justice literature has done so far, an increased attention to the side of the manager (as well as the combination of employee-manager justice perceptions and enactment) promises a deeper understanding of why feelings of injustice and unfairness have a high prevalence in today’s organizations.

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Consequences of Fairness at Work Work-Related Consequences Aside from the motives of being fair or wanting to be treated fairly, the importance of organizational justice can also be demonstrated by looking at the wide range of its work-related consequences. The relationships between organizational justice perceptions and employee’s work-related attitudes and behaviors have been well documented in several meta-analyses (Cohen-Charash and Spector 2001; Colquitt et al. 2001, 2013; Rupp et al. 2014). In sum, the meta-analyses show that perceptions of organizational justice have positive associations with work-related attitudes and behaviors, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance. Moreover, when employees perceive justice at their workplace, they are more likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors (including civic virtue, loyalty, and sportsmanship) and are less likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviors (including sabotage, retaliation, theft, and aggression). Organizational justice perceptions also associate with positive workplace relationships in terms of organizational support, trust, identification, and leader-member exchange. The strengths of the associations, however, vary by outcome variable, justice dimension, and source of the justice. Generally, meta-analyses provide evidence that organizational justice dimensions have strong associations with aspects of the social exchange relationship (trust, support, commitment, leader-member exchange). In comparison, associations with task performance, citizenship behaviors, and counterproductive work behaviors are generally weaker in strength. There is an ongoing discussion on whether justice perceptions referring to the supervisor have stronger effects to outcomes than justice perceptions referring to the organization (as found by Colquitt et al. 2013) or whether the strength of the relationships with outcomes depends on the similarity between the source of justice and outcome (called target similarity model, as found by Rupp et al. 2014). Independent of which idea is true, both studies imply that individuals’ justice and fairness perceptions are influenced not only by the organization but also, to a great and potentially larger extent, by the individual supervisor.

Health-Related Consequences Employee health has long been a topic of interest for organizations, but the literature on the health and well-being outcomes of organizational justice is rather young (Elovainio et al. 2013), with an increase in interest starting around the millennium shift. According to the WHO, health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO 1946) and can be measured through a plethora of different concepts and measures. This fact is mirrored in the literature, where studies have investigated organizational justice in relation to, among others, mental health, general health, sickness absence, and coronary heart disease. Below, we will provide a short summary of the latest research

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and thinking in the area of justice and health. In that, we will preponderantly concentrate on longitudinal studies, which allow for stronger conclusions on causality.

Longitudinal Evidence Although the organizational justice-health relationship has gained increasing attention during recent years, the number of longitudinal studies is still scarce, and the number of studied populations is even smaller. Many of the research findings stem from a small number of longitudinal studies, among others the Whitehall II study from the UK and the Finnish 10-Town study and, to some extent, the Swedish SLOSH study. Here, we give a short overview over the existing literature without claiming to provide a systematic review. One of the most commonly studied health outcomes in relation to organizational justice is mental health. Overall, research suggests that organizational justice is positively associated with mental health. A systematic review of prospective studies on organizational justice and mental health (Ndjaboué et al. 2012) identified 11 prospective studies of sufficient quality. A summative assessment of these studies provided evidence for an association between relational and procedural justice, respectively, and mental health, while evidence for distributive justice was less conclusive due to a lack of prospective studies. Since this review, a few more longitudinal studies have been published. Eib et al. (2018) reported significant effects from procedural justice to subsequent depressive symptoms and sickness absence in a representative sample of Swedish employees. Herr et al. (2019) studied changes in a combined measure of procedural and interactional justice over 2 years and found that an increase in justice is associated with an increase in self-rated mental health. Most of these articles measured mental health using self-reports. One exception provides an article using prescribed antidepressants, which found that employees who reported a decrease in procedural justice over 2 years had a higher risk for antidepressive medication prescription than those who reported stable high procedural justice (Persson et al. 2020). Another commonly studied health outcome is self-rated general health. While self-rated health is often measured with a single item, it has been shown to be a reliable predictor of morbidity and mortality (Idler and Benyamini 1997). Findings regarding a possible association between organizational justice and self-rated health are mixed. Studies based on Finnish hospital employees revealed that lower levels of procedural justice related to poor self-rated health among women, but not among men, and no association was found with relational justice (Elovainio et al. 2002; Kivimäki et al. 2003). Contrary to these findings, Kivimäki et al. (2004) reported that only men exposed to low relational justice or who experienced an adverse change in justice were at higher risk of poor health at later times. One study that investigated change in procedural justice in relation to self-rated health found that procedural justice was significantly associated with self-rated health over time and that improvements in procedural justice were associated with improvements in self-rated health (Leineweber et al. 2016). Likewise, Herr et al. (2020) found that an increase in a combined measure of procedural and interactional justice is associated with an

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increase in self-rated health. To summarize, there are some results suggesting an association between organizational justice and self-rated health, but results are far from clear and not supported in all studies. While coronary heart disease (CHD) has been commonly studied in relation to other factors of the psychosocial work environment, especially so job demands, job control, and effort-reward imbalance, its relation to organizational justice is less well documented. Only few prospective studies have investigated the association between organizational justice and CHD. Based on a large cohort of British civil servants, Kivimäki et al. (2005) found that employees who experienced high levels of relational justice had a lower risk of incident CHD than employees with a low or intermediate levels. In a later study with similar data (Kivimäki et al. 2008), it was tested whether lower blood pressure and lower rates of hypertension are one of the underlying reasons why employees perceiving high organizational justice are at lower risk of CHD than those who perceive low justice. Although organizational justice was related to both lower blood pressure and lower risk of CHD incidence, neither blood pressure nor hypertension did mediate the relationship. Two studies based on Finnish data have also been published. One found that procedural and relational justice were related to cardiac regulation (Elovainio et al. 2006a). The other only asked participants one question about the fairness of their supervisor and found that employees who reported high supervisory fairness had a 45% lower risk of cardiovascular death than those reporting low or intermediate justice (Elovainio et al. 2006b). The association between organizational justice and sickness absence has also received some attention. While sickness absence is not a direct measure of health, it is strongly related to it. One of the advantages with using sickness absence is that it is often studied using objective data, derived from employers or national registries (and thus is less susceptible to self-report bias). Generally, studies suggest that low organizational justice perceptions increase the risk of sickness absence. However, there is little consistency in the results, and between-study differences are immense (Robbins et al. 2012). This may be explained by the use of different measures of sickness absence ranging from all-cause sickness absence to sickness absence due to specific diagnoses, as well as the use of different lengths of sickness absence and follow-up times. Several longitudinal studies relying on large datasets and that have assessed sickness absence in an objective manner found support for an association between various justice indicators and sickness absence (Hjarsbech et al. 2014; Väänänen et al. 2004). Another study looked at any-cause and cause-specific disability pension and found that the highest risk for both types of disability pension was when employees reported several stressors at the same time, such as low organizational justice (average of procedural and interactional justice) together with high job demands and low job control (Juvani et al. 2018). This highlights that stressors at work often appear together and that the combined effect of stressors likely has a stronger impact on health than individual stressors do. To conclude, the number of longitudinal large-scale studies provides evidence that there is an association between organizational justice and fairness at work and health outcomes. Still, existing longitudinal studies often use different (proxy)

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measures of organizational justice/fairness and focus on specific dimensions of justice, which make it difficult to draw conclusions on all justice dimensions and overall fairness. Future longitudinal studies with good measures of organizational justice and fairness are needed to test different time lags as well as studies with an increased focus on understanding mechanisms underlying justice-health relationships.

Underlying Mechanisms Although there is increasing empirical interest in the direct effects between justice perceptions and health-related outcomes, limited attention has been given to better understand the underlying processes. Different mechanisms have been suggested, some based on justice theories and others based on stress theories. Despite the diversity of ideas, most scholars clearly point out organizational justice and fairness at work as the cause and health as the outcome. Related to the health literature, two main mechanisms have been suggested to underlie the causal relation between work stressors, for example, low organizational justice, and health. Those are the psychophysiological mechanism and the behavioral lifestyle mechanism (Kompier and Taris 2011). The first mechanism suggests that long-term exposure to a stressor disturbs recovery from stress due to prolonged activation of the bodily systems including the immune system. The second mechanism suggests that stressors lead to increased unhealthy behavior, such as increased alcohol intake, smoking, and less physical exercise. These two mechanisms are not mutually exclusive and may both be present. Still, while there is some empirical evidence for the first, psychophysiological pathway (Eib et al. 2015b; Manville et al. 2016), the second, behavioral lifestyle mechanism, has been less investigated and also received less support (Elovainio et al. 2003). Specifically, several studies investigating the underlying mechanism for the justice-health relationship focused on aspects of recovery. Two studies suggested that organizational justice perceptions are related to health outcomes through the effect on sleep problems (Elovainio et al. 2003, 2009). Manville et al. (2016) added onto that research and found support for their proposed serial mediation; such higher levels of organizational justice are related to fewer musculoskeletal disorders through fewer sleep disorders and less emotional exhaustion. Eib, von Thiele Schwarz, et al. (2015b) proposed that low organizational justice constitutes an important stressor to employees, triggering an increase in ongoing work-related thoughts, which prolongs the activation of the stressor of low justice and undermines health over time. They found that overall justice was associated with mental health and work-family conflict through the effect of ongoing work-related thoughts. However, Eib et al. (2018) found only cross-sectional associations between procedural justice and ongoing work-related thoughts but not over the period of 2 years. In one of the few studies using diary data, Wang et al. (2019) showed that day-to-day changes in interpersonal justice perceptions changed recovery experiences, which, in turn, predicted daily affective states. A different approach took Judge and Colquitt (2004), who suggested fair organizations are likely to help employees with questions regarding work and private life. They found that organizational justice perceptions

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were negatively associated with work-family conflict, which, in turn, was associated with higher stress levels. In sum, while different mechanisms for the justice-health relationship have been proposed, empirical tests with quality data are still largely lacking.

Reversed Effects While research generally assumes the causality to go from work stressors to health, the reversed relationship, where health affects perceptions of the work environment, has been acknowledged to exist as well. Generally, there are two ideas of how health may affect the work environment. The first idea is that health changes the perception of the work environment; the second idea is that health produces an actual transformation of the work environment (Kompier and Taris 2011). For health and organizational justice, these ideas have been called “affective perception” and “affective reaction” assumptions (Lang et al. 2011). The perception effect suggests that healthy employees view the treatment they receive as more positive, whereas workers with impaired health perceive fairness as more negatively. The reaction effect proposes that the work environment becomes less fair to unhealthy workers over time. Employees with impaired health may express more negative affect and withdraw from others, which likely undermines their relationship with co-workers and supervisors. Over time, the behavior of co-workers and supervisors may include avoiding employees with impaired health, and, as a result, employees with impaired health may perceive less social support and fairness from people at work. In this sense, health problems create a less fair environment for employees over time. An overview over the underlying mechanisms for the causal and reversed relationships between fairness at work and health is provided in Fig. 2. Empirical findings for the relationship from health to organizational justice perceptions are mixed. While the number of studies investigating reversed effects is limited, of those that did, many found significant relationships in both directions (justice -> health; health -> justice, the latter referring to reversed effects). Ybema and van den Bos (2010) found that sickness absence, but not depression, predicted distributive justice a year later and also that distributive justice contributed to lower

Fig. 2 Proposed underlying mechanisms for the causal and reversed relationships between fairness at work and health

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depressive symptoms and sickness absence in the following year. However, effects from organizational justice to health were much stronger than reversed effects, and they conclude that depressive symptoms and sickness absence rather are consequences than predictors of organizational justice. Similar results were reported by a Finnish study (Elovainio et al. 2013), where, in addition to causal effects from procedural and interactional justice to sickness absence, limited evidence for reversed causality was found. Sickness absence predicted procedural but not interactional justice. Likewise, a Swedish study investigating the effects of procedural justice on self-rated health found that a change in self-rated health predicted procedural justice, while also a change in procedural justice predicted self-rated health (Leineweber et al. 2016). In an attempt to not only test the direction of effects but also underlying mechanisms, Eib et al. (2018) found significant effects from health (depressive symptoms, sickness absence, self-rated health) to procedural justice. These reversed relationships were mediated by social support. Interestingly, while self-rated health was a predictor of justice, procedural justice did not predict selfrated health over time. Similarly, Lang et al. (2011) found only evidence for a reversed effect, such that depressive symptoms were associated with subsequent organizational justice perceptions. No longitudinal lagged effects between all four organizational justice dimensions and employee’ depressive symptoms were found. To conclude, there is some evidence for causal as well as reversed effects, but studies report mixed results and are somewhat inconclusive. While some studies found only significant effects from health to justice, other studies report effects in both directions. Yet other studies found only associations from justice to health, rather than the other way around (Elovainio et al. 2015).

The Wider Consequences of Fairness at Work Organizational justice and fairness perceptions do not only have an impact on the employees themselves. Particularly mistreatment has been studied and been found to have effects on other individuals within the same organization, but even beyond the employing organization to various stakeholders, such as customers or clients. Justice climate has also been given increasing attention. Justice climate refers to how a work group as a whole is treated (Naumann and Bennett 2000). The idea is that justice experiences can be shared among team members, and team members can create a shared mental model about decision-making, procedures, and interpersonal treatment. Studies generally support that team-level justice perceptions affect employees’ attitudes and behaviors beyond the effect of individual-level justice perceptions (Li et al. 2015). Also, justice climate affects team-helping behaviors and can also spread to organizational outsides and affect customer satisfaction. The effect that justice perceptions can affect stakeholders has also been empirically investigated, albeit to a more limited extent (Skarlicki et al. 2015). For instance, guest’s loyalty has been found to be related to how hotel management treated staff members (Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara et al. 2013). When employees treat each other poorly, bystanders evaluate the employing company more negatively (Porath et al. 2010).

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Moreover, supervisor’s justice perceptions have been found to affect subordinate’s family member perceptions of work-life conflict through subordinate’s justice perceptions (Hoobler and Hu 2013). It is complicated to predict how observers of unfairness will react (Skarlicki et al. 2015). For instance, a whole line of studies has shown that observers are sometimes willing to punish transgressors at their own cost, reduce citizenship behaviors toward the transgressor, engage in ostracism or gossip toward the transgressor, or actively try to solve conflicts. However, a particularly worrisome way that observers can react to mistreatment is victim blaming. Here, a relevant aspect for understanding these reactions is that many people want to believe in a just world were people get what they deserve (Lerner 1980). When observing others being unfairly treated, observers can be motivated to restore their belief in a just world, by deeming the victim of mistreatment as responsible and deserving of what they received. For instance, it was found that managers and co-workers gave lower evaluations and performance ratings to an employee who was treated unfairly by a former employer or their current line manager than to an employee who was treated fairly independent of the objective performance information (Skarlicki and Turner 2014). Observers of unfairness can both punish transgressors or help victims depending on individual and situational factors, where attributions of blame and emotions play a large part in determining the behavior of observers. The way in which justice perceptions can affect others within and outside of the organization has been investigated under the umbrella term trickle-down effects (Wo et al. 2019). These explain how, why, and when perceptions and evaluations flow down an organizational hierarchy. For instance, it has been found that a supervisor’s interactional justice received from his or her manager can affect subordinates’ interactional justice received from their supervisor (Ambrose et al. 2013). Similarly, the effects of justice and fairness perception can trickle out to people outside the organization, trickle up from subordinates to managers, trickle in from customers to employees, etc. Several ideas about the underlying mechanisms have been discussed. One idea is that middle managers imitate the behavior of upper management through social learning. Another idea is based on social exchange theory, such that employees who feel treated fairly by their organization want to reciprocate and return the favor to the organization by treating clients more fairly. A third idea is that behavior is more affect-laden, such that a middle manager who feels unfairly treated and as a result is frustrated and angry, will displace this aggression and target subordinates with violations of justice rules as subordinates are less powerful and lower in the organizational hierarchy. Empirical tests points to the validity of all of these three ideas depending on what type of justice and behavior is investigated (Wo et al. 2019). To conclude, justice and fairness are important topics for individuals, organizations, and the wider society, as justice and fairness perceptions are related to a variety of work- and health-related outcomes. Studies have shown that justice and fairness affect not only the direct receiver of the treatment but also have importance for colleagues, family members, and customers. In the next part, we focus on how organizational justice and fairness at work during organizational change.

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Fairness at Work and Organizational Change Organizational changes can take many forms, and there has been extensive debate in the change literature on how to best classify them. Organizational changes can be continuous or not, planned or emergent, leading to a transformation or adaption, need to take place urgently or over long time, and can be implemented with varying degrees of participation (Maes and Van Hootegem 2011). Depending on the attributes of the organizational change, individuals may face a range of consequences. For example, downsizing or mergers can involve layoffs with more part-time or temporary staff hired instead. There may be changes to work groups and management structures, and the workload may increase to make organizations more effective. However, the change may also lead to better job and career opportunities, learning possibilities, or new work practices that are more functional and better match changed needs. All of these examples imply that organizational changes, in one way or another, affect organization’s resource allocations, policies, or procedures. Therefore, organizational justice and fairness at work are important aspects for the successful management of organizational change. This part of the chapter focuses on the relevance of organizational justice and fairness at work in times of organizational change. We present the relevance of, and change in, justice and fairness perceptions relative to three time points: before the organizational change is implemented, during the organizational change, and when organizational outcomes become evident. Naturally, it is easier to point out the before, during, and after in a planned change program, whereas these phases may be less distinct in a continuous process of organizational improvements and adjustments. Furthermore, the pre-change time is often more distinct, whereas the time during and after change can be difficult to separate, since changes often are implemented stepwise in an organization. Figure 3 illustrates the relevance of various aspects of justice along the proposed time line and serves as a guide to structure this part of the chapter. Our literature review is not exhaustive but summarizes and discusses the empirical evidence that spans across different aspects of organizational justice and fairness perceptions in various types of organizational change processes.

Fig. 3 Relevant fairness-related factors in the organizational change timeline

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Fairness at Work Before the Change The announcement of organizational changes creates high levels of uncertainty and worries ranging from the rationale behind the change, the process of implementation, to employees’ concerns about their future responsibilities and career prospects (Burke 2011). Uncertainty is an aversive state that motivates employees to search for information to overcome that state (van den Bos and Lind 2002). The uncertainty management model (van den Bos 2001; van den Bos and Lind 2002) poses that fairness is important for employees, because it helps them handle uncertainty. The model is based on its predecessor, the fairness heuristics theory, which states that employees face a “fundamental social dilemma” (Lind 2001) in that they contribute to an organization with their skills and resources but run the risk of getting exploited in turn. This dilemma of not knowing whether to trust management is unsettling to employees and creates the desire to solve that predicament. It has been suggested that employees use their fairness perceptions as a heuristic to decide whether to trust the organization (Lind 2001). In other words, perceiving fairness helps employees in times of uncertainty, since it removes the uncertainty or reduces much of the discomfort that uncertainty otherwise entails (van den Bos and Lind 2002). Empirical evidence generally supports the uncertainty management model. For example, one US study found that employees reported the lowest job satisfaction when they did not perceive their organization to adhere to justice rules and in addition to that performance expectations were unclear and uncertain (Diekmann et al. 2004). In a Finnish study, sickness absence spells were highest among women who perceived low procedural and low interactional justice as well as experienced recent organizational changes in the organization as negative (Elovainio et al. 2005). In a similar study, the authors found that low procedural and low interactional justice was associated with more stress symptoms and emotional exhaustion when employees perceived higher levels of job insecurity (Kausto et al. 2005). A recent study (Matta et al. 2017) put a slightly different spin to the relevance of uncertainty by showing that consistently unfair treatment can be less stressful to employees than being treated inconsistently fairly, i.e., some days fairly and other days unfairly. Specifically, employees who had larger variations than others in their overall fairness perceptions experienced more daily stress on days where they perceived more uncertainty at their work. Employees who perceived less variability in their overall fairness perceptions over the period of 3 weeks reacted with less stress ratings on days with higher uncertainty at work. That means, fairness is relevant to understand employee reactions in circumstances without organizational change and uncertainty, but it might be even more relevant when organizations undergo change. Even when the change has not been started but only announced, fairness matters for how employees will think about upcoming changes, that is, fairness perceptions are relevant for forming anticipatory justice perceptions. The role of anticipatory justice (the expectation whether one will experience justice in relation to a future event) is particularly relevant for organizational changes. When an organizational change is first announced or rumored about, employees form expectations about the fairness of the change (anticipations), and

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these will impact change-related attitudes and behaviors. For instance, perceiving procedural and interactional justice (as combined measure) during the planning phase of an upcoming change increased trust and intentions to stay with the organization (Korsgaard et al. 2002). Furthermore, the past overall fairness perception can shape employees’ anticipatory justice perceptions. In a study before and after a smoking ban was implemented in a hospital, it was found that overall supervisory fairness had positive associations with anticipatory justice perceptions, which, in turn, shaped experienced justice perceptions (Rodell and Colquitt 2009). Anticipatory justice perceptions were related to post-change justice perceptions, and these relations were stronger among employees who judged the organizational change as less favorable and creating more uncertainty about their future in the company. In sum, in the start phase of an organizational change, fairness at work is particularly relevant because employees are confronted with a lot of uncertainty. When employees perceive fairness at the workplace, this will guide their attitudes and behaviors to the change; it can help reduce resistance to change and increase support for and commitment to change.

Fairness at Work During and After the Change Employees who feel treated fairly during an organizational change develop positive change-related attitudes and behaviors and report better well-being. Those who feel that organizational decisions and treatment from management are unfair will experience negative emotions, withdraw their support for the change, and may even have a desire for retribution (Folger et al. 1999). Here, equity theory that originally was formulated by Adams may be an appropriate approach to guide our understanding of employees’ reactions to perceived distributive (in)justice (Adams 1965). The basic idea of equity theory is that employees attempt to strike a balance between the input they give in their work and the output they receive in return in comparison to some kind of referent (e.g., a colleague at the workplace, a friend who works in a similar position for another organizations). If the ratio of inputs and outputs to the referent is equal, fairness is perceived. If the ratio is unequal, employees are motivated to establish equity through cognitive or behavioral means. Cognitive strategies may include modifications to the choice of referent (e.g., they may choose another colleague for comparison). They may also modify their perceptions of inputs and outputs (e.g., they may remind themselves that they also got an extra bonus or that their colleague had taken over extra work duties). Behavioral strategies can include turnover, withdrawal, or resistance to change but also theft and sabotage. One can assume that employees are used to a status quo in their work life, and that status quo is deemed as at least partly legitimate (Folger et al. 1999). Organizational change often means that employees have to adapt to new procedures or tasks, to learn new skills or software, or to participate in the change program, while maintaining profitability or service quality. If this means that employees have to increase their input without simultaneously increasing their output, employees may perceive the organizational change as unfair. Alternatively, if organizational change leads to a new balance between increasing inputs and outputs to comparable others, by, for instance, creating

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better distribution of work, better job conditions, and increased flexibility and opportunities to grow, employees are more likely to view organizational changes as fair. Perceptions of distributive justice in relation to change have been found to associate negatively with cynicism to change and positively with commitment to change among employees (Bernerth et al. 2007; Foster 2010; Fuchs and Edwards 2012). Justice perceptions that pertain to the fairness of procedures and social interactions have also been proposed as highly relevant for organizational change programs. During organizational mergers, for instance, employees’ cooperation is warranted, yet their identities are often threatened and need to undergo change. The group engagement model (Tyler and Blader 2003) proposes that fairness in procedures and interactions provides individuals with information that they are valued group members; it communicates respect from others, which increases identification, commitment, cooperation, and engagement. In a merger of two governmental agencies, it was found that the pre-merger status of the two organizations was of vital importance to the results (Lipponen et al. 2017). The authors argued that lower status members are more sensitive to justice information, more uncertain about the treatment they will receive, and also more concerned about exploitation. Indeed, for the employees who worked at the organization with the lower pre-merger status, fairness perceptions during merger process had stronger associations with post-merger identification with the new organization. Several other studies have found similar results, such that fairness during a merger plays a critical role for post-merger identification (Amiot et al. 2007; Gleibs et al. 2008; Tyler and De Cremer 2005). A variety of studies with different methodologies, participants, and organizational change types provide empirical support that procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice relate to change attitudes and behaviors. For instance, among German academics, procedural justice of the change implementation was positively associated with affective commitment to the change over time through organizational identification (Michel et al. 2010). In a Finnish study following a relocation, procedural justice with reference to the organization and interactional justice with reference to the supervisor both helped reduce perceptions of stress and threat associated with the change (Koivisto et al. 2013). In sum, organizational changes often provide a threat to employees as many organizational changes are not necessarily viewed as creating better conditions for employees. However, independent of the valence of the organizational changes, studies consistently show the attenuating effects of managing the change process in a fair way and communicating in a respectful and truthful manner.

Change and Stability in Fairness Due to Organizational Changes Above, we have already hinted at the fact that organizational changes may also mean that perceptions of justice and fairness, even if they initially may guide expectations, are subject to change. To better understand how changes of justice or fairness perceptions come about, we will first further elaborate on a particular aspect within fairness heuristics theory. The theory proposes two different phases (Lind 2001). During the use phase, overall fairness perceptions are used to guide behaviors,

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incoming information is assimilated, and specific justice dimension perceptions are formed in line with the overall fairness heuristics. The original idea was that fairness heuristics remain relatively stable once formed, because a heuristic would be less valuable when it needs to be revised too frequently. That means, unless circumstances prompt employees to revise their fairness perceptions, fairness perceptions are relatively stable, and employees rely on them as a guide for their behavior toward the organization. They “use” their justice perceptions without questioning them or evaluating them all the time. The second phase proposed by fairness heuristics theory is the judgment phase, which is the stage in which individuals form their fairness perceptions. For that, they use available justice-relevant information from interactions, procedures, or distributions to create a new overall fairness perception. Individuals switch between the use and the judgement phases in a phase-shifting process. Such a process can be elicited by events that force employees to reconsider their overall fairness heuristic and potentially form a new one. The likelihood that employees change their overall fairness perceptions increases when an event is highly unexpected, important, or unfavorable, such as a large organizational change (Jones and Skarlicki 2013). In an empirical study during a merger, Soenen and colleagues studied what makes employees change from use phase to judgment phase (Soenen et al. 2017). It was found that employees were more likely to shift phases when they viewed the merger as a fundamental rather than as minor change. In addition, in the same study, it was found that the likelihood to switch from use to judgment phase is higher when employees perceived their colleagues to not support the change and when their individual disposition was characterized by low cognitive rigidity. Furthermore, when the merger was perceived as a phase-shifting event, new fairness perceptions were formed. That is, pre-change fairness perceptions were not used to inform expectations about the fairness of the organizational change.

How Can Organizations Manage Fairness Effectively During Organizational Changes? Before concluding this chapter, we want to give some final pointers that are relevant when working with fairness at work in practice. As is true for most topics within the organizational psychology literature, there is not one recipe or one-size-fits-all approach on how to create fair workplaces. However, we are able to highlight a few important conditions that seem to alter the effect justice can have on attitudes, behavior, and health and to provide information about a few available intervention studies that illustrate how fairness may be changed in organizational contexts.

Boundary Conditions As is true for much in psychology, individual and situational factors interact in producing behavior. To date, there is no comprehensive overview of the entire literature of individual and situational moderators of justice effects. Hence, we provide only a few examples of a much broader literature.

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The organizational justice literature has long maintained that fairness matters to everyone. There are, however, differences between people that affect how treatment by organizational representatives is perceived, how justice perceptions are construed, and how individuals react to justice perceptions. In the following, we highlight individual factors, such as gender and personality, but also workplace-related factors to exemplify boundary conditions that moderate the relationship between justice and its outcomes. Gender and organizational justice have quite a complex and nuanced connection that is impacted by socialization, inequity between genders, and gender norms. Early studies on the role of gender for justice effects maintained that women will care more about procedural justice and men more about distributive justice, with the reasoning that procedural justice addresses relational concerns, which are more important for women than for men (Sweeney and McFarlin 1997). Both the evidences for the differential importance of the justice dimensions to women and men are mixed and not conclusive, as well as explanations for potential gender differences are under debate. For instance, Bell and Khoury (2016) argued that women may be more sensitive to procedural justice because they are aware of systemic gender inequality that still exist in society and at workplaces. The authors showed that women who perceived higher levels of procedural justice also perceived less powerlessness and less dehumanization at work compared to men, which, in turn, was associated with lower turnover intentions. Various personality differences have also been found to make a difference for justice outcomes. For instance, for individuals with a higher sensitivity to justice aspects, associations between justice perceptions and well-being outcomes have been found to be stronger (Schmitt et al. 1995). Associations between justice perceptions and performance are also stronger for individuals high in risk aversion and high in trait morality (Colquitt et al. 2006). Another study found that individuals high in dispositional negative affect and low in agreeableness are more likely to retaliate against their employer when they feel unfairly treated (Skarlicki et al. 1999). A variety of workplace-related factors have been studied for their impact on justice reactions, for instance, culture, organizational structure, and job characteristics. A metaanalysis found that justice perceptions had stronger effects on work-related outcomes in national cultures characterized by individualism, femininity, high uncertainty avoidance, and low power distance (Shao et al. 2013). The organizational culture also matters for the strengths of justice effects. One US study found that employees are more sensitive to procedural justice in organizations that are more bureaucratic and formal than in so-called organic organizations. In organic and more informal organizations, interactional justice showed to be more influential for creating a positive relationship with the organization (Ambrose and Schminke 2003). Another study found that the associations between low overall fairness to intentions to stay and physical health were buffered by high levels of job control and social support from colleagues (Eib et al. 2015a).

Intervention Studies Within the organizational justice literature, there are a few intervention studies, which focused on increasing justice perceptions for employees, training managers to be more fair, and helping employees manage their reactions to unfairness.

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As part of a cost-cutting program, manufacturing workers faced a long-term pay freeze (Schaubroeck et al. 1994). Half of the employees participated in a workshop on stress (control group), and the other half participated in workshops designed to provide information about the pay freeze (treatment group). Specifically, information included that management attempted to spare employees from layoffs due to intense economic pressure facing the company, that all employees were equally affected by the pay freeze, and how management communicated the decision in a respectful and unbiased manner. The researchers found that work-related attitudes did not differ between treatment and control group when participants reported low economic hardship due to the pay freeze. When participants reported that the pay freeze created economic hardship for them, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intentions to stay were lower for the control group, whereas levels of work-related attitudes stayed the same for the treatment group. In other words, employees were helped handling the unfavorable nature of the organizational change when they received thorough explanation and rationale for decisions and clear communication regarding the procedures for the decision-making. A different study basing its intervention on equity theory showed that positive effects of the intervention on reduced rates of burnout, absenteeism, and inequity between inputs and outputs can last for at least 1 year (van Dierendonck et al. 1998). There are also a few interventions attempting to change managers’ behaviors. In two hospitals in the USA, the payment scheme was changed for nurses, which resulted in a substantial decrease in mean pay. Nurses’ sleep problems were recorded and compared to a control group of nurses without a payment scheme change. Results showed that nurses who received less pay due to the change reported an increase in sleep problems. The levels of sleep problems were attenuated and decreasing over time among those nurses whose managers received interactional justice training (Greenberg 2006). In another intervention study, training in procedural and interactional justice of trade union leaders increased union members’ reported organizational justice perceptions and citizenship behaviors (Skarlicki and Latham 1996). These two studies highlight the relevance of training managers in the area of justice. At the same time, it is unclear what the mechanisms are of why these interventions worked. As a result of the interventions, managers may act more fairly, or they were more confident in taking up difficult topics with their subordinates. The new rise in studies on justice enactment (see Box 1) can help uncover what can be done to support managers and to understand how justice training of managers can transfer to justice perceptions of employees. In intervention studies focusing on the individual, expressive writing about an unfair work experience in a structured manner over several occasions increased individuals’ reported well-being and facilitated forgiveness (Barclay and Saldanha 2016; Barclay and Skarlicki 2009). Another recent study found that participants who underwent a gratitude intervention for 2 working weeks, as compared to a control group, had increased self-control resources, which, in turn, related to fewer incivility and mistreatment to colleagues at work (Locklear et al. 2020).

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Summary The empirical evidence is very strong that organizational justice and fairness at work matter to all individuals, yet to slightly different degrees. Fairness at work is positively associated to job satisfaction, commitment to change, performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. It is also related to long-term mental health, reduced sickness absence, and a variety of well-being indicators. Moreover, fairness at work is shared between organizational members; fairness affects team members, managers, as well as family members, customers, and suppliers. Fairness at work is particularly a concern for employees and management before, during, and after organizational changes. Fairness can bind people together to work effectively and increase well-being. The rules of justice outlined in the four dimensions of justice perceptions can help design organizational processes that are more fair. And even if organizations have to take decisions that are unfavorable to employees, having fair procedures, thorough information and respectful communication, helps buffer potential negative consequences. Fairness perceptions are malleable and can be changed for the better or worse. There is compelling evidence for the role of justice and fairness in the workplace, but more research is needed to better understand the dynamic nature of fairness perceptions over shorter and longer time spans, mechanisms behind justice interventions, and more evidence on how to support managers in adhering to justice rules and enacting fairness.

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Part III Human Resource Management Practices and Wellbeing

Work-Based Learning and Wellbeing

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Scope and Definition of Learning at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theorizing Wellbeing and Learning at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefits and Trade-Offs: Learning for Wellbeing in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementing Learning for Wellbeing at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions/Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Learning is widely considered to support wellbeing and is therefore treated as a high societal priority. In the workplace learning is considered core to the success of individuals and organizations yet is not typically considered in terms of its relation to wellbeing. Rather learning is viewed as fundamental to work competence, innovation and competitive advantage, justifying investment in Human Resource Development (HRD). While a broad range of theory and empirical research has explored wellbeing at work, learning remains peripheral to these. Evidence suggests that learning can act as a buffer to the demands and strains of work whereas restricted opportunities for learning are likely to form part of a negative work environment for wellbeing. However, the relationship between learning and wellbeing is not always positive and much more work is required to unpack the relationship between learning and wellbeing in the workplace. This chapter reviews literature on work-based learning and wellbeing drawing out practical implications, while also making the case for further research and practical attention to this topic. D. Watson (*) · O. Tregaskis Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_14

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Keywords

Work-based learning · Wellbeing · Human resource development (HRD) · Human resource management (HRM) · Informal learning · Formal learning · Training · Productivity

Introduction There exist a “bewildering array” of models for understanding work-based learning (WBL) arising from the variety of theoretical perspectives, methodologies, fields of study, contexts and differing perspectives of organizational actors (Manuti et al. 2015, p. 3). Likewise the study of WBL in relation to wellbeing is fragmented (Tikkanen 2005), with a variety of disciplines or fields of study being concerned with learning in organizations, such as Adult Education, Organisational Psychology, and Human Resource Management (HRM). The literature on wellbeing in the workplace is itself similarly vast and therefore the aim of this chapter is not to set out a specific model mapping out the different features of WBL and how it relates to wellbeing, but to review some of the literature that is relevant to understanding the connection between these two areas. The first section stakes out some boundaries for the chapter in defining learning at work, considering how it has been conceptualized. Although it is a relatively brief overview, it is important to establish how we think about learning in relation to work since it has major implications for how it relates to wellbeing. For example, consider learning in formal work-based training programs in comparison to the informal learning that takes place through the course of work, the former is a much more limited context and incorporates processes and outcomes liable to be quite different to the latter. This is not to suggest that one or the other is more important for wellbeing, but what is considered as WBL necessarily has an impact on how it relates to wellbeing. Section 2 reviews some of the more common models of stress and wellbeing at work with a view to identifying features of those models that are particularly relevant to WBL. It is surprising that a widely held assumption that learning is associated with wellbeing and vice versa (Watson et al. 2018) has not really been explored extensively in the organizational literature. Much of the research on wellbeing at work originates from the field of Human Resource Management (HRM), yet despite the close relationship with the field of human resource development (HRD) there has been little cross-fertilization with studies of learning and wellbeing in the workplace few and far between (Tikkanen 2005). However, conceptualizing wellbeing at work and different theoretical perspectives offer some starting points for thinking about how learning connects with wellbeing. For example, evidence suggests that job satisfaction, which is perhaps the most widely used measure of wellbeing at work, is influenced by learning opportunities, the how of this relationship is less clear – learning might influence job satisfaction by enhancing organizational commitment (Wang et al. 2010) and/or increasing work competency through the transfer of learnt skills (Egan et al. 2004).

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Building on the previous section, the third section of the chapter focuses on evidence that supports a link between WBL and wellbeing and the nature of the relationship. Despite a general dearth of studies investigating WBL and wellbeing those studies which do exist are informative and also identify some trade-offs between learning and wellbeing. While learning can be considered as key to building resources that help workers to meet the demands of work, the requirement for learning can also be seen as ongoing demand in itself. Furthermore there is a tension in the purpose and outcomes of WBL when driven by individual success versus organizational success. Understanding the link between both WBL and wellbeing with performance and other organizational priorities is therefore key. Notwithstanding the limited amount of literature explicitly looking at wellbeing and WBL this body of work is illuminating and suggests a path forward for further research as well as having practical implications. The fourth and final section considers how the literature can inform organizational practice in relation to WBL and wellbeing. Despite the acknowledged importance of learning in the modern workplace, little organizational practice is informed by understanding of research. Furthermore there remain significant gaps in understanding the relationship between WBL and wellbeing that if addressed could helpfully develop organizational practice. The body of literature that explores WBL and wellbeing is small and disparate, but can provide some guidance for practice. There are potential benefits from more actively shaping WBL with wellbeing in mind although research indicates that wellbeing cannot be assumed to arise from WBL. This section provides some guidance for practitioners in organization, but it also acknowledges that much more work is required from researchers to develop theory and the evidence base that can inform WBL in practice from a wellbeing perspective.

The Scope and Definition of Learning at Work Work and learning have historically been considered as separate categories, work consists of producing or doing things that enable individuals to earn a living whereas learning occurs prior to work and is concerned with education in order to prepare a person for work (Boud and Garrick 2000; Clark et al. 2019). This old fashioned view of learning at work as limited to some initial on the job training, has long ceased to be relevant as the boundaries between work and learning have dissolved and learning has become more central to work (Cunningham et al. 2004; Manuti et al. 2015). The heightened importance of WBL is due in no small part to the changing nature of work. Increasing digitalization, continuous organizational change and high cognitive demands of many workplaces necessitate continuous learning (Lemmetty and Collin 2020). The shift from long-term employment with the same employer to shorter-term employment with a succession of organizations and portfolio working also mean that WBL has become more fluid and connected with individual employability (Fenwick 2004; Manuti et al. 2015). The way in which changes to work have emphasized the importance of WBL means that there has also been increased attention on informal

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learning at work, which is considered to be more responsive to worker needs (López 2020; Schwartz 2019). There are a variety of definitions of WBL, but in general terms it means any experiential activity undertaken with the purpose of acquiring the competencies or resources intended to meet current and future work demands, including engaging in formal training programs or education and development courses and activity outside of these programs (Jacobs and Park 2009, p. 134). Within this definition is the welltrodden distinction between formal and informal learning that there has been much discussion of in the literature (see Manuti et al. 2015 for a review). What is considered informal learning constitutes a significant part of learning in the workplace, much of what people learn through their work occurring on the job and outside of structured learning environments, yet many businesses remain focused on formal learning (Manuti et al. 2015). The distinction between formal and informal learning has been conceptualized in a range of ways, with Sambrook (2005) describing the difference between learning at work (formal) and learning in or through work (informal) as well as noting that learning outside of work can also be relevant for work. Other authors have distinguished different types of informal learning or adopted different terms such as non-formal, which has been used to describe any WBL that is not formal (Eraut 2000) and learning that remains structured, but takes place outside of educational institutions (Kyndt et al. 2009). Different types of informal learning which are less intentional and more implicit or absorbed through organizational culture have also been referred to as incidental (Marsick et al. 2008) and or tacit (Eraut 2000). This discussion of definitions highlights the divergence in how WBL is conceptualized and the broad range of ways in which people learn in organizations. Workers can be removed from the working context to undertake formal training, but much learning occurs through interaction with colleagues, mentoring, and professional networks. Not all of this learning is explicitly planned and nor might workers be fully aware of how or why they are learning and what the outcomes are. While there is some variation in how learning is described, with some seeing this as more of a spectrum (Lukosch and de Vries 2009), typically though WBL is described in binary terms of formal and informal with some variation in terminology (Manuti et al. 2015). However these attempts to put different forms of WBL into specific models with set definitions somewhat ignores the diverse and multiple ways in which people learn in organizations. Billett (2002) therefore argues that this binary categorization is unhelpful and that learning should be regarded as a social practice, where what is considered formal or informal are simply different instances of social practices. This broad understanding of WBL sees work as a learning environment and recognizes the structured nature of workplaces, shaped by norms, values and practices which determine learning opportunities and are often intentionally shaped around learning. Using the example of hairdressing Billett (2002) shows how two workplaces in the same industry create very different learning pathways according to the structure of workplace practices as determined by organizational values and models of business. This underlines the importance of organizational priorities in shaping learning, particularly performance which is also important in influencing HRM practices

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and in turn employee wellbeing (Cook et al. 2016). Furthermore it points to a tension between individual goals of development by learning through work practices and organizational goals of performance and continuity in practices (Billett 2002), a tension which is also reflected in the pursuit of individual wellbeing through work despite “mutual gains” perspectives (Ho and Kuvaas 2020; Guest 2017). It is clear then that the organizational context is important in shaping WBL. Factors such as work demands, performance management systems and targets, organizational structure and culture all influence how individuals learn (Sambrook 2005). Although these factors should not be regarded as deterministic, since individual agency also determines how people interact with the organizational context for learning (Billett 2002). The role of organizational context in learning has also been considered through organizational learning and the concept of the “Learning organization” which was popularized by Senge (1990). However, this concept has been highly ambiguous in its interpretation and application (Bartell 2007; Örtenblad 2004) making evaluation of efforts to create learning organizations difficult and rare (Watson et al. 2018; Kiedrowski 2006). In general terms research exploring learning organizations and organizational learning are concerned with how organizations prioritize, develop and facilitate learning with academic and practical interest being driven by the same trends as those driving increased attention to WBL more generally: The decline of the industrial age with associated command and control management techniques and the rise of the information, digital society and the need for flexible and less hierarchical organizations (de Vries and Lukosch 2009; Kiedrowski 2006). While explicit evaluation of learning and wellbeing in organizations is limited, discussion of the conceptualization of WBL suggests that both how the individual experiences WBL and how the organization approaches it are likely to be important for wellbeing. Considering further how wellbeing has been theorized in organizations is helpful in thinking about the role learning plays.

Theorizing Wellbeing and Learning at Work The body of literature dedicated to the study of wellbeing in the workplace is large with a range of theoretical perspectives. While there has been little attempt to explicitly theorize WBL and wellbeing in a particular model, wider literature suggests learning influences wellbeing (Jenkins and Mostafa 2015; Duckworth and Cara 2012). Although the question of how learning and wellbeing are defined is critical in determining how the relationship between the two is understood (Michalos 2008) with evidence suggesting that informal learning may be more important in influencing wellbeing than formal education (Jenkins and Mostafa 2015; Dolan et al. 2012). In general though learning is considered to contribute to wellbeing in a range of ways (UNESCO 2016; Michalos 2008) and this is reflected in various approaches to wellbeing at work that incorporate elements connected to WBL. One of the most commonly applied frameworks for exploring wellbeing at work is the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model (Lesener et al. 2019; Schaufeli and Taris 2014). The JD-R model looks at job characteristics conceptualizing them as

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demands – aspects of a job that require physical or mental effort, and resources – aspects of a work that reduce demands, support personal growth or development and underpin job competence, enabling employees to achieve work goals (Schaufeli and Taris 2014, p. 45). In this respect WBL might be thought of as a resource in that it supports personal development and worker competence in their job role, moreover learning is also integral to the functioning of other job resources like feedback and supervisor support, which enable employees to learn and improve in their jobs, fostering engagement (Bakker and Demerouti 2007). In this respect learning can be seen as important in the operation of JD-R model as well as individual experience of demands and resources in the workplace. Although demands are typically considered to be negative for wellbeing, not all demands are experienced in the same way and are experienced differently by individuals – they are qualitatively different and individual experience and perception varies, the same is also true for resources. Consider autonomy in work, which is associated with engagement and considered a resource in the JD-R model (Lesener et al. 2019). While for some individuals autonomy may provide an opportunity to learn though work, without support and time for WBL, this autonomy may be experienced as stressful. On the other hand, workload and responsibility are usually considered demands, but might also be experienced as “challenges” to be overcome, which promote personal development and mastery (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). The nature of learning is somewhat problematic for models of wellbeing or stress in the workplace that take a relatively narrow view of wellbeing, in that learning can be experienced as demanding or challenging, yet also considered rewarding in supporting development. Furthermore, what view is taken will likely depend on individual factors, the wider work environment and the point in time. For example learning which is experienced as difficult and demanding in one moment might later be regarded quite differently. In Karasek’s (1979) Job Demands Control (JD-C) model from which the JD-R model originates learning is also important and jobs that combine high demands with a high degree of control are theoretically likely to produce higher job satisfaction because of opportunities to learn and achieve mastery of a particular job (Kwakman 2001), although empirical findings underline a more complex and mixed picture (Kain and Jex 2010). Both the JD-C and JD-R models are about balance and in particular the employees ability to balance positive and negative work factors in their daily experience of work. This balance is also captured in the Effort Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model (Siegrist 2017) and connects with a key strand of research on personal resources that links all of the stress models discussed here. This strand of research explores employees’ ability to develop personal resources that enable them to cope with their working environment and maintain resilience (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). Clearly these resources have a very direct connection with wellbeing and the management of stress in the workplace, and as a result organizations have used training interventions to foster the development of such resources, such as mindfulness training, which has become increasingly popular (see Lomas et al. 2017 for a review). It is in the assessment of training programs like this that arguably the most thorough evaluation of learning and wellbeing in the workplace has taken place

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(Watson et al. 2018). While evidence does suggest that such training can be effective, this barely scratches the surface in terms of thoroughly examining the relationship between WBL and wellbeing, since there is much learning that takes place outside of formal training programs that is important for employee wellbeing. It is quite clear that learning plays an important role in various models of workplace stress and wellbeing. Learning is also important in other classic and widely applied models of workplace wellbeing, such as Warr’s vitamin model (Warr 1987, 1990) and the job characteristics model (Hackman and Oldham 1975), both of which posit that the existence of particular characteristics or “vitamins” that support wellbeing at work. These perspectives attribute importance to skill utilization, task variety, autonomy among other resources, yet pay little attention to theorizing WBL, which has also been largely absent from the wider literature on stress and wellbeing in the workplace. At the same time the volume of research drawing attention to the importance of learning at work for individuals and organizations has been expanding rapidly, but has largely overlooked the interplay of wellbeing with WBL. However there does exist research exploring both, which can also point to a further agenda for research (and practice) in WBL and wellbeing.

Benefits and Trade-Offs: Learning for Wellbeing in the Workplace As noted in the previous two sections, how wellbeing and learning at work is defined shapes our understanding of how they relate to one another. It is also important to understand influence of other organizational objectives, in particular performance or productivity, which remains an important priority for organizations if not the most important. Learning is believed to be central to innovation and productivity gains for organizations (Salas et al. 2012; Park and Jacobs 2011; Aguinis and Kraiger 2009; López et al. 2005). The dividend that investment in employee learning pays has therefore been considered predominantly from the gains it supports in employee and organizational performance, a perspective consistent with a resource-based view of the firm. The resource-based view sees investment in HRM – and therefore HRD as a key source of competitive advantage for organizations (Felstead et al. 2015). There is a well-established literature exploring the mutual gains that can be realized for performance and wellbeing through investment in HRM (see Ho and Kuvaas 2020; Jo et al. 2020 for recent examples). However, despite the connection with HRD and WBL there is much less research exploring the mutual gains that might be fostered through investment in WBL, moreover the role of learning within the debate around mutual gains has been overlooked. Notwithstanding the theoretical importance of learning in a range of workplace wellbeing and stress models, these models seem to be much better equipped to measure stress than assess the role of learning in the workplace (Kwakman 2001). More close attention to the role of WBL in assessing employee wellbeing and performance (both independently and as mutual gains) can be revealing. As observed by Ho and Kuvaas (2020), the relationship between implementation of HRM practices considered likely to support employee wellbeing cannot be assumed

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to be overwhelmingly positive nor can it be assumed to impact on different aspects of wellbeing equally. The alignment of learning opportunities and individual motivation and interest in learning is likely to be important for both performance and wellbeing (Felstead et al. 2015) although individual and organizational priorities may not always be in sync (Jacobs and Park 2009). An employee who finds themselves in a work situation that is demanding, but provides a high degree of control and opportunity to learn may find this work rewarding and satisfying. However, they may experience more anxiety as a result of the challenges posed through work, although an employee who does not experience these challenges may report less stress or anxiety yet find work unfulfilling, although much may depend on their individual learning disposition and ambition. While significant gaps in the literature on WBL and wellbeing limit our understanding, some trends are well established. Organizations that provide extensive opportunities to learn tend to be associated with positive work outcomes (Felstead et al. 2015). Rowden and Conine (2005) report a significant association between the provision of learning opportunities and job satisfaction arguing that those organizations which prioritize learning resources and opportunities see wellbeing benefits. Researchers have also identified an association between learning culture and job satisfaction (Egan et al. 2004), as well as affective wellbeing (Rebelo et al. 2017). This association is unsurprising given that a strong organizational learning culture is seen as being underpinned by a focus on people, promotion of co-operation and communication among other features (Rebelo et al. 2017; Marsick and Watkins 2003). Research highlighting the association between learning climate, culture and opportunities at the organizational level and individual wellbeing outcomes suggest that learning is a good thing for employees, however this research explores proxies for learning rather than the impact of learning directly (Huo and Boxall 2020). Much of the research is also cross-sectional, reporting associations rather than providing strong evidence of causal mechanisms and obscuring individual differences. As a result theorizing the relationship between WBL and wellbeing remains challenging, much of it being limited to particular models of stress and wellbeing (as discussed above). As Felstead et al. (2015) observe individual fit with the learning environment is important in determining outcomes, but is predominantly confined to the study of other forms of learning not WBL. Felstead et al. (2015) highlight individual factors than can be associated with an increased likelihood of learning in organizations that offer “expansive” learning experiences. This is in contrast to job roles that offer “restrictive” learning environments and are associated most with part time work. This study sheds important light on how different working contexts are likely to provide environments more or less conducive to learning, moving the literature on from simply finding associations between positive learning cultures and positive work outcomes. Those in managerial, professional and associate professional roles report the strongest motivation to learn, while higher pay, qualifications, and company size are all associated with increased likelihood of being in an expansive learning environment at work. Women on average, report less motivation to learn, but this may reflect gendered attitudes to learning that can be explained by traditional

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occupational segregation according to gender and expected societal roles (Felstead et al. 2015). Whereas men in part time work are particularly likely to experience a more restrictive working environment and the hospitality and retail sectors emerge as those with the most limited learning opportunities in work. Despite establishing the importance of individual learning dispositions and their alignment with work situations Felstead et al. (2015) acknowledge that in general terms expansive learning environments at work are associated with wellbeing generally. The evidence suggests that investment in WBL is worthwhile in a general sense, but this does little to address the question of how different interventions, initiatives, or organizational approaches to WBL might offer value. It cannot be assumed that the benefits of learning are additive as Ho and Kuvaas (2020) note in relation to investment in employee wellbeing; moreover, the constant and continued expectation of learning can also operate as a work demand (Lemmetty and Collin 2020). Watson et al. (2018) review the literature on interventions in workplace learning and wellbeing with the aim of specifically focusing on intentional efforts by organizations to improve wellbeing through learning. The review shows the concentration of evidence in the area of training that supports the development of personal resources. Here the evidence on the impact of this kind of WBL on wellbeing is strong because it relates directly to models of workplace stress that place emphasis on the development of personal resources as a way of coping with stress. Beyond the models discussed in the previous section, the Conservation of Resources theory posits that individuals are motivated to build, replenish and protect resources in the maintenance of the self (Hobfoll 1989). Theoretically this suggests self-interest and motivation in this kind of learning is key, but much WBL is informal and individuals do not always consciously choose to learn in this manner, particularly if the outcomes are not clearly related to work. Typically learning for personal resources occurs through formal interventions and the reliance on self-selection and high dropout rates in many of the studies evaluating personal resources suggests that wider wellbeing benefits from this kind of WBL is likely to be limited by employees’ motivation to engage in the active cultivation of personal resources (Watson et al. 2018). The Watson et al. (2018) review also highlighted a greater volume of studies evaluating of WBL on wellbeing in the health and social care sector, with a general lack of studies that assess interventions to develop professional competencies for their impact on wellbeing. Clearly a lot of WBL occurs outside of interventions, but as Billett (2002) observes, this type of learning cannot necessarily be regarded as informal or lacking structure because workplaces are organized with a view to how employees will learn through their work. Organizational effort to facilitate learning is often undertaken with a view to developing work competencies, but studies evaluating WBL have tended to focus on learning outcomes or process rather than organizational context or outcomes (Tikkanen 2005). There is a disconnection between understanding whether learning within organizations actually translates into enhanced ability to perform in work as expected and precisely how these gains materialize and in what context (Van Ruysseveldt et al. 2011). From a wellbeing perspective this is important, because it is through the enhancement of

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work abilities and the associated satisfaction with work that learning is thought to support wellbeing. In this respect theoretical approaches and empirical study that evaluate WBL alongside wellbeing can also contribute to the debate around mutual gains, since it is through increased effectiveness in work that learning is also considered to enhance wellbeing. Whereas critical views of HRM have argued that employee wellbeing has been considered of secondary importance to organizational effectiveness (Ho and Kuvaas 2020; Guest 2017). While the links between learning and positive work outcomes are often assumed (Rose et al. 2009), there is evidence that supports some of these assumptions. Rose et al. (2009) while noting the limitations of the evidence base provide support for the association between organizational commitment and organizational learning opportunities. Learning opportunities have also been indicated to be associated with better health outcomes at work (Rau 2006) and act as a buffer against emotional stress (Proost et al. 2012; Nikolova et al. 2014). However, while job demands can stimulate learning, they can also frustrate it, in line with theorization according to the JD-R model cognitive demands can promote learning opportunities whereas excessive workload is detrimental (Proost et al. 2012; see also Lemmetty and Collin 2020; Rau 2006). The JD-C model places a high emphasis on the level of control people experience in their work and the interaction of workload with autonomy to respond to workload is also important in determining benefits of learning opportunities (Van Ruysseveldt and Van Dijke 2011). Whether excessive workload limits create stress by frustrating learning opportunities as the JD-C model suggests (Kwakman 2001) is something that needs to be explored through further exploration of the interaction of learning and stress or wellbeing in the workplace. Other organizational factors are then key in shaping positive effects arising from WBL for wellbeing as are other organizational actors. Research has indicated that social support of colleagues and supervisors in the workplace can be important in facilitating learning (Else Ouweneel et al. 2009). Although colleagues and managers do not necessarily support WBL in the same way. The relationship between managers and their subordinates is quite different to that between colleagues, and supervisors play a more central role in determining and delivering training (Huo and Boxall 2020). Context remains important, as Huo and Boxall (2020) show in a study examining different responses to learning from supervisors and colleagues in Chinese organizations. In this context the supervisory relationship is more important in mediating the relationship between social support and wellbeing as well as training at work, but in organizational and cultural contexts where hierarchical relationships are not likely to be as influential findings may differ. The wellbeing benefits of learning for the individual are not necessarily direct either, leadership training can be effective for followers, but not necessarily the leader (Kelloway and Barling 2010). For individuals themselves the benefits of learning are also not always immediate and may be experienced long after learning has taken place, supporting personal development in a general sense rather than improving specific work competencies (Van der Heijden et al. 2016). Therefore it is not only planned learning that is important in supporting continual development and wellbeing, but also those “fortuitous encounters” that stimulate learning (Molloy and Noe 2010).

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It is not just the immediate context that is important in influencing WBL and employee attitudes toward it, as employees also consider their career trajectory and future employers in how they engage with learning (Molloy and Noe 2010). This is unsurprising given the trends that are driving academic and practical interest in WBL are also creating increasingly insecure jobs and shorter job tenures, raising questions and potential conflicts of interest for both employers and employees. For employers this raises the question of whether their investment in learning will be realized by the organization given the fluidity of careers and mobility of workers. For the employee, the question is whether the learning an organization facilitates or asks them to engage in is of real benefit to them or purely the organization. Informal learning can act as a form of cultural control within organizations by shaping employee identity and subjectivity in order to align it with organizational priorities and thereby enable work intensification (Manuti et al. 2015, pp. 8–9). Lases et al. (2019) conceptualize learning climate as a potentially effective resource, but also point out the role of the “hidden curriculum” (p. 325) – influences that function at the level of organizational culture and structure – that may be detrimental to learning and wellbeing. Reconciling possible tensions between employees and organizations in the pursuit of wellbeing and learning depends on how WBL is put into practice. A focus on wellbeing in the design and evaluation of WBL could be significant though. Wellbeing benefits arising from learning can be experienced in the short term contributing to organizational performance and thereby offsetting the potential cost of an employee leaving an organization as they develop. Likewise a wellbeing benefit at the individual level might also override employee concerns about the future relevance and applicability of WBL. Both organizational and individual factors are key then in determining how WBL interacts with wellbeing, Billett’s (2002) conceptualization of WBL as a social practice is helpful in thinking about how these factors come together in organizational settings and how WBL should be implemented.

Implementing Learning for Wellbeing at Work The discussion of the literature above indicates that there are strong reasons for connecting thinking about WBL and wellbeing not just in theory, but in practice also. Much more active consideration of wellbeing in the design of training for work can have a positive impact on wellbeing, but also on engagement and transfer of the learning for employees and their organization. For example, where workers consider themselves to have been subjected to mandatory training which has no clear relevance or resonance with their work environment this is likely to have limited or even negative impact in terms of learning and wellbeing. For work-based training that is focused on wellbeing, the link is obvious and many of these programs or interventions measure their impact through wellbeing outcomes (Watson et al. 2018). Mindfulness, resilience, stress management, and problem solving training are just a few examples of the kind of wellbeing related training now widespread in the workplace. While these kinds of training have been shown to have varying degrees

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of effectiveness, more attention to the theorization of how learning occurs and the impact of other organizational factors would be beneficial. The expectation that training staff to develop personal resources that help them cope with stress at work will be effective hinges on how well a training program engages staff and their ability to put training into practice in the context of other work demands (see Lemmetty and Collin 2020). Much of the formal training undertaken as WBL is not wellbeing focused, yet taking into account wellbeing is important. It is unlikely that learning will be effective if it simply places additional demands on workers. Equally if demands are high and the wellbeing of workers is already low then learning could play an important role in reducing these, but only if organizations dedicate time and resources that enable learning to be effective in increasing competency and thereby reducing demands. This is particularly relevant in contexts of organizational change or uncertainty, learning may form a key component of dealing with this, but only if individual and organizational resources can put this learning to use. Investment in WBL will not reap any benefit if there is not the means to put this learning into practice through work, therefore the transfer of learning into work practices needs to be gauged and enabled. Models of work stress suggest that work capabilities link closely to the demands of the job and therefore efforts to support WBL offer scope for impact on wellbeing alongside the development of skilled expertise. It is likely that this holds true for a wide range of occupations and workplaces, but the current evidence is mainly limited to the health and social care sectors (Watson et al. 2018). Those few examples that do exist are insightful for practitioners and researchers. For example, Yamagishi et al. (2008) investigate training that seeks to develop career identity skills for nurses, which is considered as a cognitive technique to help nurses more positively self-identify in order to foster personal resources to improve wellbeing, but the training also includes career goal planning supporting professional development. Clearly wellbeing is not the only or overriding purpose of learning, but how it interrelates with a particular form of WBL needs to recognized for learning to be successful. For many organizations learning is at the core of their approach to HRM and underpins performance, organizations are increasingly moving away from transactional approaches to HR and appraisal with a whole person view that is developmental. The alignment in this space of individual learning motivations with organizational interests is key to resolving any tensions that may frustrate wellbeing and learning. How an individual fits with the learning environment provided through work will determine if it also provides wellbeing benefits and how, whether it be through career progression, enhanced confidence or work abilities more can be done to understand specific mechanisms by which WBL benefits wellbeing rather than assuming it is the case. However, it is not always possible for tensions to be resolved and for individual and organizational priories to be aligned. The increasing fluidity of people’s working lives creates opportunities for them to pursue learning in other organizational contexts, but this also creates a constant demand for learning. Moreover from an organizational point of view, increasing mobility of workers undermines the case for investment in them as a resource. When

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looking at learning and wellbeing together there is then a case for employers to take a longer term view and provide opportunities for individuals within an organization so they don’t lose valued skills and expertise. It will not always be possible to accommodate workers appetite for learning and progression within an organization, particularly for smaller companies and arguably there is also a role for government in taking a more proactive approach to supporting adult learning in and through work with policies that support employers and employees. If WBL has the potential to benefit both the wider economy and the wellbeing of workers, but may be at the expense of individual organizational performance, then this can create a disincentive for investment in WBL at the organizational level which harms productivity as a whole. The question of how wellbeing and the role of work based learning within it is viewed is not just a question for government or academics, but for organizations and the individuals who comprise them also. Organizations may consider their responsibilities for employee wellbeing in relatively narrow terms, for example providing a safe working environment and support for stress and return to work where necessary, whereas a more expansive view may consider WBL as more fundamental to wellbeing. The approach an organization takes to wellbeing has implications for how it supports wellbeing, whereas the former may reduce anxiety and absenteeism it may be less effective at supporting meaningful work and job satisfaction, for which WBL is likely to be a key antecedent or element. Organizations can realize gains in performance and through innovation by investing in WBL, but a performance oriented outlook alone may be short-sighted. WBL offers an opportunity to improve people’s experience of their work and also their performance, these benefits are additive in the sense that increased job satisfaction is associated with increased performance. However, employers who invest in WBL only with a view to improving performance are liable to be perceived as inauthentic by employees who may see themselves as means to the organizations ends. While some evidence suggests that learning can have a negative impact, the weight of evidence overwhelmingly points to benefits arising from WBL; however, this does not support unlimited investment in learning. Notwithstanding the returns in performance that organizations will expect from investment in WBL, its influence on wellbeing will vary according to the need, desire and benefit from continual learning through work that alters with age along with variation in individual orientations (Felstead et al. 2015). Obviously there is much that can be done to support WBL and wellbeing in tandem through formal training programs and planned interventions, but as this chapter has recognized much of the learning that takes place at work is considered informal. Informal does not mean that the work environment does not structure learning opportunities (Billett 2002) and therefore employers also need to give thought to how the culture in an organization shapes learning opportunities. There is evidence of an association between learning culture/ opportunities and wellbeing at work, but much less research has been done to inform how organizations achieve this in practice, but given the emphasis on informal learning and the shift to less structured working environments this is likely to be key for the future. Organizational culture, processes, and structures can act as a “hidden curriculum” that shape learning experiences and opportunities

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unintentionally, turning attention to this can support the development of a “workplace curriculum” to fully achieve the potential of the workplace as learning environment (Billett 2002). Learning can be considered a key aspect of job design and job quality, with skill utilization typically a feature of the measurement of job quality (Irvine et al. 2018). Despite the role of WBL in models of job quality, it is not explicitly measured extensively, and while the assumption that learning is a key feature of good quality jobs is common place, theorization on the role of WBL in relation to job quality and wellbeing remains underdeveloped. In some respects then it seems that practice could in fact be further advanced than academic research and theory in relation to WBL and wellbeing. Although learning can be found in various models of wellbeing and a number of models of learning at work exist there is very little theory or research that can serve as a guide for practitioners seeking to implement approaches to WBL that are integrated with wellbeing. In many organizations though learning is given a high priority and is central to efforts to support employee wellbeing. Although this is not universally the case and critical attention to the efforts of organizations and the limitations of particular organizational contexts to provide WBL opportunities is also needed, since it cannot be assumed that WBL automatically supports wellbeing nor that all working environments provide adequate opportunities for WBL or wellbeing to be realized.

Conclusions/Summary This chapter has discussed the links between work-based learning and wellbeing providing a summary of the literature and some guidance for practice and future research. Acknowledging the diversity of learning that takes place in the workplace, the chapter advocates a broad understanding of learning as necessary to fully recognize the potential wellbeing benefits of WBL. Notwithstanding this broad approach the particular way in which different forms of learning take place and their context remains important. Learning can be seen as quite central to various ways of understanding and practicing wellbeing in the workplace and this is underpinned by an assumption that the two are mutually reinforcing. The chapter has drawn attention to the evidence that supports the link between wellbeing and learning at work, but also highlighted serious gaps in research and our understanding of precisely how the relationship between WBL and wellbeing unfolds. More explicit attention to the interrelation of wellbeing and learning in the workplace is required to develop workplace practice that benefit employees and organizations, but there is also a need for academics to develop theory and empirical evidence than can more adequately inform this practice.

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Management of Equity and Diversity

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Katherine J. C. Sang, Jennifer Remnant, Olugbenga Abraham Babajide, and James Richards

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diversity Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Race and Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Varied Experiences of Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

COVID-19 has brought acutely to wide attention a range of inequalities in working life, including the gendered household division of labor. However, it has also offered opportunities for more inclusive working practices such as home working. The support for a diverse workforce can be considered “diversity management” which attempts to harness the benefits of diversity for organizational gain. Through a discussion of the intersectional experiences of often marginalized employees, this chapter explores the discriminations reported by many employees. We focus specifically on disability, presenting historical and contemporary explanations of disability at work, with illustrative examples. This

K. J. C. Sang (*) · O. A. Babajide · J. Richards The Centre for Research on Employment, Work and the Professions, Edinburgh Business School, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] J. Remnant Chancellor’s Fellow, Scottish Centre for Employment Research, Strathclyde Business School, Glasgow, Scotland, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_15

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chapter concludes with suggestions for more inclusive practices at work to benefit both employees and employers. Keywords

Disability · Diversity · Equality · Gender · Inclusion

Introduction Recent global events including the COVID-19 pandemic have sharply revealed the diverse needs and experiences of workers. The move to remote or teleworking for many white-collar employees has put the spotlight on caring responsibilities, digital inequalities, and increased risks to poor physical and mental health. This chapter discusses the experiences of diverse workers, particularly experiences of discrimination, and strategies which can be employed by employers to move toward inclusion in the workplace. We begin by setting out diversity management and then move toward discussions of gender and racial inequalities at work (the experiences of LGBTQI workers are discussed elsewhere in this handbook) and then focus specifically on disability inequality at work. We draw on academic research, best practice, and case studies from our own work to illustrate the experiences of disabled workers and identify ways forward toward disability inclusion.

Diversity Management Many countries have antidiscrimination legislation that is designed to protect the traditionally marginalized, discussed further later in this chapter. In the UK, the Equality Act (2010) offers protection against discrimination on the grounds of nine protected characteristics: sex, gender reassignment, race and ethnicity, pregnancy and maternity, disability, religion, age, marriage and civil partnership, and sexual orientation. The legislation also allows a limited degree of protection based on dual characteristics, for example, a female employee who is disabled. The Equality Act 2010 is strongest in the prevention of discrimination and harassment in health, education, transport, housing, and accessing public services and businesses, where organizations are legally obliged to anticipate the needs of people defined by protected characteristics. However, in the employment and disability context, employer organizations are only legally obliged to react to requests from employees who may need some form of workplace adjustments. A feature of contemporary organizations is the increasing evidence of workplace diversity management. This can be seen as important recognitions of an increasingly diverse workplace. This workforce diversity includes a wide variety of visible and hidden differences between workers. Successful management of these differences can improve organizational productivity (Kandola and Fullerton 1998; CIPD 2018). Much of the responsibility for diversity managements falls to individual line

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managers who increasingly have responsibility for human resource management (Richards et al. 2019). However, most research and practice within diversity management focus on gender and race/ethnicity, with little emphasis on disability. The chapter will now move to a brief consideration of the most frequently researched protected characteristics.

Gender Despite equality legislation in many countries, women’s progress in paid employment still faces constraints. A gender pay gap persists whereby we see the average earnings of men and women differ, with women earning less than men (Auspurg et al. 2017). This has historically been explained by women’s overrepresentation in lower paid work, and part-time work. However, there is also an equal pay gap, where, despite legislation, women are paid less than men for doing the same work across several sectors in the UK including science and engineering (O’Neill 2019), and medicine (Moberly 2019). This pattern is replicated across the world with evidence of a gender pay gap within job roles in Japan (Estévez-Abe 2013), North America (Meara et al. 2020), Brazil (Guimarães and Silva 2016), and Denmark (Smith et al. 2011). Employment is still characterized in many countries by horizontal and vertical job segregation (Siboni et al. 2016). Horizontal job segregation refers to the types of occupations occupied by men and women, for example, we tend to see women focused in occupations associated with caring (e.g., teaching), while men are often found in sectors such as construction. In contrast, vertical job segregation refers to where men and women sit in hierarchies, for example, women are more likely to be found in more junior and lesser paid roles, while disproportionately, more men can be found in senior roles. This is particularly so in female-dominated sectors such as teaching, social work, and nursing (Lane and Flowers 2015). There is increased understanding that discrimination contributes to the persistence of the gender pay gap across the world (Lips 2013). Similarly, as occupational fields become more female dominated, it is reported that pay in those fields decreases (Miller 2016).

Race and Ethnicity Turning to the race pay gap, it is a complicated picture. Overall, data in the UK suggests that there is a significant pay gap between White employees and those from ethnic minorities, with the most recent data suggesting a pay gap in London in excess of 20% (ONS 2018). Data from the UK government shows the national trends in employment each year. The most recent data shows a range of employment trends for different ethnic groups (GOV.UK Employment 2020). There are differences in employment rates, with White people of working age more likely to be in employment than all other ethnic groups in the UK. Conversely, White people are also less likely to be unemployed. The data shows variations between minority ethnic groups, with those from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds the least likely to be in employment.

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Historically, within the UK, there was also a “color bar.” This term originated in South Africa as a reference to the Mine and Works Regulations Act (1912) which gave White workers a monopoly on skilled operations. Over time though, “color bar” was used to refer to a collection of government regulations, employment practices, and legislation to prevent Black people from competing for certain categories of job (Durrheim et al. 2011). The UK “color bar” also functioned to prevent workers from ethnic minority backgrounds from certain forms of employment. As McIvor (2013) points out, the UK’s race-relations at work differ from other countries’ due to a complex colonial history and a skills shortage after World War II. Many studies illustrate the marginalization and discrimination that people of color report in the workplace. Many readers will be familiar with the Black Lives Matter movement which started in the United States in response to police killings of African American men and women and has subsequently become a global movement toward racial equality. More recently, researchers have started to ask if Black lives matter within organizations, taking the Black Lives Matter movement from police violence toward understanding persistent discrimination in the workplace and ethnic pay gap (Brynin and Güveli 2012). Opie and Roberts (2017) explored whether Black lives matter in organizations, concluding that historically the lives of White employees in the global north have been privileged by not experiencing workplace racism, and as a result not having to navigate the additional obstacles faced by ethnic minority colleagues (Offermann et al. 2014). For example, Black women report being routinely discriminated against due to the texture and color of their hair (Greene 2011). Despite this, there are numerous reasons to encourage ethnically diverse workplaces as they cultivate dynamic workplaces where organizations can utilize varied perspectives, opinions, and problem-solving abilities in strategic decision-making (Krome 2014). As such, it is important for employers to work with, elevate, and support Black and other racialized employees to establish and sustain workplace inclusivity and recognize the value of diverse lived experiences.

Disability Disabled people experience considerable difficulties in relation to employment and, for that reason, are the focus of this diversity management chapter. They represent a heterogenous group with varied experiences and challenges. However, before moving to a discussion of these lived experiences, it is first necessary to define disability including the use of disability language in this chapter.

Models of Disability Historically, disability has been considered from a medicalized perspective, whereby “disability” resides within the individual and the medical profession’s aim was to remove the illness or condition which caused the disability. For example, efforts were made by medical communities to “cure” Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. However, this approach not only stigmatizes disability and medical conditions and neglects the experiences and voice of disabled people, but it also does not recognize

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the disabling effects of the built and social environments which we all occupy (Richards 2012). In response to the medical model of disability, disability theorists and activists developed the social model of disability, which draws a distinction between “impairment” (e.g., a medical condition) and disabling barriers in the environment (Oliver 1983). Under the social model, disability is not the condition, but the social oppression faced by those diagnosed with an impairment interacting with an environment which is not accessible or inclusive. Therefore, under the social model, we do not use person-first language (person with a disability), rather we say “disabled person” to show we understand that the person is disabled by their environment not their “impairment.” Doing so moves us away from considering the disabled person from being the problem, toward recognizing the disabling effects of the environment in which people live and work. If we use the social model of disability, we can consider carefully how our actions, policies, and practices might be disabling to people with impairments. Disability scholars, however, such as Shakespeare (2006), have constructively criticized the social model of disability for neglecting the role of impairment in the lived experience of disabled people. Nevertheless, the social model remains a remarkable and useful tool that holds society accountable for constructing disability. The social model has helped in shifting the conversation from focusing on “fixing” individuals to how we might better accommodate diverse human needs (Williams and Mavin 2012). Indeed, one of the core notions of the social model is that society creates disability, and “it is the society that has to change not individuals” (Oliver 1983, p. 37). Use of the model enables improved awareness of how to refer to and interact with disabled employees as well as address the physical accessibility of the workspace. This awareness, or organizational knowledge, can be referred to as “disability literacy.” Therefore, employers must be aware of social barriers (e.g., stigma) and physical barriers (e.g., lack of wheelchair ramp or lift) experienced by disabled workers. More recent disability theorizing has been linked closely with feminists’ understandings of gender whereby gender is seen as a form of social oppression. Similarly, Thomas argues disability as social oppression, whereby those designated with “impairments” are oppressed by those designated without “impairments.” This social relational model of disability builds closely on the social model of disability, by exploring the political, emotional, material, economic, structural, and personal dimensions of disability (Thomas 2004). By doing so, we can create opportunities for understanding how disability is created and reproduced as a result of unequal social relationships (Goodley 2013). For example, for some disabled people, disability is not part of their self-identity; it is a product of discrimination and prejudice, seeing themselves as “normal” unless treated differently by others (Watson 2002). Both the social model and the social relational models shift the focus away from an illness or impairment, toward understanding how the physical and social aspects of work disable employees. This shift is important for managers as it allows us to understand how adjustments at work can help to support disabled people not only to access employment, but also to thrive at work.

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Disability at Work We shed light and provide insights on disability at work, particularly in British employment. In most of the management and organizational studies and literature, disability is under-researched (Ozbilgin et al. 2011). Most disability work in Human Resource Management (HRM) is informed with medicalized and individualistic viewpoints (Williams and Mavin 2012). Management and organizational literature are paying less attention to the voices and knowledge of disabled people (Williams and Mavin 2012). Under the British Equality Act (2010), a person is legally considered as disabled if the person has “a physical or mental impairment that has ‘substantial’ and a ‘long-term’ negative effect on their ability to undertake normal daily activities” (Ibid). This definition was incorporated from the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA 1995:2005), the preceding piece of disability-related legislation in the UK. Despite the introduction of legislative protections for disabled people in the UK, offering workplace protections from discrimination and harassment (and ostensibly enabling disabled people to access, and remain in secure work), many academics and activists have expressed reservations about its efficacy (Bambra and Smith 2010; William 2016). The employment gap between nondisabled working age people and their disabled contemporaries in the UK has not improved since before the DDA (1995) static (Jones and Wass 2013), and there continues to be criticisms from disabled people of ableist workplaces and reports of overwork completed by disabled workers across the global north (Johnsson et al. 2010; Pagan 2018; Stergiou-Kita et al. 2016; Wells et al. 2013). Particular criticisms of UK equality legislation and key explanations for ongoing disability exclusion in more enlightened times include how such legislation puts the onus on employees to know and act upon their rights, and how UK employer obligation is limited to reacting to employee requests for adjustments. With many of the above in mind, in this section, we discuss the misconception of dis/ability and productive work, including the disabling and undervaluing of disabled people at work or in employment, and provide strategies for disability inclusion at work or organizations. The Misconception of Dis/Ability and Productive Work Disability at work is an important and stimulating topic (Turner et al. 2017). Work and productivity are central to policy-based and legislative definitions of disability (Rose 2015). However, the assumption that disability is an inability to do productive work hardly reflects the reality of the lived experience of disabled people at work (Adams et al. 2015). The in/ability to perform productive work has been important to the meaning of disability across cultures (Turner et al. 2017). The problem is that disability is misunderstood for different reasons. First, among these reasons is the absence of a neutral language for a collective or global understanding of disability which has influenced how disability is perceived and understood (Clark and Marsh 2002; Loeb 2013). Loeb (2013) illustrates that disability may be perceived with negative associations (e.g., feeling of stigma or shame) in some cultures and could make individuals feel reluctant to self-identify with disability. In contrast, in other cultures, disability may be perceived in terms of severity. For example, someone

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who can walk within their home but are not capable of walking to the market may consider their impairment effects as not severe enough to be considered having a disability even though their daily activities are restricted. Therefore, there is a notion of cultural differences that influence the perception or interpretation of disability. Similarly, the prefix “dis” in disability carries a negative connotation that portrays disabled people as the binary opposite of nondisabled people without impairments. Historically, notions of disability resulted in moral judgments. Often based in religious or cultural traditions, they suggested that the presence of disability implied evil or idleness in the individual or sometimes punishment for past offences (Harpur 2012). Though many of these historical prejudices have diminished over time, they have a legacy – particularly in relation to idleness. The label of “disabled” continues to inform negative assumptions and misconception that disabled people are not able, or willing, to be productive at work. The difference between abled and disabled bodies has become paired with the notion of the productive body in a manufacturing industrial system. As a result, disabled people have come to be understood in terms of being nonproductive or deficient (Adams et al. 2015). This has shaped widely held misconceptions of disability. It is important to understand that disability is not the opposite of ability. Rather, the opposite of disabled is not abled or able-bodied but nondisabled or enabled (GOV.UK 2018). Useful models or tools that help address these misconceptions of disability and provide a meaningful solution for societal or social change are the previously mentioned social and social relational models of disability.

Disabling Disabled People at Work In 2011, the World Health Organization’s (WHO 2011) report on disability acknowledged that the employment rates of working-age disabled people are lower compared to nondisabled people in developing and developed countries even though most disabled people can do the same jobs as their peers if the workplace is supportive. As Turner et al. (2017) identify, discrimination, productivity norms, prejudice in the workplace, and inflexible social security systems for disabled people are factors affecting disabled people’s opportunities in employment. They represent both supply and demand issues related to accessing and maintaining secure work and are indicative of institutional discrimination which systematically marginalizes disabled people via established laws, customs, and practices and instituted through broadly shared values, beliefs, and attitudes (Yeo and Moore 2003). In response to these obstacles, disability research and activism have been focused on challenging institutional discrimination (Barnes 1992a) in organizational systems that support ableism (discrimination toward disabled people in favor of the nondisabled) and disableism (discrimination against disabled people). Alongside supporting disabled workers, it should also be incumbent on employing organizations to ensure robust health and safety protocols are in place to avoid occupational illness and impairment. Some conditions are concentrated in specific sectors, for example, in the Dutch construction industry, and musculoskeletal conditions (including lower-back pain) have been recognized as a leading cause of morbidity, long-term absence, and disability (Burdorf et al. 2005). Likewise,

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studies suggest that amendable occupational factors (e.g., poor social support or not receiving a homecoming brief) among British Armed Forces personnel could result in disability such as post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] (Iversen et al. 2008). Some occupational conditions result from exposure to specific substances, such as asbestos. Others are a complex combination of poor organizational health and safety measures, limited access to medical support for employees, and limited social security systems for ill-health forcing people to return to work before they have recovered. Appropriate health and safety precautions in the workplace are important not only to avoid employee injury or illness, and the potential subsequent litigation, but also to protect disabled workers who may have additional needs for some situations. For example, in the event of a building evacuation, it benefits all employees to have clear exit routes free from obstacles.

Undervaluing Disabled People in Employment Exploring diversity management in relation to work provides the opportunity to critique the nature of work itself and a lens to understand the economic mechanisms that continue to undervalue people who cannot meet productivity standards (Turner et al. 2017). In modern society, work not only helps to construct an individual’s identity as an adult, but it also provides an opportunity to demonstrate capability by constructing a connection between income and autonomy (Ibid). In the UK and the USA, the dangers that surround industrial workplaces have provided the possibility for legal compensation to injured workers; however, this legislation operates to portray those with existing impairments as expensive burdens at work (Rose 2017). One particular example is that of Ford Motors Company where newly disabled workers did not have their financial needs met by their employer nor receive compensation (Ibid). In the UK, social policy has created the “disability category” by separating those considered incapable of doing productive work due to their age or impairment, from workers with nondisabled and therefore interchangeable bodies. Nondisabled, and therefore presumed more productive, workers are favored in the industrial system while workers in the “disability category” are excluded and marginalized (Turner et al. 2017). There is extensive evidence that disabled people are undervalued in employment at the micro- (e.g., poor disability management at work) and macrolevel (e.g., government policies). Stone (1984) stated that the contemporary “disability category” was constructed by “industrial capitalism and the welfare systems it engendered” (Turner et al. 2017, p. 2). Stone stressed that the medical management of “disability category” serves as an instrument of the state in controlling the supply of labor and facilitates class interest (Barnes and Mercer 2010). In recent years, this same argument has been made by social policy scholars such as Baumberg (2016) and public health scholars specializing in work and employment (Bambra 2011). The first major British legislation to address the employment needs of disabled people was the Disabled Person’s Employment Act (1944), after World War II, to provide and keep disabled people (men) in employment and included both “demandside” and “supply-side” measures (Hyde 2000; Woodin 2015). The “demand-side” measure obliged employers with more than 20 employees to ensure that at least 3%

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of their workforce were disabled workers. However, most employers were under quota, and only ten prosecutions were made of employers that have failed to comply. The “supply-side” measures included job-search advice, financial incentives for employers, and “rehabilitation” for disabled workers (Hyde 2000). This legislation corresponded with further social policy alterations that provided out of work sickness benefit payments to those not in work, as well as the establishment of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) in 1947. There is an argument that accesses out of work welfare payments, and health services that were free at the point of delivery limited the enthusiasm of disabled people to return to work, a notion that still has currency now (Garthwaite 2011). An alternative argument points to the inflexibility of welfare provision in the UK, both historically and currently, highlighting how disabled people face the removal of welfare support if they are deemed capable of work, irrespective of whether there is work available to them. This early legislation significantly influenced contemporary social policy regarding the labor force and disability. It highlights the financial insecurity of disabled people seeking long-term employment and illustrates the importance of inclusive workplaces to provide economic security to disabled colleagues. Disabled people still live with medicalized and other discriminatory assumptions that posit disabled people as not being able to achieve a reasonable standard of living with their efforts as a result of their physical or psychological impairment (Barnes 1992b). Despite the rejection of such assumptions by disabled people and their organizations (Barnes 1992b), disabled people remain less likely to be in employment in comparison to nondisabled people. The UK employment rate among working-age disabled in 2016 was 46.5% (4.1 million) in comparison to 84% of nondisabled people (Brand 2018). The proportion of working-age disabled people (44.3%) who are economically inactive or unemployed is almost quadruple the proportion of nondisabled people (11.5%) who are economically inactive or unemployed (Brand 2018). These figures put ableism and disableism into perspective in employment and highlight the disproportionate disadvantage in the UK labor market (Barnes and Roulstone 2005). This employment gap is the result of institutional and organizational discrimination, economic inequality, poor diversity management, and limited meaningful inclusion in UK workplaces. Rectifying this requires further research attention, improved strategies for disability inclusion, and appropriate means of enforcement (Barnes 1992b).

Varied Experiences of Disability When many people think of disability, they imagine a wheelchair user and associate this with specific accessibility requirements, such as ramps, to access office buildings or reserved parking spaces at work. However, “disability” covers a very broad range of conditions, health issues, and impairment effects or symptoms. In this section, we consider three broad categories to explore this variety: (1) hidden impairments; (2) life limiting impairments, and (3) stigmatized impairments.

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Within the UK, disability has a legal definition whereby a person is seen as disabled if they have any condition which affects their day-to-day functioning for 12 months or more (Equality Act 2010). There are a number of conditions which automatically confer protection under the Equality Act (2010) including cancer and HIV (GOV.UK nd). The definition within the US Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) is broadly similar, requiring a formal record of such an impairment (eeoc.gov nd) which, consequently, requires that the individual in question has a formal medical diagnosis. For several conditions, such as endometriosis, fibromyalgia, and a selection of mental health conditions, employees can spend many years securing a diagnosis during which time access to workplace support and adjustments can be difficult (if not impossible) to secure. An important aspect to disability that employers must consider, is that it is not necessarily apparent that an individual is disabled. “Hidden” impairments can raise several workplace obstacles for individuals who need to consider how to disclose their condition in order to access workplace support. As Richards and Sang (2016) highlight, such “impairments” can include neurodiversity, a term which covers a range of so-called neurological impairments such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, which are all associated with a range of negative employment outcomes. The case study below shows the difficulties that a disabled man at work might experience in managing a hidden impairment which he believes is stigmatized. Case Study Brian works as an engineer for UKTrains [nationwide train company in the UK], where he has worked for 25 years. After several distressing incidents at work, such as when Brian was laughed at by colleagues for making spelling errors in his written work, reminiscent of Brian’s childhood experiences at school many years before that, Brian approached his family doctor and was referred to a learning specialist. The learning specialist diagnosed Brian as dyslexic and recommended he see the UKTrains occupational health team to develop a strategy for workplace adjustments. Brian reluctantly met with the occupational health team and reported that he was very embarrassed as he was worried he would be laughed at and that he would not be taken seriously by his team and colleagues should they find out he is dyslexic. He tells the occupational health nurse that he feels undermined at work by the “mistakes” others have pointed out in public, and he has been asking his wife and daughter to proofread his work before he submits it for his team to see. The occupational health nurse advises Brian that there is an array of options for support including software he can download to his work laptop, and he should speak to the IT manager to secure this software. Six months later, Brian has not approached the IT manager stating that he is too embarrassed to do so, and he does not want the IT manager to know he is disabled as he fears gossip will be spread and he will be laughed at again. Brian continues to rely on his wife and daughter for proofreading and other support and has kept his diagnosis secret from his team. Brian’s experiences show the difficulties which can be experienced by disabled employees whose condition or impairment requires disclosure in order to be

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accommodated. Those who are living with conditions which are hidden, such as autism or dyslexia, face a range of dilemmas at work and discrimination which can lead to complaints made to employers (Van Wieren et al. 2008). From Brian’s description of his working life, we can learn that he fears stigma, and due to the forced requirement to disclose in order to secure any adjustments, he has elected to continue to hide his condition and remains struggling at work. An employer may wish to consider whether their reporting requirements fulfill the requirements of the local legislative frameworks and the associated impact on Brian’s and therefore the company’s performance. It can be difficult for employers to accommodate the additional specific needs of some employees if they have not disclosed information relating to those needs. Key organizational solutions to this include establishing a positive inclusive atmosphere where employees feel confident disclosing health conditions or medical diagnosis. To cultivate employee comfort and confidence of this kind, it is important that organizational materials and policies provide the clear and unambiguous message that workplace diversity and the resultant increase in perspectives, creativity, and experience are welcomed in the work environment. This would be an instrumental first step in creating a more inclusive workplace, where workforce diversity is a strategic priority and welcomed.

Life-Limiting Conditions Experiences of illness and impairment are incredibly varied and encompass limitless symptom trajectories, varied prognoses, and social impacts. Though many HRM policies assume that after a period of sickness an employee may recover, this is increasingly not the case, for example, over half of all people diagnosed with cancer in the UK, right now, are alive 10 years after being diagnosed (Cancer Research UK 2020). The risk of acquiring a long-term health condition increases with age, and the UK – as with the rest of the world – has an aging workforce. To address this, this section explores the management of disabled staff experiencing long-term, life limiting conditions in the workplace, with a specific focus on cancer. Cancer offers a useful lens by which to explore managing diversity at work as it is experienced as an acute illness and long-term condition, with a collection of treatment options including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. There are over 200 types of cancer, with a range of prognoses trajectories including receiving curative treatment through to terminal diagnoses (National Cancer Institute 2020). As with many impairments and long-term health conditions, the risk of being diagnosed with cancer increases with age (US Cancer Statistics Working Group 2013). As the global workforce ages, it is likely that the number of people who are in work when diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses such as cancer will increase. The management of employees diagnosed with life-limiting conditions is likely to involve the use of sick leave, sometimes for lengthy periods, or frequent short absences. In many workforces, it is possible to support this, and employees benefit from clear guidelines and access to information about what occupational sick pay they are entitled to. Employers who benefit from skill retention will need to reflect on how to maximize the employees time at work and limit the cost of their absence. Musculoskeletal health conditions, stress, and cancer are the most common reasons

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why employees take sick leave in the global north (Brage et al. 2010; Kim 2017; Young and Bhaumik 2011). Sometimes, symptoms experienced by employees with life-limiting conditions can be managed for long periods of time; however, in other instances, there is no effective treatment, and employees experience a reduction in their capability. This can result in fear and distress relating to their job. Across the world, work provides the primary source of income for most households, and life-limiting conditions pose a substantial threat to domestic budgets. From an employee perspective, it is often important to maintain an income, irrespective of their prognosis or because work can be a helpful distraction from their illness (Grunfeld et al. 2013). In other instances, work is not compatible with their situation, or employees may rather spend their remaining time with family and friends, and to get their affairs in order. Whatever choice a person makes, it is reasonable to expect sensitivity and support from their employer, though there is extensive evidence that employees experiencing lifelimiting conditions are subject to mistreatment by their employing organization, referred to as “healthism” (Roberts and Weeks 2018). As discussed previously in the section “Undervaluing Disabled People at Work,” there are numerous different global legislative contexts regarding workplace protections for people experiencing illness or disability. In the UK, cancer is defined as a disability under the Equality Act (2010). As a result, UK employers are obliged to make efforts to accommodate the additional needs of employees with cancer to allow them to work and apply for jobs equally to nondisabled colleagues. Referred to as “reasonable adjustments,” workplace accommodations can include alterations to the physical environment, working hours, or organizational policy. There has been some speculation that the legal definition of cancer as a disability in the UK and use of the Equality Act (2010) might have resulted in the improved management of employees with cancer in UK workplaces. However, there is extensive evidence that people experiencing long-term and life-limiting conditions experience negative employment outcomes (Bambra 2011; Bartley et al. 2004). US citizens with long-term and life-limiting conditions are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) but report similar employment outcomes (Lerner et al. 2000). This suggests that disabled employees with cancer face mistreatment in the workplace even where they are subject to specific legislative protections; this reflects the wider experiences of disabled workers with conditions and diagnoses other than cancer. There is increasing evidence that the provision of workplace accommodations for employees with life-limiting conditions across Europe and North America is lacking (Mehnert 2011; Vornholt et al. 2018). In the UK, this has resulted in a trade union campaign called “dying to work” to demand better workplace support for employees with terminal diagnoses (Trade Union Congress 2020). The support currently available reflects that offered to disabled employees more broadly in that it manifests as managerial goodwill rather than entitlement and that employer provisions of support are individualized and unplugged from the structural exclusion of disabled workers (Foster 2007; Remnant 2019; Shuey and Jovic 2013). The employment rate of people with cancer mimics wider disability employment gaps (De Boer et al. 2009), and accounts of poor management from employees with cancer correspond

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to criticisms of ableist workplaces and reports of overwork reported by people with disabilities across the Global North (Johnsson et al. 2010; Stergiou-Kita et al. 2016; Wells et al. 2013). In the context of a globally aging workforce, life-limiting illnesses such as cancer will become more prevalent among the working age population. There are pessimistic projections about the quality of work across the Global North, which fosters an increasing sense of precarity (Standing 2011) especially for older workers and workers experiencing poor health. Ill-health also poses a challenge to employers though, who may have concerns about employee capacity and performance in the event of illness, low team morale, and the loss of skilled workers. However, individual employers can address these issues by engaging in supportive and inclusive practice that adequately responds to health-based diversity in the workplace. Below is an example of good workplace support for an employee diagnosed with life-limiting cancer. Case Study Dave and Pete are both shift supervisors at a large private factory. The factory employs over 500 employees and is a major feature of the local economy and community. The factory has excellent employee retention, with most employees working there for over 10 years, forming close friendships with their colleagues. The organization is part of a multinational corporation and has in-house human resources and occupational health teams. Dave and Pete have line management responsibilities (they supervise 12-hour shifts). One of their employees, Trevor, a worker in his late 50s, requested some annual leave. On returning from this leave, Trevor asked for a meeting with Dave and Pete. He explained to them that during his annual leave he had experienced some symptoms and had gone to the doctor. He had been told that he had cancer and was waiting to hear back about his prognosis. Both Dave and Pete reassured Trevor that they would do all that they could to support him, and both managers requested cancer-specific workplace training which they then attended. They asked Trevor if it would be alright to refer him to their occupational health team and to let human resources know. They explained that he did not need to take annual leave to attend further appointments, but to let them know with as much notice as possible and they would cover his shifts. Unfortunately, it was bad news and Trevor was given a terminal diagnosis. He needed to take time off for treatment but expressed a strong desire to continue working. Between the three of them, they decided on a short weekly phone call to keep Trevor in the loop. Dave and Pete also arranged a meeting with Trevor and occupational health staff. Between them, they came up with a plan to keep Trevor as engaged as possible with work. At first, while his symptoms were manageable, this included working shorter shifts, completing fewer physical tasks, and supporting onthe-job training for more junior colleagues. As his symptoms became less manageable, Dave and Pete met with human resources and health and safety staff, and they wrote a risk assessment and altered organizational policy to allow for Trevor to be on-site in the workplace cafeteria and staff rooms to meet with his colleagues.

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As Trevor entered the last months of his life, a human resource representative visited him at home to discuss financial matters. Throughout his sickness, he received full pay (he was contractually obliged to full pay for 12 months sickness). It was agreed that he would remain on the pay roll until he died, meaning that his wife would receive both his death in service payment, and pension. Trevor was reassured that his wife would be financially secure when he died. This case study offers a collection of examples of good practice for organizational management. In the first instance, the organization responded to managerial requests for condition-specific training, meaning that the managers felt comfortable approaching Trevor and discussing his needs with him. It also meant they were aware of their legal duties to Trevor (in the UK, under the Equality Act (2010)). They considered the options available to them to meet the business needs of their employer. This resulted in Trevor passing on his specialist skills as part of an informal training program, meaning that his important skills were not lost by the organization, and his role became less physical. They also considered Trevor’s needs as an employee, which resulted in small changes in policy, allowing Trevor to access the organization’s property legally and safely during his illness. Their management was fully transparent, and Trevor was party to all financial negotiations. Not only was this beneficial to Trevor’s morale, but also to the morale of his colleagues who saw an example of an employer that supported employees in tragic circumstances. Improving disability inclusion is often perceived as an expensive burden, but as this case study shows, several workplace accommodations were relatively low cost and made a meaningful difference when implemented in the workplace (Rose 2017). There are some important ways that employers can support staff with life-limiting conditions, including small and medium size organizations with limited financial resources. A key feature of the above case study was employer transparency. Keeping an employee informed and discussing the available options for their support can help employees feel valued. It also offers a positive example to other employees, facilitating continued employee goodwill. The above case highlights that there is both a moral and business case for employers to provide sensitive support of employees with life-limiting conditions.

Disability and Intersectionality Intersectionality was coined by Kimberle Crenshaw (1990) to reveal the ways that racism and sexism interact to qualitatively affect the experiences of Black women. The term intersectionality is commonly used to explain how categories of difference intersect in complex ways, although Crenshaw’s work specifically refers to the experiences of Black women. More recently, there have been attempts to understand how disability and ableism interact or intersect with other protected characteristics. Data suggests that disability may interrupt men’s sense of masculinity at work, with negative consequences for career progression, particularly within male-dominated industries (Sang et al. 2016). Further, bodily processes which are not themselves “disability” could impact a person’s life to the extent it does constitute disability. There are issues when stigmatized experiences or bodily processes are involved

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which are gendered, for example, gynecological health conditions. While bodily processes such as menstruation do not qualify as disability, if there are associated gynecological health conditions which affect a person’s day-to-day working life, they may fall under “disability.” Taylor (2019) draws on a recent case, Davies v Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service, in Scottish law where serious effects of menopause were ruled to confer protection under the UK Equality Act, where such effects constituted disability in their severity and duration. An increasing number of employers are implementing “period leave” whereby those who experience problematic menstruation can take a limited number of days off work (Kohili 2020). Such employer initiatives may help to overcome the debilitating effects of pain and heavy menstrual bleeding which many women and trans-/nonbinary people report during the first few days of their period (Sang 2017). Disability can intersect with other protected characteristics to inform the patterns of privilege and disadvantage employees may experience at work. It is therefore essential that managers and human resource management practitioners are sensitive to these intersecting patterns.

Strategies for Disability Inclusion It is important, when working toward disability inclusion at work, to work with disabled people. This could be via a disability staff group where disabled employees are able to give feedback on proposed changes at work to ensure that there are no unintended negative consequences for disabled people. Some strategies include the following: • Changing the environment not the person. For example, consider how your working practices and culture may place disproportionate burdens on certain staff who are living with a chronic health condition. • Setting up a disabled staff network. Such networks can allow staff to provide input into new policy and the design of new working environments. • Making workplaces more inclusive, for example, through disability training, flexible working, and the provision of disability leave, whereby absences related to disability (e.g., hospital appointments) are not calculated as part of an employees’ absence record. • Working with trade unions to embed disability awareness at the strategic levels in organizations. Working with trade unions, and taking a collective approach, allows employers to move beyond the limited equality legal framework which is largely set up to promote individualistic and reactive approaches to managing disability. These strategies can be considered when reading the below case study. In the case of Alexandra, it is apparent that the implementation of the above strategies could prevent some of the issues she faced due to workplace mismanagement. Case Study Alexandra is a project manager working for a large employer in England. In that last 2 years, Alexandra has developed an, as yet, undiagnosed progressive neurological

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disorder which affects her mobility. There are days where she uses a wheelchair, and other days where she can walk short distances. Alexandra’s line manager is very sympathetic and is keen to support Alexandra to be able to attend work. Alexandra approached her employer’s occupational health team who suggested she would benefit from a designated parking space near the front door of the building she works in. After approaching the Director of Estates, Alexandra was told that she would need to complete a 12-page form on why she requires a designated parking space. Alexandra completed the paperwork, although she was very embarrassed at having to disclose her condition to someone she did not know, and was then told by the Director of Estates that since she did not have a confirmed diagnosis, she would not be allowed a designated parking space. This caused Alexandra considerable distress. Following raising a complaint with Human Resources, Alexandra was allocated a parking space that was 2 km away from her office. Alexandra had to challenge this decision and was finally awarded a parking space by the front door of her office. However, many days when Alexandra gets to work, her parking space has been taken by another colleague, and she has to return home and miss work. Alexandra’s story is a typical one. We can see that there were many barriers put in Alexandra’s way as she tried to secure herself a workplace adjustment. The onus was on Alexandra to secure her own adjustments, which involved an exhausting and bewildering journey of navigating an organizational bureaucracy just to secure adjustments she had a legal right to (remember that England is part of the United Kingdom where the Equality Act (2010) gives disabled employees a legal entitlement to reasonable adjustments). Alexandra’s story also shows us that adjustments do not need to be costly, despite the fears of many employers. However, when these adjustments are not available or are difficult to access, there is harm caused to both the employee and the employer. Good practice would be to make these processes as straightforward as possible, removing unnecessary bureaucracy and enabling colleagues to keep their medical details confidential. In this example, this might mean a shorter document to complete to ensure accessible parking. An established workplace staff disability network could have meant that Alexandra’s workplace was already more inclusive and avoided the obstacles she experienced altogether by having improved access routes and clear, supportive policy. The provision of disability training could well have meant colleagues inappropriately using accessible parking bays would be more sensitive to the potential needs of others. Working with trade unions can also be a productive avenue for disability inclusion. Studies conducted in the UK have demonstrated that trade unions can act as powerful advocates for disability inclusion in employer policies (Bacon and Hoque 2015), as well as offering facilitation for disabled people and their interests in workplaces through networks of trained disabled staff representatives and caseworkers (Richards and Sang 2016). Employers and human resource managers should also consider working with local disability advocacy groups, which are often led by disabled people. In general, it is important for managers to remember the principle of accessibility, whereby if work is organized in a way which is accessible for disabled people it will be accessible for all employees.

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Summary Globally, workforces are becoming more diverse although gender, race, and disability pay gaps are still evident. Women, disabled people, and people of color report a range of disadvantages at work, many of which may result from intersections of disadvantage. Research and practice show that disabled people experience discrimination at work, and this can be particularly acute for those living with stigmatized conditions. However, there is considerable scope to improve marginalized people’s working lives which will benefit employees and improve organizational performance. Strategies for inclusion can benefit from working closely with representatives of marginalized employees and trade unions to ensure inclusion measures support both employee and employer needs.

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Defining Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Relationship Between Voice and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Job-Demands Resources Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Behavioral Activation and Behavioral Inhibition Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychosocial Safety Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whose Responsibility Is Voice About Wellbeing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of the Employee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of the Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of HR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

For many years, evidence has been growing to indicate that subjective well-being is linked to higher worker productivity. However, it has only been more recently that an absence of voice, known as silence, has been linked to a reduction in wellbeing and productivity. Therefore, this chapter presents an up-to-date review of theoretical perspectives drawn from organizational behavior (OB), employment relations (ER), and human resource management (HRM) literature to highlight S. Brooks Sheffield University Management School, Sheffield, UK e-mail: s.brooks@sheffield.ac.uk A. Wilkinson (*) Sheffield University Management School, Sheffield, UK Business School, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia e-mail: adrian.wilkinson@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_16

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the motivations and outcomes that underpin voice about wellbeing. Analyzed across three levels, the societal level (macro), the organizational or departmental level (meso), and the individual level (micro), it can be seen that the traditional focus of organizations has been on collective well-being rather than individual well-being. Yet, if we are to truly encourage worker voice about well-being, we suggest that there must be a greater focus on how individuals, managers, and HR departments can create an organization capable of responding to voice about individual well-being. Serving not only to deepen our understanding of voice about well-being, this chapter also highlights significant gaps in the literature and suggests important avenues for further research. Importantly, we highlight one key question which deserves more attention: Whose responsibility is voice about well-being? Keywords

Voice · Wellbeing · Human resources · Psychological safety · Job demandsresources

Introduction Getting workers to voice provides a win-win solution to a central organizational problem – how to satisfy workers’ needs while simultaneously achieving organizational objectives. (Strauss 2006, p. 778)

Voice has traditionally been considered a way of enabling employees to express dissatisfaction and change situations which are not amenable to them (Hirschman 1970). In this way, voice can be considered a critical mechanism for employees to improve working conditions and enable them to change situations which may lead them to feel exhausted or to withdraw from the workplace (Sherf et al. 2020). However, individuals are sometimes reluctant to voice concerns about personal circumstances to a manager for fear of embarrassment or adverse career outcomes (Milliken et al. 2003; Brinsfield 2013). Therefore, when considering voice and wellbeing, it could be that individuals do not voice concerns about their own wellbeing as readily as concerns which affect the wider organization. From an employment relations (ER) perspective, when considering voice as a route to wellbeing, a tension between employee wellbeing and organizational performance must be acknowledged (Shahinpoor and Matt 2007). ER scholars have long been aware that voice is not just a mechanism for employees to raise grievances but is also associated with higher worker productivity and lower exit (Freeman and Medoff 1984). Over the years, more evidence has supported a link between higher levels of subjective wellbeing and greater labor productivity (Isham et al. 2020), and it has been found that an absence of voice (silence) could be highly detrimental to wellbeing as well as a cause of lower productivity within organizations (Sherf et al. 2020). However, despite evidence to support this tension, there appears to have been very little direct exploration of the way that voice can be encouraged for employee wellbeing.

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Key to understanding voice and employee wellbeing are three important characteristics of the employment relationship. Firstly, employees sell their labor in exchange for payment, which means that they need to be willing and able to work if they are to be useful to the organization. Secondly, the employment relationship between individuals and the organization is unequal given that most individuals are required to take on work for financial reasons and therefore are wary of having their employment terminated by upsetting those that employ them. This situation holds true for employees and managers at all levels of the organization. Thirdly, the employment relationship shifts over time in line with different economic and political contexts (Colling and Terry 2010). This means that employee wellbeing might be seen by organizations as less of a priority than organizational performance during an economic downturn and therefore employees may be less likely to speak up if their ability to gain other employment is limited. The topic of voice has been addressed from a number of different perspectives (OB, ER, HRM) and recent literature reviews combining these perspectives have highlighted that voice can be underpinned by a wide range of motivations and desired outcomes (c.f. Wilkinson et al. 2020a). But these disciplines diverge quite significantly in how they conceptualize and study voice, and as a result, the extant research on voice is very much within self-contained siloes (Wilkinson and Fay 2011; Kaufman 2014). When considering each of these perspectives in relation to wellbeing, it is possible to see that each provides a different insight into the way that voice and wellbeing could be linked. For example, voice occurs, is influenced by, and can be examined at the societal (macro) level, the organizational or departmental (meso) level, and the individual (micro) level. The macro level consists of the regulatory framework, which determines organizational policy around voice. It is at this level that we see a dominance of ER scholars who examine state support and other institutional mechanisms which vary between countries and regions. The meso level, where much human resource management (HRM) research takes place, relates to the voice systems that organizations establish and the extent to which these are utilized in practice. In contrast, at the micro level, the field of organisational behaviour (OB) examines the individual-level motivators and inhibitors to voice, such as dispositions, attitudes and perceptions, emotions, and beliefs (Wilkinson et al. 2020a). While the ER literature can set the context, the focus of our chapter is primarily the meso and micro levels and therefore draws heavily on HRM and OB perspectives of voice. When it comes to voice about wellbeing, there is an important distinction between individual wellbeing and collective wellbeing, for each individual has different requirements which are not necessarily catered for through one-suits-all decisions that are made about working conditions and arrangements. The OB literature has focused on direct voice between employee and manager and therefore provides a good insight into the individual influences that shape voice for employee wellbeing. However, given its focus on informal prosocial voice, its insights are likely to be more relevant to wellbeing issues which affect employees collectively. Similarly, the ER literature, which has focused on indirect voice, is also more likely to provide a good insight into indirect formal voice which affects collective employee wellbeing.

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In this way, it is possible to see that both OB and ER conceptualizations of voice have blind spots when it comes to individual wellbeing issues. Finally, HRM conceptualizations of voice have focused on garnering insight into systemic issues which affect wellbeing but there has been more of a focus on organizational performance. As highlighted earlier, employee wellbeing does affect organizational performance, and therefore, for organizations to perform well, it is important that employees take an interest in their own wellbeing and speak out to ask for what they need. The fact that individual wellbeing is important but appears to have been overlooked in the literature highlights a need for this chapter to focus on how individuals, managers, and HR departments can contribute towards an organization which harnesses voice as a route to ensuring individual employee wellbeing. The chapter will therefore tease out the common threads from both the voice and silence and wellbeing literatures and use theoretical underpinnings and constructs within each type of literature to suggest a way forward. Each literature provides different insights into the question of how employees can use voice to protect and enhance their wellbeing, yet when attempting to understand how voice and wellbeing are linked, we find that there are significant gaps in our understanding. Therefore, this chapter acts as a call to action for scholars to devote more attention to the links between voice and wellbeing. The outline for this chapter is as follows. Firstly, voice and wellbeing will be defined and a brief overview of the overlaps in the literature provided. Next, one key area which acts as an important lens to understand how voice can serve as a route to wellbeing will be highlighted: Whose responsibility is voice about wellbeing? Finally, direction on key areas for further research will be discussed.

Defining Voice The focus of ER scholars is about voice as the expression of worker interests that are separate and distinct from those of the firm, and as a vehicle for employee selfdetermination (Budd 2004; Wilkinson et al. 2020b). Employees seek voice to have some input into decisions that have a material impact on what they do in the workplace. Formal institutions, such as trade unions, collective bargaining, and grievance procedures, are viewed as important in facilitating genuine employee voice so as to deal with any dissatisfaction with their working conditions. The field of employment relations was one of the first to identify the concept of voice as important for organizational functioning. One of the earliest definitions of voice and which provides the common intellectual foundation for all voice scholars is “any attempt at all to change, rather than escape from an objectionable state of affairs whether through individual or collective petition to the management directly in charge, through appeal to a higher authority with the intention of forcing a change in management, or through various types of actions and protests, including those that are meant to mobilise public opinion” (Hirschman 1970: 30). Hirschman emphasized voice as a constructive response to dissatisfaction and highlighted the

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importance of employees having access to mechanisms through which they could redress situations which caused them concern. His Exit-Voice-Loyalty model identified that workers usually chose either to remain with the organization or voice their concerns in an attempt to rectify them, which he argued demonstrated loyalty, or they chose to exit the organization. His model was expanded several years later by the addition of neglect (now known as the Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect model) meaning that employees might remain with the organization but be neglectful in their duties rather than exiting (Rusbult et al. 1998). Neglect can be defined as “passively allowing conditions to deteriorate through reduced interest or effort, chronic lateness or absences, using company time for personal business, or increased error rate” (Rusbult et al. 1998: 601). Therefore, a lack of voice could lead to absenteeism as a form of neglect which is widely recognized as an indicator of negative wellbeing. A more recent definition of ER voice refers to “all of the ways and means through which employees attempt to have a say about, and influence, their work and the functioning of their organisation” (Wilkinson et al. 2020b: xxx). This definition acknowledges that voice encompasses a range of different topics such as working conditions, reward, and work organization, and can occur through a variety of mechanisms: formal and informal, direct and indirect, and individual and collective. As can be seen, ER scholars have tended to focus on voice as a means of expressing collective grievances and pushing for better working conditions. On the other hand, OB scholars have moved more towards an understanding that voice is an individual behavior and as such tends to take place on a more idiosyncratic basis between employee and manager. An OB definition of voice defines it as “informal and discretionary communication by an employee of ideas, suggestions, concerns, information about problems, or opinions about work-related issues to persons who might be able to take appropriate action, with the intent to bring about improvement or change” (Morrison 2014: 174). As a result, OB voice can be considered to be about facilitating constructive change for the organization or the work unit through individual action (Tangirala and Ramanujam 2012; Morrison 2014), but like ER voice, it is less about improving individual situations in the workplace and more about collective gains. With regards to encouraging voice, ER scholars would consider it important to give employees opportunities to be involved in decisions about their wellbeing and working environment via the provision of formal voice mechanisms, whereas OB scholars would consider that employees would find a way to speak up directly to their manager if they so desired, placing less emphasis on the need to provide voice mechanisms specifically. This difference has manifested a change in perspectives over appropriate voice mechanisms with the ER literature focusing heavily on the value of collective voice mechanisms such as trade unions and works councils, whereas the OB literature has focused on direct voice between the employee and manager such as email and face-to-face meetings. In contrast to the ER and OB views of voice which place the employee and the manager as central to voice in the organization, the HRM literature has adopted a processual view of how voice can be harnessed and used. Drawing on both OB and ER disciplines, HRM perspectives of voice have tried to integrate the behavioral

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insights from OB into the system level approach of HRM (Wilkinson et al. 2020a). As a result of this processual view, voice has become marginalized except where high-performance work system (HPWS) exists, and voice systems are designed to improve organizational performance through voice (Harley 2014). Despite the differences in perspective on voice, all literatures consider that voice can only be defined as voice when it is targeted at an authority figure in the organization who can make a change to the existing situation. Empirical evidence has confirmed the importance of the power differential between voicer and target which is required for voice to be effective (McClean et al. 2013), so acknowledging that voice must be to an authority figure highlights that talking to peers, colleagues, friends, or family cannot be classed as voice because of their lack of power to influence outcomes. From a HRM perspective, it could be said that the focus on organizational performance forces managers to make a choice between prioritizing their energies on managing voice or managing performance (Guest 2017). With regards to wellbeing, voice which captures employee perspectives is important for organizational performance, but also highlights that voice is an opportunity for employees to have their interests taken into account during organizational decision-making. In essence, voice provides employees with an opportunity to have some control over their working lives which is important in terms of wellbeing (Wilkinson and Barry 2016). However, it could be that employees do not always voice their needs or take part in activities designed to find out their views on decisions. As a result, the way that employees use voice is largely determined by opportunities for voice, the way that managers encourage and respond to voice, and the attitude of the organization to the value that employee voice can provide to the running of the organization. In summary, the OB voice and silence literature has placed a large emphasis on the idiosyncratic relationship between a manager and their employees, and has largely neglected a wider focus on the organizational or group dynamics which may also shape voice (see Morrison and Milliken 2000) for an exception). On the other hand, the HRM/ER literature has focused on role of systems and mechanisms as a way of understanding how voice can be fostered but it has neglected the way in which motivations for voice shape outcomes. Taken together, there is an opportunity for understanding voice as a route to employee wellbeing from micro, meso, and macro levels.

Defining Wellbeing Wellbeing can be defined as “the positive affective states associated with happiness and meaningfulness at work” (Avey et al. 2012:25). There is disagreement among scholars about how wellbeing should be defined with it once being described as “intangible, difficult to define and even harder to measure” (Thomas 2009: 11 as cited in Dodge et al. 2012). There is even disagreement as to whether positive wellbeing and negative wellbeing even appear on the same continuum or might be distinct constructs, the implication being that achieving positive wellbeing may be

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more difficult than simply targeting areas which seem to negatively affect wellbeing. Nevertheless, there have been attempts to define and measure it, leading to a literature replete in indicators of positive and negative wellbeing. Furthermore, there is strong evidence to show that being at work is good for mental and physical wellbeing (Waddell and Burton 2006; Diener and Chan 2011).

The Relationship Between Voice and Wellbeing The quest to understand how best to encourage voice has resulted in a literature replete with the exploration of antecedents to voice (e.g., Morrison 2014; Kaufman 2015). Table 1 shows that a number of indicators of negative and positive wellbeing have also been identified as antecedents of voice and silence. The result is a wide array of variables which can be difficult to translate into practice and use to predict when voice is most likely to take place. However, a clear pattern appears to be that silence is more common than voice, especially for such issues as unfair treatment of self or others, unethical behavior, concerns about the performance of manager or colleagues, disagreement with organizational decisions or personal issues and concerns (Milliken et al. 2003; Brinsfield 2013). In other words, things that are likely to lead to negative wellbeing. The reasons cited for silence frequently involve fear of damaging relationships with managers or colleagues, retaliation or ostracism (Milliken et al. 2003), and are likely to be associated with forms of voice which challenge the status quo or prevent damaging behaviors in the workplace. Despite a number of variables which provide a link between the voice and silence and wellbeing literatures, there has been very little direct exploration of the direct Table 1 Wellbeing indicators which have also been discussed in the voice literature Indicators of poor wellbeing Absenteeism (Lamb and Cogan 2016) Presenteeism (linked to disengagement) (Isham et al. 2020) Increased turnover (Isham et al. 2020) Dissatisfaction (Wood 2008) Lack of control and autonomy (Schaufeli and Taris 2014) Stress and burnout (Dollard and McTernan 2011)

Indicators of good wellbeing Lows levels of absenteeism (Cooper and Dewe 2008) Engagement (Bakker and Demerouti 2017)

Voice leads to employee commitment (Hirschman 1970)

Reduced intention to leave (van der Vaart et al. 2013) Satisfaction (job and life) (Wood 2008) Control and autonomy (Schaufeli and Taris 2014) Engagement (Dollard and McTernan 2011)

Voice reduces intention to leave and actual turnover (McClean et al. 2013); employee retention (Spencer 1986) Job satisfaction/dissatisfaction is linked to voice behavior (Holland et al. 2011) Control and autonomy is linked to propensity to voice (Tangirala and Ramanujam 2008) Employee voice and engagement (Kwon and Farndale 2016)

Link to voice literature Absenteeism is the result of a lack of voice (Dundon et al. 2004)

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link between voice and wellbeing. Therefore in order to make sense of the ways in which voice might serve as a route to wellbeing, three theoretical underpinnings have been identified which aim to help interpret the findings in each literature to identify possible links and provoke new avenues of research: the job demandsresources model (Schaufeli and Taris 2014), psychosocial safety climate (Dollard et al. 2012), and behavioral approach and inhibition system (Carver 2006). Each of these theoretical underpinnings provides an opportunity to consider the micro- and meso-organizational levels of analysis, important to a fuller understanding of voice at the macro level.

Job-Demands Resources Theory The job-demands resources theory argues that an individual can use their resources (work-related and personal) to buffer demands or challenges encountered in the workplace (Bakker and Demerouti 2017). Its fundamental premise is that job demands and resources have the potential to shape motivation and fitness for work through the management and avoidance of burnout and disengagement (Han et al. 2020). Job demands refer to “those physical, social or organizational aspects that require sustained physical or mental effort” (Demerouti et al. 2001: 501), whereas resources refer to the physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that help an individual to reduce job demands, achieve work goals, or stimulate personal growth (Demerouti et al. 2001). Dodge and colleagues suggest that wellbeing is the “balance point between an individual’s resource pool and the challenges [demands] faced” (2012: 230). The job demands-resources (JD-R) model is used extensively in the wellbeing literature (see Schaufeli and Taris 2014 and Bakker and Demerouti 2017 for reviews of the JD-R model and wellbeing) to provide guidance on the types of variables which count as resources and those which count as demands. In this way, it is able to serve as an effective way to identify the types of demands which may lead to withdrawal, exhaustion, and subsequent burnout, and the types of resources that may help to prevent it (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). For example, drawing on the wellbeing literature, harassment, unfair treatment, and work pressures constitute job demands which, if not addressed, lead to outcomes including disengagement, absenteeism, intention to leave, and physical and mental health problems (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). Although the JD-R theory considers that when demands and resources are utilized effectively, it ensures an equilibrium for the employee (recognized as positive wellbeing), the JD-R model is limited in its ability to guide individuals in how to manage their demands and resources to achieve this outcome (Bakker and Demerouti 2017). Linked to the JD-R theory is the conservation of resources theory which examines how individuals, when under stress, choose to either protect existing resources or use the opportunity to build additional resources as a way of moving forward. A meta-analysis of 55 studies showed a negative association between job stress and voice, meaning that when people experience stress, they

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are less likely to voice than remain silent. Job stress, which is considered to be a demand, included factors such as a lack of job autonomy, poor interpersonal relationships with colleagues and managers, or feelings of risk when speaking up about dissatisfaction (Ng and Feldman 2012). It is possible that individuals do not always speak out when they are dissatisfied, because they may find that speaking out adds to their stress rather than reducing it, thereby acting as an additional demand, rather than a resource (Hirst et al. 2020). Therefore, it is important to consider that the variables that cause an individual to speak out or remain silent can be experienced as either resources or demands according to a set of different circumstances and to predict how an individual may use voice in relation to their wellbeing, a picture of their overall perceived demands and resources is needed.

Behavioral Activation and Behavioral Inhibition Systems Behavioral approach describes how an individual is motivated towards the achievement of a rewarding goal such as promotion, whereas behavioral inhibition describes how an individual is motivated away from a negative outcome such as losing their job or damaging relationships with colleagues and managers (Carver 2006). Behavioral inhibition is strongly correlated with negative emotions such as fear and anxiety (Carver and White 1994; Morrison et al. 2015), and frequent triggering of BIS can have a wellbeing cost by increasing fatigue, stress, or strain (Sherf et al. 2020: 12). Behavioral approach and behavioral inhibition have been used as ways of describing how an individual may respond when their personal sense of power is threatened (Morrison et al. 2015). Personal sense of power can be defined “as the perception of one’s ability to influence another person or other people” (Morrison et al. 2015: 551). Morrison and her colleagues found that individuals who feel powerful in their ability to influence others are more likely to voice because they are focused on the successful outcomes (BAS). On the other hand, those who feel less powerful in their ability to influence others are less likely to voice because they are focused on the risks associated with voicing (BIS) (Morrison et al. 2015). These findings were supported more recently by Sherf et al. (2020) who combined the BAS/BIS approach to study the effect of perceived impact (similar to personal sense of power) and psychological safety on burnout, using voice as a mediator. They found that silence was positively and significantly associated with burnout more strongly than voice was negatively associated with burnout (Sherf et al. 2020: 24). This would suggest that voice may not be successful at reducing negative wellbeing, but that reducing silence could be important for reducing negative wellbeing. Therefore, voice may not best serve as a route to wellbeing directly, but as a way of preventing negative wellbeing in the first place. Furthermore, Sherf et al. (2020) found that psychological safety does not directly increase voice. Instead, they found that it reduced triggers of the BIS, meaning that silence was less likely where psychological safety existed, but in order to encourage voice, a heightened perceived impact was required to trigger the BAS so that voice could take place.

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Table 2 Examples of voice and silence using BAS/BIS Voice – BAS – asking for a specific wellbeing goal or target you want to achieve (e.g., expressing views in favor of flexible working) Voice – BIS – speaking up to ensure a goal or target considered detrimental to wellbeing does not happen (e.g., providing a dissenting view against the decision to move from weekly pay to monthly pay)

Silence – BAS – intentionally remaining silent to ensure you achieve your specific wellbeing goal or target (e.g., not returning a ballot for strike action because you cannot afford it but understand that others want to strike) Silence – BIS – consciously withholding your views to ensure an outcome detrimental to wellbeing does not take place (e.g., taking sick leave when you have a grievance hearing with HR)

Table 2 shows examples of how voice and silence related to wellbeing could manifest when shaped by approach and inhibition tendencies.

Psychosocial Safety Climate Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to a climate for psychological health and safety. A PSC is created by managers using workplace policies, practices, and procedures in order to protect worker psychological health and safety (Dollard et al. 2012). Therefore, it reflects a balance of concern by management between psychological health and productivity (Dollard and McTernan 2011). Organizations with a PSC are more likely to have higher levels of wellbeing because they effectively enable the using of resources to reduce demands (Dollard et al. 2012). A PSC also has the greatest impact on psychological health when compared with variables of “control” and “rewards” when used as moderators on emotional demands, and a PSC is thought to act as a “resource passageway” which facilitates the use of resources to counter demands (Loh et al. 2018). As such, it has been described as a moderator of moderators (Loh et al. 2018), placing it as a fundamental enabler for both voice and wellbeing. One variable which is considered to be important in the voice and silence literature and has been studied extensively is that of psychological safety. Psychological safety can be defined as “the extent to which an individual perceives it to be safe to express himself or herself at work” (Liang et al. 2012: 80). One key source of psychological safety for employees comes from the relationship they have with leaders and managers (Detert and Burris 2007). Numerous studies have shown a positive correlation between high relationship quality and voice (Van Dyne et al. 2008; Botero and Van Dyne 2009) with there being a widespread acknowledgement that spending time investing in building relationships is beneficial for voice. It is an important prerequisite for certain types of voice such as upward challenge (Brooks 2018) and prohibitive voice (Liang et al. 2012) and in encouraging employees to share emotions (Chamberlin et al. 2017). An absence of psychological safety suggests that employees perceive voice as risky and hence are less likely to voice (Morrison 2011) and individuals who are not able to voice are more likely to suffer from burnout (Sherf et al. 2020). It is important to note that a perceived lack of

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openness to employee voice and fear of retaliation are considered to be organizational stressors in the wellbeing literature (Ng and Feldman 2012) meaning that remaining silent has the potential to reduce feelings of overall wellbeing.

Whose Responsibility Is Voice About Wellbeing? The previous section outlined three theoretical models which can provide an important link between the voice and silence and wellbeing literatures. The JD-R theory suggests that wellbeing is likely to be achieved by finding a balance between demands and resources, with excess in either direction leading to negative wellbeing. The BAS/BIS theory shows that when a personal sense of power and psychological safety are high, voice is more likely to take place because of the reduction in risks which trigger the BIS and an increase in safety which triggers the BAS. Finally, the fostering of a psychosocial safety climate (PSC) appears to moderate the relationship between resources and demands and wellbeing, suggesting that it could be the single most important variable that links the relationship between voice and wellbeing. This section will now consider an important question which provides a greater insight into the role of voice as a route to wellbeing: Whose responsibility is it to speak up about wellbeing?

The Role of the Employee Employees have the ability to use voice in ways which serve their wellbeing but little is known about how they choose whether to voice or remain silent about wellbeing. In much OB research, there is an underlying assumption that employees generally want to speak up, because there are issues that they care about but the prosocial nature of voice indicates that voice is more likely to be about issues which are common to everyone, not themselves individually. Similarly, there is a view that managers should value this voice because of its potential benefits for the organization as well as potential risks of not addressing important issues (Wilkinson et al. 2020a: 100677) The JD-R theory posits that it is the role of the employee to use their own resources to buffer what they perceive to be demands. When considering their options for voice, employees have recourse to formal and informal, direct and indirect, individual and collective voice mechanisms although in practice how viable these mechanisms are and how easy they are to navigate is another issue. But to some extent it may be that for employee wellbeing to occur it falls to individuals to speak up and take action if their wellbeing is suffering. Hence, voice arrangements for supporting employees are important. Drawing on research about psychological safety, it is possible to see that employees have a certain amount of control over the decision of whether, when, and how to speak, but ER literature assumes perceived levels of safety are more likely to be shaped by wider organizational forces and their relationship with their manager.

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The Role of the Manager The literature on psychological safety climate suggests that it is the manager’s role to put into place certain practices and policies which enable employees to utilize the resources which are important to them (Dollard et al. 2012). This places the manager as a key facilitator of voice climates in the organization. However, although individual managers may be concerned about employee wellbeing, their main focus is likely to be on organizational performance (Guest 2017). For example, although managers may recognize that employee wellbeing is important too (including their own), the strong focus on meeting performance targets means employee wellbeing is likely to be less of a priority for managers. In fact, employee wellbeing issues can be seen as a demand on managerial time which prevents managers from focusing on organizational performance. It can therefore be said that management, through agenda-setting and institutional structures, can create silence over a range of issues making it difficult for them to speak up (Donaghey et al. 2011). The role of line managers is instrumental in ensuring voice systems are effective (Townsend and Mowbray 2020). Yet, the purpose of management has traditionally been to ensure that employees meet organizational targets. In effect, employees did not have a voice because there were no valid reasons for not being able to carry out the tasks as requested by the manager. However, in contemporary organizations, managers are expected to manage voice from employees but they are often ill-equipped with the skills to listen to, and deal with voice. Therefore, drawing on findings by Knoll and colleagues (2018) which showed that emotional exhaustion was more likely where silence was imposed, some important questions are raised around the extent to which managers and organizations impose silence and whether the silence is an actual inability to voice or a perceived inability to voice. The prescriptive management literature has always set out an optimistic scenario in which line managers move from being holders of expert power to facilitators and hence take on new skills and responsibilities including the ability to facilitate employee voice (Wilkinson et al. 2013). However, research suggests this might be a rosy view of what happens on the ground. Indeed, managers do not always believe in the principles underlying employees having a say, regarding it instead as “soft management.” Others have concerns as to its actual operation in the context of current organizational pressures. In many organizations, voice and engagement are considered a poor second to production or service goals. In addition, the failure to reward line managers for spending the time to encourage voice may be an issue as is a lack of training on how to encourage and manage voice, this latter point speaking powerfully about the relative importance senior managers attach to the practice of voice (Fenton-O’Creevy 2001). As such, in order to encourage voice, leaders may benefit from generating opportunities for impact, rewards, or success (Sherf et al. 2020) which are likely to trigger BAS experiences in individuals.

The Role of HR The role of a human resources department is to ensure that the business functions are aligned to the strategic direction of the organization. In recent years, the main focus

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in the HRM field has been around performance, with the high-performance work system (HPWS) approach dominant since the mid-1990s. The HPWS describes the organization-level model of an HRM system through which investment in a strategically aligned package of advanced, commitment-type HR practices (a focus on shared values and goals which increase organization performance through teamworking) yields higher operational-financial performance from a higher-skilled, motivated, and empowered workforce (Kaufman et al. 2020). Despite voice being recognized as an important contributory factor to organizational performance in HPWS (Harley 2014), the emphasis has been very much on how HR practices can lead to performance outcomes with much less focus on employee wellbeing (Guest 2017). Accentuating this emphasis has been the discursive dominance of the HR business partner model as developed by Urich (see Keegan and Francis 2010). As a result, pressures to reduce costs, increase competitiveness, and achieve a tighter alignment between business strategy and HRM have led HR to lose touch with employees and employee wellbeing. An example of this was seen by Francis and Keegan when one of the CIPD advisers interviewed suggested “no-one wants to be an employee champion (employee advocate). They think it is ideologically unsound. I think they see it as them being in opposition to the organisation . . . and it suggests their management credentials are suspect” (Francis and Keegan 2006: 242). Therefore, it can be said that HRM has overemphasized its strategic role and, in an attempt to gain a seat at the top table, has neglected or ignored key components of its unique contribution. In particular, HRM’s fixation on short-term performance goals and shareholder demands has led it to downplay longer-term sustainable contributions based on values and fairness for employees (Marchington 2015). As was seen previously, OB studies of voice assume that individual voice behavior centers around the relationship between the individual worker and management (Wilkinson and Barry 2016). Therefore, it is widely considered that individual managers have the responsibility for creating environments and contexts which make their employees feel psychologically safe when voicing. However, it may also be important to consider the influence of institutional context on individual voice behavior (Dundon et al. 2004; Wilkinson et al. 2004). For example, Klaas and colleagues (2012) suggest that unions reduce the perception of risk to employees by asking them to raise voice in a formal context, thereby enhancing their psychological safety through anonymity. Similarly, Bryson et al. (2013) reported that job-related anxiety was ameliorated when employees worked in a unionized workplace and were involved in the introduction of the changes. So there is clearly a role for HRM to establish systems to provide supportive organizational contexts for voice (Marchington 2007).

Future Directions The previous section highlighted that the responsibility for voice about wellbeing needs to be a joint effort driven by employees and managers, with HR departments providing a context which makes possible a balance between employee wellbeing and organizational performance. With that in mind, a number of future directions

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have been suggested which highlight how the examination of voice as a route to wellbeing could yield important insights which could ultimately lead to improved wellbeing outcomes for individuals in the workplace. Firstly, evidence showing that the individual employee-manager relationship leads to improvements in both voice and wellbeing independently, would suggest that a combination of the two could be more powerful. For example, it could be that high relationship quality between employee and manager leads to voice which in itself leads to higher wellbeing because voice serves as a means of contributing or sharing concerns. On the other hand, it could be that voice leads to greater wellbeing because managers are able to make changes which result in reduced demands. Future research directions here could include how individuals learn to ask for what they need, and how managers recognize voice about wellbeing specifically so certain types of voice can be prioritized. Secondly, there is a recognition that psychological safety is an important prerequisite for voice. It is individuals themselves who gauge the extent to which they feel safe when voicing, but it is also possible to see that organizations can create psychosocial safety climates which help individuals to feel safe. Therefore, understanding the variables which managers and HR departments can put in place can give the responsibility to both employees and managers for creating psychological safety for voice about wellbeing. Third, using JD-R theory to consider voice as a route to wellbeing suggests that voicing could be an important resource which could alleviate individual job demands as well as helping managers to prioritize their attention to issues which may affect organizational performance. Therefore, it is important to understand the situations in which voice can be considered a resource, and alternatively a demand, which in turn will provide a greater insight into the ways in which wellbeing needs can be catered for in the workplace. Fourth, adopting a behavioral approach and inhibition perspective enables a consideration of the range of individual, organizational and societal issues which contribute to feelings of power and emotional attitudes towards voicing. Such a perspective allows scholars to think more broadly about the importance of encouraging voice about wellbeing. Finally, is it possible to assume that individuals are able to articulate exactly what they need to ensure their own wellbeing, or do managers need to be able to read between the lines? Ultimately, voicing is about asking for what is needed, and when it comes to wellbeing, each individual has different requirements which are not necessarily catered for through one suits all decisions that are made about working conditions and arrangements.

Conclusion Through the examination of three theoretical models to understand how voice might serve as a route to wellbeing, it can be seen that voice and silence are linked to both positive and negative wellbeing in complex ways. Furthermore, following a

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consideration of how voice could be used as a route to wellbeing, it has become clear that existing definitions do not provide sufficient clarity and a new definition of voice is required. Therefore, voice about wellbeing can be defined as “raising awareness of, asking for, or telling others what is needed to improve individual wellbeing.” This definition specifies the purpose of voice for individual wellbeing and assumes an awareness by the voicer that they are voicing specifically because they are motivated by a desire to contribute to their own wellbeing. Furthermore, it places an emphasis on the individual to get to know themselves sufficiently well so that they know what they need in order to counteract any demands. This definition does not consider voice about the wellbeing of others or voice about organizational performance because these considerations are picked up under other definitions of voice. For example, OB voice is about prosocial motives and speaking up for the greater good whereas ER and HRM perspectives on voice consider that employees speak up for their own interests which might be different to those of management. However, when considering voice about wellbeing, it must be acknowledged that individuals need to speak up for themselves regardless of managerial agendas or organizational priorities because otherwise, they are not able to function as human beings with a sense of fulfilment.

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Chidiebere Ogbonnaya and Samuel Aryee

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptualizations of HRM Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Integrationist Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Isolationist Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HRM Practices, Performance, and the Black Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mutual Gains Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementation of HRM Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Issues (Multilevel Analysis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodological Issues (Reverse Causality) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

In this chapter, we discussed the accumulating evidence on what constitutes an HRM system as well as how, why, and when it influences organizational performance and employee well-being. To this end, we reviewed the two competing configurations of HRM systems (integrationist and isolationist) as well as the resource-based view (RBV) and ability, motivation, and opportunity (AMO) perspectives in accounting for the performance effects of HRM systems. To counterbalance the predominant performance focus in HRM research, we reviewed the critical perspective that highlights the deleterious consequences of HRM systems on employee well-being. To resolve these research contradictions C. Ogbonnaya (*) University of Sussex Business School, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK e-mail: [email protected] S. Aryee Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_17

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and drawing on the notion of workforce sustainability, we reviewed the mutual gains perspective and questioned the applicability of the AMO perspective. We, instead, suggested social exchange and self-determination theories as an appropriate theoretical lens with which to account for the performance and well-being outcomes of HRM systems. We concluded by calling for future research to be grounded in the mutual gains perspective and for its rigorousness to be enhanced by addressing issues of level of analysis and causality. Keywords

HRM Systems · Employee Well-Being, Performance · HR Perspectives · HRM Systems Implementation

Introduction During the last few decades, research on Human Resource Management (HRM) practices (e.g., staff training and development, performance management, workplace participation, and compensation) has gained prominence among management scholars and practitioners, with several articles reporting positive effects on employee attitudes, well-being, and organizational performance (see reviews: Combs et al. 2006; Jiang et al. 2012; Van De Voorde et al. 2012; Jiang and Messersmith 2018). When implemented consistently throughout the work environment, HRM practices enhance employee skills, motivate employees to perform their jobs at optimal levels, exercise discretional effort, and thereby improve organizational effectiveness (Macky and Boxall 2007; Ogbonnaya et al. 2017a). Consequently, employees are able to achieve a sense of fulfillment through their work, while helping the organization to create and sustain competitive advantage. The most frequently cited benefits for employees include job satisfaction, work engagement, organizational commitment, well-being, and greater control over key aspects of the job. For organizations, the benefits of HRM practices include high-quality customer service, profitability, reduced absence rates, and enhanced labor productivity (Jiang et al. 2012; Martinaityte et al. 2019; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Despite growing theoretical and empirical interests in the importance of HRM practices, a key issue concerns how different practices complement and interrelate with each other. On the one hand, HRM practices are said to have mutually reinforcing properties and should therefore be configured in coherent “bundles” or “systems” that enable an organization to achieve its goals (Authur 1994; BeltránMartín et al. 2008; Huselid 1995). In contrast, others subscribe to the view that each practice within the HRM system has unique characteristics and exerts independent effects on different aspects of employee well-being and organizational performance (Kalmi and Kauhanen 2008; Ogbonnaya et al. 2017a). Moreover, researchers have debated whether or not the performance effects of HRM practices are actually achieved at the expense of employee well-being (Van De Voorde et al. 2012). A key aspect of this debate is that employees managed under high-performance HRM

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regimes may feel that their work has been intensified, leading to lower levels of well-being (Ramsay et al. 2000). Because employers are often torn between business strategies that promote organizational performance versus those that are favorable for employee well-being, the implementation of HRM practices might be exploitative, and employees may suffer increased work demands and stress (Godard 2001; Macky and Boxall 2008). In this chapter, our goal is to discuss the current and emerging trends, issues, and concepts relating to the effects of HRM practices on employee well-being and organizational performance. Specifically, we address three main but interrelated objectives: (i) to synthesize the existing body of evidence on the different strategic approaches to managing people in organizations; (ii) to reflect on this knowledge in creating a more comprehensive understanding of the links between HRM practices and different aspects of employee attitudes, well-being, and organizational performance; and (iii) to delineate current thinking about the implementation of HRM policies and activities. We begin this chapter by providing an overview of key concepts in HRM research, focusing on the different configurations of HRM practices, the integrationist perspective (i.e., the idea that HRM practices should be used together in coherent systems or bundles), and the isolationist perspective (i.e., the idea that individual HRM practices have unique and independent effects on outcomes). Regarding the nature of the relationships between HRM practices and both employee well-being and performance, we focus on the black box model of HRM, the mutual gains perspective, and the critical perspective (i.e., the idea that HRM practices influence performance at the expense of employee well-being). Building on these themes, we review the literature on implementation of HRM systems, highlighting both content and process issues, as well as the role of line management in HRM implementation. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of some methodological issues associated with the study of HRM practices and outcomes.

Conceptualizations of HRM Practices HRM practices are concerned with all aspects of how people are attracted, motivated, and retained in organizations (Boxall and Purcell 2003). They include a wide variety of people-management policies and activities aimed at improving the quality of employees’ jobs, as well as their capacity to promote and achieve organizational objectives. Although there is a general lack of consensus regarding the best set of HRM practices for ensuring effective functioning of both employees and organizations, certain practices exist which collectively support organizations in achieving competitive success irrespective of the organizational setting or industry (Jiang and Messersmith 2018; Paauwe and Boselie 2003; Redman and Wilkinson 2009). Based on their review of 92 HRM studies, Combs et al. (2006) identified 13 practices for which some consensus has emerged regarding the main constituents of an effective HRM system: incentive compensation, staff training, compensation level, participation, selectivity, internal promotion, HRM planning, flexible work arrangements, performance appraisal, grievance systems, team working, information sharing, and

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employment security. Subramony (2009) further noted that these practices could be categorized into three different subsystems of HRM practices, including skillenhancing, motivation-enhancing, and empowerment-enhancing HRM practices. Subramony (2009) focused on highlighting the importance of these subsystems in improving the organization’s human capital and operational effectiveness. Traditionally, HRM practices have been characterized by mainly hierarchical workplace activities (e.g., top-down managerial communication and control), task specialization, and centralization of employees’ roles to elicit greater work effort from them. This approach, often described as the “hard version of HRM” (Jenkins and Delbridge 2013; Truss et al. 1997), focuses on driving performance and securing bottom-line success often at the expense of employee well-being. The hard approach to HRM has some advantages, such as allowing organizations to make managerial decisions quicker, exert full operational control over employees, and drive performance through costcutting activities. However, it is often criticized as being an exploitative approach to managing people in organization (Ramsay et al. 2000). Other researchers have described this approach as “control-oriented HRM practices” given the general focus on rules enforcement, performance evaluation, direct monitoring of employees’ actions, and measuring employees’ outputs through incentives and rewards (Arthur 1994; Boselie et al. 2003; Hauff et al. 2014; Whitener 2001). Hauff et al. (2014) further explained that control-oriented HRM practices emphasize the maintenance of tasks through narrowly defined jobs for employees, direct forms of control, and cost reduction strategies (i.e., reducing direct labor costs in order to improve efficiency). In recent years, HRM research has witnessed a progressive shift from the hard approach toward a more flexible, participative organizational system aimed at developing employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. This shift has followed the growing recognition of employees as a competitive resource or as the primary source of achieving sustainable competitive advantage for an organization (Kaufman 2015). Researchers have often described this as the “soft version of HRM,” concerned with attracting, retaining, and motivating employees to perform work more efficiently and with minimal managerial control (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Jenkins and Delbridge 2013; Truss et al. 1997). Others have variously described this approach as “commitment-oriented HRM practices” aimed at developing committed employees and improving job security, internal promotions, and incentives (Arthur 1994; Boselie et al. 2003; Tsui et al. 1997; Whitener 2001); high-involvement-oriented HRM practices characterized by decentralized decision-making, employee participation, and information sharing (Guthrie 2000; Wood et al. 2012); and high-performance work systems characterized by selective staffing, intensive training and development, and individual and group incentives (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Huselid 1995).

Integrationist Perspective The integrationist perspective is arguably the most common approach to studying the effects of HRM practices on employee and organizational performance. It is based on the principle of “internal consistency,” also known as “internal fit” (Delery 1998;

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Macky and Boxall 2007; Youndt et al. 1996), comprising both “vertical fit” (alignment between HRM practices and the organization’s business strategy) and “horizontal fit” (using multiple HRM practices together in coherent systems or bundles). Once the outward-facing strategic business objectives are set by senior executives of an organization (i.e., external fit), HRM practices should be integrated into a consistent, mutually reinforcing system of practices aimed at achieving such objectives (i.e., horizontal fit). In so doing, internal coherency among HRM practices is maximized such that their combined effects are significantly greater than the sum of their individual influences on employee and organizational performance (Huselid 1995; Delery 1998; Appelbaum et al. 2000). As an illustration, consider the use of “sales training programs” alongside “sales performance-related pay” to boost sales performance (i.e., achieve the sales targets set by the senior executives of an organization). Given these two HRM techniques are designed to influence different aspects of sales performance, their combined effects, when used together rather than separately, would more likely exceed their unique and independent effects. There are several principles for describing internal consistency among HRM practices. One principle is the idea of “complementarity,” which highlights the possibility that individual HRM practices will generate overall additive effects when used together in combination rather than separately (Delery 1998; Combs et al. 2006; Wood and De Menezes 2008; Jiang et al. 2012). In this context, each HRM practice within the complementary system of practices makes its own unique contribution to the overall additive effects generated by the system (MacDuffie 1995; Becker and Gerhart 1996). The term “additive effects” implies that the overall consequence of two or more practices acting together will be equal to the simple sum of the effects of each practice acting independently (Wood and De Menezes 2008). For example, two distinct selective hiring practices (such as panel interview versus cognitive skills assessment), when used separately in a recruitment exercise, might be effective in measuring two different job-related skills. However, when used together in a complementary manner, they might be able to generate stronger additive effects on the desired recruitment outcome. In this sense, the unique and independent effect of one selective hiring practice, relative to the other selective hiring practices, makes a significant additive contribution toward the overall effectiveness of the selective hiring system (Becker and Gerhart 1996; Delery 1998). Another principle for describing internal consistency is the idea of “synergistic” effects, emphasizing the overall multiplicative effects of HRM practices (Guerrero and Barraud-Didier 2004; Wood and De Menezes 2008). Compared to additive effects, multiplicative effects imply that the overall consequence of two or more practices acting together will be equal to the product of their independent effects. The key issue here is the extent to which individual HRM practices might interact with each other such that their combined effects are greater than the sum of their individual influences (Huselid 1995; Delery 1998; Appelbaum et al. 2000). For example, the value of staff training on employees’ job performance could be strengthened if training is offered alongside job autonomy and opportunities to participate in workplace decision-making activities. If, on the contrary, staff training is offered without job autonomy or the opportunity to directly influence the nature of

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one’s job, the level of skills acquired by employees will be constrained, and consequently, the value of training offered will not amount to significant benefits on employee performance (Combs et al. 2006). In other words, synergistic HRM practices are likely to amplify each other’s effects when used together in combination rather than separately (Guerrero and Barraud-Didier 2004; Wood and De Menezes 2008).

Isolationist Perspective The more traditional approach to studying the effects of HRM practices is the isolationist perspective (Ogbonnaya et al. 2017a). This approach is based on the idea that systems or bundles of HRM practices do not, in themselves, play the only role in explaining the effects of such practices on employee and organizational outcomes; instead, much of the variance explained on outcomes is, at least, partially driven by the constituent parts of such systems (Kalmi and Kauhanen 2008; Delery 1998; Guerrero and Barraud-Didier 2004; Subramony 2009; Ogbonnaya and Messersmith 2019). When HRM practices are used together in combination, rather than separately, their unique and independent characteristics are weakened, leading to only a partial estimation of their true idiosyncratic effects (Boxall et al. 2011). Thus, while the logic of combining individual HRM practices into coherent systems, as stipulated by the integrationist perspective, has gained prominence among HRM researchers, some of its assumptions have been challenged by those in favor of the isolationist perspective. For example, it is argued that the existence of multiple management goals (e.g., cost reduction versus human capital development) may cause discrepancies that undermine the level of interconnectedness among components of HRM systems (Macky and Boxall 2007). Such discrepancies create strategic tensions that invalidate the notion of internal consistency thereby causing individual components of HRM systems to pull in different and conflicting directions (Boxall et al. 2011). From this perspective, it is often argued that combinations of HRM practices may not necessarily generate the kinds of universal effects as prescribed by the integrationist perspective (Ogbonnaya et al. 2017a). Based on the foregoing principles, researchers have reported two main explanations as to why we might be interested in the unique and independent effects of HRM practices, instead of focusing primarily on their integrated or combined effects (Becker et al. 1997; Delery 1998; Gould-Williams 2004; Combs et al. 2006; Boxall et al. 2011). The first, described as “substitution effect,” is a type of combination in which the impact of a single practice within an integrated system of practices is suppressed by the presence of another practice within the same system (Delery 1998; Combs et al. 2006). Where two substitutable HRM practices are used together in an integrated system, their combined effect on employee and organizational performance would be equal to the effect of using only one of such practices (Becker et al. 1997). For example, if a group of employees, who were selectively hired based on their interpersonal skills, are offered training on issues such as effective communication and conflict-management techniques (both of which are associated with one’s

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interpersonal skills), then the levels of training offered will potentially amount to no further development of their interpersonal skills (Combs et al. 2006). In this regard, the expected benefits that would have been accrued from investing in two different HRM practices – i.e., selective hiring based on interpersonal skills and training to further improve such skills – would amount to the benefit of implementing only one of such practices. The second explanation is often described as “deadly combination” (Becker et al. 1997; Delery 1998; Combs et al. 2006). This is based on the assumption that HRM practices, which independently have beneficial effects on employee and organizational performance, may end up having detrimental effects when used together in combination (Becker et al. 1997). In this sense, internal consistency among HRM practices is said to impede rather than improve performance. For example, if team working is used alongside compensation schemes that assess individual-based rather than group-based performance, such a combination is likely to weaken performance. In such circumstances, team members may resort to competing among each other for higher pay, thereby creating an atmosphere of distrust and interpersonal conflict thereby undermining team performance. There are other possible examples where job autonomy is used alongside group-based performance appraisal, or implementing remote working arrangements in work environments where employees require direct supervisory support and assistance. Unless further understanding of the unique and independent properties of individual HRM practices is gained through further research on the isolationist perspective, researchers might find it challenging to identify valuable combinations of HRM practices (Ogbonnaya et al. 2017a).

HRM Practices, Performance, and the Black Box HRM scholars have identified at least three different conceptualizations of organizational performance: human resource outcomes, organizational outcomes, and financial outcomes. Human resource outcomes (e.g., absenteeism, turnover, and individual and group performance) are more directly influenced by HRM practices. They are the most proximal to HRM implementation and are closely associated with employees’ attitudes and behaviors at work (Dyer and Reeves 1995; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2018, Sun et al. 2007). Organizational outcomes focus more on operational measures of performance, including productivity, customer service quality, efficiency of production, and shrinkage. Organizational outcomes are also proximal to HRM implementation, but less so compared to human resource outcome (Dyer and Reeves 1995; Jiang et al. 2012; Martinaityte et al. 2019). Financial outcomes (e.g., profitability, expenses, revenues, return on investment, and assets) are more distal to HRM practices, in that they are more directly influenced by other organizational resources such as corporate strategy, market performance, and selling price to costs. Many believe that these outcomes tend to represent a causal order from HRM practices to human resource outcomes, organizational outcomes, and then financial

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outcomes (Becker and Huselid 1998; Dyer and Reeves 1995; Schmidt and Pohler 2018). More recently, the role of employee well-being and performance has become more central to HRM research, reflecting the view that HRM practices shape organizational performance mostly through their influence on employee outcomes (Guest 2017; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Based on this perspective, employee’ attitudes and well-being are regarded as vital ingredients for promoting organizational effectiveness. Employee attitudes are defined in terms of individuals’ overall psychological and behavioral disposition toward their experiences of work (Dunford et al. 2001). Employees’ attitudes at work include a variety of constructs such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employees’ trust in management (Whitener 2001; Gould-Williams 2004). In slight contrast, employee well-being relates to the overall quality of employees’ mental health and psychological functioning at work (Danna and Griffin 1999; Daniels et al. 2008). It could be described in terms of “negative affect” (feeling frustrated, stressed out, anxious, and worried in the context of work) and “positive affect” (feeling enthusiastic, energetic, joyful, and motivated in the context of work). Employee well-being may also include measures of both physical health and cognitive functioning (Daniels et al. 2008). Although both employee attitudes and well-being are often used interchangeably in HRM research (see Appelbaum et al. 2000; Macky and Boxall 2008; Wood and De Menezes 2011), it is possible for HRM practices to exert contradictory effects on different aspects of employee attitudes and well-being (Van De Voorde et al. 2012). In line with earlier research on the strategic partner status of HRM practices and performance, recent research has focused on explicating the processes that underpin this relationship. Often referred to as the “black box” of HRM, this idea focuses on the intervening or intermediary linkages that exist between HRM utilization and subsequent organizational outcomes (Boxall et al. 2011). Nevertheless, researchers believe that the actual workings of the “black box” remain somewhat mysterious and elusive (Chowhan 2016). On the one hand, it is argued that positive employee outcomes serve as mechanisms through which HRM practices influence organizational performance. This assumption reflects the idea that HRM practices promote organizational performance by increasing the commitment of employees and shaping their positive attitudes and behaviors at work. The research thus illustrates a triangle of positive relationships between HRM practices, employee outcomes, and organizational performance (Boxall et al. 2011; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2018; Peccei and Van De Voorde 2019b). On the other hand, a growing number of empirical studies indicate that HRM practices are designed to elicit greater work effort from employees, which negatively affect the health and well-being (including exhaustion, stress, and burnout) of the workforce (Van De Voorde et al. 2012). These findings indicate the possibility of a complex pattern of effects and trade-offs between HRM utilization and different aspects of well-being and organizational performance outcomes. A few theoretical models have since been developed to explicate the intermediary links in the HRM-performance chain (Jiang and Messersmith 2018). One example is the resource-based view, arguably the most illustrative model for linking HRM

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practices to both employee outcomes and organizational performance (Kaufman 2015; Saridakis et al. 2017; Wright et al. 2001). The premise of this theory is that employees are a vital source of sustained competitive advantage. By investing in HRM practices and improving employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities, organization can strengthen their human capital pool, making it more valuable, rare, and inimitable. Based on this fundamental principle, several studies have reported positive links between HRM implementation and several aspects of employee and organizational performance. Arthur (1994), for example, showed how investments in HRM practices improve production efficiency and the overall quality of employee performance in US steel minimills. Similarly, Shaw et al. (2013) argued that the implementation of internally consistent HRM practices helps in developing employees’ core competencies and their ability to exert themselves on behalf of the organization. Effective HRM implementation thus promotes better alignment between employee-employer interests, leading to long-term improvements in organizational performance (Beltrán-Martín et al. 2008). Another influential model for linking HRM practices to both employee outcomes and organizational performance is the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) model (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Macky and Boxall 2007; Ogbonnaya et al. 2017). This model suggests that the benefits of HRM systems are influenced by three main categories of practices. Ability-enhancing practices are those designed to attract and retain talented workers, improve their skills and ability to perform work more efficiently. This set of practices include selective hiring, skill-enhancement activities, and extensive training programs. Motivation-enhancing practices are important contributing factors for extrinsic motivation among employees (Subramony 2009). These practices, including management support, incentive pay, and effective feedback systems, encourage employees to direct their effort toward achieving desired organizational goals. The third dimension, opportunity-enhancing practices, provides opportunities for employees to maximize their skills, engage in problemsolving activities, and express their voice in organizational decisions (Gardner et al. 2011). These practices include job autonomy, team-based working, and workplace participation. The consensus among commentators is that all three dimensions should be applied consistently if the organization is to achieve expected benefits (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Combs et al. 2006; Van De Voorde et al. 2012).

Mutual Gains Perspective In recent years, researchers have begun focusing more directly on the concept of employee well-being, looking more explicitly at its role in explaining the links between HRM practices and organizational performance (Guest 2017; Peccei and Van De Voorde 2019b; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). In the mutual gains perspective, HRM practices are thought to have positive effects on both employee attitudes and well-being, as well as organizational performance (Jo et al. 2020; Ogbonnaya and Messersmith 2019; Ramsay et al. 2000; Sparham and Sung 2007; Valizade et al. 2016; Wood and Ogbonnaya 2018). Consistent with the notion of workforce

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sustainability (Pfeffer 2010), this perspective suggests that the implementation of HRM practices creates conditions for employees to be treated as assets to be leveraged to enhance organizational performance. For example, access to training helps to reinforce employees’ key competencies, whereas contingent pay and workplace support provide inducements that boost employees’ morale and productivity levels. Ultimately, through the implementation of HRM practices, employees are inspired to be more committed, satisfied, and motivated to contribute positively toward organizational performance. Along these lines, the mutual gains perspective is associated with a “win-win” situation whereby organizational performance is achieved through the positive influences of HRM practices on employee attitudes and well-being (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Valizade et al. 2016). One influential theoretical frame within the mutual gains tradition is social exchange theory. This theory describes the quality of exchange relationships that take place in work environments (Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro 1990). The key tenet is that employees develop positive or negative social behaviors based on perceptions about the quality of treatment received from the organization. When organizational treatment is experienced favorably, employees develop perceptions of trust or confidence that the organization is supportive and committed to improving their well-being (Ogbonnaya and Babalola 2020). This creates a type of positive reciprocity wherein employees feel obligated to exert themselves, or put forth greater effort, on behalf of the organization. In applying social exchange principles, we argue that HRM practices convey positive signals about the extent to which employees are valued and respected by the organization (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005). Employees receive these signals as positive treatment from the organization, or as an indication that they are supported and cared for by the organization. This, in turn, creates a sense of obligation on the part of employees, to respond through favorable attitudes directed toward organizational goals (Sun et al. 2007; Whitener 2001). Drawing on the principles of social exchange, Tregaskis et al. (2013) reported positive links between HRM practices and subsequent levels of workers’ safety, job satisfaction, and productivity. Tregaskis et al. (2013) explained that the implementation of HRM practices encourages sustained and beneficial workplace behaviors because employees are exposed to tangible improvements in their working conditions. An emergent theory in accounting for mutual gains is self-determination theory (SDT, Deci and Ryan 2008; Deci et al. 2017). SDT is predicated on the universalism of the three basic psychological needs of autonomy (a need to exercise control over one’s actions in accordance with one’s integrated sense of self), competence (a need to have an effect on one’s outcomes) and relatedness (a need to feel connected and mutual respect with others). Deci and Ryan (2000, p. 229) posit that “needs specify innate psychological nutriments that are essential for ongoing psychological growth, integrity, and well-being.” As a macrotheory of motivation, SDT considers features of the work environment such as HRM and leadership practices and their resulting working conditions as providing the nutriments to satisfy these basic psychological needs. Although research has examined them independently, these basic psychological needs are assumed to operate synergistically (overall need satisfaction) to

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promote optimal human functioning including well-being (Trepanier et al. 2015). Research has either theorized and/or empirically shown HRM practices to relate to need satisfaction (Gardner et al. 2011; Marescaux et al. 2013; Martinaityte et al. 2019) which, in turn, has been reported to relate to well-being. Indicative of SDT’s potential in accounting for the mutual gains perspective is Jo et al. (2020) finding that HRM practices relate to both psychological well-being and performance through thriving at work. Additionally, they report thriving at work and psychological wellbeing to serially mediate the effect of HRM practices on performance. SDT’s relevance as a theoretical anchor for the mutual gains perspective is reinforced by Boxall et al.’s (2016) observation that the AMO framework constitutes a theory of performance, and therefore inappropriate in accounting for employee well-being, and therefore the mutual gains perspective.

Critical Perspective Increasingly, scholars are paying closer attention to the so-called “dark side” or conflicting outcomes approach to studying the effects of HRM practices. The critical perspective is based on the assumption that the positive effects of HRM practices, particularly on employee well-being and performance, may be offset by increased job demands, work intensity, and stress on employees (Ramsay et al. 2000; Macky and Boxall 2008; Harley et al. 2007; Gould-Williams 2004). Because HRM practices are implemented primarily to elicit employees’ effort and drive improvements in organizational performance, employees are often compelled by managers to work too hard and take on greater job responsibilities at the expense of their well-being (Kroon et al. 2009; Ogbonnaya 2019). The most crucial element with the critical perspective is the notion of “work intensification,” the measure of the amount of effort expended at work in relation to the amount of hours invested in the conduct of one’s job (Kelliher and Anderson 2010; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2015; White et al. 2003). Work intensification can be instigated by multiple stressors such as long working hours, work overload, insufficient time to undertake one’s job, tight deadlines, high working speed, and work-related pressure (Green 2001). The critical perspective is informed by labor process theory, a theoretical model whose original version (see Braverman 1974) draws on Marx’s writing on the links between organizational processes and worker alienation in capitalist work systems (Ramsay et al. 2000; Sparham and Sung 2007; Thompson and Smith 2009). Labor process theory suggests that employees’ experience of work-related strain and stress stems from the tendency of “capitalist” managers (perhaps, driven by the need to maximize labor input) to impose higher work demands and long working hours on employees, without providing commensurate levels of support. In such capitalist work environments, employees’ jobs are typically characterized by the routinization of work, increased levels of managerial control, and insufficient opportunities for employees to show initiative at work. HRM practices are seen as an important organizational tool for eliciting greater work effort from employees. Thus, while the implementation of such practices might in fact increase profits and production

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efficiency, the performance effects come at the cost of work intensification, stress, and poor well-being for employees (Jensen et al. 2013; Ramsay et al. 2000; Sparham and Sung 2007; Thompson and Smith 2009). Although the critical perspective, at least compared to the mutual gains perspective, has received relatively less attention in the HRM literature, few studies are worth mentioning. For example, Kroon et al. (2009) demonstrated strong positive links between systems of HRM practices and employees’ experience of work intensification and job strain. Kroon et al. described such HRM systems as salient stress factors likely to create continuous feelings of work-related pressure and strain among employees, thereby increasing their experience of burnout and emotional exhaustion. Similarly, Godard (2001) showed how the organizational benefits of HRM practices might be offset by increased stress and pressure imposed on employees by managers. Because HRM practices are utilized primarily to drive organizational effectiveness, it is possible that their implementation might, perhaps inadvertently, compel employees to work too long and too hard toward achieving organizational goals. From this perspective, HRM practices can be seen as an organization-wide strategy for eliciting greater work effort from employees, with little or no direct benefits for employee well-being (Godard 2001; Kroon et al. 2009; Macky and Boxall 2008; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2015). Researchers have also linked individual components of HRM systems to the critical perspective. Team working in particular has been associated with increased work intensification and consequently a deterioration in employee attitudes and wellbeing (Barker 1993; Godard 2001; Ogbonnaya 2019; White et al. 2003). The reasoning is that team-based work activities have the potential to increase both task and interpersonal conflicts particularly where there is a degree of vagueness in assigning team member roles (i.e., role ambiguity), or perhaps where team members have inadequate time and resources to fulfill their team roles and obligations (i.e., role overload). Other components of HRM systems (e.g., compensatory monetary rewards, performance appraisals, and participative decision-making) have also been associated with work intensification, and poor well-being (Brown and Benson 2005; Tubre and Collins 2000; Ogbonnaya, Daniels and Nielsen 2017b; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2015). For example, when employees’ job performance is tied to monetary rewards, employees tend to work harder, in order to obtain these rewards, and are therefore exposed to higher levels of work-related strain and, possibly, poor work-related attitudes (Ogbonnaya et al. 2017b). Similarly, performance appraisal may increase work intensification where there are too many performance measurement criteria for assessing employees’ job performance (Brown and Benson 2005).

Implementation of HRM Practices Researchers have recognized the important role of effective HRM implementation in promoting employee well-being and organizational performance (Kehoe and Han 2020; Nishii and Wright 2008; Purcell and Hutchinson 2007; Sikora and Ferris

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2014). HRM implementation refers to the pattern of planned people-management deployments and activities intended to help motivate and reward employees, deal with performance issues, and enable an organization to achieve its corporate goals and objectives (Purcell and Hutchinson 2007). However, effective HRM implementation requires full knowledge of the nature, extent, and scope of people management activities designed to help an organization manage its workforce in the most efficient and effective manner possible (Katou et al. 2014). Consequently, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to carefully distinguish between the content and process of HRM (Bowen and Ostroff 2004; Sanders et al. 2014). The content of HRM refers to the range of practices, policies, and activities within an organization’s HRM system. The content of HRM is therefore concerned with the various peoplemanagement activities that can be delivered, enacted, and experienced within the work environment (Sikora and Ferris 2014). The process of HRM, on the other hand, refers to the enactment of HRM practices, including the various ways in which they are communicated to allow employees understand the desired and appropriate responses, and form a collective sense of what is expected (Bowen and Ostroff 2004, p. 204). To help understand the process of HRM implementation, researchers have generally made a distinction between intended practices and the actual enactment or implementation of such practices (Khilji and Wang 2007; Piening et al. 2014; Wright and Nishii 2013). In this regard, intended HRM practices refer to those peoplemanagement policies designed to support employees and improve organizational performance, but are not yet enacted, practiced, or made salient in the work environment (Boxall and Purcell 2003). These policies are usually formulated as part of the organization’s strategic plan; however, until they are put into actual day-to-day practice, they are not able to yield tangible benefits (Jiang and Messersmith 2018; Khilji and Wang 2007). Actual HRM practices, on the other hand, are those peoplemanagement policies that are fully operationalized in the work environment and are therefore experienced by employees (Khilji and Wang 2007; Meijerink et al. 2020; Wright and Nishii 2013). Once HRM policies are formulated as part of the organization’s strategic plan, they can be carefully enacted or put into day-to-day practice by line managers and/or department heads. A careful implementation of HRM policies ensures they are more distinctive and readily observable by a large proportion of employees (Bowen and Ostroff 2004; Sanders et al. 2014; Van De Voorde and Beijer 2015). Increasingly, researchers are paying closer attention to employees’ own experiences of HRM practices, rather than managerial reports as to how such practices are being enacted or implemented in the work environment (Alfes et al. 2013; Meijerink et al. 2020; Nishii et al. 2008; Ogbonnaya and Messersmith 2019). Employees’ experienced or perceived HRM practices represent their shared perceptions about the nature and quality of the organization’s HRM strategy (Alfes et al. 2012). Compared to intended or actual practices, perceived HRM practices are likely to influence employees’ attitudes and behaviors more decisively (Alfes et al. 2012; Aryee et al. 2012; Jiang et al. 2013; Nishii et al. 2008). Accordingly, when organizations invest in the development and implementation of HRM practices, they convey positive

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signals about what the organization expects of employees, and what employees can, in turn, expect from the organization. Employees perceive these signals as an indication that they are valued and respected by the organization; such perceptions, it is argued, are the main determinants of employees’ work-related outcomes and include well-being and performance (Meijerink et al. 2020; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2018; Whitener 2001).

Methodological Issues (Multilevel Analysis) Over the last few decades, there has been a fundamental shift in management research from the use of single-level analytical approaches toward multilevel methods and techniques (Peccei and Van De Voorde 2019a). This shift was spurred by criticisms that single-level approaches tend to ignore the possibility that HRM practices and organizational performance may operate at a different analytical level from employee outcomes (Croon, Van Veldhoven, Peccei, and Wood 2015). Such studies do not account for interdependences among employees, nested within the same organization, and therefore fail to handle sources of errors more rigorously (Shen 2016). Another drawback of applying single-level analysis to cross-level data is that the assumption of independent observations is violated, leading to biased standard error estimates (Preacher et al. 2010). A typical example is a study where a single respondent, usually a senior HR professional, is required to complete a survey and provide data on the existing HRM practices within an organization as well as the outcomes. Such methods implicitly assume that all employees receive the same practices and therefore fail to explicitly account for the various ways in which individuals and groups may experience and respond differentially to HR systems within organizations (Nishii and Wright 2008). Such methods also fail to accurately capture the variability in employees’ experiences of HRM practices and their role in explaining the HRM-performance relationship. Multilevel analysis is a viable technique for addressing such errors. Statistically, this is because it (multilevel analysis) enables investigation of both within-unit and between-unit relationships and therefore considered more accurate (MacKinnon 2008; Preacher et al. 2010). Such conceptualizations and analytical strategies have been increasingly utilized in empirical studies where data for an organizational-level phenomenon are used to examine relationships that exist across multiple levels within the organization. In other words, the distinguishing feature of multilevel models, compared to single-level models, is that they “take into account factors at higher or lower levels that may influence focal constructs of interest residing at a different level” (Peccei and Van De Voorde 2019a, p. 789). Although research in the HRM domain has generally lagged behind other areas of management scholarship in this respect, scholars have become increasingly interested in the application of multilevel approaches since the late 2000s (e.g., Aryee et al. 2012; Jensen et al. 2013; Liao, Toya, Lepak, and Hong 2009; Takeuchi, Chen, and Lepak 2009; Ogbonnaya and Valizade 2018; Wood and Ogbonnaya 2018). Interest in multilevel approaches has been facilitated by the development of sophisticated statistical

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software programs, data analytics, as well as researchers’ interest in understanding employees’ perceptions of and reactions to HRM systems. Peccei and Van De Voorde’s (2019a) recent review outlines best practices for applying multilevel theory and techniques to the study of HRM practices, employee well-being, and organizational performance. Of particular interest here is multilevel mediation models where the predictor (HRM practices), mediator (employee wellbeing), and outcome (organizational performance) are measured at different levels of analysis. Takeuchi et al.’s (2009) study of Japanese establishments is one of the first to apply multilevel mediation analysis to HRM research. Using data from 324 managers and 522 employees, they found evidence that employee job satisfaction and affective commitment fully mediated the links between high-performance work systems and establishment-level concern for employees’ climate. More recently, Ogbonnaya and Valizade’s (2018) study of healthcare workers reported how a coherent bundle of HRM practices can increase patient satisfaction and reduce sickness absence through job satisfaction. Because satisfied workers are well positioned to interact more favorably with patients and act in ways consistent with organizational goals, job satisfaction plays an important role in transmitting the cross-level effects of HRM systems on both patient satisfaction and sickness absence. With the development of more advanced analytical techniques, the adoption of multilevel methods and approaches in the field of HRM will continue to evolve and contribute significantly to future research in this area (Jiang and Messersmith 2018).

Methodological Issues (Reverse Causality) Despite accumulating evidence on the outcomes of HRM practices, scholars have criticized the methodological designs of existing studies, noting that the reliance on cross-sectional methods precludes deeper insights into HRM systems and long-term effects on both employee and organizational outcomes (Boselie et al. 2003; Schmidt and Pohler 2018; Tregaskis et al. 2013; Wright et al. 2005). Paauwe (2009, p. 135) stressed that the dominance of cross-sectional designs is one of the most salient factors plaguing advancement of HRM research. To date, there is limited evidence on whether HRM systems predict subsequent changes in both job satisfaction and organizational performance, and also, whether these changes follow a linear or nonlinear trajectory over time. Compared to cross-sectional studies, longitudinal designs are more effective in explaining how the causal ordering between variables develops and changes over time (Paauwe 2009; Schmidt and Pohler 2018; Shin and Konrad 2017; Wright et al. 2005). Longitudinal research is also appropriate for capturing both direct and reciprocal effects, and addressing some of the causal complexities surrounding HRM practices and outcomes. One of the main considerations for investing in HRM practices is the possibility that past outcomes will influence the nature and quality of future HRM practices (Paauwe 2009; Roca-Puig et al. 2019; Wright et al. 2005). Because investing in HRM practices requires time, effort, and considerable financial resources, evidence

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of prior success provides the necessary resource flexibility to encourage future investments in such practices (Shin and Konrad 2017). When outputs such as performance are relatively strong, the organization has a greater capacity to build and maintain relevant input processes such as HRM activities thereby enhancing employees’ attitudinal responses. For instance, an organization experiencing performance improvements after investing in HRM activities would encounter greater resource flexibility to continue investing in such activities in the future. In contrast, an organization experiencing deficits or declining performance after investing in HRM activities would have limited resource flexibility to encourage further investments in such activities. The organization may instead focus on retrenchment initiatives as a way to cut costs and reduce human capital expenditure. These arguments illustrate a recurring focus in recent HRM debates: that past levels of performance determine the nature of subsequent organizational investments in HRM practices (Roca-Puig et al. 2019; Shin and Konrad 2017; Schmidt and Pohler 2018). General systems theory provides a theoretical basis for linking past performance to changes in HRM implementation (Shin and Konrad 2017). This theory considers an organization as a dynamic system associated with a positive feedback loop mechanism, i.e., outputs generate inputs required to reinforce and maintain the system over time (Kast and Rosenzweig 1972; Von Bertalanffy 1968). In financial service institution, for example, outputs might include high-quality customer service, labor productivity, and reduced staff absence rates, whereas inputs represent the set of people-management practices designed to influence these outcomes. When outputs are high, the organizational system generates critical resource flows to amplify input processes and reinforce the overall system over time (Shin and Konrad 2017). This implies that previous improvements in outputs will, in turn, strengthen the quality of HRM implementation over time, leading to sustainable improvements in the organizational system (Schmidt and Pohler 2018; Shin and Konrad 2017). However, when output levels are low, the system lacks adequate resource flexibility to reinforce input processes over time, resulting in an overall worsening of the organizational system. Going by the foregoing, it is argued that past levels of organizational performance will determine subsequent changes in HRM implementation. That is, the quality of previous performance outcomes, measured in terms of customer service performance and labor productivity, for example, would generate relevant resource flows to maintain good levels of HRM implementation over time. Moreover, the quality of previous performance outcomes would serve as persuasive cues that assist the organization in discerning whether further investments in HRM activities are required, and whether such investments would add value to future organizational performance (Roca-Puig et al. 2019). In other words, when past performance outcomes are relatively strong, this offers an indication as to whether continued investments in HRM practices are both valuable and warranted (Schmidt and Pohler 2018). It will also generate adequate slack resources for the organization to support longer-term investments in its HRM infrastructure (Shin and Konrad 2017). Along these lines, one could argue that past levels of organizational performance would determine the nature and quality of future HRM practices.

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It is further argued that past levels of organizational performance will influence positive changes in employee attitudes and behaviors. As part of the general systems argument, organizational systems comprise separate but interconnected subsystems that reinforce input and output processes over time (Kast and Rosenzweig 1972; Wright and McMahan 1992). These subsystems could be operational rules or procedures (e.g., HRM activities), as well as economic and financial resources, public relations (e.g., branding and the organization’s external interface), and human experiences (e.g., workplace relationships and well-being). Because organizational subsystems are relatively interconnected, factors affecting one part could also influence other aspects (Kast and Rosenzweig 1972). That is to say, the same positive feedback loop mechanism characterizing the performance-HRM part of the system (i.e., past performance generating resource flows to develop HRM systems over time) may also affect other aspects such as job satisfaction. It follows therefore that evidence of past improvements in performance may not only encourage HRM investments, but also the organization’s capacity to directly support employees and improve their levels of satisfaction. Previous studies have indeed examined employee performance as a possible consequence of organizational performance (Goodman and Atkin 1984; Schneider, Hanges, Smith, and Salvaggio 2003). In a seminal work by Lawler and Porter (1967), the authors applied principles of workplace motivation in explaining why past levels of performance might influence subsequent levels of employee wellbeing. Lawler and Porter (1967) argued that good performance is intrinsically motivating for employees because high levels of performance are often accompanied by positive emotions such as the feeling of having accomplished something of real value, or the feeling of having made a meaningful and worthwhile contribution at work. In support, other studies have reported significant effects for organizational performance and different facets of employee attitudes or behaviors (Goodman and Atkin 1984; Goodman and Garber 1988; March and Sutton 1997; Ryan, Schmit, and Johnson 1996; Schneider et al. 2003; Tharenou 1993). The common theme across these studies is that performance outcomes will exert both direct and reverse causal effects on HRM practices as well as employees’ attitudinal or behavioral reactions to these. Consequently, it is imperative that extant research at the minimum controls for the effect of past performance in research on the outcomes of HRM practices.

Conclusion In this chapter, we provided a systematic review of key themes as well as methodological issues in the extant HRM literature. Specifically, we discussed configurations of HRM practices highlighting the integrationist (which focuses on the synergistic operation of HRM practices) and isolationist (which focuses on the interaction of constituent HRM practices) perspectives and their impact on employee well-being and organizational performance. Given the much-documented effects of HRM practices on outcomes, we reviewed the RBV and AMO perspectives in accounting for the “black box” in HRM research. Countervailing the performance

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orientation in HRM is the critical perspective which argues that the muchdocumented performance effects of HR systems are accomplished through intensification of work with its deleterious effects on employee well-being. Drawing on concerns about workforce sustainability, we reviewed the mutual gains perspective. We noted that although well-being has been variously conceptualized, the extant research largely supports this perspective suggesting that performance need not be accomplished at the expense of employee well-being. We argued that because of its performance implications, the AMO perspective is less appropriate as a theoretical lens in accounting for the mutual gains perspective relative to social exchange theory and the growing recognition of self-determination theory in this research stream. The increasing attention to implementation in HRM research coupled with the divergence between actual and experienced HRM systems has precipitated a focus on issues of content and process in the literature. Consequently, a major theme in the contemporary HRM literature is the question of the role of line managers in the implementation of HRM practices. We reviewed the extant literature and called for research that formally integrates the role of line managers to provide a more complete understanding of how, why, and when HRM practices influence their documented outcomes. To enhance the rigorousness of HRM research, we reviewed the key methodological issues of level of analysis and causality and noted that future research that addresses both content and process issues, and anchored in the mutual gains perspective, must be designed to address these methodological issues. We argued that this is necessary to enhance the applicability of the resulting findings to promote workforce sustainability and ultimately, organizational performance.

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Developmental HR Practices as Tools to Support Employee Well-Being

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employee Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Developmental HR Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Practices Included in the Developmental HR Practice Bundle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Developmental HR Practices Serve as Tools for Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supporting Well-Being Through Skill Development and Career Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supporting Well-Being Through Employee HR Perceptions and Attributions . . . . . . . . . . . . Supporting Well-Being as Organizational Resources to Achieve Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Potential Moderating Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Manager Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Low-Quality Employee–Employer Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Career Stage and Employee Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Directions for Future Research and Theoretical Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communicating Purpose of HR Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Longitudinal Studies Investigating Impact over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Managing Developmental HR Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Developmental HR practices have a shared purpose directed toward the ongoing development of employees and shaping their attitudes, behaviors, motivations, well-being, and performance. This chapter serves as a guide to the research investigating the use of developmental HR practices as tools to support and enhance employee well-being. Of specific interest are the mechanisms involved A. J. Bish (*) Willie Deese College of Business and Economics, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_18

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in this relationship and an overview of empirical findings in this field of HRM. This chapter considers employee well-being as a desired employee outcome, identifies common approaches to well-being in HRM research, and presents theoretical arguments and evidence for why they may serve as tools to support employee well-being. Mechanisms involved in this relationship are explored from three perspectives: (a) skills development and career satisfaction, (b) employee HR perceptions and attributions, and (c) organizational support resources to achieve objectives. Potential moderators of the developmental HR practices–well-being relationship are also identified. The chapter concludes with discussion of directions for future research, theoretical development, and management practice. Keywords

Developmental HR practices · Well-being · Employee HR perceptions · HR process · HR attributions · Employee health · Mutual gains · Happiness · Career satisfaction

Introduction Human resource management practices provide a framework of support throughout an employee life cycle – from selection and onboarding to development, career growth, promotion and compensation, and rewards. Within the field of human resource management, in practice and in scholarship, there has been an increasing emphasis upon the ways in which human resource management practices also address and impact upon the well-being of employees (Guest 2017; Ramsay et al. 2000). These efforts emphasize the potential role of a specific bundle of human resource management practices known as developmental HR practices (Kuvaas 2008). Developmental HR practices have a shared purpose directed toward the ongoing development of employees and shaping their attitudes, behaviors, motivations, wellbeing, and performance outcomes. Employers invest in these practices to develop consistent expectations about performance and to support opportunities for career development and to build a strong employer brand in the talent marketplace. Therefore, these practices support the recruitment, retainment, and development goals of the organization. From an employee perspective, the implementation of developmental HR practices indicates that the employer values ongoing professional development of individuals and well-being. It is believed that employees develop a greater sense of obligation to the employer due to this investment over time and are motivated to support organizational goals (Lee and Bruvold 2003). In addition to the benefits to the employer, developmental HR practices benefit employees. Through ongoing investment in the development of knowledge and skills, employees have the capacity to perform their jobs effectively and experience increased job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

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This chapter serves as a guide to the research investigating the use of developmental HR practices as tools to support and enhance employee well-being. Of specific interest are the mechanisms involved in this relationship and an overview of empirical findings in this field of HRM. The chapter begins with consideration of employee well-being as a desired employee outcome and identification of common approaches to well-being in HRM research. This is followed by an overview of what human resource development practices are and the conceptual arguments for why they may serve as tools to support employee well-being. Next, in terms of the “how,” theory and evidence from three perspectives are discussed in terms of mechanisms: (a) skills development and career satisfaction, (b) employee HR perceptions and attributions, and (c) organizational support resource to achieve objectives. Then, potential moderators of the developmental HR practices–well-being relationship are presented. The chapter concludes with discussion of directions for future research, theoretical development, and management practice.

Employee Well-Being Historically HR professionals, especially those in hazardous working environments, tracked and reported on metrics associated with occupational health and safety such as workplace accidents and injuries, lost time, and near misses. The focus was upon quantifiable, sometimes preventable, negative employee outcomes, mainly associated with physical health. As such, organizational responses were focused on monitoring hazards, mitigating risk, reducing lost time due to injuries, educating employees on safe practices, and rehabilitation for return to work. Organizational efforts to a certain extent were driven by external forces, such as occupational health and safety legislation and union agreements (Quinlan et al. 2010). Now, the term “employee well-being” is increasingly used to refer to the overall quality of an employee’s experience and functioning at work (Warr 1987). Going a step further, Danna and Griffin (1999) define well-being as the state of the individual’s mental, physical, and general health as well as their experiences of satisfaction both at work and outside of work. Under this broader definition, employee wellbeing is influenced by pleasure or dissatisfaction with the job itself as well as interactions with colleagues and supervisors. These conceptualizations reflect a shift toward a broader view of employee well-being as an important consideration in the management of people in organizations (Zanko and Dawson 2012), beyond reducing the risk of accidents and injuries to a more holistic view of employee health and well-being and a focus on reduction in stress, increased job satisfaction and intentions to stay, professional growth, and resilience. Why is this important? The increase in HR research investigating employee wellbeing as a primary outcome (Van De Voorde et al. 2012) is indicative of this shift in focus both in research and practice. HR practitioners also position employee wellbeing as a key strategic focus in order to promote engagement, resilience, and organizational commitment (see, e.g., SHRM Foundations (2011) “Promoting Employee Well-being” publication as part of the SHRM Foundations Effective

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Practice Guidelines Series) as well as to support talent management initiatives by creating a value proposition based on development and career growth that appeals to job candidates (Lawler 2005). Furthermore, it reflects changes in societal and employee expectations (Guest 2017) and in the perspective of management toward consideration of alternative positive drivers of performance. As researchers grapple to illuminate the way in which HRM influences performance and employee outcomes, evidence suggests that HR practices promote performance indirectly through their positive influence on employee well-being (Marescaux et al. 2019; Nielsen et al. 2017; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Often conceptualized from a “mutual gains” perspective (Guest 2017; Marescaux et al. 2019; Van De Voorde et al. 2012) where HR practices are viewed as delivering benefits to employees (enhanced job satisfaction) and the organization (workplace productivity) (Nielsen et al. 2017), and from a social exchange perspective, the organization shows that it considers employee well-being and takes care of people, and in turn people perform well (Marescaux et al. 2019). Some HRM researchers, such as Guest (2017), believe employee well-being should be a primary goal, as a means to obtaining other outcomes such as performance. As such, researchers continue to investigate the differential effects of HR practices on well-being (Marescaux et al. 2019). HRM research typically considers one or more of the three dimensions of wellbeing proposed in Grant et al. (2007) model: (a) happiness (e.g., job satisfaction, commitment), (b) health (e.g., stress, exhaustion), and (c) social well-being (e.g., trust, social support) (Van De Voorde et al. 2012; Clinton and van Veldhoven 2013; Marescaux et al. 2019). The growth of research on employee well-being represents a move toward investigation of HRM practices that reduce negative employee outcomes, and indeed create work environments that foster and sustain employee wellbeing proposed, with specific interest on developmental HR practices.

Developmental HR Practices Developmental HR practices are defined as a subset of a larger system of HR practices, high performance work systems, representing an approach to human resource management that has a core purpose of supporting the ongoing development of employees. The terms “high performance work systems,” “high performance work practices,” “high involvement,” and “high commitment management” have been used to reflect various interconnected HR practices that attempt to enhance skills, participation, motivation, and performance (Appelbaum et al. 2000; Becker et al. 1998; Huselid 1995; Boxall and Macky 2009). As these practices are believed to produce positive outcomes for organizations and employees, for some time HR scholars have been investigating the mechanisms that support these proposed relationships (e.g., Messersmith et al. 2011; Ramsay et al. 2000; Takeuchi et al. 2007). The term “developmental HR practices” was used by Kuvaas (2008) in an investigation of 593 employees working in banks in Norway and has been adopted since then to differentiate practices focused primarily upon development

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of employees. From the organizations’ perspective, this represents “high commitment” on their behalf, an investment in employees development (knowledge, skills, competencies) over the longer term (career development), with the ultimate aim of supporting and enhancing continued performance to aid the organization in achieving its objectives. While all high performance HR systems have a developmental focus at the broader level (Takeuchi et al. 2007), they also include other HR practices that go beyond this focus, for example, compensation and selective staffing practices (Jung and Takeuchi 2018). Developmental HR practices are regarded as “best practices” to enhance employees’ abilities, motivation, and opportunity utilization (Jiang et al. 2012). A central point in this theoretical relationship between the use of developmental HR practices and employee performance and well-being is that the adoption of these practices by the employer is perceived positively by employees and that this in turn motivates employees to perform (Guest 1997; Lee and Bruvold 2003). Thus, there is a win–win outcome – employers reap the benefits of investment in training and ongoing development of employees, and employees feel that they are valued and capable of performing their roles. Employee well-being is one outcome of these practices, through higher levels of job satisfaction, reduced stress and demand (as they have the required knowledge and skills to perform), increased perceptions of career success, and higher levels of organizational commitment. In sum, Kooij et al. (2013, p. 20) propose that developmental HR practices “help employees to reach higher levels of functioning.” This approach is also intended to consistently signal to employees (Bowen and Ostroff 2004) that development is valued and developmental HR practices are implemented deliberately to support professional development, well-being, and performance.

Practices Included in the Developmental HR Practice Bundle The most notable HR practices included under the banner of developmental HR practices are training, career development, and developmental performance appraisal (Kuvaas 2008), as shown in Table 1. Collectively, the objective of these practices is to ensure that employees receive appropriate training to fulfill job requirements and in some cases prepare them for other opportunities, support for career development, and ongoing management of performance that is developmental in nature. Developmental HR practices are characterized by a focus upon the future and development over time, with participation from employees in ongoing training and development, career management, and reflection upon current performance, responding to feedback and working toward developmental goals. Each developmental HR practice serves its own purpose while contributing to the broader bundle of practices. Training in both formal and informal programs that are developed and managed by the organization aims to ensure that employees have the appropriate knowledge and skills to perform their roles effectively. The provision of training, how training is deployed throughout the business, and the ongoing nature of training are all aspects that support an organization’s ability to attract and retain

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Table 1 Developmental HR practices and example measures Developmental HR practice Training

Example survey items Training is continuous Training programs are comprehensive Training programs strive to develop firmspecific skills and knowledge The training programs emphasize on-the-job experiences Jobs are designed around their individual skills and capabilities Employees are involved in job rotation Considering the work I do, the training and development I have received are not sufficient (reversed) I am satisfied with the training and development I have received The company provides appropriate job training My employer encourages me to extend my abilities Career It seems like my organization really cares about development my career opportunities This organization puts in a great deal of effort in organizing for internal career development My organization provides me with the opportunity to achieve my career goals I have the opportunity for advancement in my company Jobs are clearly defined and are designed to make full use of people’s skills Developmental Performance is based on objective, quantifiable performance results appraisal Performance appraisals include management by objective with mutual goal setting Performance appraisals include developmental feedback The feedback I receive on how I do my job is highly relevant My organization seems more engaged in providing positive feedback for good performance than criticizing poor performance Other HR practices that support developmental HR practices Incentives related The incentive system is tied to skill-based pay to performance Our compensation is contingent on performance Employee Employees are empowered to make decisions involvement Job design Jobs are clearly defined and are designed to make full use of people’s skills

Author(s) Jung and Takeuchi (2018) (adapted from Takeuchi et al. 2007)

Kuvaas (2008)

Kooij et al. (2010)

Kuvaas (2008)

Kooij et al. (2010)

Jung and Takeuchi (2018)

Kuvaas (2008)

Jung and Takeuchi (2018) Jung and Takeuchi (2018) Kooij et al. (2010)

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talent. Opportunities for career development, formal and informal career discussions, and the articulation of career pathways serve as strong indicators that an organization is interested in long-term relationships with employees and values professional and personal growth over time. Even with the push toward self-managed careers, with employees being held more accountable for being proactive managers of their own career development and growth, organizations gain advantage from providing infrastructure to support employee efforts (Jung and Takeuchi 2018). As with training, the inclusion of career development frameworks and practices supports recruitment and retention efforts in competitive marketplaces. Developmental performance appraisal/management theoretically operates as a continuous process of setting performance expectations, setting goals, receiving feedback, and reflecting and reviewing performance outcomes and action planning for ongoing development. Taken together, these three practices work closely with each other to influence employee attitudes, behaviors, performance, and well-being (Kuvaas 2008; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). As shown in Table 1, measurement of developmental HR practices typically seeks employee evaluations of the practice and the extent to which they perceived the practice as an investment in employee development. For example, Kuvaas’s (2008) measures of perceived developmental HR practices consist of eight items to measure training opportunities addressing satisfaction with training, the sufficiency of training received, and the comparability of training investments with that provided by other organizations, e.g., “I am satisfied with the training and development I have received.” The career development measure includes six items about the perceived importance to the organization of employee career development, advancement, and the opportunity for personal development, such as “It seems like my organization really cares about my career opportunities” (Kuvaas 2008, p. 10). Finally, the measure of performance appraisal focused on the perceived importance of performance appraisal to the organization, the adequacy of feedback they receive, and overall satisfaction with feedback processes in the organization, with items such as “My organization seems more engaged in providing positive feedback for good performance than criticizing poor performance” (Kuvaas 2008, p. 10). Developmental HR practices can also be viewed as providing what Jung and Takeuchi (2018) refer to as “Organizational career management” as these practices work together over time to provide support, resources, and generally an infrastructure to complement employee’s efforts of self-managing their careers. Jung and Takeuchi (2018) adopted a lifespan perspective to understand career selfmanagement and satisfaction and the role of developmental HR practices and organizational support. Even with the prevailing view that careers are selfmanaged, they argue that the organization needs to provide support (and infrastructure) to make this happen effectively, and developmental HR practices are an example of this. Jung and Takeuchi (2018) found that for young employees the positive relationship between career self-management and satisfaction was stronger when developmental HR practices were high; they referred to this as a synergistic effect.

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An example of developmental HR practices in action can be seen in the way in which Deloitte has invested in the renewal of its performance management system. Deloitte’s implementation of “strength-based performance conversations” is a radical departure from their previous performance rating system. In this new, employeedriven approach, partners engage with and coach employees to develop and enhance their strengths (and contributions to the firm) to provide a more meaningful performance development framework (Buckingham and Goodall 2015). This strategy is a dramatic move away from a time-consuming global system, focused on ratings and rankings by partners with little or no exposure to those they were making decisions about. An internal review of the system revealed that it was inefficient and not fit for purpose within an organization that recruits the brightest and talented employees from across the globe. The new strategy is an investment in a performance development approach that should attain better outcomes (in terms of retention, performance, career satisfaction, and well-being) as well as meeting the expectations of their workforce – already high performers – who are motivated by professional development and ongoing opportunities for growth (Buckingham and Goodall 2015). When viewed through the perspective of developmental HR practices, these fundamental changes can also be seen to signal to employees (Bowen and Ostroff 2004; Nishii et al. 2008) that they are highly valued, that they have core strengths that are recognized by the business, and that the business intends to keep providing opportunities to enhance and capitalize on these capabilities over time. Other knowledge-intensive firms in the consultancy field and beyond have also followed suit. This example serves to illustrate the point that formal and informal consideration of training, career growth, and performance conversations that are focused on opportunities for development collectively aims to motivate, engage, and retain employees. Of note, the work of Kuvaas (2008) and Jung and Takeuchi (2018) highlights the importance of understanding the employee’s perceptions of HR practices, not just the strategic intent and/or implementation of these practices, when it comes to understanding their influence on well-being and other employee outcomes. This is consistent with HRM literature (Bowen and Ostroff 2004; Nishii et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2020) that shows employees’ perceptions of organizational practices or support are more directly linked to their work attitudes and behaviors than actual organizational programs (Nishii et al. 2008). Accordingly, studies investigating the relationship between developmental HR practices and employee well-being and performance tend to adopt measures that consider the employee’s perspective of each HR practice as they have experienced them (as shown in Table 1). Note that, in addition to developmental HR practices, other HR practices also have been shown to affect well-being (Nielsen et al. 2017), such as job design (see Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model 1980) and organizational support through resources (e.g., the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model) (Demerouti et al. 2001; Bakker and Demerouti 2017). There has been consistent meta-analytic support that work resources are related to both employee well-being and individual performance outcomes (e.g., Crawford et al. 2010; Halbesleben 2010; Nielsen et al. 2017).

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How Developmental HR Practices Serve as Tools for Well-Being In terms of how developmental HR practices serve as tools to support employee well-being, continued research on mechanisms that support the relationship between HR practices and outcomes provides some insights. Theoretically, the HRM literature provides at least three perspectives for why developmental HR practices positively impact employee well-being and the mechanisms through which this occurs. These are (a) skill development and career satisfaction perspective, (b) employee HR perceptions and attribution perspectives, and (c) organizational support resource perspective.

Supporting Well-Being Through Skill Development and Career Satisfaction First, the skill development perspective argues that the adoption of developmental HR practices enhances employees capabilities over time, builds resilience, and as such reduces job stress and strain, increasing job satisfaction and sense of well-being (Huselid 1995; Kuvaas 2008; Jiang et al. 2012). In this sense, the relationship between developmental HR practices and well-being is an indirect one, where the practices influence well-being by impacting upon employees knowledge and skills and career development. Employee well-being is a by-product, achieved due to the focus upon skill development, career development, and the corresponding increase in knowledge and skills, resilience, and job satisfaction. Career satisfaction is an important aspect, as evidence suggest that developmental HR practices influence employee well-being indirectly through career satisfaction. Employees report higher levels of career satisfaction if they believe that the organization is providing support for their goals through organizationally managed developmental programs (Ng et al. 2005; Lent and Brown 2006). Conversely, Ng et al.’s (2005) meta-analysis indicates that a lack of support and “career sponsorship” impedes goal progress and reduces satisfaction.

Supporting Well-Being Through Employee HR Perceptions and Attributions HR process and HR attribution researchers propose that developmental HR practices support employee well-being by sending messages of organizational support to employees (Jung and Takeuchi 2018). These researchers argue that there is a need to consider employee “perceptions” of the implementation of HR practices because these perceptions are more linked to their attitudes and behaviors than actual HR practices (Nishii et al. 2008). From this perspective, implementing developmental HR practices signals to employees that individual development needs are valued and supported by the business (Bowen and Ostroff 2004) and that organizational success is aligned with their own successful development over time (Kuvaas 2008). It is

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these positive messages that have generated the proposed links to employee wellbeing and the investigation of developmental HR practices as tools to support wellbeing in the workplace. For these practices to have a positive impact, employees need to believe that the adoption of the HR policy is intended to benefit them (as well as the business) (Nishii et al. 2008). For example, employees who believe that HR practices are implemented through concern for their well-being as well as to improve service quality are more committed and exhibit stronger service-related behaviors than where the converse is the case (Nishii et al. 2008). In addition, Van De Voorde and Beijer (2015) found that HR commitment attributions, where the organization employs HR practices in order to foster employee well-being and service quality, give rise to reduced job strain and higher well-being. Conversely, employees who attributed the HR practices to the organization’s intention to get the most work out of their employees reported higher levels of job strain. Furthermore, Hewett et al.’s (2018) review of attribution theory as a lens to investigate the processes involved in HR–employee outcome relationship in 65 HRM studies identified that the attributions employees make regarding the intent of HR practices, including developmental HR practices, are likely to inform employees’ commitment to the organization as well as their well-being. From a practice perspective, it is important to note that evidence suggests that to ascribe commitment attributions, employees have to believe that these developmental HR practices are in the control of management (Nishii et al. 2008), for employees to believe that the organization is implementing these practices to enhance employee well-being and development (rather than driven or demanded by external factors). HR attribution researchers are still exploring the antecedents of employee attributions of HR practices (Hewett et al. 2019) as these are a key part of the puzzle. Jung and Takeuchi (2018, p. 93) in their review article capture this point very clearly: “In order for employees to perceive developmental HR practices as useful resources for generating career satisfaction, both HR and line managers in the organization need to clearly and consistently communicate . . .(the) availability of all relevant practices. . . and how each would be useful and supportive to employees, particularly regarding future career development and advancement. HR must work towards ensuring that the messages are accurately interpreted (that they are ‘strong’ according to Bowen and Ostroff 2004), and explicitly explain the practices and how they aim to assist employees.”

Supporting Well-Being as Organizational Resources to Achieve Goals Nielsen et al.’s (2017) review and meta-analysis of workplace resources to improve well-being provides compelling support that developmental HR practices may also influence well-being by serving as organizational resources (for skill development and motivation) to balance job demands and achieve goals. Based on the JD-R model (Bakker and Demerouti 2017), developmental HR practices that focus on development opportunities, social support, and feedback may be considered as organizational support resources (Guest 2017). Indeed, the dominant theoretical

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perspectives used to investigate employee well-being are Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and Job Demands-Resources theory as developmental HR practices help individuals obtain their goals (Jung and Takeuchi 2018). Through skill development and performance feedback, employees’ abilities are strengthened, facilitating the attainment of personal and organizational goals and well-being (Bakker and Demerouti 2007; Wheeler et al. 2013). Jung and Takeuchi (2018, p. 93) conclude in their review of developmental HR practices and career self-management and satisfaction that “given the findings that organization-based support resources generally enhance employee career satisfaction, organizations are strongly encouraged to adopt developmental HR policies, practices and career development support to enhance employees’ career satisfaction. Career satisfaction is important not only for an individual’s well-being and happiness but also for a wide array of organizational outcomes.” This section has presented three perspectives from the HRM literature on how developmental HR practices serve as tools to support employee well-being. Table 2 provides a summary of these three perspectives (mechanisms) supporting well-being and key research findings. The next section considers potential moderating factors that may lessen the positive influence of developmental HR practices on well-being.

Potential Moderating Factors As the previous section illustrated, the relationship between adopting developmental HR practices and observing enhanced employee well-being outcomes is a complex one. For researchers and practitioners, there is danger in oversimplifying the relationship and not considering other factors that may impact the strength of the relationship (Kuvaas 2008). In this section, four factors that potentially moderate the developmental HR practices–well-being relationship are discussed: (a) manager behaviors, (b) low-quality employee–employer relationship, (c) trade-offs, and (d) career stage and employee age. Importantly, these factors highlight the need to consider context when investigating developmental HR practices and adopting this approach in organizational settings.

Manager Behaviors As is the case with HRM research more broadly, unraveling the complex and nuanced relationships between DHRP and employee well-being is challenging. There is growing recognition within HRM research that context matters in the study of impact of HR practices on employee outcomes. Specifically, in terms of the influence of developmental HR practices, managers, as a more proximal organizational representative (Newton et al. 2020; Van De Voorde et al. 2012), play a unique role. Managers are responsible for the implementation of developmental HR practices, and their interpretation of policy has been considered as a potential moderating factor in the developmental HR practices–well-being relationship.

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Table 2 Summary of perspectives on how developmental HR practices serve as tools to support employee well-being The role of developmental HR practices Enhanced skill development Performance feedback

How developmental HR practices support well-being Bolsters capabilities Boosts resilience by developing required knowledge and skills

Demonstrates commitment to employee development and signal that individual growth and development is valued by the business Facilitates wellbeing through perceptions of value

Communicates value and support, interested in individual development and well-being Signals to employees that the organization values growth and development Employees understand purpose of practices and perceive that the intent is for individual-related outcomes of professional growth and well-being

Example theoretical works and empirical findings Essentially employee well-being is an outcome of investment/ commitment in skills development and career development over time; a by-product of these activities that aim to enhance performance as well as employee outcomes (Kuvaas 2008) Antecedents of workrelated well-being include opportunity for skill use, variety, and externally generated goals (Warr 1987) From HR process and HR attributions perspectives, if employees’ attribution of intent (why they believe the organization is implementing these policies) is that the practices are implemented to support and enhance well-being employees, show higher organizational commitment, and are more satisfied (Nishii et al. 2008) and lower levels of job stress and higher levels of well-being (Van De Voorde and Beijer 2015) The “why” (purpose of practice) is important in this

Well-being type Job satisfaction Career satisfaction

Happiness Job satisfaction, organizational commitment (Nishii et al. 2008) Improved happiness and social well-being at the expense of health well-being (see Van De Voorde et al. 2012)

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) The role of developmental HR practices

How developmental HR practices support well-being

Example theoretical works and empirical findings

Well-being type

process, the beliefs that employees form about why the organization is implementing specific HR practices, and the “how” (HR process) as these influence behavior (Ostroff and Bowen 2016; Wang et al. 2020) and consistency and consensus of messages about purpose of practices (Bowen and Ostroff 2004) Causal attributions significantly influence how employees develop their understanding of and reactions to their workplace environment (Kelley and Michela 1980); developmental HR practices may serve as an important antecedent in the employee attribution process (Hewett et al. 2019) There may be inherent trade-offs; developmental HR practices improve both happiness and social well-being and as such boost performance, but at the expense of health well-being. Therefore, one could argue mutual gains perspective or conflicting outcomes (continued)

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Table 2 (continued) The role of developmental HR practices

How developmental HR practices support well-being

Support resources to achieve objectives

Serve as an organizational support resource to help counter the demands of the job or work environment and to achieve individual and organizational goals

Organizational career management

Career development focus Career satisfaction Adopting long-term view of employment relationship

Example theoretical works and empirical findings depending on the well-being dimension being considered (Van de Voorde et al. 2012) Well-being (low burnout and stress, high levels of work engagement) is a function of balancing the demands of work and the resources available to do the work Guest (2017) Based on Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker and Demerouti 2017; Demerouti et al. 2001), developmental HR practices as support resources include social support, development opportunities, and feedback (Guest 2017; Nielsen et al. 2017; Wheeler et al. 2013) Organization support for career management positively impacts well-being (Jung and Takeuchi 2018) Individuals more likely to be satisfied with their career, if they perceive that the organization is providing support for their goals with developmental programs (Lent and Brown 2006; Ng et al. 2005) Conversely lack of support impedes goal

Well-being type

Work engagement Health: Burnout: Low Stress: Low

Career satisfaction Job satisfaction Work engagement Job-related affective well-being: Anxiety – Low Depression – Low Enthusiasm – Average (Mäkikangas et al. 2011)

(continued)

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Table 2 (continued) The role of developmental HR practices

How developmental HR practices support well-being

Example theoretical works and empirical findings

Well-being type

progress and reduces satisfaction; metaanalysis evidence that organizational career sponsorship together with training and development strongly related to career satisfaction and wellbeing (Ng et al. 2005) The need for type of developmental HR practices changes over lifespan and career (Jung and Takeuchi 2018); older workers more concerned with maintenance-related practices (performance appraisal) (Kooij et al. 2013) and less with developmentrelated activities Utility of HR development practices from employee perspective is not stable and changes with age and career stage (Kooij et al. 2010)

Indeed, the actions of managers are so crucial for the delivery of HR that their behaviors should be considered as an essential part of the HRM system (Marescaux et al. 2019). In acknowledging the influence, power, and position of managers to influence well-being, Kelloway and Barling (2010) argue that interventions focused at leader behaviors (Skakon et al. 2010) may be a costeffective way of influencing well-being. In the case of developmental HR practices, managers may decide not to approve training and development requests, fail to discuss relevant career development pathways, and/or provide little feedback or input to action planning activities in performance reviews. Equally important from a strategic HR perspective is that there will be variance across the business in terms of mangers’ engagement with developmental HR practices. Thus, it is challenging to create systems and processes that ensure reliability in

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terms of consistent delivery of HR messages regarding the purpose and intent of HR practices (Wang et al. 2020) and implementation of HR practices. This may be particularly relevant when it comes to training and development activities, as they may be seen by managers as being less crucial to day-to-day operations and a budget item to reduce when resources are tight. In their study of leadership behaviors as a moderator of the developmental HR practices–well-being relationship, Marescaux et al. (2019) found that the developmental leadership behavior of line managers influences the way in which developmental HR practices affect employees. Nielsen et al.’s (2010) meta-analysis of organizational resources to improve well-being and performance identified that at the leader level the most often studied resource was leader–member exchange (LMX) – a good-quality relationship between a leader and employees (Graen and Uhl-bien 1995).

Low-Quality Employee–Employer Relationship Some research findings suggest that developmental HR practices are not always related to positive outcomes. For example, evidence from Kuvaas (2008), Kuvaas and Dysvik (2010), and Van De Voorde and Beijer (2015) indicate that developmental HR practices can have an adverse effect on work performance for employees experiencing a low-quality employee–employer relationship. Adopting a contingency approach, Kuvaas (2008) provides an example of a company that has an economic focus and a transactional approach to managing people. In this context, employees may not take up developmental opportunities that are offered to enhance emotional or social ties with employees. Kuvaas (2008, p. 17) concluded that there are contradictions in applying a one-size-fits-all model of HR best practices as some organizations that have low-quality employee–employer relationships may “perform well without a focus on investing in employee development by perhaps adopting a control-focused HR approach that is aligned to business strategy.” Theoretically, researchers assert that positive employee perceptions of developmental HR practices increase the perceived quality of the employee–organization relationship, which, in turn, will increase work performance and decrease turnover intention. However, there is evidence that a high-quality employee–organization relationship may be necessary in order for developmental HR practices to influence work performance positively (Kuvaas 2008; Kuvaas and Dysvik 2010). Kuvaas (2008, p. 17) concludes that “The positive relationship between perception of developmental HR practices and work performance for employees reporting high levels of perceived organizational support, procedural justice and interactional justice, indicates that a high quality employee–organization relationship may be necessary in order for developmental HR practices to impact work performance positively.” Finally, Zhang et al. (2013) and Alfes et al. (2012) report similar findings that the overall relationship with the organization matters, such that a high-quality relationship (e.g., characterized by trust) counters the exhausting effects of HR practices.

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Trade-Offs In addition to considering context and quality of relationships, research in the area of developmental HR practices and well-being remain cognizant of the fact that this bundle of HR practices do not operate within a vacuum. The simultaneous deployment of other HR strategies and practices may have an impact upon outcomes, in much the same way that pulling different levers causes different cogs to turn. For example, Conway et al. (2016) found that performance management can increase employees’ exhaustion, but this can be offset by granting employees voice in decision-making. The underlying argument is that voice can act as a job resource to help employees cope with increasing performance demands and influence the process. Van De Voorde et al.’s (2012) meta-analysis of the relationship between HRM, well-being, and performance reviewed 36 quantitative studies including one or more of the three dimensions of wellbeing (Grant et al. 2007) and concluded that implementing HRM practices implies a “trade-off” between increasing happiness and social well-being while decreasing health well-being. Subsequently, researchers have studied all three dimensions of well-being simultaneously to try to further unpack this with mixed findings. As Marescaux et al. (2019, p. 318) report in their review, while some studies find positive effects found for HR practices that “foster job satisfaction, commitment, and reduce strain (e.g., Boxall and Macky 2009; Veld and Alfes 2017), others find a “unilateral destructive effect on both happiness and health well-being (e.g., Heffernan and Dundon 2016).”

Career Stage and Employee Age Kooij et al.’s (2010) meta-analysis looking to see if age influences the associations between high commitment/high involvement HR practices and affective commitment and job satisfaction included developmental HR practices related to advancement, growth, and accomplishment intended to facilitate higher levels of performance (e.g., training and internal promotion). Their meta-analysis (of 83 studies) found employees’ perceptions of HR practices are positively related to their work-related attitudes and that calendar age influences this relationship. Perhaps not surprisingly, older workers are more concerned with maintenance-related practices (e.g., performance reviews (Kooij et al. 2013)) and less with developmentrelated activities. Based on these findings, Kooij et al. (2010, p. 1112) concluded that the impact of human resource practices, their “utility” from an employee’s perspective, changes with age. This is consistent with career stage research that suggests that in the later career stages employees react positively to development that is more focused on keeping skills current and helping to sustain employability (Conway 2004) and job enrichment practices (Kooij et al. 2013) and career self-management behaviors (Jung and Takeuchi 2018). These findings suggest that as employee perceptions change with age and career stages there is an effect on the extent to which developmental HR practices influence well-being.

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Directions for Future Research and Theoretical Development Researchers are pursuing several promising lines of inquiry, with some agreement and some divergence in views about what is needed. First, Van De Voorde et al.’s (2012) call for a more balanced approach to investigating the impact of HRM on well-being, where they emphasize that there was only one study in their qualitative review that studied happiness, social well-being, and health at the same time. HRM research must be able to develop a more accurate picture of the potential detrimental effects to one dimension of well-being even though potentially the other two are positively impacted by HR practices. Van De Voorde et al. (2012) identify Orlitzky and Frenkel (2005) as the only study that adopted a mutual gains perspective and conflicting outcomes perspectives as well as including all three well-being types within the same study. Orlitzky and Frenkel (2005) study reported both positive and negative outcomes of HR on all three well-being types. However, Van De Voorde et al. (2012, p. 402) note that these relationships were tested in separate analyses and called for studies to “simultaneously investigate the effects on all three types of wellbeing to further validate this reviews results.” Some studies have since responded to this call, investigating multiple dimensions of well-being, especially those that appear to be creating trade-off situations (see Boxall and Macky 2009; Heffernan and Dundon 2016; Veld and Alfes 2017). The conflicting outcomes perspective will continue to generate research interest as the impact of some HR practices increases strain and intensifies work, bringing more threats to well-being (Guest 2017), with performance goals pursued at the expense of well-being (Ramsay et al. 2000). In sum, Van De Voorde et al. (2012, p. 402) assert that understanding the optimal balance and “optimization of the tradeoff between organizational performance and (types of) employee well-being” requires further theoretical development and research. This is particularly relevant given the rising costs of health care. To inform sound management practices, more evidence is needed to ensure that gains made in the areas of happiness and relationship types of well-being do not create negative impacts upon employee health (both in the short and long term). Conversely, researchers also propose that future research needs to better understand the differential effects of individual HR practices (Hewett et al. 2018), including those conceptualized as being part of the bundle of HR practices on well-being. There is no definitive set of developmental HR practices. No one set rule for categorizing HR practices into bundles. For example, Kooij et al. (2013) highlight that Kuvaas (2008) conceptualized developmental HR practices as career development, training opportunities, and performance appraisal, while Zaleska and de Menezes (2007) included training received, developmental opportunities, and career management. Clearly, each HR practice can “fit” into different bundles. For research to assist practitioners in the implementation of the most effective HR practices for well-being, there needs to be improved clarity about employee’s experiences with each practice and the impact of each practice on well-being and the potentially unique antecedents of each of the three dimensions of well-being and their “distinctive consequences” (Guest 2017). In addition, we need to better

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understand what the most effective bundle of practices looks like – to obtain the most impactful synergistic effects on well-being (Nielsen et al. 2017). As discussed earlier, there are competing views on whether the impacts of HR practices are always positive, and there is evidence to support the view that HR practices at times are detrimental to well-being. There have been calls to adopt a different approach, where employee well-being is the primary goal of HR practices, as argued by Guest (2017), with the usual predominant goal of performance being achieved by other means/pathways. Guest (2017, p. 31) presents provisional HR practices that are designed to promote well-being arguing that these need to be implemented to drive well-being, and this in turn creates opportunities for performance investing in employees (recruitment and selection, training and development, mentoring, and career support), providing engaging work (includes feedback), positive social and physical environment (no bullying, fair collective rewards), voice (extensive two-way communication, representation), and organizational support (involvement, participative management, flexible, family-friendly work arrangements, developmental performance management). This provisional framework emphasizes the impact that a range of HR practices may have on employee well-being, beyond the bundle of practices typically considered developmental HR practices.

Communicating Purpose of HR Practices As discussed throughout this chapter, research on employee perceptions of HR practices indicates that HR practices function as a mechanism of communication between employer and employees. As such, there is a need to incorporate established communication theories shown to be useful in understanding the phenomenon of “communication and information processing in managerial settings, particularly in the areas of information processing, signaling, and sense making” (Wang et al. 2020, p. 151). Current research continues to work toward understanding the antecedents of employee HR perceptions (Hewett et al. 2018) and the extent to which employees understand the intent of HR practices and why the organization has implemented them (Wang et al. 2020). Theoretical development and research efforts aim to clarify the impact of the relevance of information being communicated (from the employee’s perspective) as well as the consistency of the message (Kelley and Michela 1980; Hewett et al. 2019).

Longitudinal Studies Investigating Impact over Time Our theoretical understanding of the impacts of developmental HR practices over time must include greater consideration to career and life stages and employee age, and these relationships require greater investigation. A systematic review by Mäkikangas et al. (2016) of the longitudinal development of employee affective

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well-being (operationalized as burnout, engagement, and job satisfaction) suggests that well-being is not very stable; it changes over time. It cannot be assumed that the effects of HR practices are stable over time or that employee needs are stable throughout the employee life cycle (Kooij et al. 2013); thus, more longitudinal studies are need.

Managing Developmental HR Practices Wang et al. (2020), based on their review of the employee perceptions of HR research, argue that the impact of HR research on professional HR practice can be improved by looking for avenues for management action to address employee issues. They call for researchers, who are considering how best to influence employee well-being, to take stock of what potential antecedents are within the control of management that can be influenced by management action and decision-making and ensure that these are investigated. Managers are in a prime position to remove barriers to well-being and have direct influence on some of the mechanisms that can influence the strength of the relationship between developmental HR practices and well-being. As discussed in this chapter, one of these antecedents that management can directly impact is communications. Jung and Takeuchi (2018, p. 93) recommend that “. . .for employees to perceive developmental HR practices as useful resources for generating career satisfaction, both HR and line managers in the organization need to clearly and consistently communicate. . . detailed information about the company’s development HR practices.” For example, management should ensure that information regarding availability of all relevant developmental practices and how each practice intends to benefit employees, and how to access these practices, is regularly discussed with employees. These conversations need to be led by managers, and they need to check to make sure that employees are cognizant of what opportunities are available to them. Furthermore, managers should be held accountable for this communication process, through performance management processes, together with the effective implementation of all relevant HR practices. As noted here, manager behaviors are critical to the success of HR initiatives particularly in terms of demonstrating support. Through their actions they can improve interactions with employees, strengthen working relationships, and advocate for the professional development needs of individuals. HR practitioners must also be mindful of the need to cater for individual differences in terms of career stages and age in regard to what types of support provided by developmental HR practices are going to resonate and best serve their employee demographic. In addition to management behaviors, other related HR practices can also support well-being objectives. Nielsen et al. (2017, p. 114) recommend that organizational resources, such as job design that allows a high level of job autonomy, those that promote job crafting, social support, and good quality relationships between leaders and employees, be utilized.

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Conclusions The aim of this chapter was to present key research findings of the relationship between developmental HR practices and employee well-being. Specifically, the chapter has focused on the way in which developmental HR practices serve as tools to support well-being. Theoretical and empirical evidence has been presented regarding the nature of the relationship. In summary, the majority of studies indicate support for the mutual gains perspective. As such, developmental HR practices play a positive role in supporting well-being in terms of happiness and social relationships. However, the story is not entirely positive. Research suggests that these positive gains may occur at the expense of employee health. What is clear in existing literature is that HRM scholars are still working toward unraveling the complex relationships at play between the adoption of HR practices, including developmental HR practices, and outcomes such as well-being. Researchers have called for more research, of a multilevel, longitudinal nature to explore and investigate the potential trade-offs, differential effects of HR practices, impact on each type of well-being simultaneously, investigation of the antecedents of perceptions of developmental HR practices, and greater integration of communication theories to build an understanding of signaling and information processing in relation to employee perceptions of developmental HR practices.

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Ethical Culture and Management

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Is an Ethical Culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Strong Is your Organization’s Ethical Culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethical Culture Is Rooted in Virtues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drivers of an Ethical Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Role of Management in Supporting Ethical Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outcomes Related to the Embeddedness of an Organization’s Ethical Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

An unfortunate marker of the current times is the scale of unethical behavior and corporate corruption committed by business leaders. A powerful antecedent of unethical behavior is organizational culture. This chapter discusses what constitutes and drives an ethical culture. It defines the concept of ethical culture and reviews different approaches that have been used to measure ethical culture in organizations. The Corporate Ethical Virtues model is reviewed in more detail as one example of a reliable and valid way to operationalize ethical organizational cultures. Finally, specific management strategies to maintain and minimize potential threats to an ethical culture are also provided. Keywords

Ethical culture · Organizational values · Ethical virtues · Ethical leaders · Unethical behavior M. Huhtala (*) Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland e-mail: mari.huhtala@jyu.fi © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_19

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Introduction Combining the terms “business” and “ethics” is no longer seen as such an oxymoron or laughing matter as it might have been some decades ago. However, current trends in corporate ethics still continue to show some worrisome results. For example, in 2020, a large US survey targeted more than 14,500 employees across several industries and found that almost one in four people felt everyday pressure to act unethically at work (Ivcevic et al. 2020); this pressure is in addition to the larger scale scandals of unethical practices that have been exposed and attracted widespread media attention. Previously the attempts to prevent and address unethical behavior have focused on individual trangressors, picking out the “bad apples” in an organization (Treviño and Youngblood 1990). However, the focus has since shifted towards looking at organizations as a whole – especially their ethical culture – as a better way to account for unethical behavior (Kaptein 2011). Ethical culture refers to the moral environment in a workplace, and it sometimes manifests itself in public statements regarding the company’s values, in codes of ethics, and in reports. However, this ethically correct image may be merely a case of “window-dressing ethics” (Sims and Brinkmann 2003). It is more accurately the workforce itself that will truly define whether a work culture is ethical or not (Shanahan and Hopkins 2019). In this respect, an ethical culture depends on collective efforts made by its members to act in a just and fair manner (Chun 2005), and these are stimulated and supported by organizational structures. This chapter is built around three main questions central to creating and maintaining an ethical work environment. Firstly, what is an ethical culture? Defining the concept is a necessary first step for determining the boundaries of the phenomenon and of then deciding what is possible within them. Secondly, how can ethics in a work culture be actually measured? In order to evaluate, develop, and then re-evaluate just how embedded those ethics are within an organization, we need reliable and valid measures that provide trustworthy results. Only then will it be possible to compare different organizations and work units with each other and to assess change over time. Here, one approach to conceptualizing ethical culture will be discussed in more detail – in terms of ethical virtues in organizations. Thirdly, what drives an ethical culture and what is the role of management in creating and maintaining such a culture? Managers and leaders have a crucial role in setting the formal boundaries for ethical behavior as well as providing informal examples of desired (and tolerated) conduct. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms through which leaders affect an organization’s ethical culture. Finally, after providing answers to these questions, some examples will be given of the different positive effects that a strongly embedded ethical culture can have on the members of an organization.

What Is an Ethical Culture? Culture is the social glue that helps to form and maintain groups and guide their behaviors. Culture consists of the shared meanings, norms, symbols, and values that create a common understanding within a certain group. It helps us define who we are,

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why we are here, and what our common goal is (Schein 1990). Within organizations, culture includes observable features such as office design, logos, formal rules, styles of interaction, codes of conduct, value statements, and so on; but on a deeper level, it also includes the values and beliefs that are held to be important within the organization. For example, whether employees are seen as an asset that create a competitive advantage and profit the organization, or more as invaluable individuals whose wellbeing and development the organization has an obligation to foster. These underlying structures of culture are transmitted from one organizational member to another through socialization. The longer the organization exists, the more customary these norms and practices (both formal and informal) become, guiding the members’ behaviors and attitudes. Thus, the deeper level of culture often remains subconscious to those who are part of it. Ethical culture can be defined as a subset of the broader organizational culture and includes what people in the organization think of as right and wrong. This overall perspective on (business) ethics governs how members behave when engaged in organizational activities (Sinclair 1993). It includes their experiences, presumptions, and expectations with regard to how unethical behavior should be prevented and ethicality encouraged in their organization (Treviño and Weaver 2003). Ethical culture has its origins in the underlying ethical values that can be formally defined and fostered by the management (via, for instance, codes of ethics and reward systems). However, ethical culture is also shared and redefined by members through informal practices such as peer behavior, role models, and traditions (Treviño 1990; Treviño et al. 1998). The formal systems help to outline and communicate the artificial level of ethical culture both to members (via official codes of conduct) and outsiders (via value statements on the company website), but organizations can never specify a set of explicit rules that are directly applicable in every situation. Here is where the informal systems are needed: the deeper levels of culture (such as the underlying norms for accepted behavior) provide implicit knowledge about how to react in a certain situation, how the organization works, and what is expected from its members. A question that often arises concerning ethical contexts in organizations has to do with the difference between ethical culture and ethical climate. Are these two concepts separate from each other or do they overlap, and if so, to what extent? One way to clarify the relationship between climate and culture is to distinguish substantive elements of the context from those which are procedural (Kaptein 2008, 2011). Ethical climate is substantive insofar as it describes the perceptions of what is seen as ethical behavior within the organization (Victor and Cullen 1987), while ethical culture can be classified as procedural, because it includes all the formal and informal systems for sending messages to employees that either support or do not support their ethical conduct (Treviño et al. 2017). Ethical culture therefore refers to the conditions that can stimulate ethical conduct. Although there has been criticism of making too strong a distinction between ethical climate and culture (Denison 1996), at least two studies have found that ethical culture has a stronger association with ethical behavior than ethical climate (Kaptein 2011; Treviño et al. 1998). So although the two concepts clearly have much in common with each other, they

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capture somewhat different contextual aspects: climate is more related to employee attitudes (regarding what is ethical about their organization), while ethical culture is related more to actually influencing behavior (so that the organization is more ethical).

How Strong Is your Organization’s Ethical Culture? Because ethical culture includes very similar elements to corporate culture in general – tacit knowledge, subtle hints and drivers for certain (favored) behaviors, myths and stories, role models and heroes – we can assume that ethical culture is neither an objective truth nor an unambiguous phenomenon. Indeed, it is debatable whether organizational culture is a construct that can be measured at all (see e.g., Cameron and Quinn 2006). However, any attempt to change ethical culture should always begin with a thorough assessment of the status quo: what does the current ethical culture look like? In this respect, we do need to have some way of quantifying and measuring it. Because ethical culture consists of socially transmitted norms, values, and expectations, the messages that employees get in their everyday work life might not always translate as directly as the management intended. Furthermore, as already mentioned in the previous section, existing norms and habits become difficult to observe by those who are part of a culture that is increasingly taken for granted over time. All efforts to map and improve an organization’s culture should thus start with asking members directly about their perceptions of it there and then (Treviño et al. 2017). Ideally, this should include all employees and managers from all units or subgroups in the organization. This kind of broadly gathered information is particularly important, as working in different hierarchical, occupational, professional, or functional subcultures within one organization (Hofstede 1998) can lead to very different perceptions of the quality and strength of the ethical culture. For example, a survey of only top managers might well give a rosier view than asking employees from the ground level up (Huhtala et al. 2018; Treviño et al. 2008). One important question here is whether ethical culture should be taken as a one-dimensional construct or as having separate dimensions related in different ways to unethical behavior (and other relevant outcomes). Some researchers have called for more parsimonious, one-dimensional measures (Mayer 2014), while others highlight the value of using multiple components for ethical culture (Kaptein 2008; Treviño et al. 2017). These different approaches to measure ethical culture in organizations are what will be looked at next. The first attempt to tap values as indicators of ethical organizational culture was the three-dimensional corporate ethical values scale developed by Hunt et al. (1989). This scale measured employees’ perceptions of the ethical actions and concerns of their managers; how ethical behaviors were rewarded; and how unethical behaviors were sanctioned in their particular organization. Its main disadvantage was that the scale consisted of only five items in total, in which only the rewards dimension was measured with more than one item – meaning it provided only a narrow representation of ethical culture.

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Treviño and her colleagues (1998) thus went on to develop a broader measure of ethical culture based on previous theoretical work (Treviño 1990). The dimensions included in this scale mapped both formal and informal elements of an ethical culture: rewards for ethical behavior; sanctions for unethical behavior; norms that supported ethical conduct; peer behavior; leaders as role models of ethical conduct within the organization; expectations for employees to obey authority figures without question; and the reporting of unethical behavior by employees. Items in this measure nevertheless had a built-in assumption that the organization in question would have a formal ethics code – thus ruling out those without one. Key (1999) responded to this drawback by modifying the measure so that any items referring to an ethics code were removed and parts of other items were reworded. This modified Ethical Culture Questionnaire (ECQ-M) was then used to compare mean ratings of ethical culture in different organizations. Key (1999) reported that they found no significant differences in ethical culture between the organizations they studied and no agreement among group members within each organization. Even though these conclusions were based on a one-way analysis of variance, without using any multilevel sampling or hierarchical models to assess shared variance in more detail, she concluded that ECQ-M succeeded in measuring individual perceptions about ethical aspects of an organization rather than its ethical culture per se (Key 1999). Perhaps because of this, ECQ-M remained only marginally applicable for the best part of a decade. It was not until 2008, when Muel Kaptein introduced the first multidimensional, normative model and scale for measuring ethical organizational culture – “Corporate Ethical Virtues” (CEV) as he called it – that any further steps could be made. This was a virtue-based approach to organizational ethics: where the focus is on the importance of aspiring to do one’s best and on the motivation to pursue moral excellence – at both individual and corporate levels (Cameron et al. 2004). The driving forces for sustainable business practices here are clearly based on moral character and moral virtues (Moore 2015). The CEV model takes a normative stand on ethical culture, assessing organizations as moral entities in terms of eight key virtues, seen as necessary for ethical behavior to flourish. These virtues indicate the degree to which the strategy, structure, and culture of the organization will stimulate employees to behave ethically (Kaptein 1998). The CEV model was the result of four interlocking studies, which examined the eight key virtues and showed that identifiable ethical cultures existed between different organizations (Kaptein 2008). The CEV model remains one of the few which offer an evidence-based instrument to measure virtue at both the organizational (Kangas et al. 2014; Morales-Sánchez and Cabello-Medina 2015) and team levels (Cabana and Kaptein 2019), and as such, it is also a reliable and valid way to operationalize ethical virtues. These strengths distinguish it from other attempts that have been made to identify the key virtues of individuals (see e.g., Shanahan and Hyman 2003; Morales-Sánchez and Cabello-Medina 2015) or organizations (Solomon 1992; Moore 2015). Finally, the most recent advance in measuring ethical culture has been the development of a new scale that integrates compliance- and integrity-oriented approaches (Tanner et al. 2019). The aim behind creating this new measure was to

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create stronger links with managerial practice at the same time as showing how organizations can be supported and steered towards being more ethical. In their study, Tanner et al. (2019) draw attention to two very different strategies that can be used to minimize and prevent ethical misconduct: “command and control” (or compliance-oriented approaches) use control, detection, and threats of punishment as a means of enforcing rules and ethical standards, while integrity-oriented approaches encourage moral self-governance and a sense of responsibility for shared values. The latter rely on the assumption that employees can be trusted and that they intrinsically want to follow organizational rules, and it was also found to explain slightly more variance in deviant workplace behavior. This led Tanner et al. (2019) to conclude that encouraging employee’s self-responsibility and moral motivation might be a more fruitful approach in strengthening organizational ethics than control and command strategies. However, their German Ethical Culture Scale (GECS) is currently restricted to the German language, so there is a need to translate, test, and validate it in other linguistic contexts too, to better investigate its properties and applicability (Tanner et al. 2019). In sum, one major limitation to measuring ethical culture in organizations comes from the fact that there are few directly comparable results as there has been little consistency in the instruments used to measure it (Mayer 2014). This means we still lack proper empirical evidence to know if these different measures are assessing a similar construct. Of those mentioned, the next section will therefore focus in greater detail on the CEV model (Kaptein 2008), as it has so far received the most empirical evidence. The CEV scale has also received support for its reliability and validity in a range of contexts (see Huhtala et al. 2018), so it is the best candidate for assessing the embeddedness of ethical virtues within organizations. However, it needs to be stressed here that future studies should nevertheless strive towards examining more than one measure of ethical culture at the same time, as this would be the best way to test their relative validity against each other.

Ethical Culture Is Rooted in Virtues The origins of Kaptein’s (2008) model for ethical culture in organizations go back to the ancient Greek and Aristotelian concept of virtue. Robert Solomon (1992, 2004) had a seminal role in arguing that virtue needs to be cultivated not only in individuals, but also in the corporate world. He emphasized that individuals need to have virtuous characteristics that can be expressed in their actions, while the community must act as an agent for facilitating moral and social responsibility. Corporations should thus nurture individual morality through “a morally rewarding environment in which good people can develop not only their skills but also their virtues” (Solomon 1999, p. 24). This supports the human need to pursue what Aristotle saw as the highest human good – eudemonia – or a certain level of welfare and prosperity. Kaptein (1998, 2008) developed the CEV model as a means of implementing Solomon’s approach. He argued that both individuals and organizations can and

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should possess virtues that will manifest themselves in ethical practices. After several years of theoretical and empirical research, he identified and validated seven key virtues that organizations should strive for. These virtues are (i) clarity, (ii) congruency, (iii) feasibility, (iv) supportability, (v) transparency, (vi) discussability, and (vii) sanctionability. Each virtue represents a different organizational condition for and capacity to stimulate ethical behavior depending on the degree these virtues are embedded in organizational practices (Kaptein 2017). It should also be noted that different virtue sets to those in the CEV model have been suggested by previous research (e.g., Murphy 1999) but, going back to his previous distinction, Kaptein argues that these “sets are substantive (i.e., more climaterelated) and organization-specific instead of procedural and generic” (Kaptein 2008, p. 944). (i) The first virtue in the CEV model is clarity and refers to the way moral expectations are communicated by an organization to its members. The employees should have concrete, comprehensive, and understandable information available about what is morally expected of them (Kaptein 2011). Virtues are, by definition, the pivotal point between two vices – that is, between the two extremes of excess and deficiency (Kaptein 2017). If clarity, for instance, was taken to its vicious extremes, the organization would be either too rigid and detailed in its moral expectations (excess) or too unclear and vague (deficiency) about them (Kaptein 2011). (ii) Congruency refers to how supervisors and senior management set a moral example. Does their behavior match what is expected of other employees? The underlying theory of congruency comes from social learning (Bandura 1986), which shows that people learn by observing how others behave and by witnessing the consequences of their actions. If ethical role models are therefore absent or defy the organization’s rules and norms, it implies that unethical actions can be overlooked or even positively allowed. At its most vicious extremes, excessive incongruency will expose the organization to ethical breaches (Kaptein 2008, 2011), while excessive congruency might come across as mere sententiousness: if managers pretend to be more ethical than is credible, employees can view them as hypocritical and estranged from the everyday ethical challenges of the job, and as unattainable, saint-like role models (Kaptein 2017). (iii) The virtue of feasibility (or “achievability”; Kaptein 2008, 2017) refers to the concrete resources that are available in the organization for employees to fulfill their ethical responsibilities and the possibilities for them to achieve these. Individuals should thus be provided with sufficient time, information, budgets, equipment, and authority. In a high-pressure culture, complying with ethical standards can become superfluous and other aims – such as meeting financial goals – are given precedence (Kaptein 2011). At its vicious extremes, a lack of feasibility means there is a heightened risk of unethical behavior, as employees are unable to achieve their goals via legitimate means (Kaptein 2017), while an excess of feasibility is lavishness. Although this is less common, misusing

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resources and paying a disproportionate amount of time to ethical issues at the expense of other vital organizational practices can lead to a degree of recklessness, inefficiency, or passivity, which all increase the risk of unethical behavior (Kaptein 2017). The virtue of supportability focuses on the shared commitment of employees and the organization to ethical conduct, leading to an atmosphere of trust and fair treatment for all (Kaptein 2008, 2011). When an organization cultivates values that are identifiable to its members, it boosts their internal motivation, satisfaction, affective commitment, and involvement in the organization (Tyler and Blader 2005). At its vicious extremes, however, excessive support leads to an over-zealous and possibly even fanatic commitment to ethical conformity (Sims 1992), while a lack of support will encourage animosity, indifference, and opportunistic or selfish behavior (Kaptein 2017). Transparency (also referred to as “visibility,” Kaptein 2008) encourages ethical behavior by increasing employees’ awareness of the positive and negative consequences of certain actions. In a transparent organization, the ethical consequences of their behavior are observable to others. Potential perpetrators can thus expect that it will be known about long before they would even consider doing something unethical (Gibbs 1975). At its vicious extremes, low transparency leads to employees being unaware of each other’s behavior and remote management practices, while too much not only violates employees’ privacy, but can also lead to information overload, difficulty making decisions, stress, confusion, and feeling a lack of control (Kaptein 2017). Discussability refers to how easy it is for employees to raise and discuss ethical issues at work, including alleged unethical behavior (Kaptein 2008). A culture that encourages open discussions about ethics can increase shared learning, provide support for all, and reassure employees that ethical concerns are seen as important. At its vicious extremes, a lack of discussion can lead to a work culture of moral muteness (Bird and Waters 1989) – significantly increasing the chances of unethical behavior (Kaptein 1998), while an excess can endanger privacy and lead to indecisiveness, as all discussions remain open – in extreme cases this can result in anarchy (Kaptein 2017). The final virtue is sanctionability. It refers to the ways an organization reinforces certain ethical behavior through rewards and sanctions. According to reinforcement theory – applied in the work context by, for example, Luthans and Kreitner (1985) – rewards should lead to repetition and punishment to avoidance of those behaviors. At its most vicious extremes, excessive “laxity” or complete absence of sanctions (Kaptein 2017) indicates that unethical conduct is acceptable or even desirable (Ball et al. 1994), while overly excessive sanctions lead to oppressiveness, translating into disproportionately high rewards for some employees and severe punishments for others. Kaptein (2017) has discussed several ways in which oppressiveness is likely to increase the risk of unethical conduct; it might, for instance, encourage employees to covertly – and therefore falsely – “improve” their ethical performance.

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Drivers of an Ethical Culture There are two primary ways to create and support the ethical culture of an organization. The first is to adopt the integration perspective (Martin 1992) and create a unified corporate culture around ethical values. The role of management is particularly important here for creating a clear strategy and code of ethics that will apply to all members of the organization. It is based on clearly predetermined norms and values that are deeply embedded in long-term guidelines about how all employees should act (Sinclair 1993). Rewards, punishments, and rituals in the organization are structured so that they reinforce this uniform culture. The second approach, however, is to adopt the differentiation perspective (Martin 1992), which focuses more on embracing different subcultures within an organization. In this case, the role of management is to aim to understand and value all the different views held, instead of trying to impose one uniform culture on everyone; in this approach, everyone’s differences are thus seen as an asset. Neither of these approaches is superior to the other, nor exclusively recommendable – both have their advantages and disadvantages. A strong unified ethical culture can encourage commitment towards the organization (Huhtala and Feldt 2016) and lead to lower levels of staff turnover (Kangas et al. 2016), but while a strong culture might indeed reinforce employee commitment, it can also lead to a conformity and rigidness which might make it harder for the organization to adapt to changes (Sinclair 1993). In addition, a cohesive culture does not directly imply ethical conduct. Members might, for example, resort to unethical actions if they believe that these actions benefit the organization as a whole (Umphress et al. 2010). Benefits of the differentiation approach are that interactions between different groups in the organization (e.g., monitoring or criticizing) could actually cause members to behave more ethically. These subcultures can also act like positive “social cocoons” (Greil and Rudy 1984), where organizational members can find ethical role models, like-minded moral colleagues, or other “pockets of virtue” (Weaver 2006) that can support ethical behavior and identification. The main disadvantages of this approach are the possible lack of implementation and risk that the microcosms might end up behaving unethically (Brief et al. 2001). If such microcosms are sufficiently isolated and those leading the organization cannot create a shared foundation of core values, members of a subculture can begin to normalize their own (unethical) norms. New members may then become socialized within said subculture, making these unethical and divergent ways of behaving increasingly acceptable (Treviño et al. 2006). Another way to define the drivers of an ethical organization is to differentiate between the formal and informal factors that support ethical actions (James 2000). This can be done by focusing on individual organizational members and, for instance, providing them with ethical codes and training. However, these informal processes become efficient only when they are reinforced with organizational structures, such as official reward systems, evaluation criteria for work performance (including the kinds of actions allowed to reach work goals), and the different rights and responsibilities related to decision-making (James 2000). These formal official

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structures have a direct influence on employees and their actions and are determined by the leaders of the organization. They can provide rules and concrete consequences (e.g., punishments and rewards) for actions, but do not give employees the inner motivation to behave ethically. Culture itself is needed as an informal system to complement the formal structures. When both these components are aligned and balanced, they provide the best basis for supporting the ethical conduct of employees (James 2000). Any attempt to change and strengthen the ethical culture should begin with a thorough assessment of the current situation. This should be done using standardized, validated measures (Treviño et al. 2017), allowing a reliable, comparable assessment that can then be used as a benchmark, when the procedures are evaluated over time. Once the existing ethical culture has been evaluated and recorded, the organization should design and implement interventions that are targeted towards strengthening their ethical values and practices. The effectiveness of these interventions can then be evaluated by comparing how ethical culture ratings have changed from the earlier baseline measurements. This can create a continuous process where members of the organization experiment and learn from previous interventions and develop new ones based on accumulating long-term evidence (Treviño et al. 2017). One approach for planning these interventions is to target those dimensions of ethical culture that got the lowest baseline evaluations. These tailored procedures should include different elements depending on the specific weaknesses identified in the current ethical culture. For example, if organizational members were to give poor evaluations of the role modeling and behavior of top management, this would indicate that the organization should invest in training, coaching, and selection procedures for top management. If, however, the most prominent problems relate to a lack of clarity, the interventions should focus on creating more visible, coherent, and well-communicated ethical expectations for employees. Approaches that focus on reinforcing these virtues even seem to be more effective in reducing unethical behavior than traditional methods of ethical training. Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004), for instance, have criticized the narrow focus of more traditional ethics education methods as inefficient – training employees to take specific actions based on certain ethical principles is not enough, because people have an innate psychological tendency to fade ethics out of dilemmas they face. Because of this, employees would likely gain more from support that would increase their ethical awareness, that is, their ability to recognize ethical dilemmas. Strengthening ethical virtues in the organization, such as providing clear expectations, cultivating shared support and discussions about ethical issues, and promoting transparent actions between organization members, can provide the consistent support they need so that they are not only conscious of ethical issues but also want to act upon them. Because culture is a socially embedded, partly unconscious collection of deeply rooted values and assumptions, interventions might not always be easily or efficiently implemented. Values that have become implicit and taken for granted over time might well be difficult to even recognize, let alone change. One way to overcome this is to start from the more superficial levels of culture, such as the

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formal processes and ethical codes. For example, clarity – setting concrete and comprehensible expectations and norms for ethical behavior – might be a virtue that can be embedded and supported quite easily and with little extra investment by the organization. It can also act as a cornerstone for all the other virtues and the ethical culture as a whole (Stöber et al. 2019). If members are clearly and convincingly informed about what is expected from them, it can make it easier for them to behave ethically. When ethical behavior is supported with rewards (and unethical actions have visible, punitive consequences), a virtuous cycle is hopefully set in motion. New members will be socialized into these ethical expectations, and over time, shared practices can help to change the culture at deeper levels too. However, we still lack a broader understanding of how ethical culture might develop over time. This is because the field of ethical culture research has been heavily dominated by cross-sectional studies (even up to 90 per cent; for reviews, see Mayer 2014; McLeod et al. 2016; Huhtala et al. 2018). More work is thus necessary before we have reliable evidence on the best practices for strengthening ethical virtues over time. On a positive note, the scale for corporate ethical virtues has been shown to be time-invariant (Huhtala et al. 2016), so this means it can be used in longitudinal studies to reliably indicate any changes in strength of the ethical virtues measured. Finally, when an organization is planning any interventions or baseline measurements, these actions should also be ethically carried out (i.e., in line with the virtues mentioned above). There are two main reasons for this. First, we know that change can meet with resistance, and implementing it does not automatically guarantee that the proposed changes will be adopted (Dextras-Gauthier et al. 2012). One way to get employees more motivated and committed to the process is to involve them in it from the very start and to treat them with openness, clarity, and transparency. Employees should not only have the chance to engage in open discussions, but also be provided with sufficient resources at work to actively participate in making those changes. Equally, supervisors and managers should set a positive example by the actions they take during the process. If as many people as possible “practice what is preached” when implementing change, then new policies are not only more likely to endure, but also the ethical principles behind them will have been reinforced.

Role of Management in Supporting Ethical Culture Managers have a key role in fostering the ethical culture of their organization, and according to some scholars, they are possibly even the most important element in it (Treviño 1990; Brown and Treviño 2006). Managers essentially need to take conscious actions to create and support environments where ethical norms can emerge and flourish (Schminke et al. 2005). As discussed in the section defining the concept of ethical culture above, there are two main approaches to “building” this ethical culture; these present managers with two very different tasks. Because the integration perspective aims at a unified corporate culture, it requires managers to define and introduce a clear ethical strategy and code that will apply to all members of the organization. However, because the differentiation perspective embraces all the

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different subcultures within an organization, it requires an understanding and appreciation of the diverse ethical values in each subculture. In the latter case, human resources management is especially important so that there is discussion between the different subcultures and that they trust each other (Pučėtaitė et al. 2010). In both these approaches, the managers have several options available to them for influencing others. For example, managers can exercise direct power by allocating resources and by creating reward systems, ethical codes, and norms (Treviño and Weaver 2003); they can also indirectly influence actions by, for instance, choosing the criteria for staff to make decisions and by making value decisions – such as setting strategic directions and aims for the organization. Each of the above managerial actions will have a significant impact on the ethical culture of the organization (Paine 1997; Giberson et al. 2009). Because of their influential role in making crucial decisions, managers must also embrace the fact that they have the greatest responsibility for building and maintaining an ethical culture. Regardless of the strategy the organization follows, it is important to recognize that managers will always be role models for other members whether they want that or not. As well as making practical decisions, they are modeling and communicating ethical norms and values to their followers via social learning due to their position and status in the organization (Bandura 1986). In the social learning process, employees are influenced by observing – both consciously and unconsciously – their managers as role models. They learn vicariously about appropriate behavior by observing which actions attract positive or negative attention and which do not. Several studies have supported this theory (e.g., Kaptein 1998; Brown and Treviño 2006; Mayer et al. 2009, 2010) – employees will watch for cues from managers about the kinds of behavior that are acceptable and even mimic them. Social learning can lead to positive effects, especially if the leader has a strong moral identity (Aquino and Reed 2002) and a high level of cognitive moral development. These personal qualities are more likely to be translated into actions where the leader represents and explicitly communicates high ethical standards, engages followers in discussions touching on ethical matters, and sets goals to achieve fair profits rather than profit maximization (Brown et al. 2005; Brown and Treviño 2006; Treviño et al. 2006). However, the influence of leaders can also be unethical if, for instance, they lack moral awareness, do not have a personally meaningful set of moral values, or highlight monetary goals above basic ethics. These less-than-ethical values are likely to impact and spread to the employees (Sims and Brinkmann 2003; Higgins and Currie 2004) precisely because the manager shows employees that unethical actions will go unpunished. This, in turn, exposes the organization to breaches of ethicality. This managerial influence can occur at two levels. The first is at the level of supervisors or line managers, who work directly with employees in their teams, work groups, or units. The second refers to the more senior level, where managers extend their influence beyond the immediate work groups. Both levels play an important role in ethical role modeling despite their somewhat different functions. Supervisors often play a significant role in affecting employees’ behavior due to their frequent, close interaction with them (Mayer et al. 2009). Employees who work in the same

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work community largely share their perception of their supervisor’s ethical conduct (Huhtala et al. 2014) and this, in turn, adds further importance to the example shown. By the same argument, employees might find senior management somewhat distant, especially in larger organizations, so their ethical example might not be witnessed lower down the hierarchy (Falkenberg and Herremans 1995). In this respect, one could argue that direct supervisors (who can also be senior management in smaller organizations) have the most influential role in guiding employees’ ethical behavior. Then again, because of their higher position in the hierarchy of an organization, senior management’s example attracts the attention of a wider range of people and so more meaning and importance can be attached to it (Treviño and Weaver 2003). In this respect, both senior and floor managers/supervisors should act and be seen to act in accordance with the ethical standards they stand by – they must “walk the talk” (Brown et al. 2005). In short, it is the personal actions of managers – what they pay attention to and how they react to critical ethical dilemmas – that really count. Managers who show ethical behavior and exert moral authority are those who can create and sustain an ethical culture. Once these ethical values become cultural beliefs and norms that are collectively shared, then a virtuous circle is set in motion, making it increasingly likely for others in the organization to be motivated to apply these ethical conventions in their interactions with others and decreasing the likelihood of misconduct (Mayer et al. 2010).

Outcomes Related to the Embeddedness of an Organization’s Ethical Culture Finally, I will review some of the implications of an organization’s ethical culture for its members. Ethical culture is, by definition, a positive resource for any organization. When members share and express ethical values, which are deeply embedded in daily practices, it provides several supportive resources for everyone. Ethical culture is “rooted in virtues,” as has been outlined in the section earlier. These virtues ensure practices which offer, for example, clear ethical expectations, support for ethical decisions, and the practical conditions for carrying these out – for example, time and sufficient personal autonomy. It is possible, however, that both employees and managers have created a culture which lacks these virtues – characterized, for instance, by vague and ambiguous ethical expectations, insufficient resources to carry them out, lack of organizational support for them, and a general lack of discussion about ethical issues. The most obvious effects of a strong ethical culture are that it decreases the likelihood of misconduct (Treviño et al. 1999; Kaptein 2011). Organizations that expect and encourage ethical behavior are more likely to have employees who make morally right choices (Sims and Keon 1999). Indeed, most theoretical and empirical approaches to studying ethical organizational culture have focused precisely on this – how best to decrease the likelihood of unethical behavior; but an alternative or complementary approach is positive organizational scholarship (POS; Cameron et al.

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2003). POS focuses on positive forms of “deviant” behavior, or “intentional behaviors that depart from the norms of the referent group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer and Sonenshein 2003, p. 209). Verbos et al. (2007) have come up with a concept they call a “living code of ethics,” which is based on POS and refers to the cognitions, feelings, and behaviors of members that exceed existing ethical norms and expectations. This is a way of looking at the organization’s culture with a heightened awareness of ethical viewpoints and a positive attitude towards ethics. Although ethical culture includes normative dimensions, which are thought to improve the ethical behavior of employees and deter their misconduct, virtues can also promote other positive outcomes among employees. For example, there are a growing number of studies which focus on associations between ethical culture and wellbeing. It has already been shown that, for example, organizational justice can lead to a 13–48 per cent lower rate of absence through sick leave (Elovainio et al. 2002). A less ethical culture can also associate with increased experiences of ethical strain associated in turn with high emotional exhaustion (Huhtala et al. 2011). In addition, perceptions of a procedurally just and distributively fair organizational environment have been found to lead to higher job satisfaction and commitment (Treviño et al. 1998), which leads in turn to greater affective commitment and lower staff turnover (Baker et al. 2006). A good ethical culture can also reduce stress by reinforcing members’ perception that their job is meaningful (Jaramillo et al. 2013) and mitigate the negative influence of an external locus of control for the job’s meaningfulness (Mulki and Lassk 2019). Poorly implemented virtues also increase the likelihood of unethical behavior (Kaptein 1998, 2008, 2011) and create a stressful work environment. Organizations that suffer from virtue deficiency can be characterized by a certain vagueness and ambiguity about ethical expectations, by unethical leadership, and by the unfair treatment of its members (Kaptein 2017). For example, employees may be unable to carry out their responsibilities in an ethical manner because of limited resources, and unethical behavior might be tolerated or even encouraged. It has been shown that when an ethical culture is weak, ethical dilemmas are faced with increasing frequency and stress is commonly felt in these situations (Huhtala et al. 2011). In such an environment, employees are also likely to experience reactions related to collective stress, such as higher emotional exhaustion (Huhtala et al. 2015). Poor occupational wellbeing has immense costs to both the individuals and organizations affected. Therefore, the potential of an ethical work environment that alleviates work-related stress among employees merits further study. Ethical culture is by definition a socially created phenomenon, and (although this number is growing) there are only a few studies that apply organization-, unit, or team-level hierarchical designs (Kaptein and Van Dalen 2000; Kaptein 2011; Schaubroeck et al. 2012; Huhtala et al. 2015; Kangas et al. 2017; Huang and Paterson 2017; Cabana and Kaptein 2019). This growing number is a positive trend, as the existence of a culture surely lies within its social relationships – in other words, in the shared values and norms that are created and reproduced through interactions among its members.

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Conclusions According to the survey results by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (Ivcevic et al. 2020), almost one third of US respondents claimed they had witnessed unethical behavior at their workplace – meaning it was an unhealthy work environment. There is thus clearly an urgent need to put more emphasis on studying those organizational contexts which are pushing people to take unethical actions. In this chapter, several important aspects have been outlined that could help organizations, leaders, and employees to cultivate virtues which could help with this in their everyday work and which could turn out to be a powerful counterweight to ethically questionable actions.

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The Effective Management of Whistleblowing

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The Whistleblowing Response Model Paula Brough, Sandra A. Lawrence, Eva Tsahuridu, and A. J. Brown

Contents Whistleblowing Introduction and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Perspectives Explaining Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multilevel Theoretical Explanations of Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Necessity for the More Effective Management of Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advancing the Field: The Whistleblowing Response Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of the Regulatory Context on Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of the Organization on Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of Managers on Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of the Reporter on Whistleblowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interactions Between the Levels of the Whistleblowing Response Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Test of the Whistleblowing Response Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Implications of the Whistleblowing Response Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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P. Brough (*) Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: p.brough@griffith.edu.au S. A. Lawrence Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia E. Tsahuridu Melbourne, VIC, Australia A. J. Brown Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: a.j.brown@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_20

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Abstract

While reports by whistleblowers of organizational wrongdoing are increasing within the popular media and recognized in legislation, there remain major research gaps concerning the effective management of whistleblowing. Research has established that the reporting of suspected wrongdoing is an important contributor to organizational integrity and performance. The majority of whistleblowing research has focused upon the reporter’s personal characteristics and experiences. Parallel research within the legal field has focused upon the characteristics of organizational policies. What is missing is investigations into the methods by which organizations actually manage this disclosure process and the effectiveness of these methods for encouraging employee’s reports of wrongdoing and ensuring beneficial outcomes. In this chapter, we integrate key multidisciplinary perspectives of whistleblowing and propose a multilevel model to inform and encourage research focused on the effective management of whistleblowing. The hypothesized “whistleblowing response model” identifies four levels (regulatory context, organization, manager, and reporter) of key characteristics, responses, and outcomes, which have both direct effects and interactional relationships upon the effective management of an organizational report of wrongdoing. We integrate these discussions within the new model, already demonstrated in large-scale research in Australia and New Zealand, to guide subsequent whistleblowing research. Keywords

Whistleblowing · Wrongdoing · Ethical decision-making · Organizational justice

Whistleblowing Introduction and Definitions Whistleblowing assists in the maintenance of employees’ ethical and legal behaviors in organizations and is managed by formal organizational policies and procedures. For 40 years, whistleblowing has been associated with the pursuit of positive social and organizational change (Elliston 1982). However, recent media reports continue to describe the considerable negative impacts commonly experienced by whistleblowers, indicating that a more effective way of managing whistleblowing is still required. Whistleblowing is formally defined as “the disclosure by organization members (former or current) of illegal, immoral, and illegitimate practices under the control of their employers, to persons and organizations that may be able to effect action” (Near and Miceli 1985, p. 4). Thus, the primary purpose of whistleblowing is to prevent observed wrongdoing from continuing (Near and Miceli 2016). Up to 40% of organizational fraud and corporate corruption is identified by internal employee whistleblowers (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners 2016; Price Waterhouse Coopers 2016). Therefore, the costs of not reporting wrongdoing or responding inadequately to (i.e., mismanaging) wrongdoing reports can be extreme, in some instances amounting to billions of dollars (Near and Miceli 2016).

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Extant whistleblowing research within the organizational behavior field has primarily focused on the antecedents and consequences of whistleblowing from the individual reporter’s perspective, concentrating upon the reporter’s personal characteristics and experiences (e.g., Culiberg and Mihelič 2017; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005). However, whistleblowing research within the legal and management fields has predominately focused on the characteristics of organizational policies for the effective management of whistleblowing (e.g., Bereskin et al. 2020; Lee and Fargher 2013; Vandekerckhove and Lewis 2012). The lack of systematic investigations into the methods by which organizations manage this disclosure process, and the effectiveness of these methods for both encouraging employee’s reports of wrongdoing and ensuring beneficial outcomes for all involved, is a recognized gap which has only recently received attention (e.g., Vandekerckhove et al. 2014; Vandekerckhove and Phillips 2017). In this chapter, we discuss this research shift and argue that a more sophisticated model is required to inform and encourage organizational research focused on the more effective management of whistleblowing. We present a discussion of theoretical perspectives related to organizational whistleblowing, in order to better assimilate and comprehend this vital organizational behavior and to identify and address its associated risks. To advance this field, we propose a multilevel explanation of the whistleblowing response, which identifies four levels of key factors that together influence the effective management of a wrongdoing report. The hypothesized whistleblowing response model is offered to inform subsequent research and reflects a multidisciplinary theoretical perspective of whistleblowing. We begin with a discussion of these theoretical whistleblowing perspectives and of the theoretical models of whistleblowing they have informed and conclude with results testing parts of this model from the large-scale Whistling While They Work 2 research project in Australia and New Zealand.

Theoretical Perspectives Explaining Whistleblowing Organizational whistleblowing is not explained by any single major theoretical approach; instead numerous perspectives have been applied to account for specific components of the whistleblowing process. An array of social psychology theories, for example, have been utilized to explain an individual whistleblower’s motivations and behaviors, especially for the submission of reports which offer minimal individual gain to the whistleblower. Miceli and Near (1985) utilized expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) to explain an observer’s motivations for formally reporting organizational wrongdoing, suggesting that reporting was dependent on the observers’ perceptions of the expected consequences. Similarly, the social psychology theory of self-determination (SDT; Deci and Ryan 1985) has been applied to explain how an employee’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to report wrongdoing are directly influenced by the organization’s prosocial culture (Ugaddan and Park 2019). These theoretical perspectives overlap, to some extent, with recent discussions focusing on employee ethical behaviors and organizational ethical cultures (e.g., Craft 2013; Kaptein 2011). Other scholars have suggested that social identity theory (Tajfel 1974) is a useful perspective to account for the situational and temporal contexts inherent within

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individual motivations when considering a report of wrongdoing (Vadera et al. 2009). More specifically, the social identity constructs of organizational identification (Ashforth and Mael 1989) and moral identity (Aquino and Reed 2002) have been applied to explain why whistleblowing occurs in situations when the predicted outcomes will not favor the individual reporter, i.e., risk-taking behaviors (Zhou et al. 2018). Similarly, social exchange theory (SET; Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005) has been utilized to explain a reporter’s motivations and perceived obligations to report wrongdoing. The relationships occurring between employees and their managers and/or organizations are the focus of SET in this instance, and it is similar to the discussions of the “psychological contract,” which explains employee behaviors due to their perceptions of accepted organization values (Rousseau 1989). Other theoretical perspectives explaining the occurrence of whistleblowing have focused specifically on the reporter’s ethical decision-making process (Agle et al. 2014; Ford and Richardson 1994). Multiple ethical decision-making (EDM) theoretical models have been proposed describing how an individual’s cognitive and affective processes influence their moral judgment and behaviors (for a review, see Schwartz 2016). The EDM literature reports mixed findings and numerous refinements to the many types of EDM models. Schwartz (2016), for example, proposed an integrated ethical decision-making (I-EDM) model, which described both the process of decisionmaking and the key factors influencing this process, including moral awareness, emotion, and reason. The study of whistleblowing thus benefits from a multidisciplinary approach with multiple theoretical perspectives informing this field. These perspectives have proven useful to explain a reporter’s individual motivations and likely behaviors. What is surprising is the more limited attention paid to considerations of the broader organizational and external contexts, which also directly influence the whistleblowing process. It is especially surprising that mainstream theories of organizational behavior, such as organizational justice (Greenberg 1990), workplace conflict management (De Dreu et al. 2001), and even occupational stress (Brough et al. 2018), have not contributed more directly to this field. Instead, whistleblowing remains somewhat of a “niche” area largely overlooked by mainstream organizational behavior perspectives.

Multilevel Theoretical Explanations of Whistleblowing We acknowledge that the value of assessing whistleblowing via multilevel theoretical explanations has been recognized, albeit with considerable limitations. For example, a multilevel theory of whistleblowing was proposed by Vadera et al. (2009), who identified the value of integrating whistleblowing factors within two levels (individual and situational) to produce a basic meso-level explanation of whistleblowing. Vadera et al. suggested that employee whistleblowing behaviors are influenced by the values (e.g., moral responsibility verses compliance) conveyed by an organization’s ethics training program. While this theory has not been empirically tested, the central tenant of the theory is realistic: that employees’ behaviors

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are influenced by an organization’s inherent values – be they expressed to employees explicitly and/or implicitly. However, this and other proposed multilevel models of whistleblowing have primarily focused on explaining reporting decisions and generalized relationships between reporting, situational factors, and individual outcomes. These models contain scarce consideration of neither the processes nor the managerial behaviors which influence these outcomes. Also, for the few existing multilevel proposals which include response factors, they focus primarily on just two levels: individual and organizational levels. For example, Near and Miceli (1985) identified four key decisions occurring across the individual and organizational levels which impact whistleblowing outcomes, namely an employee’s identification of an observed behavior as wrongdoing, employee’s decision to report the wrongdoing, organization’s decision to cease the observed behavior, and organization’s decision to respond (positively or negatively) to the whistleblower. More recent normative arguments have assumed, plausibly, the importance of key, positive management responses (Near and Miceli 2016). Although this multilevel model of whistleblowing provides a useful framework to assess the relevant research constructs inherent within these levels, its validation via empirical assessments is rare. In a recent expansion of Near and Miceli’s (1985) model, Watts and Buckley (2017) proposed a “dual-processing model of moral whistleblowing” incorporating three levels: an individual level (individual differences and reporting characteristics), an organizational level (organizational culture, whistleblowing response, and organizational consequences), and a societal level (government agencies and the media). While their model was also not empirically tested, Watts and Buckley (2017) concluded that whistleblowing was reliant on interactions between a reporter’s deliberative and intuitive (dual) processes. They suggested that the application of this model to provide realistic ethical decision-making training would benefit organizations via the improved management of the whistleblowing process, primarily by improving employee’s levels of moral courage. A notable limitation to both Near and Miceli’s (1985) and Watts and Buckley’s (2017) models is the exclusion of the specific assessment of a manager’s characteristics and responses when receiving a wrongdoing report. As we discuss below, it is the manager’s response to, and relationship with, the whistleblower, which is crucially important in determining both the effective response of the organization to the report and the overall treatment of the whistleblower (Chiaburu et al. 2013).

The Necessity for the More Effective Management of Whistleblowing Considerable evidence has identified the negative consequences commonly experienced by employees who report organizational wrongdoing. Irrespective of what type of wrongdoing is involved, formal reporting is still commonly associated with whistleblower workplace mistreatment, including reprisals, harassment, isolation, negative performance appraisals, demotions, suspensions, and expulsion (Dasgupta

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and Kesharwani 2010; Henik 2015; Kaptein 2011; Kenny 2019), as well as significant declines in the reporter’s mental and physical health outcomes (Lennane 1993; Nisar et al. 2018). Hall and Brown (2018) discussed the substantial history of whistleblower mistreatment, including pervasive historical perceptions of whistleblowers being considered as “traitors.” Whistleblowing is still, therefore, often perceived to be a risky endeavor for those who identify wrongdoing, helping explain why so many choose to remain silent. Indeed, Alford (2002, pp. 19–20) suggested that whistleblowers are defined by the retaliation against them: Of the several dozen whistleblowers I have talked with, most lost their houses. Many lost their families. It doesn’t happen all at once, but whistleblowers’ cases drag on for years, putting a tremendous strain on families. Most whistleblowers will suffer from depression and alcoholism, and half went bankrupt. Most whistleblowers will be unable to retire. A typical fate is for a nuclear engineer to end up selling computers at Radio Shack.

Not all whistleblowers experience reprisals, of course, and adverse consequences arising from a whistleblowing incident are often more nuanced (Smith 2014). While some incidences of whistleblowing are incited due to interpersonal conflicts in the workplace, an employee’s decision to report observed wrongdoing is commonly influenced by the seriousness of the incident, its associated costs, and the availability and quality of supporting evidence (Ahmad et al. 2014). Crucially, when whistleblower mistreatment does occur, this mistreatment principally originates with managers rather than co-workers or other parties (Bjørkelo et al. 2011; Smith 2010). Thus, the appropriate responses of the whistleblower’s immediate managers to a whistleblowing report are critically important. It is important to consider the managers’ responsiveness to the disclosure of wrongdoing and to increase employees’ faith in the adequate management of the whistleblowing process, as these are both vital elements during employees’ considerations of whether to report wrongdoing. Evidence clearly indicates that a perception of being disbelieved or ignored is the primary reason why employees do not report wrongdoing (Near et al. 2004; Wortley et al. 2008). A fear of experiencing reprisals from the wrongdoer, from immediate/senior management, and/or from colleagues also directly hinders the reporting of wrongdoing (Near and Miceli 2016). Whistleblowing is suggested to occur more frequently within organizations with clear reporting procedures, a context that encourages disclosure, and where a positive outcome or a change by the management is perceived as likely to occur (Miceli et al. 2009). Interestingly, the evidence suggests that incidents of retaliation against whistleblowers increase as legal protection also increases (Miceli et al. 1999). This implies that a fear of retaliation may not necessarily deter whistleblowing, nor does statutory protection adequately safeguard reporters. It is apparent, therefore, that in many organizations employees’ reporting of wrongdoing remains an undesirable and problematic behavior. This perception contrasts with the recent emphasis that the reporting of wrongdoing is a valuable contributor to organizational integrity, legitimacy, and the identification and management of risks (e.g., Hall and Brown 2018; Tsahuridu 2011). Miceli et al. (2009),

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for example, suggested that organizations with effective whistleblowing practices would benefit from an associated improved organizational culture and increased levels of employee job satisfaction. Evidence indicates that by adopting a fair and just management of wrongdoing reports, organizations can discourage malicious or retaliatory complaints, and instead encourage the pro-social reporting of wrongdoing (Aquino et al. 2006; Near et al. 2004). In contrast to employers’ common negative perceptions, it is apparent that whistleblowing should not be simply considered as a threat to an organization’s authority and cohesiveness. Instead, whistleblowing is increasingly being recognized as a beneficial means of protecting the organization and of enhancing its performance (Tsahuridu 2011). This shift in focus is producing useful research and practice recommendations concerning, for example, the dynamics of “speaking up” (Kenny et al. 2019). However, while these more positive organizational responses are recognized as having a greater impact on the whistleblowing process, as compared to the whistleblowers’ own personal characteristics (Vandekerckhove et al. 2014), research has only just begun to empirically assess the specific mechanisms which produce positive reporter outcomes. We suggest that despite the economical, health, and social implications of whistleblowing, the effective management of the whistleblowing process remains significantly under-researched, with remarkably limited attention offered by the field of organizational behavior. While the perceptions of whistleblowing are beginning to improve and organizations are increasingly recognizing their role in encouraging, rather than avoiding, internal reports of wrongdoing, the development of effective whistleblowing responses with clear roles, policies, procedures, and practices is still lacking in many contexts. The application of organizational theories specifically focused on employee ethical behaviors has encouraged recognition of the positive consequences of internal whistleblowing. To date, these primary ethical organizational theories applied to whistleblowing include ethical decision-making (Craft 2013), ethical leadership (Den Hartog 2015; Mayer et al. 2013), ethical culture (Kaptein 2011), and workplace compassion (Dutton et al. 2014). We recommend that the scholarly advancement of this field should emerge from an application of these ethical organizational theories combined with a multidisciplinary consideration of the organizational whistleblowing process.

Advancing the Field: The Whistleblowing Response Model In consideration of the existing explanations of whistleblowing, it is apparent that organizational whistleblowing behaviors clearly occur within a multilevel context: governed by legislation and societal or industry contexts; influenced by specific organizational policies, procedures, and cultures; affected by a manager’s characteristics and anticipated responses; and dependent upon an individual reporter’s motivations, actions, and experiences. These four context levels have each been individually identified as necessitating further research. However, we suggest that it is vital to recognize their simultaneous influence and the interactions between these

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Regulatory context Characteristics

Organization

Manager

Reporter

Ethical culture Ethical climate Strategic orientation (integrity) WB polices & procedures Size Seniority Training Experience of managing WB Attitudes to WB Ethical/Authentic leadership Moral efficacy Workload Personality Seniority/tenure Training Moral efficacy Willingness to report Workload Job control Job support Personality

Responses Investigative action Procedural & interpersonal justice WB processes (1. Risk assessment; 2. Support provision; 3. Proactive management; 4. Recognition & remediation)

Support provision Attitudes & emotional reactions towards reporter Investigative involvement

Official report of wrong-doing

Investigative involvement Support mobilisation

Outcomes Reporting/inaction rates Investigation competence Organisational reforms Performance Absenteeism rates Turnover rates Job satisfaction Work engagement Mental health Absenteeism Turnover

Reporter repercussions Job satisfaction Work engagement Mental health Absenteeism Turnover

Fig. 1 Hypothesized multilevel whistleblowing response model

four levels in order to most effectively inform and manage the whistleblowing process. Consequently, in consideration of existing research, we integrate the key discussions in this field by proposing a hypothesized multilevel whistleblowing response model (Fig. 1). Specifically, we propose a four-level explanation of the whistleblowing process by identifying the key constructs impacting whistleblowing within the regulatory context (e.g., national laws and institutional policies governing the reporting of wrongdoing), organizational level (e.g., procedural justice and organizational ethical culture), manager level (e.g., ethical leadership, moral efficacy, support provision) and individual (reporter) level (e.g., perceived job characteristics, personality, whistleblowing experiences). We identify these constructs as key characteristics, responses, or outcomes of the whistleblowing process across each of the three reporter, manager, and organizational levels. Below we describe the components within each of the four levels of this model, beginning with the level focused on the regulatory context.

Impact of the Regulatory Context on Whistleblowing From Fig. 1, it can be observed that the two key components of the regulatory context consist of the relevant anti-corruption and/or specific whistleblowing legislation, which may occur at international, national, state, or workplace (e.g. sector, industry) contexts, as well as other regulatory and integrity agencies and programs. This regulatory context is hypothesized to have an impact upon the characteristics and responses of the three other layers of the whistleblowing process. The external regulatory environment has a critical impact upon the effective management of the

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whistleblowing process, although its influence is not particularly well understood or even overtly considered within many whistleblowing research investigations. The assessment of which regulatory approach works more effectively to encourage and support whistleblowers is a vital consideration for effective knowledge advancement in this field. Despite advances of specific whistleblower protection laws in many countries, there is scarce empirical research which assesses and compares the impacts of these different regulatory environments (Miceli and Near 2013). Assessments of the impacts of different regulatory approaches are especially important when the whistleblowing protections and legislation differ for private- and publicsector workers, as occurs within many jurisdictions (Hall and Brown 2018). Consequently, an assessment of which are the “best” regulatory approaches for the effective management of whistleblowing remains undetermined and is certainly overdue. A common regulatory approach adopted by the USA, the UK, and Australia focuses on “anti-retaliation” models (Dworkin and Brown 2012; Lombard and Brand 2020; Vaughn 2012). This approach seeks to encourage both internal and external organizational reports of wrongdoing via legally protecting whistleblowers from experiences of retaliation (Lee et al. 2018). However, many legal variations remain, such as whether protection is available for unsubstantiated wrongdoing reports (Miceli and Near 2013). Legislation in other countries adopts different perspectives. In Germany for example, a whistleblower’s perceived disloyalty to an employer is legally upheld, often resulting in the dismissal of employees who disclose wrongdoing (Forst 2013). Interestingly, this approach opposes EU rulings on an employee’s freedom of speech (Lee et al. 2018) and reinforces the different ways in which EU countries may “transpose” the legislative requirements of the EU’s new directive on whistleblowing (Transparency International 2019). In one comparison of the potential impact of different regulatory approaches, Miceli and Near (2013) reviewed large samples of public-sector workers from Australia, Norway, and the USA. They reported that more employees in Norway (76%) had formally submitted an organizational wrongdoing report, compared to employees in both the USA (48%) and Australia (39%). However, only 4% of the Norwegian sample reported experiencing retaliation, compared to 38% of US and 22% of Australian reporters. While noting that some of these variations were almost certainly owed to methodological differences – itself a major problem for systematic research – Miceli and Near (2013) concluded that the seriousness of the observed wrongdoing, relationship between the whistleblower and their manager, specific national legislative frameworks, whistleblower protections, and national norms/ cultures likely also influenced these variations in experiences. Other research offers a slightly different perspective. For example, Moloney et al. (2018) focused on the whistleblowing experiences of international civil servants (i.e., employees of the UN, the World Bank, etc.) and reported the occurrence of their widespread difficulties, including retaliation and restitution concerns, regardless of the specific country in which the report originated. Moloney et al. (2018) concluded that managers commonly act to discourage rather than encourage wrongdoing reports, and they reinforced the traditional perception that regardless of the national

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context “blowing the whistle is a perilous activity” (p. 1). Even where national legislation has similar objectives and principles, different institutional arrangements and their likely effectiveness upon whistleblowing have only recently begun to be systematically compared (Loyens and Vandekerckhove 2018). The proposed multilevel whistleblowing process model (Fig. 1) suggests that the impact of the regulatory context is informed by the impact of national “anti-retaliation” legislation in encouraging organizational reports of wrongdoing, principally by guiding the acceptable responses of the organization to the whistleblower (Lee et al. 2018; Vaughn 2012). Reports of whistleblowing experiences by reporters employed by international bodies (e.g., the World Bank; Moloney et al. 2018) necessitate the inclusion of relevant international protections within this category. Overall, the impact of the regulatory context upon the management (in addition to the reporting) of an internal whistleblowing process appears to be significant but has not to date been formally assessed.

Impact of the Organization on Whistleblowing The second level of the proposed multilevel whistleblowing process model focuses upon the influence of the organization for the wrongdoing report. The organizational level of the whistleblowing response model includes the key characteristics, which impact whistleblowing (discussed in detail below), namely ethical culture and climate (e.g., Victor and Cullen 1988), the organization’s strategic orientation (i.e., degree of integrity; e.g., Schwartz 2016), its size and structure (e.g., Fieger and Rice 2018), and its internal whistleblowing policies and procedures (e.g., Smith 2013). These characteristics are directly associated with the common organizational responses including investigative actions to a whistleblowing report, but also with the presence or absence of processes identified more recently as directly important to the welfare of whistleblowers, such as risk assessment, support provision, proactive management, and recognition and remediation in the face of risks (e.g., Brown and Olsen 2008a, b; Lee and Fargher 2013; Tsahuridu 2011). They are also expected to be specifically associated with organizational levels of procedural and interpersonal justice (Colquitt 2012; Greenberg 1990). These responses, in turn, influence key organizational outcomes including whistleblowing reporting and inaction rates (e.g., Kenny et al. 2019), the conduct competence of whistleblowing investigations, organizational reforms (Bereskin et al. 2020), performance, and rates of employee absenteeism and turnover (e.g., Hall and Brown 2018; Henik 2015). The research focus on organizational level variables associated with internal whistleblowing is highly pertinent for the acknowledgment that workers do not operate in isolation. That is, individual characteristics are not wholly responsible for a worker’s experiences and actions – including whistleblowing. Instead, employees are directly influenced by the features of their workplace environments. Similar recognition has occurred to describe the occurrence of other adverse work experiences, most noticeably, for example, occupational stress and burnout (e.g., Brough et al. 2014).

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A key organizational level characteristic strongly associated with whistleblowing is the impact of the organization’s ethical climate and culture. Seminal work by Victor and Cullen (1988) described ethical climate as the responsibility that organizations have for both the ethical and unethical behaviors of their employees. For instance, the organizational ethical climate explains how an organization’s moral code of conduct influences employees’ behaviors, including the occurrence of whistleblowing detrimental to an individual reporter’s self-interest. While some early research reported minimal relationships between the dimensions of an organization’s ethical climate and incidences of internal whistleblowing (e.g., Rothwell and Baldwin 2006), recent reports support this relationship (Ahmad et al. 2014; Exmeyer 2020; Liu et al. 2018). Zhou et al. (2018), for example, demonstrated that employees who considered their organization to have a strong ethical climate had a greater sense of belongingness and attachment to the organization (i.e., identification), and this in turn increased their whistleblowing reporting behaviors. Other pertinent organizational level variables positively associated with internal reporting of wrongdoing include organizational justice and procedural justice (Soni et al. 2015; Ugaddan and Park 2019), power–distance ratios (i.e., structure and size of organization; Fieger and Rice 2018; Puni and Anlesinya 2017), and strategic/ high-performance human resource policies (Lewis and Vandekerckhove 2018; Pillay et al. 2017). Most public-service workers, for example, are employed in highly structured bureaucracies, commonly classified as a “high risk” for individual experiences of occupational stress and interpersonal conflicts (e.g., Brough et al. 2016). The reporting of wrongdoing in these organizations has been likened to igniting a “tinderbox” of adverse responses directed at the whistleblower (Moloney et al. 2018). However, Smith (2013) provided a pertinent discussion suggesting that organizational bureaucracies should not automatically be considered as negative entities and instead identified the scarcity of investigations assessing how specific organizational characteristics actually impact whistleblowing. Smith (2013) also identified common features of well-functioning bureaucratic organizations, which can be considered to have a positive impact upon the whistleblowing process. Such features include clear reporting lines due to the existence of organizational hierarchies, formal reporting of decisions and actions which record the whistleblowing process, and clearly stated organizational rules regarding wrongdoing. The fact that whistleblowing reports occur more frequently in well-functioning bureaucratic organizations provides support for Smith’s (2013) arguments. That is, organizations deemed by employees to be receptive/responsive to reports of wrongdoing commonly experience higher levels of internal whistleblowing (see also Lee and Xiao 2018). Clearly, employment in a highly structured bureaucracy is not necessarily associated with a nonethical organizational environment. Instead, adverse whistleblowing experiences are often dependent to a greater degree upon the inadequate behaviors and responses of managers to whom the wrongdoing is reported. More specifically, managers who fail to follow the formal processes relating to wrongdoing reports are directly responsible for negative experiences by

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whistleblowers. Smith (2013, p. 13), for example, stated: “The problems encountered by whistleblowers often stem from too little managerial commitment to bureaucracy, rather than too much.”

Impact of Managers on Whistleblowing The third level of the whistleblowing process model (Fig. 1) focuses on managers and/or organizational governance professionals who initially receive the wrongdoing report. Supervisory managers are, in the majority of circumstances, the first and most important point of disclosure for employees who perceive any wrongdoing (Donkin et al. 2008). However, the ability of employees to raise issues with their supervisors is often compromised. For example, Locke and Anderson (2011) conducted research across multiple industry sectors and noted that an estimated 85% of employees felt unable to raise a critical issue with their manager and 70% of employees stayed silent when their manager made an obvious mistake. The importance of increasing employees’ courage to report wrongdoing in these situations has been recognized and defined as reporting behaviors undertaken despite a significant fear of the consequences (Jones and Kelly 2014; Kilmann et al. 2013). Trust in supervisors is, therefore, a key antecedent of whistleblowing, and the breaking of this trust clearly produces adverse outcomes (Bhal and Dadhich 2011; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005). It is surprising, then, that the impact of a manager’s specific attributes and responses within the whistleblowing process has rarely been assessed. For example, in a collection of work discussing whistleblowing and employee voice (Burke and Cooper 2013), only 1 of 14 chapters focused on managing the whistleblowing process (Chiaburu et al. 2013). In a rare assessment of 532 randomly selected managers employed within 15 Australian public-sector organizations, collected as part of the first Whistling While They Work research, Vandekerckhove et al. (2014) analyzed answers to the question of “what was the best way to respond” to challenges experienced during the management of a whistleblowing report. The results demonstrated that the managers’ attitudes towards whistleblowing (i.e., perceptions of the occurrence of vexatious reports), their level of training on managing whistleblowing, and their levels of seniority and previous experience in handling whistleblowing incidents all influenced their perceptions of the type and level of protector action (i.e., extent of efforts to protect the reporter from retaliation), which would represent the “best” response. Additionally, the consideration of an organization’s ethical climate upon the whistleblowing process has also encouraged an assessment of ethical and moral characteristics exhibited by organizational managers and leaders. Preliminary research has found that whistleblowing occurs more frequently in organizations characterized by ethical and transformative leadership styles (Bhal and Dadhich 2011; Mayer et al. 2013) and a strong ethical culture (Mecca et al. 2014). More specifically, evidence indicates that an employee’s reporting of wrongdoing occurs more frequently to managers who demonstrate high levels of ethical leadership (Wen and Chen 2016; Zhang et al. 2016), transformational leadership (Caillier 2015), and

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authentic leadership (Wong and Laschinger 2013). Transformational leadership was developed in the 80s, authentic leadership in 2002, and ethical leadership in 2005. These three leadership styles have a high degree of commonality and emphasize a manager’s unbiased integrity, transparent decision-making, and high ethical standards. Liu et al. (2015, p. 107), for example, succinctly summarized why such leadership traits are important for the whistleblowing process: “Employees who trust leaders are more likely to report the wrongdoing to their leaders or organizations than those who do not.” Evidence also indicates that authentic leadership also encourages positive psychological characteristics in followers, most noticeably psychological safety and personal identification (Avolio et al. 2004). By encouraging such characteristics in their followers, authentic leaders emphasize a safe psychological working environment, which in turn encourages and supports internal reports of wrongdoing. It is, therefore, apparent that a manager’s training, leadership style, and ethical beliefs are all highly relevant to the whistleblowing process. More specifically, these factors are influential for both the encouragement of the initial report of wrongdoing and the treatment of the reporter throughout the whistleblowing process. From the whistleblowing research produced to date and discussed above, it is apparent that the key characteristics of these managers, which impact an official wrongdoing report being submitted, include their seniority, training, and experience of managing whistleblowing (e.g., Vandekerckhove et al. 2014); their attitudes to whistleblowing, levels of moral efficacy, and ethical leadership characteristics (e.g., Zhang et al. 2016); their workload (i.e., experiences of occupational stress (Brough et al. 2018); and their personality and demographic characteristics (Chiaburu et al. 2013). These characteristics influence the manager’s response to the wrongdoing report, specifically their attitudes, emotional reactions, and support provisions offered to the reporter (e.g., Liu et al. 2015), as well as their recommendations and involvement in the formal investigative process (e.g., Miceli and Near 2013). The manager’s responses, in turn, influence their own work-based psychological outcomes, including their levels of job satisfaction, work engagement, mental health (i.e., strain and well-being; Brough et al. 2018), and performance outcomes of absenteeism and turnover.

Impact of the Reporter on Whistleblowing The final level of the whistleblowing process model (Fig. 1) focuses on the individual reporter. As was described in the beginning of this chapter, research has clearly demonstrated the relevance of a reporter’s individual characteristics within the whistleblowing process (e.g., Burke and Cooper 2013). These key characteristics are summarized in Fig. 1 and include the reporter’s seniority and tenure with the organization (e.g., Culiberg and Mihelič 2017), ethical training and moral efficacy (e.g., Craft 2013), willingness to submit a formal wrongdoing report (e.g., Ahmad et al. 2014), psychosocial job characteristics (workload, support, and control; Brough et al. 2018), and their personality and demographic characteristics

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(e.g., Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran 2005). These characteristics are directly associated with the reporter’s decision to submit an internal wrongdoing report (e.g., Ahmad et al. 2014), which in turn results in their involvement with the investigation and their support seeking behaviours (e.g., Lawrence et al. 2015; Smith 2014). The key outcomes of this process for the reporter are also widely identified in the literature, as we noted at the start of this chapter, and include their experiences of positive/negative treatment and any negative repercussions (e.g., Henik 2015), their work attitudes (job satisfaction and work engagement; (Brough et al. 2014), mental health (e.g., Nisar et al. 2018), and job performance outcomes (absenteeism and turnover; Near and Miceli 2016). Notably, however, our model considers the reporter as the final level within this overall, much larger context – not as the first or only level.

Interactions Between the Levels of the Whistleblowing Response Model Importantly and uniquely, the hypothesized whistleblowing process model (Fig. 1) also summarizes the interactions between the four levels, which, we suggest, are vital for the accurate assessment of the reporter/manager/organizational outcomes arising from any internal wrongdoing report. It is apparent that the characteristics within each level influence the reporting of wrongdoing, the response to this report, and the outcomes of the report across other levels. For example, the manager’s response to a report of wrongdoing is directly influenced by both their own leadership characteristics and ethical attitudes (Chiaburu et al. 2013) and also by the characteristics of their organization, including the organization’s size, clarity of the whistleblowing procedures, ethical climate and culture, and the organization’s procedures relating to procedural justice and components of the formal investigative process (i.e., risk assessment, support provision, proactive management, and recognition and remediation; Lee and Fargher 2013). In turn, both the organization’s characteristics and their whistleblowing responses are directly influenced by the external regulatory context (i.e., national employment legislation; Lee et al. 2018). Similarly, the outcomes for a whistleblower in terms of their job attitudes, health, and work performance (e.g., Henik 2015; Nisar et al. 2018) are directly influenced by both their experience of the reporting process and the attitude of, and the support received from, their manager (Near and Miceli 2016). Organizational outcomes assessed by the numbers of whistleblowing reports and inaction, investigation competence, reforms, and personnel performance (productivity, absenteeism, turnover; e.g., Kenny et al. 2019) are directly influenced by the organization’s formal responses to the whistleblowing report (e.g., Tsahuridu 2011) and also by the attitudes and performance of both the managers and the individual employees involved in the report. Thus, the multilevel whistleblowing process model identifies the simultaneous influence arising from each level involved with an organizational wrongdoing report and suggests that the assessment of these multilevel interactions is vital to adequately explain the process of whistleblowing. We acknowledge the complexity inherent

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within this whistleblowing process model, especially in terms of the empirical testing of the model’s components. However, we suggest that this complexity provides a more “realistic” account of the multiple processes involved with any reporting of organizational wrongdoing. We suggest that acknowledging, rather than ignoring, this complexity is vital to advance this field and to provide improved outcomes for whistleblowers and their organizations. We suggest that extending whistleblower research to more effectively assess the entire whistleblowing process (i.e., before, during, and after the disclosure) within a multilevel explanation is a significant advancement of our knowledge about this organizational phenomenon and has important implications for organizational practice.

Empirical Test of the Whistleblowing Response Model To test the whistleblowing response model, we empirically assessed the roles played by key organizational factors in shaping the process of whistleblowing and the impact this had for both organizations and reporters, predominantly at the second level of the model. As part of the Whistling While They Work 2 research project, we collected survey data from N ¼ 6304 employees of 38 Australian and New Zealand organizations, falling into two groups: both whistleblowers (reporters) and managers or other governance professionals who had dealt with whistleblowing cases. Information regarding formal whistleblowing policies were obtained for each organization from a relevant internal governance expert. Full details of the method and sample are described by Brown et al. (2019). In this instance, direct and indirect (mediation) associations were assessed via the PROCESS program (Hayes 2013). To measure the organizational internal wrongdoing processes, these analyses focused on the organizational support provided to the reporter, the competence of the conduct of an investigation, and the treatment received by whistleblowers. The results for each group are summarized in Fig. 2. Significant associations were produced between each of the three whistleblowing processes and the outcomes. For example, it can be seen that the level of support provided by managers was significantly associated with (1) better reporter treatment outcomes and lower repercussions and (2) positive organizational reforms. Similarly, procedurally just investigations were significantly associated with investigation and reform outcomes. These results provide important confirmation that the key processes on which current guidance and governance efforts are already focused, as discussed above, really do matter for achieving success in the effective management of whistleblowing. Figure 2 also summarizes the results of the assessment of what actually contributes to effective internal reporting processes. No significant results were found for either the managers’ assessments of their organization’s internal processes or the strength of the organization’s whistleblowing policies. These results imply that a clear dissonance exists between organizational whistleblowing policies and their translation into “frontline” practice. However, four of the six assessed organizational ethical culture factors (senior management ethical leadership, confidence and

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Fig. 2 Partial test of whistleblowing processes from the whistleblowing response model

awareness of the whistleblowing process, and ethical behavior reinforcement) were each significantly associated with the whistleblowing processes (i.e., provision of procedural justice, support, and interpersonal justice) and their subsequent positive effects on the five assessed outcomes. Specifically, whistleblowing processes were improved when: • Ethical behavior was reinforced in the employee’s immediate work area (i.e., ethical conduct was valued and rewarded, and unethical conduct was fairly punished). • There was an awareness of the organization’s whistleblowing processes, including availability of support. • There was confidence in the organization’s responsiveness to whistleblowing (i.e., a belief that reports would be taken seriously and that management was serious about staff protection). • The reporters’ positive experience of the whistleblowing processes was influenced by ethical leadership demonstrated by their senior managers (e.g., by senior managers clearly and convincingly communicating the importance of ethics and integrity, and by the senior managers’ personal demonstrations of appropriate ethical conduct). These results support the research discussed above, indicating that ethical leadership positively influences employee attitudes, performance, and ethical behaviors,

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including their internal reporting of wrongdoing (Den Hartog 2015; Cheng et al. 2019). They also indicate that low levels of an organizational ethical culture are associated with both increased unethical behavior and a reluctance to report wrongdoing (Kaptein 2011). The results also confirm that the successful embedding of whistleblowing processes relies on an employee’s awareness of the processes and management responsiveness for supporting any reporting. Importantly, these results indicate that the effective championing and reinforcement of an organizational ethical culture are vital. In particular, senior management ethical leadership and behavior reinforcement are clearly critical for the maintenance of a supportive organizational environment in which appropriate wrongdoing investigation outcomes and benefits are achieved.

Research Implications of the Whistleblowing Response Model The four-level whistleblowing response model incorporates three important research implications. First is the identification of the scarcity of whistleblowing research, which considers that the antecedents of whistleblowing outcomes occur at multiple levels of analysis. As noted above, the majority of published whistleblowing research has to date focused upon individual-level (reporter) attributes. However, we suggest that this simplistic approach is inadequate to provide effective assessments for the management of employee health and wellbeing outcomes. Instead, our hypothesized model and initial results show that the inclusion of multilevel context variables is an essential consideration for meaningful advances in whistleblowing research, and especially for the accurate explanation of whistleblower outcomes. Second, we argue the value of identifying a clear typology of both organizational and managerial positive and negative responses and outcomes to individual reports of whistleblowing. From the evidence reviewed, it is clear that a reporter’s immediate manager has a direct impact both upon the reporter’s treatment and outcomes and upon the organizational outcomes of the actual wrongdoing process (Bjørkelo et al. 2011; Vandekerckhove et al. 2014). Our research model is unique in specifying the impact of managers within the whistleblowing process. We suggest that the characteristics and responses of a manager to an employee reporting wrongdoing are a vital consideration if whistleblower treatments and outcomes, and broader organizational performance, are to be improved. Similarly, we also specifically include the broad regulatory context as a distinct level within this model to demonstrate the direct impact that different anti-corruption approaches have upon the whistleblowing process. Finally, with this model, we specifically advance the application of the field of organizational behavior to the study of whistleblowing. The noticeable absence of whistleblowing research within the specific context of organizational behavior is difficult to understand, especially given the acknowledgment of whistleblowing as a component of organizational justice and organizational integrity (Chiaburu et al.

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2013; Tsahuridu 2011). Above we identified how other topics within organizational behavior similar to whistleblowing, such as experiences of toxic leadership, bullying and harassment, and occupational stress, have experienced considerable research attention, especially in terms of reducing these experiences via organizational interventions focused on increasing the provision of effective managerial support (e.g., Brough and Biggs 2015; Webster et al. 2016). The impact of reporting internal organizational wrongdoing, we suggest, overlaps with these other adverse work experiences within organizational behavior research. Whistleblowing research can, therefore, directly benefit from the increased application of an organizational behavior perspective, especially in respect to advancing current organizational training and interventions to reduce the adverse consequences of whistleblowing for employees, specific workgroups, and organizations.

Conclusion This chapter reviewed the current evidence concerning the whistleblowing process and the implications that this reporting of wrongdoing has for both reporters and their organizations. It is apparent that the majority of whistleblowing research has focused on the characteristics of the individual whistleblower and/or on the situational characteristics of the committed wrongdoing. It is also apparent that far too many whistleblowers still experience mistreatment and adverse consequences when reporting wrongdoing. In an attempt to advance scholarly knowledge in this field and to stimulate organizational interventions focused on improving employee experiences of the whistleblowing process, we proposed a multilevel whistleblowing response model, which uniquely incorporates the key considerations currently under discussion. The hypothesized model describes how key reporter, manager, and organizational characteristics and responses influence outcomes within and between these three levels. The model also demonstrates how a fourth level of regulatory context influences the reporters’, managers’, and organizations’ whistleblowing experiences. The model uniquely emphasizes the impact of managers within the whistleblowing process, with initial results from our large-scale Australian and New Zealand research especially confirming their centrality both to the level of organizational ethical culture and to organizational processes such as support provision, associated with better organizational and individual level outcomes. Together, the model and results confirm the value of considering the whistleblowing process from an organizational behavioral perspective. The model is presented to stimulate and inform further research in this field and ultimately to encourage the more effective management of an internal whistleblowing report. Acknowledgments We thank the Australian Research Council and our partner organisations (see www.whistlingwhiletheywork.edu.au) for funding this research (grant number LP150100386).

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Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC)

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC and the JD-R Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC and Safety Signal Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC and the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC and Job Demands-Control-Support Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC and the COR’s Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: A New Extension of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)? . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: Predictor, Moderator, or Mediator? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: Countries and Occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: Research Design and Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PSC: Practice and Intervention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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PSC multilevel theory aligns with other work stress models, including the job demands-control (JD-C) model (Karasek, Adm Sci Q 224 :285–307, 1979), the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model (Siegrist, J Occup Health Psychol 1 :27–41, 1996), and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al,. J Appl Psychol 86 :499–512, 2001). It also can be linked up to the signal theory (Lohr et al., Clin Psychol Rev 27 :114–126, 2007) and COR’s theory (Hobfoll, J Occup Psychol 84 :116–122, 2011) as well as to the field of strategic human resource management. This chapter aims to present the “theory” of PSC as an extension of these different theories and models. It summarizes the evidence of the PSC’s functions (as a predictor or a moderator) provided by previous researches and S. Mansour (*) School of Business Administration, University TÉLUQ, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_21

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offers a new insight into the role of PSC (as a mediator). It highlights the validation and universality of PSC across countries and occupations. The chapter also provides evidence of a variety of research designs used to examine this concept and introduce its validity and its measures. Finally, the chapter indicates how PSC can be applied in practice. Keywords

Psychosocial safety climate · Work stress · Working conditions · Psychological health · Caravan passageway · Safety signal · Strategic HR

Introduction By introducing the concept of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) to work stress theories, Dollard and Bakker (2010) and Dollard and Karasek (2010) were innovative in the field. PSC is a specific form of organizational climate referring to employee perceptions of organizational policies, practices, and procedures regarding the value that management places on workers’ psychological health and safety (Dollard and Bakker 2010). These are reflected in four distinct dimensions including management commitment, organizational communication, management priority, and organizational participation concerning the value of the psychosocial health and safety of employees in the workplace (Idris et al. 2014; Dollard 2012; Dollard and Bakker 2010; Zadow and Dollard 2015). The first dimension is about management support and commitment for stress prevention in the organization, through employee involvement in interventions designed to this effect. The second dimension is concerned with management making psychological health and safety a priority, rather than prioritizing productivity goals. Organizational communication about psychological health and safety comes as a third dimension, with management listening to the contributions of employees in this matter. The fourth dimension refers to the involvement of various actors at all levels of the organization around psychological health and safety matters, through consultation and problem-solving with employees, unions, and occupational health and safety representatives. Therefore, in organizations where the level of PSC is high, employees feel that their psychological safety and well-being are protected, prioritized, and supported by senior management (Bond et al. 2010). Furthermore, they have the sense that their concerns regarding their psychological health can be addressed, discussed, and communicated at all levels of the organization without fearing sanctions. While PSC is close to the concepts of safety climate and team psychological safety, it is distinct from them (Dollard and Bakker 2010; Idris et al. 2014). Indeed, while safety climate refers to employee perceptions that their employer values and ensures their physical health and safety at work (Zohar 1980), PSC refers to psychological health and safety. Moreover, contrary to team psychological safety which refers to “a shared belief held by a work team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (Edmonson 1999, p. 354), PSC deals with perceptions of commitment to

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psychological safety at the management level rather than perceptions of psychological safety at the team level. Many researchers including Dollard and Bakker (2010) and Bond et al. (2010) demonstrate empirically that PSC is a valid and reliable construct concerning working conditions and psychological health problems. This chapter will cover the theoretical background of PSC, its functions (predictor, moderator, and mediator), its application in countries and occupations, its measure, and how to use it as a tool for intervention in organizations.

PSC: Theoretical Background We will see in this section how PSC can align with different work stress theories.

PSC and the JD-R Theory Dollard and Bakker (2010) proposed the PSC, as an extension of the job demandsresources (JD-R) model (Bakker and Demerouti 2017) and considered it as an antecedent of working conditions, defined as job demands and job resources (Bakker and Demerouti 2017). Job demands are defined as “those physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and or psychological effort and are, therefore, associated with physiological and or psychological costs” (Xanthopoulou et al. 2007, p. 122). Job resources are defined as “are those physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that (i) are functional in achieving workrelated goals, (ii) reduce job demands and the associated physiological and psychological costs, and (iii) stimulate personal growth and development” (Xanthopoulou et al. 2007, p. 122). Job demands can include, for example, workload, time pressure, emotional demands, job insecurity, work conflict, and work-family conflict while job resources cover skill discretion, decision authority, supervisor support, coworker social support, and work rewards. JD-R theory stipulates two process paths: the health erosion path and the motivation pathway (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). Bakker and Demerouti (2017) argue that individuals with less resources and more job demands face more stress and burnout (health erosion path) while those with greater access to workplace resources gain additional job-related psychological resources that buffer stressors or high demands (motivation path). Theoretically, as PSC is considered as an antecedent of job design, it predicted both job demands and job resources (Idris and Dollard 2011). For instance, Dollard and Bakker (2010) showed that it plays an important role in the motivational pathway of the JD-R theory as a beneficial resource at individual, team, and organizational levels. Indeed, if the organization provides a stimulating and supportive environment via a good PSC, resources are likely to be sufficient leading therefore to not only decreasing job demands and burnout (Idris et al. 2011), but also to increasing work engagement and better performance of health workers (Bakker et al. 2012). For almost a decade, study on PSC using JD-R model has mad evidence of the effect of PSC on JD-R components in various occupations, countries, and level of analyses (Afsharian et al. 2016; Dollard and Bakker 2010). For

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instance, in a sample of 269 employees in Malaysia, Idris and Dollard (2011) analyzed at the individual level the links between PSC, job demands, job resources, anger, and depression. They found that PSC was negatively related to job demands and positively related to job resources. It was also revealed that job demands mediated the relationship between PSC and anger and depression and that job resources mediated the link between PSC and engagement. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), Krasniqi et al. (2019) found in a study of 404 employees in Malaysia that PSC was negatively related to emotional demands and positively to supervisor support, and PSC was also negatively associated to employees’ boredom mediated by both emotional demands and supervisor support. Their results show the importance role of PSC as a predictor of work outcomes at work unit level. It should be noted that while most of researchers on PSC topic have closely aligned it to the JD-R theory, PSC can be aligned in to other work stress theories and models (e.g., Schulte-Braucks and Dormann 2019; Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b, 2019; Loh et al. 2018) as we will see in the next sections.

PSC and Safety Signal Theory The safety signal theory (Lohr et al. 2007) can be employed to clarify how PSC can encourage workers to use resources at the workplace to decrease the effect of demands on psychological health. Theoretically, as an important kind of organizational climate (Dollard and Karasek 2010), PSC is perceived as a social signal that alarms employee when he will experience demanding psychosocial work conditions (cf. high workload), and how he should behave to be rewarded and supported (e.g., teamwork) and not sanctioned (e.g., bullying behavior) (Loh et al. 2019). In other words, when workplace is characterized by stressful working conditions such as workload, emotional demand, and workplace bullying, a high level of PSC helps as a safety signal offering possibility to use available resources to counterbalance the aversive stimuli, and decrease psychological distress (Lohr et al. 2007). According to Law et al. (2011), the safety signal function included in PSC can help employees to safely utilize available resources at work. Indeed, when psychological health is clearly held as a priority at all levels of the organization and throughout the hierarchy line, it acts as a signal that it is safe and encouraged to use any resources designed to prevent psychological harm or to voice a concern (Law et al. 2011; Loh et al. 2018). By caring about employees’ psychological health and safety, management offers employees a supply of various job resources, which will lead to safer working conditions (Idris et al. 2011). If employees feel safe and not threatened, they are likely to obtain more resources (Hobfoll 2001). Moreover, having more resources such as an adequate promotion prospects regarding one’s work and achievements, as well as being acknowledged and receiving praise for one’s good work in the organization, send a signal to employees that their work is valued and that the organization is looking to establish a long-term exchange relationship with them. Such perceptions logically align with views that the organization is interested in safeguarding their psychological health and safety. Evidence of this signal function is found in some previous studies. For instance, a high level of PSC would ensure

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flexible workplace practices were in place and employees felt safe and confident that their managers or supervisors support them to utilize these policies, and this could improve employees’ well-being (Dollard et al. 2012). Hall et al. (2013) in a sample of 2343 employees in Australia revealed that PSC functioned as a macrolevel resource and safety signal to reduce work-related depression. Recently, Mansour and Tremblay (2018a) found that nurses at health care professionals perceiving that their organization and/or supervisor pays attention to the issue of reconciling work and family will feel they have more safety resources at work and can therefore transfer resources to the family domain. The authors advance that discussing family difficulties with managers and/or supervisors becomes easier and safer when senior management supports PSC and considers the psychological health of employees to be a priority. Consequently, such a support leads to less work-family/family-work conflict. Loh et al. (2018), using longitudinal data from 429 Malaysian health care workers from 53 teams, examined two different mechanisms: PSC as a resource passageway (see the next section) and PSC as a safety signal. They supported that PSC acted as a resource passageway rather than as a safety signal (Zadow et al. 2019). In that sense, PSC is indeed a very important workplace factor (Dollard and Bakker 2010; Dollard et al. 2012) because of its strong signaling effect on employees’ perceptions that they have a wide range of resources (Hobfoll 1989, 2011) to do their work and adapt a good behaviors in a psychologically safe environment.

PSC and the Effort-Reward Imbalance (ERI) Model Most transactional theories of stress focus on the cognitive processes and emotional reactions that underlie the subject’s interaction with his environment. The model of Siegrist (1996) also fits into this perspective. It is a model based on the employment contract and is based on the notion of social reciprocity. Siegrist (1996) indicates that the best definition of a state of chronic stress is to describe it as a gap between the efforts made at work and the gains obtained in return. According to this model, the professional environment interferes with the social environment which requires efforts from the worker through different demands or commitments and in return provides him with a reward for these efforts and services provided. Thus, the imbalance and lack of reciprocity between efforts and rewards produces stress for employees. In other words, when the rewards received are not sufficient or even inadequate with the efforts, the reciprocity is not respected, which generates negative emotions and stress with long-term negative consequences on health (Siegrist 2016). Regarding the efforts, they are composed of extrinsic efforts (professional constraints such as time constraints, overtime, interruptions during the performance of a task, responsibilities, physical load and workload, or overwork) and intrinsic efforts, or “over-engagement” (behaviors, motivations, and a strong ambition to be appreciated (Siegrist 1996). As for the rewards, according to Siegrist (1996, 2016), they are composed of monetary satisfactions and the possibilities of promotion, socio-emotional recognition or esteem, and job security. The model of Siegrist was

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supported by significant evidence by researchers in epidemiology and psychology. Studies using the model of Siegrist have revealed that it predicted several outcomes including cardiovascular disease, sleep turbulences, burnout, emotional exhaustion, alcohol dependence, musculoskeletal pain, depression, decreased immune system functions, and coronary heart disease (Bosma et al. 1998; Peter and Siegrist 2000; Joksimovic et al. 2002; Kudielka et al. 2004; Head et al. 2004; Ota et al. 2009; Siegrist 2010; Jolivet et al. 2010; Kikuchi et al. 2010; Rugulies et al. 2017; Dragano et al. 2017). Since PSC is conceived to predict work stress, and is an indicator of work conditions, it can be associated to ERI as this model defines working conditions as efforts and rewards. PSC can create environments that help to either balance or imbalance efforts and rewards leading to better productivity and health outcomes (Owen et al. 2016). These authors have conducted a multilevel study in 119 organizations and 850 participants in Australia to examine PSC as a multilevel extension of ERI. Their results shown an association from individual and organizational PSC to the various dimensions of the ERI model: efforts, rewards, and the ERI interaction, and they also revealed that PSC triggered the ERI model. According to the authors results, at the individual level PSC activated the ERI process by indirectly influencing workers’ physical and psychological health, as well as motivational outcomes, via workers’ perceptions of ERI. They also revealed that at the organizational level, PSC affected positively workers’ job satisfaction, via organizational rewards and organizational ERI, and negatively and indirectly workers’ physical and psychological health, via organizational demands. The researchers found evidence that the PSC can be considered as an extension of ERI model.

PSC and Job Demands-Control-Support Framework A widely used model in the literature on work stress is the model of Job DemandsControl-Support of the psychologist Robert Karasek (1979). This theoretical model states that demands are not sufficient to explain work stress and that stress appears when the individual is subjected to strong psychological demands associated with a low level of decision latitude. In other words, in certain professions, heavy job demands could not be a problem when they are accompanied by a high level of autonomy. On the other hand, high demands associated with low autonomy constitute a significant source of stress, which can lead to exhaustion. Karasek (1979) demonstrated this theory through secondary analyzes of data collected in the USA and Sweden, finding that workers with limited level of decision-making latitude and high level of job demands were more likely to report health problems and low satisfaction. Karasek (1979) defined “job control” as the control or mastery a worker can have over his tasks throughout the working day influences decisions (decision authority) and the possibility to use skills and be able to learn new things (skill discretion). Job demands are commonly operationalized in terms of qualitative demands, such as emotional demands and time pressure (Karasek et al. 1998). Social support “refers to overall levels of helpful social interactions available on the job from both co-workers and supervisors” (Karasek and Theorell 1990, p. 69). Like the

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link between PSC and work stress theories (e.g., JD-R, ERI), PSC is a precursor or the “cause of the causes” (Zadow et al. 2019) to these job design “causes” of work stress and therefore to JDCS theory (Dollard and Jain 2019). According to these authors, organizations where the level of PSC is high can “meet the basic psychological needs of employees, such as by bolstering job control and social support, and making job demands manageable” (p. 84).

PSC and the COR’s Theory Recently, authors (Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b, 2019; Loh et al. 2018; Taylor et al. 2019) started to conceptualize PSC according to the conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll 1989; Hobfoll 1988). Each PSC dimension (management commitment, management priority, organizational communications, and organizational participation) can be seen as resources that employees want to secure in order to gain or preserve what they centrally value, such as “health, well-being, peace, family, self-preservation, and positive sense of self” (Hobfoll 2011, p. 117). Indeed, COR theory postulates that, through a motivational process, individuals strive to retain, protect, and build resources and are threatened by the potential or actual loss of these valued resources (Hobfoll 1989). Resources are categorized either as object resources (e.g., tools and house), condition resources (e.g., supportive work relationships and seniority), personal resources (e.g., key skills and personal traits such as self-efficacy and self-esteem), or energy resources such as knowledge and credit (Hobfoll 2011, p.117). Resources can further be categorized into contextual resources, that is, resources found in one’s immediate environment, and personal resources, located within individuals themselves (Hobfoll 2001). In this light, PSC can be conceived as the perceived presence or lack of psychosocial resources (contextual condition resource) in one’s work environment. COR theory further involves several key principles, which have been summed up in Hobfoll’s (2011) work. Individuals who lack resources are vulnerable to resource loss, and an initial resource loss likely leads to future resource losses (Hobfoll 1989). Conversely, individuals can find themselves in cycles or spirals of resource gains such that the more resources one possesses, the more one is likely to orchestrate the gain of new resources (Hobfoll 2001, 2011). In other words, as individuals are motivated to protect their current resources (conservation) and to acquire new resources (acquisition) (Halbesleben et al. 2014), they invest in resources or try to put in place a strategy of coping to adapt to stressful situations threatening their well-being (Hobfoll 2001). However, resources are often beyond individuals’ control (Hobfoll and De Jong 2014) which makes it difficult for the latter to accumulate them. This is why Hobfoll (2011) extended COR theory by developing the concept of “resource caravan passageways,” which are “environmental conditions that support, foster, enrich, and protect the resources of individuals, sections or segments of workers, and organizations in total, or that detract, undermine, obstruct, or impoverish people’s or group’s resource reservoirs” (Hobfoll 2011, p. 129). Hobfoll (2011) explains that resources are rarely found alone but rather travel in packs or aggregates. This means

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that the presence of one resource entails the presence of others, and increases their efficiency. Hobfoll (2011) argues that it is necessary to foster ecologies of resource gains within organizations to ensure employee well-being and firm performance. PSC can thus be seen as a resource’s passageway, resources are created, maintained, and fostered in such conditions (Hobfoll et al. 2018). Mansour and Tremblay (2018a, b, 2019) were the firsts authors to consider PSC a resources caravan passageway. They examined, using a sample of 562 participants from the nursing and health sector, a multidimensional mediating model of PSC and work-family interference. The authors tested the direct and indirect effects of PSC on work-family conflict (WFC)-time, family-work conflict (FWC)-time and, WFC/FWC-strain via family supportive supervisor behavior (FSSB). The results demonstrated that PSC could act as a resource passageway allowing employees in health care sector to better balance their work and family responsibilities. They also revealed that PSC could also indirectly alleviate WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain, and FWC-strain by increasing FSSB. The authors propose that PSC would be an appropriate target for intervention to improve work-family imbalance. In another article in the same sector (Mansour and Tremblay 2019), they treated PSC as a passageway to deal with burnout and safety workarounds behaviors in the health care. Loh et al. (2018) argue that PSC is a “resource caravan passageway” which encourages the formation of a resources caravan, in other words the accumulation and linking of resources. Taylor et al. (2019) reported evidence that PSC is correlated with adaptive management and interdepartmental coordination, which together constitute such a caravan passageway.

PSC: A New Extension of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)? In an effort to respond to recent calls for more exploration of the interplay between employee well-being and performance in strategic HRM field (Boxall et al. 2016; Mansour et al. under review) offered in an international sample of 1664 flight attendants in Canada, Germany, and France an important insight regarding how various bundles of high-performance work practices (HPWP) influence PSC. They also examined the mediating role of PSC between HPWP and service recovery performance. HPWP typically impact employees’ productive behaviors by either enhancing their abilities, motivation, or by giving them opportunities to contribute, which is known as the AMO framework (e.g., Appelbaum et al. 2000; Lepak et al. 2006). AMO-enhancing HPWPs impact various components of employee performance (Jiang et al. 2012). The ability dimension encompasses employee knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) which can be enhanced with various practices such as training, professional development, and knowledge-based practices, among others. The ability-PSC combination acts as a caravan passageway placing employees in a spiral of resource gain which makes them able to cope and deal efficiently with service failures, whereas the lack of ability or PSC could make them feel resourceless and trigger the opposite chain of reaction (Mansour et al. under review). Motivation-

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enhancing practices encompass incentives for employee effort, such as performancebased compensation, employment security, or profit sharing, but also work-life policies such as schedule flexibility. Combined with PSC, job security, for example, generates a safe environment in which employees can do their job without fearing any backlash or job loss leading them to engage in service recovery (Mansour et al. under review). The third dimension, opportunity, refers to practices giving employees opportunities to contribute in the organization, such as empowerment, teamwork, or voice mechanisms. A positive atmosphere where a sense of camaraderie and solidarity is present, as well as a climate that encourages and empowers employees to solve occupational safety problems together (i.e., PSC), employees are likely to improve their performance (Mansour et al. under review). Interestingly, these authors found that motivation-enhancing HPWP has a significantly stronger impact on PSC compared to the two other dimensions (ability and opportunity) indicating that certain HR practices might work better in specific climates than others, for instance. They advance that “employers who implement work-life policies and job security show some consideration for employees’ lives beyond the workplace, acknowledging their being individuals with needs rather than solely workers at the service of the company. Such practices signal that management does not only care about productivity but is also concerned with their employees’ welfare, therefore increasing perceptions of PSC.” These finding advances the strategic HRM filed and PSC theory by showing that PSC can act as a mediator between HPWP and employee outcomes, since so far PSC has mostly been studied as an antecedent to (Dollard and Bakker 2010), or a moderator of (Dollard et al. 2012; Garrick et al. 2014; Hall et al. 2013), job demands, and resources.

PSC: Predictor, Moderator, or Mediator? PSC has mainly two functions in the work stress process. Firstly, it plays an important role as a precursor of the working conditions that lead to work stress process; in this regard, it determines employees’ health and productivity (Dollard and Neser 2013) as well as predicting workplace bullying and harassment (Bond et al. 2010). Secondly, PSC moderates the effects of working conditions, and particularly job demands on psychological health outcomes (Dollard and Karasek 2010; Law et al. 2011). This moderating role also reflects that PSC acts as a safety signal and/or caravan passageway as we have just seen above. In regard to PSC as a predictor, many studies found evidence of this function. For instance, Law et al. (2011) in a study of 30 organizations and 220 employees in Australia have extended the job demands-resources (JD-R) framework in a multilevel way by showing that organizational PSC was negatively related to workplace bullying and harassment (demands) and in turn psychological health problems (health impairment path). They also showed that PSC influenced positively work rewards (resources) and in turn work engagement (motivational path). Dollard et al. (2012) used a 24-month cross-level lagged data to study the effects of PSC on psychological strain through work conditions. Using hierarchical linear modeling and employing an advanced design where data from two distinct samples of nurses

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working in remote areas were used across time (N ¼ 202, Time 1; N ¼ 163, Time 2), matched at the work unit level (N ¼ 48), the researchers revealed that nurses’ perception of PSC at the unit level was related to work conditions (workload, control, and supervisor support) and psychological strain in different nurses in the same work unit, 24 months later. Their findings demonstrated also that the betweengroup relationship of unit PSC influenced psychological strain via Time 2 work conditions (workload and job control) and Time 1 emotional demands. Idris et al. (2012) examined the effect of PSC on job demands and psychological health in samples from two different cultures: an Australian sample (N ¼ 126 workers in 16 teams within a primary health care organization) and a Malaysian sample (N ¼ 180 workers in 31 teams from different organizations and diverse industries). They found that, compared to other team level climate measures, PSC predicted more effectively both job demands and psychological health problems. Results showed that job demands mediated the link between PSC and psychological health problems. In a multilevel longitudinal study in 36 Malaysian private sector organizations (n ¼ 253, Time 1) (at Time 2, 27 organizations, n ¼ 117 employees), Idris et al. (2014) investigated if PSC was a predictor of job characteristics (e.g., emotional demands), and psychological outcomes (i.e., emotional exhaustion and depression). Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that there were cross-level effects of PSC (measured at Time 1) on emotional demands and emotional exhaustion but not on depression (all measured 3 months later at Time 2). The study also showed evidence for a lagged mediating role of emotional demands between PSC and emotional exhaustion. Owen et al. (2016) in an effort to rely PSC to ERI have found in a multilevel research in 119 organizations and 850 participants in Australia that PSC was related to both efforts and rewards. Mansour and Tremblay (2018a, b) in an individual study in health care in Canada found that PSC could indirectly alleviate WFC-time, FWC-time, WFC-strain, and FWC-strain by increasing FSSB. Ansah et al. (2018) in a study of 876 attendants from four major oil marketing companies (OMCs) in Ghana to examine the effect of PSC showed that PSC affected directly, and indirectly, via the path of job resources, health, and safety of the attendants. Concerning the moderating function, there were support for this role of PSC. For example, Law et al. (2011) examined if PSC could play a moderating role on the psychosocial hazard effects. They revealed that PSC, as an organization-based resource, had a moderating effect of the positive relationship between bullying/ harassment and psychological health problems, and on the negative relationship between bullying/harassment and engagement. Dollard et al. (2012) examined the moderating effect of PSC in a study using sample comprised of police from 23 police units (stations) with longitudinal survey at two time points separated by 14 months (Time 1, n ¼ 319, Time 2, n ¼ 139). They hypothesized that a high level of job demands will lead to psychological distress and that this relationship will be counterbalance when there are high job resources, but this interaction will really happen at high levels of PSC which will enable the safe utilization of resources to decrease demands. The findings confirmed the interaction between emotional demands and emotional resources (measured at the individual level), in the context

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of unit psychosocial safety climate (aggregated individual data). More precisely, high emotional resources moderated the positive relationship between emotional demands and change in workgroup distress but only when there were high levels of unit PSC. Hall et al. (2013) conducted an individual-level cross-sectional research in a sample of 2343 Australian workers to examine the moderating effect of PSC on the link between work conditions and psychological health outcomes. Their findings revealed that PSC moderated the effects of job demands on depression and further moderated the effects of depression on positive organizational behaviors (POB). Garrick et al. (2014) in a sample of Australian school teachers (N ¼ 61) conducted a diary study for 5 consecutive days that was repeated three times over the course of approximately 8 months. Multilevel analyses confirmed that between-individual PSC moderated the within-individual relationships between (1) job demands and fatigue, (2) job demands and engagement, (3) recovery and fatigue, and (4) recovery and engagement. The researchers showed evidence of the PSC moderating function to protect teacher’s mental health. Lawrie, Tuckey, and Dollard (2017) in a multilevel diary study analyzed a sample of 57 employees, primarily working in education, health care, and finance, who completed a diary for 5 days within a 2-week period. They found that PSC moderated the effect of job control on mindfulness. Using longitudinal data from 429 Malaysian health care workers from 53 teams, Loh et al. (2018) revealed that team PSC was a stronger moderator of emotional demands than control or rewards on psychological health problems (emotional exhaustion and somatic symptoms). The analysis of three-way interaction of team PSC at Time 1 with demands and resources (rewards only) at Time 2 demonstrated that PSC is able to moderate the moderation relationship of demands and resources. Importantly, while PSC has mostly been considered as an antecedent or a moderator in previous researches, the results of Mansour et al. (in review) in an international sample of 1664 flight attendants in Canada, Germany, and France provide some evidence for the mediating role of PSC in the relationships between AMO (ability enhancing, motivation enhancing, and opportunity enhancing) and service recovery performance. For instance, according to these authors, empowered and autonomous employees (opportunity) will participate in stress prevention programs and perceive that management is committed to ensuring their psychological health and safety; they are thus likely to manage service failures with success. The research of Mansour et al. (in review) offers new insight into how PSC can transmit the benefits of resources offers at work (AMO) and thus help employees to better perform at work. More research is needed to validate their results.

PSC: Countries and Occupations The PSC concept has been carried out in several countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Iran, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the USA, and Vietnam) and in different sectors (e.g., education, finance, and fuel attendants, health care, policing, public sector, flights attendants, and consumer goods production).

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As for cultural context, some researchers conducted comparative studies to test the PSC effect across cultures. For example, Idris et al. (2012) surveyed workers in two different cultural contexts: Australia (N ¼ 126 workers in 16 teams within a primary health care organization) and Malaysia (N ¼ 180 workers in 31 teams from different organizations and diverse industries). The results of this study showed that the level of PSC is higher in Australia than in Malaysia. The authors indicated that the differences in PSC levels might due to cultural differences between Malysia with Muslim culture, high power distance, and collectivism and Australia with a high level in individualism and low level of power distance. Following this initial study, and using a data obtained for 31 European countries, Dollard and Neser (2013) found differences between countries with regard to PSC level. Moreover, the results demonstrated that in countries with high level of PSC the quality of work was reported more favorably. In other continent, Afsharian et al. (2016) conducted a comparative study to examine the PSC levels and the theoretical paths of the extended JD-R model in 33 work groups in an Iranian hospital (N ¼ 257), then compared with an Australian sample of hospital employees (N ¼ 239, across 21 work groups). The findings indicated that Australian hospital employees stated higher levels of PSC, skill discretion, and decision authority, and lower levels of emotional demands, compared to the Iranian sample. The results also demonstrated that team PSC was significantly and negatively associated to psychological demands and emotional exhaustion, and significantly and positively associated to job resources, decision authority, and work engagement for both countries. More recently, McLinton et al. (2018a) performed benchmarks for working conditions in health care industries across three hospitals in Australia (N ¼ 1258) and Malaysia (N ¼ 1125). For both Australia and Malaysia, psychosocial safety received less attention than physical safety climate. The results also indicated that Malaysian health care workers reported significantly higher level of PSC than Australian health care workers. To validate the Chinese version Psychosocial Safety Climate scale (PSC-12), and to examine the relationship between PSC, workplace violence, and self-rated health, Pien et al. (2019) conducted a two-part study (405 nurses, 1690 nurses from 73 hospitals). They found a comparable validity and reliability of the Chinese version PSC-12 with the original PSC and they pointed out that this difference might be because of cultural differences. Mansour et al. (under review) found in an international sample of 1664 flight attendants in Canada, Germany, and France that the mediating role of PSC between AMO and service recovery performance was stronger in Canada compared to France and Germany. The authors explain these differences are according to different culture dimensions like individualism/collectivism, level of uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation, among others. It seems thus that the level of PSC could differ from country to another and we need more research to further our understanding in this regard. In regard to occupational context, PSC has been carried out in many industries and results shows that the level of PSC differs from sector to another. Indeed, the first model of PSC was tested in the education sector by Dollard and Bakker (2010). Other studies have also been carried out in the education sector (Becher et al. 2018; Garrick et al. 2014; Nielsen and Noblet 2018; Yulita et al. 2017; Zinsser and Zinsser

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2016). The model of PSC was also verified in other sectors, especially in health care sector (Idris et al. 2012; Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b; Loh et al. 2018; McLinton et al. 2018a, b, c), oil and energy sector (Ansah et al. 2018), police officers (Rasdi et al. 2018), and university context (Potter et al. 2019). For example, using a sample of 876 attendants from four major oil marketing companies (OMCs), Ansah et al. (2018) found a high risk of PSC perception among the attendants. Only one study was conducted in the university context by Potter et al. (2019). This study tended to identify the specific characteristics or operationalization of high levels of PSC. Using qualitative data, this research has emerged three themes in work setting: (a) shared sense of meaningful work and social support, (b) high level of employee job crafting, and (c) middle management support for employee psychological health. The authors argue that these three themes explain a high PSC environment which lead to positive employee well-being. Rasdi et al. (2018) tested the prevalence of stress among Malaysian police officers who were randomly selected from nine different departments (N ¼ 105). The results indicated that team psychological safety and physical safety climate are significantly related to psychosocial safety climate level. Using a data of Australian police constables (n ¼ 409, n ¼ 36 work units), Dollard and colleagues (2019) found that police constables perceived only moderate levels of PSC in general underlined by a lack of priority, strategies, policies, and procedures to avoid damage and manage psychological health at work across work units. The authors highlighted that work contexts were characterized by low levels of PSC which increase the levels of psychosocial risks and affect consequently psychological health and motivational outcomes. Mansour et al. (under review) found that flight attendants perceived a low level of PSC. It seems that PSC has been received more attention in education and health care sectors. For instance, the majority of studies conducted in health care sector indicated that the level of PSC in health care is lower than other sectors. Using longitudinal data from 429 Malaysian health care workers, Loh et al. (2018) found the psychological safety of frontline health care workers acquired less attention in policy and from management than either physical safety or productivity goals. Also, the author noted that the mean of PSC in health care industry is higher than the mean reported by Idris et al. (2012) among Malaysian private sector workers (20.03 vs. 41.76 at Time 1 and 43.19 at Time 2). The authors believe that the difference in the results between these two studies may be due to the difference in the work conditions between the two sectors studied. McLinton et al. (2018, a) compared health care with non-health care general working populations data (Australia, N ¼ 973; Malaysia, N ¼ 225). The results showed that health care organizations pay less attention to PSC compared to other industries and this is valid in both countries. The study revealed that unlike physical safety, psychosocial safety gets less attention and PSC was lower than physical safety climate. The authors explain their results by the nature of work in health care industry which is characterized by a high frequency of critical incidents and high standardization of job procedures which are rarely accompanied by a debrief process that would otherwise occur in different industries. These different researches indicate that the level of PSC could be different from one sector to another and highlight therefore the need for more research in other industries to explore the importance and validity of PSC.

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PSC: Research Design and Measurement Overall, the quantitative method was the dominant research design (i.e., Dollard and Bakker 2010; Hall et al. 2010; Dollard and Karasek 2010; Idris and Dollard 2011; Idris et al. 2011; Law et al. 2011; Dollard et al. 2012; Rickard et al. 2012; Winwood et al. 2013; Dollard and Neser 2013; Yulita et al. 2014; Bailey et al. 2015; Bronkhorst 2015; Afsharian et al. 2016; Bronkhorst and Vermeeren 2016; Havermans et al. 2017; Nguyen et al. 2017; Dormann et al. 2018; Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b; Loh et al. 2018; Mansour et al. under review). Some recent studies have used either a diary (i.e., Garrick et al. 2014; Yulita et al. 2017; Lawrie et al. 2017) or interviews (i.e., Kwan et al. 2016; Zinsser and Zinsser 2016). More recent researches have employed a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative) (i.e., Dollard et al. 2017; Dormann et al. 2018; Becher et al. 2018; McLinton et al. 2018b). Most survey research was either cross-sectional (i.e., Hall et al. 2010; Idris and Dollard 2011; Idris et al. 2011; Hall et al. 2013; Winwood et al. 2013; Dollard and Bailey 2014; Havermans et al. 2017; Nguyen et al. 2017; Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b) or longitudinal (i.e., Dollard and Karasek 2010; Rickard et al. 2012; Idris et al. 2014; Bailey et al. 2015; Potter et al. 2017; Zadow et al. 2017; Dormann et al. 2018; Becher et al. 2018). Most study has used either a multilevel analysis (i.e., Dollard and Bakker 2010; Bond et al. 2010; Idris et al. 2012; Dollard and Neser 2013; Yulita et al. 2014; Bronkorst and Vermeeran 2016; Zadow et al. 2017; McLinton et al. 2018c), or an individual one (i.e., Idris and Dollard 2011; Idris et al. 2011; Rickard et al. 2012; Hall et al. 2013; Winwood et al. 2013; Dollard and Bailey 2014; Bailey et al. 2015; Havermans et al. 2017; Nguyen et al. 2017; Dollard et al. 2017; Dormann et al. 2018; McLinton et al. 2018a; Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b; Loh et al. 2018; Mansour et al. under review). As for the measure of PSC, it can be measured using the PSC-12 scale (Hall et al. 2010). There are four subfactors each with three items. Items are measured on a fivepoint Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Management Commitment 1. In my workplace senior management acts quickly to correct problems/issues that affect employees’ psychological health. 2. Senior management acts decisively when a concern of an employee’s psychological status is raised. 3. Senior management show support for stress prevention through involvement and commitment. Management Priority 4. Psychological well-being of staff is a priority for this organization. 5. Senior management clearly considers the psychological health of employees to be of great importance. 6. Senior management considers employee psychological health to be as important as productivity.

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Organizational Communication 7. There is good communication here about psychological safety issues which affect me. 8. Information about workplace psychological well-being is always brought to my attention by my manager/supervisor. 9. My contributions to resolving occupational health and safety concerns in the organization are listened to. Organizational Participation 10. Participation and consultation in psychological health and safety occurs with employees, unions, and health and safety representatives in my workplace. 11. Employees are encouraged to become involved in psychological safety and health matters. 12. In my organization the prevention of stress involves all levels of the organization. Bailey et al. (2015) have developed a benchmark level of PSC using several Australian samples that were representative of the national working population. As the PSC-12 scores range from 12–60, they determined benchmarks of organizational PSC (range 12–60) for low levels of risk (PSC > 41) and high levels of risk (PSC < 37) for employee job strain and depressive symptoms. In addition, Dormann et al. (2017) suggested a critical value of PSC ¼ 26 as a benchmark that signals the urgent need for intervention to prevent incidents of persistent depression. Dollard (2019) validated a short scale (4 items) to measure PSC. This include: 1. Senior management show support for stress prevention through involvement and commitment; 2. Senior management considers employee psychological health to be as important as productivity; 3. There is good communication here about psychological safety issues which affect me; and 4. In my organization, the prevention of stress involves all levels of the organization. These four items are representing the four dimensions of PSC. The finding of her study provides evidence of the validity and reliability of PSC-4 which demonstrated a very high concordance with PSC-12. The PSC-4 was associated to a range of work conditions, health, and engagement outcomes across time, and the strength of relations were consistent with those relating to PSC-12.

PSC: Practice and Intervention Organizations should consider ways to improve PSC, especially so in high-risk industries such as the health care industry or the airline industry where potentially traumatic incidents such as injury, hazards, sick leave, and accident are very frequent. PSC should be integrated in programs and interventions as a tool to effectively manage psychosocial hazards and risks at work (Bailey et al. 2015). These authors indicated some practical steps allowing organizations and employers to include PSC tool into existing policy and procedure and providing them a guide to manage health and safety issues at work. Many studies also outlined the importance

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of PSC in this regard. For instance, Mansour and Tremblay (2018a, b) found a very interesting results concerning the PSC intervention. Their study in the health care in Quebec (Canada) showed that PSC could be a good tool to manage work-arounds behaviors in this sector. Indeed, facing the complexity of care within a system that increasingly requires standardization, “employees develop inconsistent and idiosyncratic work patterns that they believe increase their performance and patient safety” (Wheeler et al. 2012, p. 547). These practices are called “workarounds” (Mansour and Tremblay 2018a, b). Authors recommended to health care organizations to create a good PSC that can help workers feel safer, more resourceful, and more creative in their problem-solving efforts which could make them less likely to use work-arounds or translate the possible negative effects of work-arounds into positive contributions.

Conclusion PSC multilevel theory aligns with other work stress models, including the job demands-control (JD-C) model (Karasek 1979), the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model (Siegrist 1996), and the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al. 2001) which all examine how working conditions affect individual psychological health. Thanks to its predicting role, it adds to these models by demonstrating how the psychosocial climate of an organization or work unit shaped the work conditions defined in these models. This chapter showed that PSC can be linked up to the signal theory (Lohr et al. 2007) and COR’s theory (Hobfoll 2011) since researchers conceptualize it as a safety signal or a resource passageway (due to its moderating function). Thanks to this function, PSC buffers stressors or high job demands. It should be however noted that most previous PSC researches were closely associated to the JD-R model. We need more study to further our understanding of the relationship between PSC and other work stress models. For example, an innovative function of PSC was proposed by Mansour et al. (under review) who found that it can mediate the relationship between AMO and performance. Their study offers thereby a new insight into how PSC can work in organizations and invite researchers for future investigation on the topic. While PSC might be universally important as it was validated across different countries and occupations, the chapter outlines the importance of more research on the topic to further our understanding of the effects of PSC in different cultural settings and occupations. We believe that PSC theory provides a theoretical model and practical tool for both researchers and practitioners to measure and manage organizational, team level, and individual factors of stress and ameliorate working conditions.

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Challenges and Opportunities for LGBTQI+ Inclusion at Work Jordana Moser, Jonathan E. Booth

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, and T. Alexandra Beauregard

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Is Inclusion and Why Do Organizations Want to Have It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges Faced by LGBTQI+ Individuals in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Risk of Tokenism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Question of Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employee Resource Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Collective Engagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Over the past 40 years, an early emphasis on equal opportunities among both human resource management (HRM) practitioners and scholars has gradually shifted to a focus on diversity management and, more recently, a burgeoning interest in inclusion (Oswick C, Noon M, Br J Manag 25:23–39, 2014). This chapter examines inclusion in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) employees and provides an overview of the current state of play and further opportunities for employers to facilitate the full and free participation of these workers. After defining inclusion and its appeal to J. Moser Ipsos MORI, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] J. E. Booth (*) Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] T. A. Beauregard Department of Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_36

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organizations, we will review organizational challenges to the inclusion of LGBTQI+ workers, including those unique to members of this community relative to other minority groups and also those posed by the diversity within this group. Keywords

LGBTQI+ · Gender · Sexual orientation · Diversity · Inclusion · Stigma · Employee resource groups

Introduction Over the past 40 years, an early emphasis on equal opportunities among both human resource management (HRM) practitioners and scholars has gradually shifted to a focus on diversity management and, more recently, a burgeoning interest in inclusion (Oswick and Noon 2014). This means that while the primary goal of most organizations used to reside in “levelling the playing field” for women and members of minority and marginalized groups, organizational attention now centers on leveraging workforce diversity for profit and productivity: “managing” diversity as a resource to be exploited. The concept of inclusion refers to organizational efforts to make employees feel valued, respected, and able to contribute to organizational processes as a fully belonging member. This chapter examines inclusion in the context of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) employees and provides an overview of the current state of play and further opportunities for employers to facilitate the full and free participation of these workers. After defining inclusion and its appeal to organizations, we will review organizational challenges to the inclusion of LGBTQI+ workers, including those unique to members of this community relative to other minority groups and also those posed by the diversity within this group. How can organizations successfully celebrate diverse identities without perpetuating stereotypes or outing individuals against their wishes? How can employers ensure that LGBTQI+ voices are represented in the design and delivery of organizational initiatives without adding extra (unpaid) labor to their existing workloads? From the discussion of these issues, the chapter will go on to explore steps that organizations can take to increase inclusion, such as continuous engagement initiatives, employee resource groups, and environmental cues that normalize diversity in sexual orientation and gender identity expression. We will then conclude by looking ahead to remaining challenges for LGBTQI+ employees and multinational organizations in the context of increasing social conservatism in many countries.

What Is Inclusion and Why Do Organizations Want to Have It? Inclusion has been defined in a variety of ways, most of which feature the idea of belongingness. According to Shore et al. (2011, p. 1265), inclusion is “the degree to which an employee perceives that he or she is an esteemed member of the work

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group through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness.” Taking a more critical approach and linking inclusion to the business case for diversity, Baker and Kelan (2015) characterize inclusion as “a change process focusing on engaging, integrating and valuing individual employees” (p. 81) in order that they might be “harnessed to increase the effectiveness of an organisation’s human capital” (p. 82). In keeping with this notion of organizational effectiveness, common reasons for prioritizing inclusion include positive effects on brand building among potential customers or clients; reducing incidence of discrimination or harassment that might otherwise result in costly litigation; and improving recruitment and retention, particularly among younger workers who are more aware of social diversity issues and more attuned to employers’ equality and diversity credentials (Gibson and Fernandez 2018). Meeting legal obligations with regard to equality legislation and fulfilling corporate social responsibility imperatives are also drivers of inclusion initiatives in organizations, as are expectations of greater employee productivity. Empirical evidence supports the positive impact of inclusion on job-related attitudes and behaviors. For example, Downey et al. (2015) found that organizational diversity practices predict increased employee engagement via the establishment of a trusting climate, and the relationship between diversity practices and trust climate is moderated by employee perceptions of inclusion. Inclusive organizational practices and leader behaviors have been positively associated with perceived organizational performance in public sector employees (Sabharwal 2014) and with increased quality of care among human service employees, via increased innovation and job satisfaction (Brimhall and Mor Barak 2018). In a study of LGBT US federal employees, Sabharwal et al. (2019) found that perceptions of an open and supportive workplace environment were associated with lower levels of intentions to leave the organization. Recent research on the extent to which LGBTQI+ employees experience workplace inclusion shows that while the situation has improved over time, inclusion remains elusive for many. According to the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s (2018) report, nearly half of LGBTQ workers in the United States are closeted at work, while over 70% of both straight and LGBTQ workers report that they are comfortable talking about their partner, spouse, or dating to their colleagues, 36% of straight workers say they would be uncomfortable hearing an LGBTQ co-worker talk about dating, and just under 60% of straight workers think that it is “unprofessional” to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace. In the United Kingdom, research from the LGBT rights charity Stonewall found that more than a third of LGBT workers report having concealed their sexual orientation or gender identity within the past year to avoid discrimination (Bachmann and Gooch 2018). Other findings demonstrated how a significant minority of LGBTQI+ individuals would not feel comfortable reporting homophobic or transphobic bullying in the workplace to their employers and that nearly one third of transgender workers who identify as nonbinary don’t feel able to wear work clothing that represents their gender expression. Looking at corporate signals, only 34% of FTSE250 company websites mention sexual orientation (Stockdale et al. 2018), and only 17% of FTSE100 company websites refer directly to transgender individuals (Beauregard et al. 2018).

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How Can Organizations Improve This Situation for Their LGBTQI+ Employees and Work Toward Inclusion for All? Given the sizeable LGBTQI+ umbrella and the diversity that falls underneath it, organizations have much to consider and manage to ensure that appropriate policies and practices are implemented, are working effectively, and are sustainable. This section discusses the unique challenges that LGBTQI+ individuals face in the workplace. Further, we discuss how organizations can adequately celebrate sexual orientation and gender identities without making LGBTQI+ employees feel tokenized. We also consider that not all LGBTQI+ individuals desire to be “out” at work and that some organizational programs, even though perhaps meant from “good” intentions, have potential to be perceived as invasive.

Challenges Faced by LGBTQI+ Individuals in the Workplace The challenges of LGBTQI+ individuals do not merely arise while employed in an organization and navigating their respective organization’s practices and policies. Due to prejudices related to being LGBTQI+, these individuals often speak to limited employment access and career paths that are often delayed, hindered, or sabotaged. Early career issues can occur with LGBTQI+ youth, as many are not getting the right direction and coaching from career advisors as these advisors may not be adequately equipped nor have knowledge about how to best serve the needs of LGBTQI+ youth (e.g., Goodrich 2012). LGBTQI+ youth also tend to be more attentive to their identity development than their future career prospects (Schmidt and Nilsson 2006; Scott et al. 2011). Career selection is put on hold as cognitive resources required to make these early career decisions are being usurped. This resource depletion is further compounded by anxiety related to anticipated discrimination in the workplace (e.g., Scott et al. 2011). In their meta-analytic synthesis of international studies, Blais et al. (2018) reported that 12.3% of LGBTQI+ applicants, on average, have indicated that they were encouraged not to apply or were removed from the hiring process altogether. Further, indicating association with a trans group or organization dramatically reduces the chances that one receives a callback from an employing organization (Bardales 2013). Although the attributes that would identify one as LGBTQI+ are often invisible or undetectable, discrimination has occurred during job interviews with candidates not receiving job offers due to being their authentic self, e.g., gay male candidate behaving in an effeminate manner or trans candidate not perfectly “passing” as their preferred gender (e.g., Budge et al. 2010). Additionally, for trans applicants, unfortunately, it can be a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario regarding disclosing gender history in a job application. If one does not disclose and is later determined different, the trans individual can be judged by the employer as lying (Budge et al. 2010). Yet, if one does disclose, the employing organization may question the applicant’s credibility, mental health, and professional fitness (MacDonnell and Grigorovich 2012). Hence, trans applicants are likely to be more concerned about how they will be perceived (Waite 2012). These additional

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concerns have negative implications for how confidently trans individuals present themselves and may further induce anxiety and fear (Pepper and Lorah 2008). To be sure, LGBTQI+ applicants’ experiences during the recruitment and selection process are largely dependent on the national and/or local jurisdiction laws of the applicant. LGBTQI+ applicants tend to face greater discrimination in countries considered less liberal (e.g., Greece) than in those considered more liberal (e.g., Belgium; Steffens et al. 2016). Studies also have shown that anticipation of stigma and ultimately discrimination inhibits LGBTQI+ individuals in recognizing and pursuing potential job and career opportunities (e.g., Fassinger 1996). As a result, some LGBTQI+ employees tend to remain employed with longer tenures in organizations where they feel protected from discrimination and/or ghettoize themselves by working in “gay”borhoods and/or in occupations in which they can be their authentic selves with minimal risk of harm or discrimination. Hence, LGBTQI+ employees often sacrifice career promotion and growth opportunities, fit with their qualifications and abilities, and increased wages (Ragins 2004; Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Evidence has shown the consequences that LGBTQI+ individuals can face by not pursuing potential career advancement in order to avoid discrimination: for example, LGBTQI+ individuals have received lower salaries than heterosexual employees (Ng et al. 2012), and trans individuals have accepted lower-skilled and lower-paid job opportunities (Gagné et al. 1997) as a result of anticipated stigma. Due to the prevalence of LGBTQI+ identities being stigmatized both in the media and real life, the anticipation of such events are likely salient and stressful to LGBTQI+ individuals, in turn impacting their confidence, mental health, and performance. Across international samples, 42.4% of LGBTQI+ employees reported being victims of verbal harassment; 38.9% indicated having been asked inappropriate question(s) about their identity, while 25.4%, on average, stated they were the recipient of rumors that questioned their abilities and reputation in the workplace (Blais et al. 2018). Transgender employees may face even greater risk from discrimination and stress because trans people are three times more likely to lose their jobs in comparison with their LGB counterparts (Sears and Mallory 2011). For those who belong to other minority groups in addition to LGBTQI+ categories, their risk of discrimination can dramatically increase, as result of “double jeopardy” or belonging to multiple marginalized groups who may additively or multiplicatively experience harm (Berdahl and Moore 2006). Another challenge of LGBTQI+ employees is that of underrepresentation; specifically, that LGBTQI+ identified individuals are underrepresented in organizational literature and are unlikely to be reflected in middle management or at the top ranks of the organization. Hence, there tends to be no recognition or anyone to look up to as visible representation to junior LGBTQI+ that progression is possible. For example, only 17% of FTSE 100 companies’ websites specifically provide discussion related to trans employees’ issues (Beauregard et al. 2018). Signal and attraction-selectionattrition theories suggest potential trans applicants may not be attracted to organizations who do not speak to the trans community, in turn making it more difficult for organizations to acquire more trans leaders (Schneider 1987; Rynes 1991). Although

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in the minority, there are examples like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation, who are breaking barriers and providing leadership examples required to promote LGBTQI+ advancement. Finally, transitioning to one’s identified gender is a long and difficult process for trans individuals, both physically and mentally (Jones 2013). The mind and body requirements for change to occur can take medical attention, e.g., medical, surgical, and cosmetic procedures and therapies, and these transitioning individuals often experience pain and discomfort due to these operations and procedures. As transitioning takes time, trans employees may appear or present differently depending on their stage of transition. Some choose not to go through the lengthy and often painful process yet may desire some medical or cosmetic change to better fit their identified gender. For example, some may choose to dress in ways that confirm their identity, morph their body so that they present as their identified gender (e.g., binding breasts, tucking genitalia), and/or dress to appear gender neutral or androgynous (see Richards et al. 2016). Even if trans individuals make an effort to “pass” to the public as their sex identity, they may never completely “pass” as it can be difficult to fully change genetics. Trans employees have suggested that this period is extremely stressful and one where they are very vulnerable (e.g., forced to use employer restrooms or to follow dress codes that do not fit their identity), with some reporting experiences of being bullied, harassed, diminished, rejected, and discriminated (Jones 2013; Marvell et al. 2017). During and after the transitioning process, trans employees may be referred to as the wrong pronoun by the cisgender public and workplace colleagues, leaving trans employees feeling disrespected (Bender-Baird 2011; Brewster et al. 2014). Depending on the legal protection provided, trans employees may lose their jobs due to their employer citing reasons related to the trans worker failing to meet the required competences; however, such terminations are usually linked to prejudiced organizational cultures (Budge et al. 2010; Gut et al. 2018). Although trans employees generally feel better about themselves after transitioning, performance evaluations can change particularly for MtF trans employees, as now they begin to experience the inequalities and biases that women have faced for centuries (Schilt and Connell 2007; Yavorsky 2012).

The Risk of Tokenism When organizations actually “walk the talk,” LGBTQI+-related inclusive practices and policies can minimize perceived discrimination by employees, in turn increasing the number of people who choose to disclose their LGBTQI+ identities. Policy related to significant others being welcome to company social events has been found to be the most influential initiative of all policies and practices tested in a quantitative study by Ragins and Cornwell (2001). Yet, when implementing and managing practices and policies, organizations must show to all stakeholders that they have a sincere interest in the advancement and well-being of their minority employees and are making a genuine effort. Organizations must try and do this without embracing

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surface-level symbolism which, while giving the appearance of being inclusive, achieves only superficial outcomes rather than real change. In this way, LGBTQI+ stakeholders and related initiatives are used as tokens to generate public goodwill and manage organizational branding and image. For example, while employers distributing LGBTQI+ “rainbow” lanyards to employees who wish to demonstrate allyship with the LGBTQI+ community can help to amplify and normalize such support, it can also have the unintended consequence of ambiguating the signal value of the lanyard. Some employees who wear “rainbow” lanyards do not embody legitimate allyship behaviors, and it can confuse LGBTQI+ employees in identifying whom to approach in the workplace for support and resources (Calvard et al. 2020). Such initiatives, particularly if token gestures, can falsely promote stakeholder impressions that homophobia and transphobia have been erased from the workplace and foster a false sense of security. Yet, in reality, some LGBTQI+ employees in these contexts may remain fearful due to the presence of stigma and bias (Calvard et al. 2020). If employer efforts make employees feel tokenized, research has suggested that minorities might suffer from negative consequences due to heightened visibility and pressures to perform certain tasks (e.g., King et al. 2010). In implementing their inclusive initiatives, organizations often can treat their LGBTQI+ members as “model minorities,” basing role, task, and other assignments on stereotypes of the group. When these initiatives emerge and require staff to implement them, managers tend to rely on their default response and approach minority employees in their teams to take on these roles. This can be exhausting for employees who may feel overworked with the additional duties and find it challenging to complete their assigned job tasks and maintain work-life balance (Calvard et al. 2020). Consistently assigning minority employees to these diversity and inclusion roles also reduces the opportunity for majority employees to champion and lead inclusive initiatives. Additionally, managers can assign other work and nonwork-related duties (e.g., planning office socials) based on positive stereotypes (e.g., gay men are stylish), yet this misguided approach can lead employees feeling frustrated, improperly utilized, and not genuinely celebrated.

The Question of Disclosure Although disclosure tends to be greater in organizations that have policies that forbid discrimination and encourage inclusivity, identity disclosure is a very personal decision and dependent on the person and their situation (Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Following invisible stigma disclosure (Ragins 2008) and cross-domain identity transition (Ladge et al. 2012) theories, LGBTQI+ employees, who have disclosed their stigmatized identity in both work and nonwork domains, have complete identity integration and may be best suited to take full advantage of their organization’s inclusive initiatives and workplace relationships, which facilitate improved personal and work-related outcomes (e.g., Law et al. 2011). However, these outcomes likely are enhanced when employees, working with their respective

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human resources department and management, can completely control their disclosure narrative (Bender-Baird 2011). Although the decision to disclose is dependent on supportive contexts, individual differences, and perceived disclosure consequences (Ragins 2008), disclosure is not an all-or-none phenomenon for LGBTQI+ employees (Ragins and Cornwell 2001). Ragins and Cornwell (2001) reported that 11.7% did not disclose their sexual orientation identity at work; 61.6% disclosed to some extent, while the remainder indicated complete disclosure. Trans employees’ disclosure rate at work is lower, with evidence from one study suggesting that only 35% disclose their trans identity (Maguen et al. 2007). Even in workplace contexts where diversity is celebrated, some LGBTQI+ employees choose not to disclose. This could stem from LGBTQI+ employees’ individual differences, their desire to maintain a specific workplace image, and/or trying to avoid biased evaluations from others in the workplace (e.g., students finding straight instructors more credible than gay instructors; Russ et al. 2002). Some may decide to create a façade to successfully conceal their LGBTQI+ identity to meet the above objectives; however, this has the potential to elicit personal burnout and other negative outcomes (Newheiser and Barreto 2014; Ragins 2008). Further, some trans individuals have the ability to “pass” in public and thus “go stealth” in their workplace as their affirmed gender, preferring instead to subvert the stigma and challenges that are associated with being openly trans (Budge et al. 2010). Therefore, even if organizations are being genuine and proactive, they must realize that they cannot force their inclusive initiatives on unwilling participants. Employees who do not want to disclose their LGBTQI+ identity and sense that they have no choice with organizational practices and policies may have a negative emotional response, disidentify, and withdraw from work (e.g., Booth et al. 2020; Shantz and Booth 2014). They may not feel understood by the organization because initiatives are not self-verifying and have the potential to jeopardize their desired state of identity (Booth et al. 2020). These employees could perceive such practices as an invasion of privacy, particularly if they are inundated and constantly reminded of the initiatives. Although these practices are intended to be inclusive, LGBTQI+ employees who do not want to lose their control over their disclosure decision may perceive such initiatives as mechanisms to be “outed” (Budge et al. 2010).

Moving Toward Inclusion In spite of these challenges, we have identified three ways organizations can begin better supporting their LGBTQI+ employees. Signals and Systems A meaningful way for organizations to be more inclusive of LGBTQI+ employees is to deploy signals and systems that make it easy for employees to embody their LGBTQI+ identity at work, should they choose to do so (Clair et al. 2005). In the proceeding section, we differentiate signals from systems, defining the former as any stimuli that provides a visual cue that LGBTQI+ identities are welcome in an organizational context and the latter as processes that facilitate the authentic

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inclusion of LGBTQI+ identities with as little emotional labor needed from the individual as possible. In line with Follmer et al. (2019), we propose the simultaneous deployment of signals and systemic processes to be an imperative part of destigmatizing LGBTQI+ identities within the workplace. Signals As stated, there are a number of signals organizations can use to communicate the acceptance of LGBTQI+ employees, beginning with the creation of a job posting through an employee’s departure from the organization. One way to signal inclusion is the utilization of gender-neutral language in recruitment materials. Gender-neutral language speaks to the use of both gendered pronouns and also gender-coded words. It has long been accepted that the language used in job postings has a cascading effect on the types of people who are drawn to an organization and, in turn, the extent to which that organization’s culture is welcoming to others (Bem and Bem 1973; cf., Eagly and Karau 1991; Schmader et al. 2007). Indeed, an experimental study by Gaucher et al. (2011) found that crafting job postings with “masculine-coded” words – such as “competitive,” “headstrong,” “outspoken” – led women to find such postings less appealing. It would behoove organizations to apply these binary-gender learnings to ensure adverts are as accessible as possible to potential employees outside the gender binary as well. One action point for organizations is to ensure job postings utilize gender-neutral descriptors (e.g., the singular “they” or “this person,” rather than “he” or “she”) when describing desirable applicants in job adverts. To further optimize performance in this area, organizations can utilize software to screen potential job postings and flag gendered language, such as Applied and Gender Decoder. Workplace policies can also be used to signal inclusion of nonnormative gender expression. Many corporate dress code policies have, historically, dictated different rules for men and women. In 2010, the Swiss bank UBS notably received much criticism upon its 44-page staff dress code being made public, in which women were instructed how to apply makeup, which perfumes to wear, and even the color of their underwear, while men were told to keep their beards neat and were permitted to wear only a black suit with a red tie (BBC 2011). However, as noted by the Society for Human Resource Management, dress codes are often based on stereotypical gender presentations; it’s not unheard of for women to be strongly encouraged to wear a fullface makeup, while it would be frowned upon for a man to arrive in the same way (Wilkie 2019). Such reductive policies often disproportionately impact LGBTQI+ people, as queer people are more likely to embody nonnormative or gender-fluid gender expression (Sawyer and Thoroughgood 2017). If organizations feel appearance guidelines to be necessary, they should make them applicable to all employees (e.g., ripped jeans are not permissible at work), rather than stratifying guidelines according to gender, as to allow all employees to express themselves authentically. Organizations can also use formal benefit policies to signal their support for nontraditional familial structures, specifically as pertains to partner benefits and care leave. Though same-sex marriage is becoming more commonplace throughout the West, enabling same-sex partners to enjoy the same benefits afforded to

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heterosexual couples (e.g., healthcare, tax breaks, etc.), there remain many places where same-sex relationships are held on unequal footing. As such, organizations should proactively incorporate same-sex partner benefits to whatever extent their operating country laws allow them to do so, including allowances for formal marriages not being possible (e.g., acknowledging common law partnerships). Healthcare benefits should also cover trans-specific healthcare needs, such as hormones or gender-affirming surgeries such as voluntary mastectomies (“top surgery”). In addition to marital/partner benefits, same-sex couples who choose to have children are also liable to face challenges accessing parental leave. A study of same-sex parental leave policies in 34 OECD countries found that same-sex male couples were at the greatest deficit compared to their mixed-sex counterparts, with only 4 countries providing equal leave, as compared to the 19 countries that offer equal leave to same-sex female couples (Wong et al. 2019). Where possible, organizations should supplement these national leave policies such that same-sex employees receive the same leave entitlements as heterosexual employees. Another way organizations can signal acceptance of LGBTQI+ individuals is to encourage all employees to include their pronouns in email signatures. As elaborated by the UK-based LGBT+ advocacy organization Stonewall, requesting that all employees specify their pronouns may help trans/nonbinary/gender nonconforming employees feel less othered in their experience of having to clarify theirs. Having pronouns included in a statutory setting such as an email signature further provides others with a point of reference, reducing the onus on LGBT+ employees to have to continually “come out” with respect to their gender identity. It’s important, however, for organizations to encourage rather than require pronoun sharing, as making it mandatory may make employees feel pressured to “out” themselves before they’re ready or may otherwise contribute to a hostile working experience for some individuals (McDonald 2020). In addition to the aforementioned language-based strategies for signaling inclusion to LGBTQI+ employees, organizations should also consider utilizing visual signals of LGBTQI+ inclusion. Another way this can be achieved is through the acknowledgment of commemorative days significant to the LGBTQI+ community, including Pride Month, National Coming Out Day, and Trans Awareness Week. Acknowledgment can take the form of posters, informational articles on company intranet sites, or written statements. Finally, organizations can encourage employees to personalize their workspaces, where personalization is defined as “the display and arrangement of artifacts and objects according to personal choices and desires” (Elsbach and Pratt 2007: 198). Research by Elsbach (2003, 2004); Gosling et al. (2002); and Wells (2000) have documented that personalizing workspaces facilitates feelings of identity affirmation and distinctiveness, particularly in highly depersonalized environments such as call centers. Wells (2000) further demonstrated that these positive feelings contribute toward lower levels of turnover and higher overall morale. Systems Though signals are a crucial first step to promoting the inclusion of LGBTQI+ identities in the workplace, it’s equally imperative that these signals are met with

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systemic processes within an organization that turn the promise of inclusion into a reality. One systemic change organizations can make to support LGBTQI+ employees is the equipment of all workspaces with gender-neutral bathrooms. The topic of bathroom usage has come under much public scrutiny in recent years, perhaps most famously within the context of North Carolina’s Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, or House Bill 2 (HB2). Passed in 2016, a portion of HB2 required that citizens only use restrooms that aligned with the sex listed on their birth certificate (Lichtblau and Faussett 2016). HB2 and similar laws are problematic not only for transgender individuals but also for cisgender individuals who present in a way that is atypical of their assigned sex. Explicitly identifying certain restrooms as all gender or gender neutral alleviates concerns that one might find themselves in harm’s way for doing gender “incorrectly” and reduces the labor of trans/gender nonconforming employees to seek out safe accommodation. Another systemic change organizations can employ to support their LGBTQI+ employees is to include fields for legal and preferred names, pronouns, and genderneutral honorifics (e.g., Mx., M.) on hiring documents and other intraorganizational forms, such as event bookings or benefit enrollment forms. It is often an onerous task for trans and gender nonconforming individuals to have to consistently out themselves and educate others as to how they would like to be addressed. Further, given that changes are often implemented on an ad hoc basis (e.g., on the email system, but not the payroll system), it can take several rounds of self-advocating before their names, honorifics, and pronouns have been comprehensively updated. As a result, organizations should endeavor to provide spaces for this information to be collected and processed all at once upon hire, to minimize the extra labor required from the employee. Finally, it’s important that organizations develop processes that acknowledge and accommodate employees who transition during the course of their employment. For example, an employee may identify as male at the time of hire and in turn select male honorifics/pronouns on all formal paperwork. However, she may later realize she is a woman. As opposed to waiting for the employee to approach HR and update her identifying information, a systemic approach to transitioning would be to allow employees to access and update their HR systems data at any time. Should this not be technologically feasible, organizations should endeavor to conduct HR system data refreshes at different points throughout the year. Proactively seeking out this information signals to employees that their organization recognizes that identities might evolve over time and also alleviates the stress of an employee having to broach the subject with HR themselves.

Employee Resource Groups The second way organizations can promote the inclusion of their LGBTQI+ employees is through the creation of employee resource groups (ERGs). ERGs have been a feature in organizations since the 1970s, when a group of Xerox employees formed the Black Employee Caucus in response to race riots in upstate

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New York (Briscoe and Safford 2015). Over time, such groups have taken on additional names, such as affinity groups, employee networks, or employee forums. ERGs are defined as “groups of employees in an organisation formed to act as a resource for both members and the organisation” (Kaplan et al. 2009, p. 1). Group membership is voluntary and is generally predicated on a demographic (e.g., gender or race), life stage (e.g., carers, early careers), or function (e.g., support staff, sales teams). ERGs offer numerous benefits to both employees and organizations. One such benefit is the opportunity to develop non-role-related ties at work. Though, as has been noted above, the LGBTQI+ umbrella contains a multitude of experiences, ERGs that are built around a shared experience of “otherness” help to foster a sense of “in the same boat consciousness,” which is a key facet to workplace socialization, driving outcomes such as reduced turnover and increased commitment and positive affect toward the organization (Van Maanen and Schein 1979). Empirical work by Colgan and McKearny (2012) found that LGBTQI+ ERGs enable employees to develop interorganizational networks of support for things like training, locating resources, networking, and sharing challenges. Indeed, ERGs have the added benefit of providing ties outside of one’s team, meaning that these ties are likely to sustain regardless of where an individual moves within an organization, offering more durability than team or role-based ties (Moser and Ashforth 2020). We propose ERGs are linked to activism by way of providing a mechanism to cultivate employee voice. Employee voice is defined as “nonrequired behaviour that emphasizes expression of constructive challenge with an intent to improve rather than merely criticize” (Van Dyne and LePine 1998, p. 109). As mentioned earlier, ERGs are generally predicated on underserved, undervoiced group membership (e.g., racial/ethnic minority, specific functions, etc.); as such, these groups are well-poised to generate conversations around what can be improved in the organization for the benefit of these identities. To this point, an empirical study by Briscoe and Safford (2008) demonstrated how the presence and persistence of LGBTQI+ employee groups increased firms’ susceptibility to adopting same-sex partner benefit policies at Fortune 500 organizations. In discussing the benefits of ERGs, however, we would be remiss not to also mention their susceptibility to overuse, or “scope creep.” While ERGs have great capacity to empower employees, they are often called upon in times of crisis to perform unpaid labor for their organizations (Morris 2020). Indeed, in some ways, their very existence constitutes an act of service from employees. As diversity and inclusion has become an increasingly salient pillar of an organization’s CSR profile, having ERGs that serve various communities has evolved from being a “nice to have” to being an important signal of an organization’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (Welbourne et al. 2017). And yet, despite their importance, ERGs are rarely given sufficient resources from organizations to facilitate their activities. Resource deficiency often manifests itself financially, such that groups aren’t given enough funding to host events or compensate external speakers, but also takes the form of insufficient labor to carry out their activities. Groups are typically run by volunteers who take on the mission of the ERG in addition to a full-time job.

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Despite such positions being considered little more than an extracurricular, group leads and members are often tasked with diversity and inclusion tasks that central organizational teams like HR don’t feel qualified to carry out on their own, such as drafting statements denouncing or supporting current events or creating more inclusive policy language (Tiku 2020). As is the case with any organizational citizenship behavior, such tasks necessitate employees’ withdrawal from other, potentially more lucrative extra-role behaviors, in turn reducing their ability to access rewards such as pay rises or promotions (Bergeron 2007). In order to best equip ERGs to elevate rather than burden employees, organizations should embed groups into the fabric of their organizational structures instead of framing them as an extracurricular. In other words, ERGs need to be legitimized by organizational leadership. One way of conferring legitimacy is to ensure a member of the C-suite is appointed as a champion for a given ERG (Bethea 2020). Ideally, this person should be an out-group member (e.g., not a member of the ERG). Having an out-group member champion, an ERG signals to other out-group members that group-related issues are matters of importance to all members of an organization, rather than solely members of the community. Another way of conferring legitimacy to ERGs is to allow group leaders and committee members to allocate a percentage of their job role time to ERG-related commitments (Bethea 2020). Allowing for this formal allocation of time implies that these activities are considered a central priority of the organization, rather than something to be squeezed in when possible. This delineation should be made in formal documents, such as contracts, but should also be reflected in any timekeeping tools utilized by the organization, such as timesheets. Finally, legitimacy can also be imbued through financial means, such as, for example, offering a financial incentive such as a bonus or an overall salary increase in exchange for labor provided to ERGs (Starling 2020). In sum, ERGs are an effective mechanism for connecting LGBTQI+ employees and providing a mechanism for employee voice. However, for employees to derive the intended benefits from ERGs, they must be allowed to exist solely as groups by and for employees – rather than a body to be called on by leaders to perform work that would otherwise be handled by a paid external consultant.

Collective Engagement Perhaps the most important part of authentically including LGBTQI+ employees at work is to engage in dialogue about what that looks like for the employees at that organization specifically. Though senior leaders may want to demonstrate their support for the community by marching in the local Pride parade, for example, LGBTQI+ employees may not find resonance in doing so. To go against their wishes – even when it’s meant to demonstrate support – can connote a form of exploitation, whereby it is more important to appear supportive than it is to actually engage with one’s employees. Cisgender and heterosexual friends and work colleagues may ask LGBTQI+ individuals to educate them about transphobia/homophobia and enquire “what do

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you think of these phobias” or “what can I do to help?” This is somewhat akin to the experiences of racial minorities in their efforts to eradicate racial inequality and police brutality (Wilson 2020). These majority individuals are not being mindful of the potential for how the marginalized person’s explanation can generate negative emotions (e.g., pain or fear) from conjuring previous and current negative interactions that the marginalized person has witnessed or personally experienced inside and outside of the workplace. Additionally, from hearing these stories from the marginalized, majority individuals may not be prepared for the negative emotions that they may feel, as they may become more aware of their ignorance of the minority experience, may attribute blame to themselves as a potential contributor, and/or may recognize their lack of helping the marginalized (Wilson 2020). It is unfair to expect the marginalized to educate and to determine a way forward for majority individuals “to help” or “make change.” The onus should not be on the marginalized as this can be cognitively and emotionally depleting, causing negative consequences. Responsibility lies within cisgender and heterosexual individuals to educate themselves, as well as determine ways in which they can use their privilege and majority status to dismantle transphobia and homophobia. These points do not mean that organizations should favor the voice of the majority over those of the marginalized employees on how initiatives are run and organized. For programs to be effective and widely utilized, it is imperative that there is genuine buy-in, communication, involvement, and leadership from these marginalized groups. However, the marginalized should not be expected to always do the heavy lifting in designing, enforcing, and informing inclusive initiatives. These activities should be a collaboration, espoused throughout the organization with the majority’s involvement. The access to greater resources which is enjoyed by the majority will assist in sustaining inclusive initiatives and help to bring about the widespread organizational change required.

Conclusion As the preceding sections have shown, LGBTQI+ workers often continue to face barriers to inclusion in the workplace. The conclusion to this chapter focuses on challenges remaining for employers in creating inclusive policies and practices in countries with LGBTQI+-unfriendly legislation and social norms and for transgender employees undergoing gender transition. We come to a close by noting how recent sociopolitical developments in the West have created newly regressive environments in which LGBTQI+ individuals are under increased threat, making employer support more important than ever. An ongoing challenge for multinational organizations is how to reconcile their LGBTQI+-inclusive policies and practices from headquarters with local legal frameworks in host countries that are unsympathetic to LGBTQI+ rights. The delicate balancing act between localizing human resource management (HRM) practices and global standardization becomes especially difficult in legal environments that either make little provision for LGBTQI+ equality or criminalize same-sex relationships

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outright. For example, Luiz and Spencer’s (2019) research found that multinationals experience difficulty in aligning their corporate values and HRM policies regarding support for LGBTQI+ employees with legislative requirements and local institutions in the African nations where they operate. Protecting LGBTQI+ employees from discriminatory selection, promotion, and dismissal practices or from harassment and bullying can be an arduous task when there is no legal basis for these protections or their enforcement. In countries where engaging in same-sex relationships can lead to prosecution, organizations may not be able to maintain safe working conditions for LGBTQI+ employees. Research by Boerties (2012) on LGBTQI+-friendly multinationals sheds light on how these organizations tackle such problems. When there are challenges to policy enforcement due to weak or nonexistent antidiscrimination legislation in host countries, multinationals often implement “soft” measures such as investment in LGBTQI+ inclusion and awareness programs, training, mentoring, and diversity standards for recruitment. The purpose of these is to try to ensure LGBTQI+ equality in daily operations and to gradually affect attitude change among the local workforce. As Trau et al. (2018) argue, while local communities’ legal and socionormative features influence organizations’ LGBTQI+ policies, this process is recursive in that communities’ regulative and socio-normative processes are also influenced in turn by organizations’ approach in relation to the stigmatization of LGBTQI+ individuals within those communities. Winning local hearts and minds over to LGBTQI+ inclusion may therefore be possible via the sustained implementation of culturally sensitive compromises to LGBTQI+ equality by multinational employers. In countries with serious legal impediments to LGBTQI+ equality, however, Boerties finds that multinationals are reluctant to appear as though they are imposing their own values in an imperialistic fashion. In nations such as Nigeria or Saudi Arabia, therefore, multinationals do not seek to negotiate for more favorable workplace conditions for LGBTQI+ employees, perceiving the gap between their own corporate values and the conservative social mores and local legislative conditions to be unbridgeable. In these environments, multinational firms choose not to implement LGBTQI+ equality policies because they cannot be upheld by local legislation. This raises issues for LGBTQI+ expatriate employees. As McPhail (2017) notes, a greater proportion of LGBTQI+ employees are likely to be found in senior management positions relative to their straight and cisgender counterparts, and thus they represent a significant number of the top talent eligible for international assignments. However, assignments in particular countries would represent a risk to LGBTQI+ individuals’ health and safety, and employers must therefore grapple with how to protect their workers. Some multinationals may choose to offer alternative country assignments or provide extensive preparation for LGBTQI+ expatriates along with emergency support measures as required including extraction, legal assistance, or confidential advice; others, such as Accenture and IBM, have made available virtual international assignments in which the LGBTQI+ employee resides in their own country of choice and exposure to local legal conditions that may endanger their safety is therefore minimized (Boerties 2012).

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Another challenge remaining for organizations is the question of how best to support transgender employees who may be transitioning in the workplace from the expression of one gender identity to another. This process is widely acknowledged as having the potential to be highly stressful for transgender employees for a variety of reasons. Interventions such as hormone therapy, surgery, and cosmetic procedures like laser hair removal can produce anything from physical discomfort to potentially serious health complications (Beauregard et al. 2020). During and post-transition, transgender individuals adjust gendered speech, nonverbal communication, and behavior patterns, causing others in the workplace to see them differently and change their own behavior toward them (Schilt and Connell 2007). During this period, transgender employees are particularly vulnerable to workplace harassment and bullying and, in turn, anxiety and depression (Marvell et al. 2017; Sawyer and Thoroughgood 2017). Workplace inclusion can therefore be seen as vitally important for transitioning employees. Many transgender employees have reported higher levels of job satisfaction after transitioning and described feeling more comfortable at work in their new gender identity presentation (Drydakis 2016). However, there is considerable evidence to suggest that many transgender employees lose their jobs post-transition and that while dismissal is construed as being performance-related, employer discomfort and prejudice are likely to underlie these decisions (Gut et al. 2018). While human resources should be the first point of contact for transgender employees to obtain support for their transition journey, research suggests that organizations are often ill-equipped to respond to these workers’ needs for inclusion, lacking knowledge and training on the issues they face at work (Beauregard et al. 2020). Indeed, as the political environment continues to be volatile throughout the Western world, employer support for LGBTQI+ inclusion becomes increasingly crucial. Resurgent populism among right-wing governments has raised concerns for hardwon LGBTQI+ rights. Despite having decriminalized same-sex relationships in 1932, decades before most European nations, nearly one third of towns and regions in Poland have passed (nonbinding) resolutions that declare them free of “LGBT ideology” (Ash 2020). While campaigning for reelection, President Andrzej Duda referred to the promotion of rights for the LGBTQI+ community as “even more destructive” than communism; the archbishop of Krakow, influential in a predominantly Catholic nation, has spoken in warning tones about a neo-Marxist “rainbow plague” (Ash 2020). Such prominent antipathy toward LGBTQI+ equality clearly has negative implications for the inclusion of LGBTQI+ individuals in Polish organizations, normalizing prejudice and denigrating those who advocate for this community. Author J. K. Rowling has further continued to use social media to express her view that transgender women are not women and should not be allowed access to womenonly spaces such as changing rooms and bathrooms (Lampen 2020). Facing criticism from many for this trans-exclusive perspective, Rowling published a 3,690-word blog post contending that although she broadly supports transgender individuals, transgender women remain, biologically, men and thus pose a threat of sexual violence to cisgender women upon whom they might prey if permitted entry to “safe spaces” for women. The media attention garnered by this series of events has, according to

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transgender women participating in a mental health conference panel session chaired by one of the authors of this chapter (personal communication, October 12, 2020), increased their direct experience of verbal harassment and abuse by strangers in public and online. Emboldened by Rowling’s initial statements and continued arguments, US Senator James Lankford quoted her blog post while blocking senate consideration of the Equality Act, a bill that would have entitled LGBTQI+ individuals to civil rights protections in the United States (Fitzsimons 2020). In this type of sociopolitical climate, employer promotion of LGBTQI+ inclusion is critical. When public attitudes shift to intolerance and in some cases outright homophobia or transphobia, the workplace may be one of the few (or only) bastions of support that LGBTQI+ employees experience. Modelling an environment where diversity in sexuality and gender identity expression is not simply tolerated but respected and valued shows LGBTQI+ employees and their co-workers a viable way forward in what seem like increasingly troubled times. Efforts toward organizational inclusion for LGBTQI+ employees thus go beyond improving workplace relationships and productivity; it can establish hope for a better future.

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Performance Management and Wellbeing at the Workplace

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Monica Franco-Santos, Dan Stull, and Mike Bourne

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Do We Mean by “Performance Management Systems” and “Wellbeing”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different Types of Performance Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Directive Performance Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enabling Performance Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Management and Wellbeing Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fostering Employee Wellbeing: A Guiding Framework for Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of Organizational Goals in Performance Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Goals and Performance Management Systems Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance Management Systems for Wellbeing and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Performance management systems can be a source of stress and anxiety, and yet they can also provide clarity and focus, which are both factors that have positive effects on wellbeing at work. Employee wellbeing is essential as it has been shown to enhance organizational performance and employees’ quality of life. These paradoxical results represent a challenge for organizations when designing performance management systems. In this chapter, we examine current research on the relationship between performance management practices and employee wellbeing and formulate a conceptual framework elucidating the conditions under which different wellbeing results are likely to occur. The purpose of our work is to help organizations design performance management mechanisms that M. Franco-Santos (*) · D. Stull · M. Bourne Cranfield School of Management, Bedford, UK e-mail: monica.franco@cranfield.ac.uk; Daniel.Stull@cranfield.ac.uk; m.bourne@cranfield.ac.uk © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_42

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account for and foster employees’ wellbeing as well as raise awareness regarding the situations that can deteriorate it. We conclude by highlighting the importance of managerial philosophies and organizational goals definitions, recommending the adoption of a enabling or a hybrid set of performance management mechanisms to better accommodate the complex nature of wellbeing and other organizational goals.

Keywords

Performance management systems · Performance measurement · Governance · Wellbeing · Management control

Introduction How organizations manage their performance has profound effects on the wellbeing of their employees (Salas-Vallina et al. 2020). Some organizations adopt performance management practices that improve people’s performance without posing a threat to their wellbeing. Others manage performance in a way that may enhance performance, but they do so by neglecting or weakening people’s emotional and physical wellbeing (Franco-Santos and Doherty 2017). The management literature often refers to the former positive relationship between performance management and wellbeing as a win-win or mutual gain relationship, while describing the latter as a win-lose relationship (Peccei and Van der Voorde 2019). In general, the detrimental effect of managerial practices on wellbeing has received little attention in organizations (Tweedie et al. 2019). This is likely to be due to factors such as a pressing shareholder value agenda, prioritizing the financial interests of shareholders over those of other stakeholders and organizations being more interested in knowing what people do than how they feel (Guest 2017). From a moral, ethical, and financial perspective, this lack of attention is no longer tenable (Tweedie et al. 2019). Especially, when empirical evidence in economics shows that wellbeing influences long-term productivity (Oswald et al. 2015), and macro sociology research suggests that wellbeing interacts with the social structure of the communities in which organizations operate (Ouchi and Johnson 1978). This chapter offers a review of the extant literature investigating the links between performance management systems and wellbeing. We aim to extract key insights and present a framework that can guide organizations in their design of performance management systems that promote mutual gains. The chapter is structured as follows: We first describe what we mean by performance management systems and employee wellbeing. We then explain what different types of performance management systems look like, paying special attention to their underlying rationale, assumptions, and core components. Next, we review the academic research examining how (and why) different performance management systems influence

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employee wellbeing. We conclude by discussing how organizations can design performance management systems that foster healthy workplaces.

What Do We Mean by “Performance Management Systems” and “Wellbeing”? Performance Management Systems We define performance management systems as the network of control mechanisms present in an organization to facilitate the delivery of its goals by influencing or guiding people’s behavior (Ouchi and Johnson 1978; Flamholtz et al. 1985; Ferreira and Otley 2009). We view organizations as a coalition of individuals (often referred to as stakeholders) who pursue a set of intended goals or objectives (Cyert and March 1963). The degree of performance (or success) an organization achieves is understood in terms of how well its intended goals are agreed, shared, and delivered. In the attainment of organizational goals, control mechanisms play a crucial role (Cardinal et al. 2017). The term “control mechanisms” is here used in a broad sense to include the processes or practices that increase the probability of people (individuals and groups) behaving in ways that facilitate the delivery of organizational goals. In other words, that help an organization to perform as expected (satisfying the needs and wants of its stakeholders). For instance, control mechanisms help key stakeholders arrive at a consensus about the set of goals that need to be prioritized; they facilitate a shared understanding of those goals; and they translate goals into measures to assist in their delivery. An organization-wide performance management system is a complex system, comprising various interrelated sub-systems of controls (Merchant and Otley 2020). These systems may differ in terms of their specific form and usage across the various parts and hierarchical levels of an organization. These complex systems can have features that are rationally and centrally designed, but they are also subject to emergent processes that make them be in continuous evolution. To be effective, previous research has found that the overall design philosophy of a performance management system needs to fit the nature of the goals the organization pursues and the wider context in which the organization operates (Otley 2016). To foster employee wellbeing, it is also important that the system meets the behavioral and identity needs of the people whose skills, knowledge, and motivations are more likely to help deliver organizational goals (Franco-Santos et al. 2017).

Wellbeing The meaning of wellbeing is highly contested. Some argue that it is an “elastic concept” because it means different things to different people (Danna and Griffin 1999). The concept involves “being” and “well,” which means, colloquially speaking, “feeling good.” In general, most scholars agree that wellbeing refers to people’s

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feelings about their everyday life (Warr 1978). In research terms, a common view is emerging suggesting that wellbeing comprises three separate but related components: cognitive evaluations about one’s life (e.g., satisfaction with life), positive affective states (e.g., happiness), and negative affective states (e.g., stress) (Diener et al. 2018). In particular, management research focuses on work-related wellbeing, understood as “the overall quality of an employee’s experience and functioning at work” (Grant et al. 2007, p. 52). Due to the multidimensional nature of wellbeing, its operationalization is not always consistent across studies; although, most researchers concur with the notion that employee wellbeing can only be subjectively assessed and involves the presence of positive emotions about life at work (e.g., happiness, meaning, satisfaction, good relationships) as well as the absence of negative ones (e.g., depression, stress, burnout, or anxiety). Management practices influence how people feel at work (Guest 2017). Notably, performance management systems play a crucial role in people’s working life. Although, the wellbeing effects of these systems are highly dependent on the type of performance management system adopted; that is, their specific design features and how these features are used or enacted (Franco-Santos and Doherty 2017).

Different Types of Performance Management Systems Performance management systems have a cybernetic or “steermanship” nature (Flamholtz et al. 1985), which implies that they are purpose-driven and developed by people and for people to use. They are “tools” designed with a purpose in mind, which may or may not be used as designers expect. For example, in a hospital, a “waiting time measure” may have been designed to better understand the healthcare delivery process and learn how to improve it. Yet, over time, the measure starts to be used by some managers as a performance indicator with which to “hammer” staff for not meeting their, all of a sudden, “accountable” results. As explained earlier, the overall purpose of a performance management system is to facilitate the delivery of organizational goals. The delivery of organizational goals can be considered a problem. Leaders at all levels need to deal with this problem. The way the problem is framed is determined by the assumptions and rationale the people dealing with the problem have. These assumptions and ideas are not only crucial in the process of framing the problem. They are also essential in the process of creating a potential solution to the problem. How leaders frame their performance problem has consequences for the mechanisms they select to address such problem. A performance management system comprises the control mechanisms designed and used in organizations to address the performance problem leaders believe their organization has. If we understand organizations as a coalition of individuals, and individuals are characterized by the diverse assumptions and ideologies they hold; then, we are likely to find different framings of the performance problem leaders face as well as different types of performance management systems. For ease of understanding, we focus our attention on describing ideal types of these systems. This approach helps us illustrate that the two poles designers may adopt. As Ouchi and

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Johnson (1978) suggest, an ideal-type approach is a useful tool for explaining complex phenomena, in which the whole is more than its parts. We describe these systems adapting a well-known framework specified by Flamholtz et al. (1985), building on a broad and diverse social science literature. Flamholtz et al.’s (1985) original work simplifies the complexity associated with performance management systems by concentrating on “core controls” (i.e., those that are formally designed to increase the probability of people behaving in ways that facilitate the delivery of goals). Their framework acknowledges that these core controls are embedded in a wider “control context” shaped by the organizational structure, culture and its external environment, which indirectly influence individual and group behavior. To this framework, we add that the control context is also a product of the history of the organization. This control context not only influences individuals and groups. It also affects the design, evolution, and usage of control mechanisms and their relationships (Otley and Franco-Santos 2020). Flamholtz et al. (1985) highlight that the core control mechanisms are those developed to “plan” for performance, “measure” performance, “review” performance, and “reward” performance. Subsequent research identified a set of additional control mechanisms, which are “selection” and “leadership” (Abernethy et al. 2010, 2015). These controls can take various forms. We categorize them under the labels of directive and enabling performance management systems (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). In the overall design, core controls follow a sequence which is often time-bound. Both types of controls can operate at the organization, group, and individual level.

Directive Performance Management Systems As suggested earlier, performance management systems exist to address the performance problem an organization faces. In some organizations, the performance problem is framed as an “alignment” problem (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). The dominant logic or rationale in these organizations suggests that performance is more likely when individual and organizational goals are aligned. Alignment, however, is problematic because people tend to behave opportunistically, prioritizing their interests at the expense of organizational goals. This way of framing the performance problem is known to be underpinned by an instrumental rationality largely informed by economics knowledge and, in particular, the assumptions and predictions of principal-agency research (Davis et al. 1997). First, this framing assumes that shareholders (or owners) are the organization’s dominant coalition. They delegate the running of the organization to managers or “agents” who act on their behalf. Thus, shareholders’ financial goals must be prioritized, ensuring there is little uncertainty about the expected results and the means to achieve them. Another assumption is that information is asymmetric (i.e., performance knowledge is imperfect, but managers have more and better information than shareholders). Further, it presupposes that managers are risk-averse, effort-averse and motivated by selfinterest.

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These assumed conditions create the basis for the goal-misalignment problem. This problem is thought to be resolved with the use of directive controls; in particular, monitoring and incentives (Eisenhardt 1989). Without controls, the thinking goes, shareholders’ goals will suffer because employees will make decisions and work on tasks that advance their agendas, disregarding shareholder’s needs. With monitoring practices, shareholders can obtain additional information to be able to assess the extent to which managers are making decisions and taking actions that benefit the organization from the perspective of its shareholders/owners. With monetary incentives, shareholders can attract and retain the individuals that are more likely to help them achieve their goals as well as motivate them to focus their attention on the behaviors that are more likely to lead to the expected financial results. Both mechanisms tend to bring with them additional secondary or indirect effects. Among other things, they may constraint autonomy, promote internal competition, condition learning, and discourage innovative behaviors (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). Yet, these potential side-effects are considered by many as necessary evils. Deeds that may be harmful but less important than the positive effects these mechanisms create for the organization as a whole. In practice, the organizations focused on goal-alignment tend to describe their monitoring and incentive practices as the core elements of their performance management system. Monitoring is formally implemented through the use of three key managerial practices: performance planning, measurement, and reviews. Performance planning comprises the decisions and actions for selecting and agreeing on the definition of the goal or goals that need delivery (e.g., profit-maximization). Performance measurement involves the operationalization of goals, the selection of metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that help shareholders and leaders understand the extent to which goals are being achieved, and the setting of performance targets signalling the level of achievement expected. Performance reviews include the analysis and evaluation of goal-related information at the individual, team, and organizational level. Indirectly, monitoring can also be exercised through leaders who follow an “initiating structure” or “command-and-control” approach characterized by a central focus on structuring the work environment by implementing uniform procedures and clear roles and responsibilities with limited employee participation (Abernethy et al. 2010). Organizations often implement incentives by using bonuses and other performance-related rewards (e.g., commissions, shares-schemes) linked to the complete or partial attainment of goals as a way to extrinsically motivate alignment. Apart from their motivation effect, these incentives also have a sorting effect. They activate and attract people who have a preference for them. Previous research has highlighted that to be effective in the delivery of organizational goals, control mechanisms need to be tightly coupled. In other words, they are linked and dependent upon each other. For instance, bonus schemes to work well require to be connected to relevant goals, valid metrics, reasonable targets, and objective performance appraisals (Otley 2016). In Table 1, we explain in greater detail what these directive performance management system looks like. In current times, this is the

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Table 1 Classification of performance management systems

Control problem Management philosophy Assumptions

Directive performance management system • Alignment • Transactional (Control/ monitoring oriented) Agency-theory assumptions: • Organizational goals defined by shareholders (owners): wealthmaximization • Employees’ behaviors (selfinterest, extrinsically motivated) • Information asymmetry • Uncertainty is not perceived as a problem

Control mechanisms Plan for • Success (performance) is performance defined using specific organizational, team, and individual goals • These goals tend to be financial and have a short-term orientation

• Senior leaders set organizational goals, and these are then cascaded them down to the individual level

• Specific strategies and projects are devised to reach the set goals

Measuring performance (Knowledge)

• Metrics are created and quantitative data is gathered and analyzed to help monitor the delivery of organizational, team, and individual goals • Targets are used to distinguish “good” from “poor” performance at all levels

Enabling performance management system • Uncertainty • Relational (Learning/ involvement oriented) Stewardship theory assumptions about: • Organizational goals defined by multiple stakeholders: wealth and non-wealth-related satisfaction • Employees’ behavior (pro-organizational, intrinsically motivated) • Information is imperfect • Employees’ self-interest is not perceived as a problem • Success is signalled by the delivery of a mission

The organization has a purpose (or a cause) • The mission may comprise vague end goals with a long-term orientation • The mission aims to capture the main needs and wants of key stakeholders. Through continuous communication, it is embedded/ internalized throughout the organization • Priorities are discussed and agreed among the different stakeholders (including employees) through active discussions and dialogues • Strategies and projects may be ill-defined and long-term in nature • Where applicable metrics are developed, agreed with relevant stakeholders, and used to guide action. Together with quantitative data qualitative data is also gathered and analyzed • The role of performance-related data is to encourage understanding, learning, and improvement (continued)

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Table 1 (continued) Directive performance management system

Reviewing performance

Rewarding performance

• Measured performance is periodically reviewed and evaluated against targeted performance (at least once a year) to better understand the extent to which goals have been achieved • Performance appraisals are used to assess individual measured performance and provide feedback

• The main focus is on extrinsic rewards linked to measured performance results (e.g., part of the overall pay is at risk using incentive schemes)

Employing for performance (selection and probation)

• Selection is mainly based on past achievements

Coordinating/ leading performance

• ”Command and control” leadership approach • Leaders pay close attention to the results of performance measures and operate accordingly

• Employees’ probation period is often short and based on measurable performance criteria

• Typical leaders’ beliefs: “you can’t manage what you can’t measure,” “pay is the best motivator for people to perform”

Enabling performance management system • Aspirational targets may be adopted but they are only used as guidance for learning • Performance-related data is reviewed (mostly at the group level as the work of individuals is highly interrelated)

• Individuals exercise selfmanagement of their performance • Individuals’ work and situation are reviewed by knowledgeable individuals for developmental and learning purposes • Extrinsic rewards (salary) meet basic needs

• Intrinsic rewards are fostered (sense of autonomy, sense of community, sense of development, sense of meaningfulness) • Recruitment is mainly based on individual potential, attitudes, and motivation • Probation is based on internal and external peer-reviews of the individual contributions and potential to contribute further • Tight control of who joins the organization and on who stays after the probation period • Shared leadership • Leaders pay attention to what is meaningful for the organization and for staff (even if what is meaningful cannot be measured) • Typical leaders’ beliefs: “What counts cannot always be counted,” “money motivates, but excellent performance needs an intrinsic drive” (continued)

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Table 1 (continued)

What are top managers focused on?

Directive performance management system • On monitoring performance • On incentivizing performance

Enabling performance management system • On learning and performance improvement • On providing an enabling context for aligned individuals to conserve their motivation

type of performance management system most organizations adopt and endorse; however, not all organizations do so. Some adopt enabling control mechanisms informed by a different way of defining their performance problem.

Enabling Performance Management Systems Given their history, logic, or circumstances, some organizations (their leaders and key stakeholders) may frame their performance problem differently. Rather than perceiving the problem in terms of goal-misalignment, they may frame it as a problem that emerges due to the perceived uncertainty and changing environment, limiting the extent to which people’s actions will be effective (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). Underpinned by an involvement rationality, this problem framing operates with a different set of assumptions (Davis et al. 1997). For instance, the dominant coalition is thought to be comprised by multiple stakeholders (e.g., owners, customers, employees, regulators, society, environment) with a multiplicity of interests some of which are complex (e.g., wellbeing or environmental sustainability) and conflicting. People’s decisions and behaviors are presupposed to be genuinely aligned to the interest of the organization; that is, people tend to behave as “stewards” who are internally motivated to satisfy the various needs of stakeholders. Managers are also thought to operate in a complex environment characterized by continuous change and imperfect information. Under these conditions, organizations face an uncertainty problem that will affect their performance. The complex nature of their goals and the environment they operate in create a situation in which the consequences of managerial action may be unknown, and the connections between actions and results may be inexact. Consequently, the delivery of organizational goals may be constrained. From this perspective, stewardship researchers (Davis et al. 1997) identify and suggest the adoption of empowering or enabling control mechanisms to help organizations navigate complexity and manage their performance. Enabling controls are focused on encouraging managers to learn how to deal and cope with uncertainty and on conserving their motivation to act in a pro-organizational manner. Given the uncertain situation managers are thought to be in, the use of monitoring or financial incentives is considered to be pointless as the multiplicity and complex nature of organizational goals are technically not suited to

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this type of controls. Organizations following this performance framing are likely to define their intended goals in broad terms and identified them through consultations with key stakeholders (Davis et al. 1997). They gather data about the extent to which they are advancing their stakeholders’ goals through quantitative (e.g., metrics without performance targets), but also qualitative means (e.g., informal conversations). They review their performance-related information to encourage learning and development rather than monitoring; and use intrinsic reward mechanisms that encourage self-efficacy and self-determination (sense of autonomy, sense of meaningfulness, sense of development, and sense of community). They select individuals based on values, attitudes, and potential, using longer probation periods and fostering a shared leadership approach. Table 1 summarizes what this enabling system looks like in practice. To improve the clarity and comprehension of these complex systems, we have described the two ideal types of performance management systems as independent. Meaning that the choice of directive controls implies that enabling controls are not considered. However, in their intended designs, organizations may emphasize one of these ideal types, for example, a directive type, while adopting in specific circumstances control practices more suited to an enabling system. Alternatively, formally designed mechanisms may be enacted in ways that do not follow their intended purpose. For example, a directive system comprising clear output measures and targets designed with a corporate intention to be used as monitoring devices may be overlooked or completely ignored at the local level by managers who question their utility and instead chose enabling mechanisms to ensure their unit performs. These situations are more likely to be the norm than the exception due to the dynamic and path-dependence nature of these systems (Merchant and Otley 2020). After describing these two ideal types of performance management systems, we now provide a brief review of the role they play in enhancing or weakening employee wellbeing. Our intention here is to illustrate key insights from extant research rather than to provide a comprehensive literature review.

Performance Management and Wellbeing Research Ouchi and Johnson (1978) were among the first scholars to investigate the relationship between the use of control mechanisms and employees’ wellbeing in American corporations. In their work, they identified two ideal types of organizational control systems. Those used in “type A” and “type Z” organizations. Although their research was conducted more than 40 years ago, their control types resemble the fundamental characteristics of the different performance management systems described above as directive and enabling. They find two very distinct management philosophies or rationalities in “type A” and “type Z” companies. They labelled them as controloriented and learning or involvement-oriented, respectively. Ouchi and Johnson’s (1978) interpretation of management philosophies resonates with the management rationalities described by Davis et al. (1997) as the ones underpinning agency theory

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and stewardship theory premises and predictions. Ouchi and Johnson (1978) argued that insofar as controls satisfy the relational needs of employees, they affect their emotional wellbeing. In their research, they found greater sense of autonomy among the employees working for “type A” organizations and greater emotional wellbeing among employees in “type Z” organizations. After the publication of Ouchi and Johnson’s (1978) research, the management literature seemed to primarily focus on investigating how specific control mechanisms or sub-systems, rather than the overall system, affected wellbeing. Within management research, Human Resource Management (HRM) scholars have been the most active at investigating how control mechanisms such as performance appraisals relate to employee wellbeing. Within the HRM field, two distinct streams of literature examine these phenomena: Mainstream HRM and Critical HRM (Tweedie et al. 2019). Mainstream HRM research tends to adopt an instrumental logic with a focus on employee performance and wellbeing to the extent that they are considered to mediate the relationship between performance appraisals and organizational financial results. Over the years, this research has found that employees’ work experiences associated with appraisal processes are affected by factors such as perceptions of justice, leader’s support, or the provision of feedback with a development orientation (e.g., Schleicher et al. 2018). Recommendations for addressing these factors have been put forward as means to enhance individual performance (believed to be aggregable into firm performance), rather than a genuine interest in employee wellbeing (Tweedie et al. 2019). Critical HRM (CHRM) incorporates research adopting a critical stand and directly focuses on wellbeing as an “end-goal” that must be pursued in its own right. CHRM research emphasizes that it does not endorse a managerial philosophy that assumes people are opportunistic and performance management is instrumental for both strategic alignment and financial success. When describing CHRM research, Tweedie et al. (2019) include the work of labor process theorists, Foucauldian debates and “conflicting rationalities” studies. They argue that labor process theorists understand performance appraisals as a “control mechanism that enables managers to maintain domination over workers” (Tweedie et al. 2019, p. 81). From this perspective, control mechanisms are seen as a disciplinary device that limits employee autonomy and acts as a subtle ideological instrument, promoting efficiency, competition, surveillance, and materialistic values (Barlow 1989; Newton and Findlay 1996). Foucauldian-based performance management debates emphasize managers’ power over employees and questions the extent to which performance management can ever act as “an aid to subjective wellbeing” (Townley 1993, p. 235). A third strand of CHRM research, they contend, draws from sociology and philosophy research and finds that performance management tools, when used as surveillance or monitoring mechanisms, can be harmful (Townley et al. 2003). Overall, Tweedie et al. (2019) contribute to the Mainstream HRM-CHRM research by building on recognition theory research and encouraging new work that looks into how performance management may negatively affect wellbeing by influencing individual identities and relations with self and others.

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Following Ouchi and Johnson (1978) holistic approach, recent research has gone back to analyze how different types of performance management systems influence wellbeing, considering multiple sub-systems and not only appraisals. For instance, research conducted in UK universities found that most universities adopted hybrid performance management systems that included directive and enabling (or collegial) control mechanisms (Franco-Santos and Doherty 2017; Franco-Santos et al. 2017). In general, enabling controls were positively related to the wellbeing of all university staff regardless of their role and job position. The presence of directive controls was positively related to the wellbeing of leaders (regardless of their academic or non-academic role) and non-leaders in professional service roles. Yet, directive controls negatively affected staff in academic roles both in terms of their vitality and stress (Franco-Santos et al. 2017). Decramer et al. (2015) investigated the impact of performance management systems on nurses working in a Flemish hospital. They found that the planning and evaluation of strategy- aligned goals yield higher affective commitment, but lower job satisfaction. The authors speculated suggesting that these findings could have been due to the fact that the use of performance management systems enhanced perceptions of workload imbalance and intensification with damaging effects for nurses’ wellbeing. The work of Van Thielen et al. (2018) examined the role of performance management systems in fostering the wellbeing of police officers in Belgium. Their data demonstrated that the combination of performance planning (clarity of expectations without targets) and performance evaluation (discussions about progress and results) was positively related to performance management satisfaction, which in turn was negatively related to strain and positively to job satisfaction. In their research, Van Thielen et al. (2018) and Decramer et al. (2015) do not explicitly distinguish between directive and enabling performance management systems. They describe what could be considered a directive system oriented to make the police service or hospitals more efficient and effective. However, in the empirical part of their studies, the way they measure performance management system characteristics seems to integrate both directive and enabling elements (e.g., lack of targets, and focus on performance-related discussions without any mentioning of potential monetary or disciplinary consequences). This may suggest the systems studied could have been directive in their original design, but the researchers paid attention to the potential enabling aspects in which these systems were used, researching, without intending to, what we here consider “hybrid” systems. This interpretation may explain their various findings. In sum, the evidence reviewed suggests that the effect performance management has on wellbeing is dependent on the type of performance management system designed, the way it is used, the nature of job roles, and job positions. Control mechanisms that are perceived to threaten autonomy, collaboration and professional knowledge seem to emotionally affect some individuals (not all). People in highly vocational professions (e.g., teaching, research, nursing, policing), who could be considered “stewards,” seem to be more seriously and negatively affected by this type of control mechanisms. This may be so because directive mechanisms are perceived as a threat and affect their sense of identity. Controls that are perceived

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to be enabling, supportive and humane as well as useful in the provision of clarity of direction and learning seem to enhance employee wellbeing in general. Building on these evidence-based insights, we now describe a conceptual framework. This framework is meant to be a “thinking tool” to guide managerial decisions about the design of performance management systems that aims to foster rather than hinder wellbeing. Our point of departure is anchored on two basic premises: First, we argue that employee wellbeing is a key requirement for any organization that must be satisfied because it is morally and ethically desirable. Second, we argue that it is important organizations take into account the elements included in the ideal types of performance management systems, but according to the nature of their goals and idiosyncrasies they attempt to craft a hybrid system. In that sense, we reject the idea that “one-size fits all” when dealing with performance management systems due to their complexity and the dynamism of factors beyond the organization (e.g., economic, social, and political circumstances) (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018; Merchant and Otley 2020).

Fostering Employee Wellbeing: A Guiding Framework for Managers Any organization that wishes to be considered ethically and morally sound should aspire to be a healthy workplace (World Health Organization 2020). Healthy workplaces are those providing a context in which employees feel they are doing meaningful work; they are learning and advancing in their careers; they have a certain amount of autonomy; they know what is expected from them; and they are supported by leaders and colleagues (Kelloway and Day 2005; Day et al. 2014). Management research has shown people-related practices associated with the delivery of organizational goals have a significant effect on such context, so how leaders design and use these practices directly affects how people experience their life at work (Van De Voorde et al. 2012; Peccei and Van der Voorde 2019). In the past, organizations have paid little attention to employee wellbeing as an expected “end” objective; even though, it should be considered a moral duty to do so (Guest 2017; Tweedie et al. 2019). Based on previous knowledge looking at performance management, we now offer a framework that can help organizations engender mutual gains, systems that aim to facilitate wellbeing and performance. To do so, we first need to explain in greater detail the nature of organizational goals and people’s motivational characteristics play in deciding what type of performance management system (directive, enabling, or hybrid) is going to be more appropriate in terms of delivering both wellbeing and performance.

The Role of Organizational Goals in Performance Management Systems As clarified earlier, the overall purpose of performance management systems is to facilitate the agreement and shared understanding of organizational goals. Goals or

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objectives depict intentions (Latham and Locke 1990). Typically, organizational leaders and their stakeholders agree to focus on a reduced list of goals, which are used to clarify direction, focus attention and guide individual and group efforts (Cyert and March 1963; Obloj and Sengul 2020). Organizational goals differ in terms of their scope, measurability, aggregability, replicability, and temporality. Goal scope or dimensionality refers to how performance is defined. Organizational goals can be defined in terms of a unique performance dimension (e.g., financial) or diverse dimensions (e.g., financial and non-financial). A focus on a unique performance dimension tends to assume that success is determined by the interests of a single stakeholder that is shareholders (this is why this dimension tends to be financial), and that maximization is the overall aim as “it is logically impossible to maximize in more than one dimension at the same time” (Jensen 2002, p. 238). For example, an organization solely focusing on shareholder’s financial returns may focus on maximizing that “end” considering other stakeholders’ interests (e.g., employee engagement, customer satisfaction) as “means” that can be traded-off as substitutable parts, rather than the necessary parts of a whole. Defining performance in terms of diverse dimensions all of which are equally valuable and necessary (e.g., cost-efficiency, quality of service, and wellbeing) implies that the means-end logic may be unhelpful as the ends cannot be treated as if they were exchangeable. In that case, a part-whole logic focused on understanding interconnections to be able to balance or harmonize the attention and actions needed for delivering the different dimensions appear more appropriate (Rocha and Ghoshal 2006). Goal measurability refers to the extent to which goals can be measured with valid and reliable indicators. Some goals can be easily measured (e.g., profit), others will always have imperfect measures (e.g., innovation, customer service). For example, a health care provider may be focused on delivering excellence in quality of care and measures this particular goal with key indicators such as waiting times and patient satisfaction. These two indicators capture some aspects of the quality goal, but many other aspects related to quality itself are left unmeasured leading to an imperfect measure of the quality of care goal. Measurement imperfection can be due to various factors such as the multidimensionality or the dynamic nature of the goal (Meyer and Gupta 1994; Dahler-Larsen 2014). Goal aggregability relates to the extent to which goals have a multilevel nature that enables them to be cascaded down within the organization. Goal aggregability is commonly taken for granted. This is why most organizations do not even question whether an organizational goal can be cascaded down to the division, department, team, and individual level. The assumption is that if a goal can be measured, it can also be cascaded. However, some goals can only be delivered at higher-order levels as their delivery emerges from the interactions of units or individuals at lower levels. That is, some goals reflect a “whole” that is more than the sum of its parts. For instance, excellent customer experience in an organization may be the result of multiple interdependent factors that occur beyond a particular department or team so it may be that assessing this goal at each level of the organization does not make much sense due to its costing, wasted effort, and potential unintended consequences (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018).

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Goals replicability refers to how much knowledge does the organization possess about the process that leads to the goal being delivered so it can be predicted, and its attainment replicated overtime. In other words, this characteristic relates to the level of uncertainty between potential paths and their desired outcomes. It could be that multiple independent paths lead to an expected goal. If these paths have similar known chances of success, then leaders can identify the most effective path and ensure that this path can be replicated regardless of time and context. For instance, many organizations believe that profit maximization is likely to be delivered through engaged employees, who enable operational excellence that leads to customer satisfaction and eventually to higher profits (Kaplan and Norton 2000). However, there may be goals which delivery is difficult to predict as paths are interrelated, may suffer changes overtime or generate uncertain consequences that are highly dependent on contextual factors. For example, an organization such as the Red Cross, which is focused on “protecting life and health and to ensure respect for the human being” may have more difficulties replicating and monitoring the process that facilitates the delivery of their goals. Regularly, they may need to experiment and innovate with new paths based on the situational factors they face. Finally, goal temporality considers whether the goal needs to be delivered in a short or long period of time. Most organizations have a time orientation already associated with the delivery of their goals. A short-term orientation often refers to one year or less. A medium-term orientation would be 2–3 years. A long-term orientation for a goal would be more than 3 years. Table 2 summarizes the different characteristics of organizational goals. We posit that the more a set of goals encompasses multiple dimensions of performance with low measurability, aggregability, and replicability, the higher their degree of complexity will be. In the interest of clarity, we have described these goal characteristics as being dichotomous and Table 2 The nature of organizational goals Dimensions Scope

Low goal complexity Single dimension (it can be maximized).

Measurability

Goals can be measured with valid and reliable metrics.

Aggregability

The whole is the sum of individual parts. Goals can be cascaded down the organization (from organizational to teams, to individuals). The goal delivery process is known (or assumed to be known) to those setting the goal; it can be replicated. A predictive model can be formulated.

Replicability

Temporality

Short-term oriented.

High goal complexity Multiple dimensions of equal value (they need to be balanced as some goals may be conflicting but have equal priority). Goals can only be measured with metrics that have low validity and reliability. The whole is more (or less) than individual parts. There are limits to cascading goals down to the individual level. There is little knowledge about the overall goal delivery process; it is difficult to replicate the process. Developing a predictive model is unlikely. Long-term oriented.

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independent. For empirical research, it is more appropriate to consider them as continuous and interrelated. It is important to highlight here that these characteristics focus on the nature or content of the goal rather than its context. Although, it is worth noting that how context, especially extreme contexts such as a pandemic or a financial crisis, interacts with the nature of organizational goals can significantly affect it. For instance, a highly predictable financial goal may turn out to be unpredictable due to an economic crisis. This change will increase the complex nature of the goal. An understanding of the nature of goals is central not only for its interest, but for the implications it has for the design of performance management systems as well as their consequences on employee wellbeing. The way goals are portrayed reflecting the values and beliefs of the people who select them and are more likely to accept them (Seijts and Latham 2012). The nature of goals has serious implications for the means required to facilitate their delivery (Locke and Latham 2002). The level of goal complexity and time orientation is associated with people’s information processing and motivation characteristics (Schroder et al. 1967; Campbell 1988), which in turn influence the choice of control mechanisms that would increase the likelihood of obtaining mutual gains in terms of performance and wellbeing. Based on these premises and the literature reviewed here so far, the following framework can be derived.

Organizational Goals and Performance Management Systems Types Distinguishing between high complex and low complex organizational goals and their time orientation seems potentially fruitful as a way to illustrate how different types of performance management systems affect performance and wellbeing. As mentioned earlier, the design of a performance management system is triggered by the performance problem organizations (their leaders and key stakeholders) believe they have. The way the performance problem is framed is informed or anchored in the management rationality dominating the organization. Organizations where an instrumental rationality or logic dominates will tend to frame the performance problem as a goal-misalignment problem and define organizational performance in terms of organizational goals that are mainly financial, measurable, aggregable, replicable, and short-term oriented. It is important to note that leaders may not be fully cognizant of their problem framing or managerial rationality. They may have internalized it without questioning it through their education or previews work experiences (Ghoshal and Moran 1996). Yet they imply it in their daily interactions with others. For example, comments such as “alignment in this organization is elusive” or “we need to ensure strategic alignment” epitomize an alignment framing. In many organizations, this particular framing is taken for granted or understood as a given (Ghoshal and Moran 1996). In Fig. 1, these low complex and short-time oriented goals will be positioned in quadrant III. Underpinned by a dominant instrumental rationality, we are likely to find control mechanisms which resemble a directive performance management type

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Fig. 1 Performance Management Systems and wellbeing framework

(for reference see Table 1). The overall purpose of these controls will be to monitor and incentivize alignment. These organizations will tend to attract, motivate, retain, and manage the performance of individuals that already behave as “agents” as presumed by agency theorists (Eisenhardt 1989) or eventually will behave like “agents” as time goes by (Ghoshal and Moran 1996). Examples of these extreme organizations are places such as Enron or Well-Fargo. Both of these organizations enjoyed great financial success for years following an extreme version of instrumental rationality and adopting highly directive performance management systems. Their success was, however, affected by shifts in the economic environment which uncertainty drastically undermined the predictability and validity of the measures used to assess their goals. Leaders should have responded to this situation by reframing their performance problem towards a hybrid one which incorporated uncertainty and alignment. They did not change course. As a result, unintended perverse consequences emerged (e.g., unethical behaviors such as gaming, data, or manipulation) as others have explained elsewhere (Boje et al. 2006; Witman 2018). Organizations where a relational or involvement rationality dominate will tend to frame the performance problem as an uncertainty-related problem. That is, a “wicked” problem that requires constant work and continuous learning (Rittel and Webber 1973). In these organizations, performance is likely to be defined in terms of organizational goals that are multidimensional, difficult to measure and aggregate, with reduced replicability and long-term oriented. In Fig. 1, these goals will be positioned in quadrant I. Accordingly, organizations operating under this dominant relational logic are more likely to design stewardship-based or enabling performance management mechanisms. These mechanisms will be focused on creating a context in which people can learn and maintain their internal drives to be able to cope with the

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uncertainty and risk associated with organizational goals. These organizations will aim to attract, motivate, and retain “stewards” (Davis et al. 1997), rather than “agents.” An example of an organization in quadrant I could be the idealized view of what a university is (or ought to be) (as faculty members, we cannot help but wonder where this idealized view has gone, how, and most importantly why, most of our current universities are very distant from this idealized view). As traditionally defined, a university is a place where scholars are focused on delivering excellence in education and research that benefits the economy, culture, and the environment (Ortega y Gasset 1946). For example, places such as The University of Cambridge (2020) still has a mission which resembles this purpose: “to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.” For many centuries, the control mechanisms associated with an enabling performance management type operated in English universities; however, for the last 30 years, scholars in diverse disciplines have begun to notice how the relational (and collegial) rationality is being eroded and a “neo-liberal” logic, which resembles the ideas of an instrumental rationality and the premises and predictions of principal-agency theory, is shaping the control mechanisms adopted by universities and consequently faculty behavior and motivations (Kalfa et al. 2018). Organizations operating in quadrant I and III are likely to be extremes or ideal types. However, in present times, we expect most organizations to be positioned in quadrants II or IV with hybrid systems as they experience conflicting rationales, which result in organizational goals that have a mixed nature. It is also plausible that organizations (as a whole or some of their parts) dynamically move from quadrant to quadrant as the conditions in their environments change. To date, there has been little research looking at hybrid performance management systems (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). Little empirical knowledge exists describing what these hybrid systems look like and the extent to which they facilitate the delivery of performance and wellbeing. Hybridity is not a new phenomenon. It has been previously investigated in other management literatures (O’Reilly III and Tushman 2013; Dalpiaz et al. 2016; Luger et al. 2018). Without enough empirical data on this matter, we can only tentatively outline a few ideas that seem to converge from these diverse literatures to help us visualize what a hybrid performance management system looks like. For instance, it is reasonable to expect that organizations facing a hybrid framing will follow either a structural approach with dual systems in different contexts, for example, sales department adopting a directive-type system while the research and development department adopting a more enabling-type system; a time-based approach with the organization stressing different control mechanisms overtime based on their different priorities; or a contextual approach with the organization developing “requisite variety” (Ashby 1958) or a repertoire of responses and behavioral capabilities that allows it to integrate directive and enabling mechanisms in a seamless manner without resistance.

Performance Management Systems for Wellbeing and Performance If we understand wellbeing as a constrain or necessary condition that every organization needs to contemplate (Guest 2017), the type of controls adopted need to fit the

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nature of that organizational goal. Interestingly, this positioning of wellbeing as a key goal that reflects the needs of employees and society at large already implies the humanistic values that underpin an involvement management rationality. Based on previous research, we already know that wellbeing is a contested concept, indicating that its complex nature allows for its definition to vary depending on the beliefs and values of the people defining it and responsible for its delivery. Interpreting wellbeing as “the overall quality of an employee’s experience and functioning at work” (Grant et al. 2007, p. 52) suggests that wellbeing is a multidimensional concept that is difficult to measure validly and reliably; it is not aggregable or easily predictable; and it is long-term oriented. This definition positions the delivery of wellbeing as a “wicked” problem. A problem requires flexibility, high involvement, and continuous adaptation. It goes without saying that we expect every employee to be genuinely aligned with or interested in this particular organizational goal. Based on this characterization and following the ideas discussed so far, the most appropriate means to enhance wellbeing seem to be the adoption of enabling or hybrid control mechanisms (quadrants I, IV, and II). The least desirable approach will be to design a pure directive performance management system (quadrant III). Although, we should not discount the possibility that a system in quadrant III creates the conditions for wellbeing to emerge as an unintended consequence – a byproduct which was not the ultimate aim of its designers (see, for example, the work of Kelloway and Day 2005; Day et al. 2014). Enabling mechanisms are associated with work contexts in which people feel they have autonomy, a sense of meaningfulness, a sense of development and growth, and a supportive community of colleagues and superiors. Due to the high complexity nature of wellbeing, organizations in “quadrant I” will muddle or navigate through its delivery as individual and environmental factors will always influence this particular goal. Their overall purpose will be the continuous improvement of wellbeing at all levels rather than its “maximization.” It is unlikely that we find organizations with 100% of their people professing high wellbeing and, if we do, chances are gaming, lying, data manipulation, or other factors indicating bigger problems are at play (Franco-Santos and Otley 2018). Furthermore, in organizations adopting enabling performance management systems (quadrant I), having a particular target will be meaningless. This is because knowing an organization is purposefully seeking to achieve, for example, 65% of their people in a high wellbeing category means that this organization is fine with having 35% of their staff under a low wellbeing category, which is morally and ethically questionable. Nevertheless, we may see organizations in quadrants II and IV with more flexible arrangements as they aim for wellbeing together with other indicators of performance such as profit or quality.

Concluding Remarks In this chapter, we have explained how different types of performance management systems can create stress and anxiety, as well as positive effects on wellbeing at work. Organizations need to pay attention to how people feel at work and to how managerial practices affect them, not just because it is financially beneficial, but

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because it is morally and ethical to do so. To inform leaders’ approach to the design and use of performance management systems, we offer a framework or “thinking tool” which aims to facilitate their decision making. Following this framework, leaders need to be aware of the management rationality influencing the way in which they frame their performance problem, define organizational goals and the means they select to facilitate their delivery. To address people’s wellbeing needs, the use of enabling performance management mechanisms is highly recommended. Although if wellbeing needs to be balanced with financial performance, a hybrid performance management system might be more desirable. A directive performance management approach can have harmful effects on wellbeing, especially of people exerting pure “stewardship” behaviors often associated with vocational professions. A directive system can, however, enhance the wellbeing of individuals exerting pure “agent” type behaviors even though it may do it as an unintended (positive) consequence rather than as an intended objective of the performance management system.

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Part IV Employment Practices for Occupational Health and Disability

The Aging Workforce

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who Is an Aging Worker? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Aging Impacts Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Physiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychosocial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupational Health and Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Challenges for Aging Workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift in Social Identities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Age-Friendly Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flexible Work Arrangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Job Crafting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

By 2050, one in six people in the world, and one in four people in developed countries, will be over 65 years in age. The increasing proportion of older

E. Gardiner (*) School of Management, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] M. K.-L. Chen School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_22

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individuals is resulting in significant fiscal, healthcare, and social welfare challenges. Governments around the globe see prolonging the working lives of aging workers as a key strategy to delaying the widespread negative impacts of an aging workforce. Although the workforce participation of aging workers is now at its peak, many workers across the globe are choosing to retire well below the normal government-issued pension age. In some countries at least (such as France, Italy, and Norway), premature exit from the workforce is the norm rather than the exception. This chapter aims to provide insights into the working life of aging workers, with the view to investigate how aging impacts the individual worker’s psychological health and wellbeing as well as performance and engagement at work. The chapter also aims to evaluate organizational initiatives and identify what organizations can do to better support aging workers. Keywords

Aging worker · Older worker · Flexible work · Agism · Age discrimination

Introduction According to the United Nations (2019), individuals aged 65 years and over have outnumbered children under 5 years of age since 2018. The number of persons aged 80 years and above is projected to grow from 143 million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050. The disproportionate number of older person (aged 65 years and above) to working age persons (aged between 20 and 64 years) has resulted in significant fiscal, healthcare, and social welfare challenges (Rouzet et al. 2019). As the number of older adults needing care increases, health and social services industries are likely to be hit the hardest due to long-term labor shortages and rising healthcare demands, especially for hospital and general practitioner services (Ide et al. 2017). Workforce participation of aging workers is now at its peak, with more individuals continuing to work after the conventional retirement age and re-entering the employment market after retiring temporarily (Giandrea et al. 2009). From 2010 to 2019, the workforce participation rate of individuals aged 55–64 years grew from 60% to 68% in the UK, 37–57% in Italy, and 69–78% in Japan (OECD 2020a). Despite the increased participation of aging workers globally, data released by the OECD indicates that in several countries, such as Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the Slovak Republic, the average effective age of retirement is still well below the normal pension age (OECD 2020b). For instance, the average exit of males in Italy is 4.4 years lower than the official retirement age (OECD 2020b). This data indicates that in many countries, early exit is the norm rather than exception. Further prolonging the working lives of aging workers and encouraging workforce re-entry of retired workers are key strategies to delaying the negative impacts of an aging population (Tremblay and Genin 2009).

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Organizations play an important role in shaping the experiences of aging workers. While individual factors, such as cognitive skills, health status, and financial needs are important preconditions that enable and motivate aging workers to keep working, having an inclusive work environment that accommodates their needs is just as important to encourage continuous workforce participation (Nagarajan et al. 2019). Supportive organizational practices and policies communicate the employer’s unwavering commitment to create an inclusive, age-friendly environment and acknowledgment of aging workers’ unique values, which in turn elicit intention to stay among aging workers (Bentley et al. 2019). While more employers are taking proactive measures to ensure aging workers are not inadvertently disadvantaged by organizational logistics and policies (Turek et al. 2019), many are yet to ameliorate policies that are no longer conducive to the current aging workforce (Moen et al. 2017). This chapter aims to provide insights into the working life of aging workers, with the view to investigate how aging impacts the experiences of aging workers. The chapter also aims to identify and evaluate initiatives that organizations can implement to better support aging workers. The chapter is structured as follows. A discussion of who is an older worker will be provided first followed by a description of how the aging process impacts workers. Challenges faced by aging workers with respect to agism, threats to social identity and gender norms will then be explored. Lastly, organizational measures to support aging workers will be described and evaluated.

Who Is an Aging Worker? One of the challenges in understanding how to best support and manage an aging workforce is the lack of a universal definition as to who qualifies as an “aging,” “older,” or “mature” worker. The first issue is with respect to the age of the worker. Although one might think that using an objective metric such as chronological age would facilitate the categorization of workers, this is not the case. Many different cut-offs are used. In Australia, an older worker used to be anyone aged 45 years and over (ABS 2005); however, the limit has been increased to be more in line with the United States at 55 years and over (ABS 2010). Scholars tend to use a wider variety of age cut-offs, ranging from as low as 40 years (Ng and Feldman 2008) to as high as 65+ years (Fleming et al. 2007). Inconsistencies aside, chronological age also does not consider relevant contextual factors, such as the nature of the job or industry. In the case of Virgin Blue Airlines Pty Ltd v Stewart (2007), eight women were successful in their direct age discrimination claim on the basis that the airlines’ selection process disproportionately favored candidates who were aged 35 and younger. This demonstrates that in some industries, even chronologically young workers can be seen to be “too old.” Alternatives to chronological age such as lifespan age, which reflects the life stage and unique personal circumstances of an individual, and organizational age, which refers to career stage or age norms within an organization, have been proposed

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(Lange et al. 2006). However, each of these options has been shown to introduce alternative conceptual issues (Peeters et al. 2008); hence, chronological age is still the most widely used measure for identifying aging workers (i.e., Chen and Gardiner 2019). The second issue in accurately characterizing who is an aging worker is the assumption that this category of worker is homogenous (Krekula and Vickerstaff 2020). Descriptions of aging workers largely strip away any sense of their gender, class, bibliographies, or social context (Krekula and Vickerstaff 2017). Ignoring heterogeneity among aging workers means that we underestimate how the presence or lack of career responsibilities, financial security, physical and psychological health, social support, and interests impact their experiences and participation decisions. The reality is that many complex factors influence a worker’s decision to remain or exit the workforce, with several of these factors largely out of the individual’s control (Gahan et al. 2017).

How Aging Impacts Workers The definitional issues in what constitutes an aging workforce highlight that while some standard or objective measure and description of an older worker is required from a scholarly point of view, how individuals age and experience aging in real life varies greatly. Aging is associated with a general decline in physical and cognitive functioning (Peng and Chan 2019, p. 162). Definitions such as these, however, have been heavily criticized by some scholars as detrimentally focusing attention on the negative aspects of aging, such as mortality, morbidity, and disability (Peel et al. 2004), and away from investigating positive, successful, active, and healthy aging (Bousquet et al. 2015). The most well-known, albeit slightly contentious, definition of successful aging is by Rowe and Kahn (2015), who describe successful aging as consisting of three principles, namely, low risk of disease and disease-related disability; maintenance of high mental and physical function; and continued engagement with life, which includes relations with others and productive activity, either paid or volunteered (p. 593). Opponents of biologically focused definitions of aging argue that health is a multidimensional construct that captures not just what is happening physiologically, but also the social, environmental, and spiritual experiences of an individual (McCann Mortimer et al. 2008). Failure to take these aspects of aging into account reinforces the homogenous view of older workers (Peel et al. 2004). The focus of this section of the chapter is to describe the health and performance impacts of aging on workers.

Physiology Aging is closely associated with physical decline. Physiologically, aging reduces bone density, muscle strength, and aerobic capacity (Robroek et al. 2013). The loss

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of calcium in aging bones makes them more porous, and fragile, increasing susceptibility to osteoporosis (Noone et al. 2014). Muscle strength peaks at age 20 and then reduces by 10% per decade until 60 (Mazzeo 2000). Similarly, deleterious effects of aging on endurance and aerobatic capacity can be seen after age 25, with decline even more prominent after age 40 (Kenny et al. 2016). Aging also makes individuals less resistant to extreme temperatures, with older individuals experiencing greater difficulties in regulating and adjusting to temperature differences (EU-OSHA 2016). These age-related physiological changes, particularly reduced energy and strength, are likely to impact performance in roles that have a large physical component (Varianou-Mikellidou et al. 2019). In terms of sensory systems, age-related anatomical changes to the eyeball can reduce the quality of sensory inputs to visual processing, which in turn can reduce visual acuity (Willis et al. 2013). Visual impairment is the primary cause of age-related disability (Whillans and Nazroo 2018). Indeed, deterioration of spatial vision, vision motion perception, and balance control have been linked to a higher incidence of falling (Saftari and Kwon 2018). Hearing loss is also often associated with aging, with approximately 23% of individuals between 65 and 75, and 40% of individuals older than 75 experiencing some form of hearing difficulty (Seidman et al. 2002). Workers with previous exposure to high levels of noise (i.e., >85 dBA) are likely to be further at risk (Prince et al. 2003). Reduced hearing capacity may negatively impact the ease of which older workers can understand instructions as well as their awareness of hazards, particularly in noisy environments (EU-OSHA 2016).

Cognition The aging process has been linked to decreases in speed and precision of cognitive perceptual processes; however, aging has also been associated with increased language control and complex problem-solving ability (Ilmarinen 2001). Mental processes are at their highest when individuals are in their 30s and 40s, with only slight decrements in the 50s and 60s (Noone et al. 2014). Mental growth, verbal command, ability to reason, and wisdom have been shown to strengthen with age (Baltes and Finkelstein 2011). There is some research to suggest that the speed of learning reduces with age; however, the actual learning process appears to be independent of age (Ilmarinen 2001). Generally, for most occupations, cognitive decline is likely to have limited impacts on job performance (EU-OSHA 2016; Noone et al. 2014). Some of the cognitive decline associated with aging can be buffered by previously acquired skills and knowledge of the task as well as high levels of motivation (Ilmarinen 2001). It is thought that positive job experiences, which maintain or improve cognitive functioning, rather than job performance directly provide some explanation for why job performance does not diminish with age (Spirduso 1995). It is also interesting to note that declines in physical functioning do not necessarily negate or reduce cognitive improvements (Ilmarinen 2001).

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Psychosocial The psychosocial health of older adults reflects the quality and size of their social network and support, social interaction, community participation, social functioning, and intergenerational activities (Seah et al. 2019, p. 37). The social health of older individuals is enhanced with the presence of social support, education, and literacy as well as freedom from abuse and absence of violence (WHO 2002). Increased levels of social support in both work and non-work contexts have been found to positively predict the well-being of older workers (Cheung and Wu 2012), with research on Australian workers aged 60–79 revealing that older age, men, and part-time workers have higher levels of mental health and wellbeing (Forbes et al. 2015). In addition, poor psychosocial work environments are more detrimental for older compared to younger workers and are associated with early retirement for males (Thorsen et al. 2012). Psychosocial working conditions have been shown in the literature to impact the health of prime-age workers, with poor psychosocial working conditions linked to frailty in older workers (Kalousova and de Leon 2015). Other psychosocial factors (e.g., workload) have also been shown to differentially impact older and younger workers, with older workers having a higher need for recovery after work than younger workers (Kiss et al. 2008). Research by Ilmarinen et al. (2005) with a large nationally representative sample of workers from Finland showed that the mental requirements of the job and work environment were key predictors of work ability for older workers. So, while the psychosocial health of older workers is not necessarily affected by aging, it does appear that older workers are more susceptible than younger workers to poor organizational-based psychosocial factors.

Occupational Health and Safety Considering the impact of aging on physiological and cognitive functioning, as well as the social experiences of older workers, many scholars and policy makers have been interested in determining whether older workers pose a higher occupational health and safety risk to themselves and others. Research suggests that in comparison with younger workers, older workers experience greater health problems and longer absences from work due to ill health (Niedhammer et al. 2019). Younger workers have been found to be more prone to accidents than their older colleagues (Volberg et al. 2017); however, older workers experience more severe injuries than their younger counterparts (Bande and López-Mourelo 2015). Figures from the United States indicate much higher fatality rates for older workers. For instance, after analyzing data from the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner Office, McGwin et al. (2002) found that workers aged over 55 years had a fourfold risk of fatality in comparison with younger workers. Another US study found the rate for workers aged over 65 years to be three times that of younger workers (Rogers and Wiatrowksi 2005).

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The results of a systematic review investigating the health and safety risks of workers aged 60+ found very little direct evidence of higher health and safety risks for workers aged 60+. Some specific age-related impairments, such as hearing loss, were related to some increases in accident risk. However, overall, workers over 60 were found to experience fewer, but more serious, injuries, and accidents. The study found some support for compensatory strategies and experience to further support safety at work (Farrow and Reynolds 2012). These results from the systematic review have been replicated and expanded in a recent meta-analysis by Peng and Chan (2019). Peng and Chan (2019) conducted an extensive review of three decades of research on age-related occupational accident risks to identify whether aging poses a greater health and safety risk for older workers. The results of their meta-analysis showed that while older workers were more vulnerable than younger workers, experiencing twice as many severe and/or fatal accidents, their chances of experiencing non-fatal accidents were slightly lower. The type of work, as well as how accidents were measured appeared to moderate the relationship between age and accident rates. Older workers in physically demanding occupations (e.g., manufacturing and construction) were more vulnerable, and older workers also reported higher incidence of slip and fall accidents in comparison to younger workers. Another important study which sheds light on how aging impacts occupation health and safety was conducted by Varianou-Mikellidou et al. (2019). The focus of their research was to identify and put forward recommendations for how to best manage occupational health and safety risks in relation to aging workers. After an extensive review of the literature on age-related physiological and psychological changes and the impact of these changes on work, the authors concluded that occupational health and safety management systems should identify and accept age-related changes as potential hazards. More specifically, they suggest a focus on work ability (EU-OSHA n.d.) and performance of age-sensitive risk assessments to assist in creating a more holistic approach to occupational health and safety management.

Challenges for Aging Workers In addition to the individual-level physical, cognitive, and psychosocial challenges associated with the aging process, aging workers also experience significant challenges due to often ill-informed perceptions of others towards aging. This section of the chapter explores three key challenges faced by aging workers, namely, agism, shifting social identities, and gender norms.

Agism Despite the introduction of anti-discrimination laws and increased recognition of aging workers’ value (North 2019), agism is pervasive and continues to create

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barriers that prevent aging workers from maintaining and attaining meaningful work (Stypinska and Turek 2017), which in turn leads to involuntary early exits (Gonzales et al. 2018). Stereotypes, whether positive or negative, can create an overgeneralized and homogenous image of a particular social group or category, and influence people’s intended and actual behaviors in ways that are consistent with those stereotypes. Aging workers are perceived as more reliable, committed, and as having better social and interpersonal skills; however, pervasive negative stereotypes about older people, such as reduced cognitive and physical capacity, resistance to learning, lack of flexibility, and low technology literacy, can disadvantage aging workers significantly in the employment market (Harris et al. 2018). Previous studies show that irrespective of the requirements of the job and the aging workers’ education, work experiences, and competencies, aging workers are perceived as less suitable candidates and are less likely to be shortlisted for interviews than younger workers (Richardson et al. 2013). Not surprisingly, agism is more prevalent in industry sectors and professions that are fast-paced, technologydriven, and more physically demanding (Stypinska and Turek 2017). Information technology (IT), banking, and the hospitality industries have smaller proportions of aging workers than education, public administration, and utilities (Adler and Hilber 2009). Industries that traditionally rely on esthetic labor, that is the materialization of employee’s esthetic capacities and attributes for customer consumption to promote and sell their services, such as retail and hospitality, are more discriminatory towards aging workers (Witz et al. 2003). In addition to barriers to the employment market, once employed, aging workers receive less training opportunities than younger workers, especially for those aged over 50 (Canduela et al. 2012). Being resistant to change, less capable of learning and having shorter tenure are common stereotypes that lead employers to believe that their investment in aging workers is of little value (Williams Van Rooij 2012). Without a doubt, employers’ perceptions of aging workers influence employment, training, and promotion decisions for aging workers (Van Dalen et al. 2010); however, attitudes of fellow workers and their influence on the daily experience of aging workers should not be overlooked (Finkelstein et al. 2013). Stereotypical beliefs can influence fellow workers’ intention to support fair and equitable personnel policies and decisions as well as their willingness to work with aging workers (Chiu et al. 2001). Support from supervisors and co-workers reduces the prevalence of age discrimination and helps aging workers to manage aging anxiety, which has been linked to reduced job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement (Macdonald and Levy 2016).

Shift in Social Identities Another challenge that aging workers may face is bearing the consequences of negative stereotypes on self-evaluation, well-being, job performance, and even withdrawal intentions (Finkelstein et al. 2013). Age is a common proxy for categorizing oneself and others into social groups (Desmette and Gaillard 2008). As people get

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older, Age identify shifts as people get older. The degree to which one embodies age stereotypes determines how one reacts to ageing, as manifested by self-perceptions, cognitive and physical functioning, and health status. (Levy 2009). Aging workers who held more negative perceptions of aging exhibited lower levels of occupational self-efficacy and reduced beliefs in their ability to perform work (Chiesa et al. 2016). Also, in the studies with workers aged between 45 and 59 years, self-identification as “older worker” was found to be associated with early retirement intentions (Desmette and Gaillard 2008). The threat of confirming or being reduced to the negative stereotypes of their social groups in a given situation, known as stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson 1995), has been shown to affect older adults’ memory and cognitive performance in laboratory settings (Lamont et al. 2015). A field study with aging workers found that the experience of stereotype threat at work is associated with lower job satisfaction, reduced organizational commitment, and poor mental health, which in turn leads to a higher intention to leave (von Hippel et al. 2013). It is worth noting that stereotypes only affect those who identify themselves with a particular social group and are cognizant of the stereotypes attached with their social group (Steele and Aronson 1995).

Gender Norms Workforce participation of female aging workers is on the rise. More women are moving to a “bridge job,” which is a temporary position between full-time work and retirement, before leaving the labor force permanently (Cahill et al. 2011). Higher divorce rates, lower lifetime earnings due to persistent gender pay gap, and less retirement savings due to more career breaks are likely reasons that contribute to increased workforce participation before and after retirement (Gahan et al. 2017). However, female aging workers face more barriers than their male counterparts. As studies repeatedly show, older women have longer unemployment duration and lower call-back rates for job interviews (Carlsson and Eriksson 2019; Neumark et al. 2019). Also, female aging workers concurrently experience agism with gender inequalitysometimes known as “double jeopardy” or “gendered agism”—which further hampers their opportunities in the employment market (Itzin and Newman 1995). Female workers face different forms of agism throughout their career trajectories. In their 20s and 30s, female workers are perceived as a flight risk with higher marriage and childbearing probabilities. However, once they reach their 40s, female workers are at risk of being seen as “too-old” by male colleagues, especially for those working in the service sector (Jyrkinen and McKie 2012). Female aging workers may also feel pressured to look a certain way to be taken seriously for professional positions and to minimize the impacts on their career prospects (Jyrkinen and McKie 2012). It is worth noting that aging can be empowering. Interviews with 54- to 62-year-old women in senior professional or managerial positions demonstrates that aging can help women build professional authority and credibility as well as liberate them from expectations that are driven by gender and sexual ideologies (Isopahkala-Bouret 2017).

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Organizational Responses This section highlights organizational strategies for promoting successful aging in the workplace as proposed by organizational psychology and gerontology researchers. Theoretical and empirical evidence on the effects of supportive organizational age culture and age climate, flexible work arrangements, training, and job crafting on the aging workplace are explored.

Age-Friendly Climate Organizational culture refers to the shared values, norms, and beliefs within the organization (Schein 1990), whereas organizational climate is the shared perceptions of organizational policies, practices, and protocols (van Dam et al. 2017). Supportive age culture and age culture and age climate reduces the occurrence of age discrimination and are perceived as a catalyst to realize the benefits of an aging workforce (Appannah and Biggs 2015). Attitudes of top management towards workers of different age groups form the basis of age culture, which in turn affects how aging workers are perceived and treated in the workplace (Hertel and Zacher 2018). Supportive age culture alleviates concerns of age-based discrimination (Loretto and White 2006) and communicates that the organization is supportive of aging workers. This fosters a sense of belongingness and loyalty on the part of aging workers (Kanfer and Ackerman 2004). Supportive age climate is also beneficial to an aging workplace with a diverse age profile. Although age diversity is advantageous to organizations that thrive on employees’ creativity and problem-solving skills (Backes-Gellner and Veen 2013), age diversity has also been associated with increased prejudice and stereotyping (Schneid et al. 2016). As age heterogeneity increases, so does the salience of age differences. This prompts identification and categorization of self and others into age groups, leading to a heightened perception of age discrimination (Kunze et al. 2011). A cross-organizational study with 128 companies found that increased age diversity is associated with perceptions of an age discrimination climate, which in turn leads to a reduction in affective commitment and firm performance (Kunze et al. 2011). Organization with age-inclusive human resources (HR) policies and age-awareness training are found to have more supportive age culture and age climate. HR policies set the strategies for workforce management and communicate the culture and climate that the organization seeks to foster (Eppler-Hattab et al. 2020). In their cross-organizational study with 147 companies, Kunze et al. (2013) found that organizations with age-inclusive HR policies and managers who have lower levels of negative age stereotypes are less affected by the harmful consequences of age diversity on organizational performance through reduced perception of age discrimination climate. Similarly, Boehm et al. (2014) found that organizations with inclusive HR practices which provided workers of all ages equal access to training and career mobility opportunities had a more positve agediversity climate, better firm performance, and lower turnover. It should be noted

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that age-inclusive HR policies are different from age-specific or age-aware HR policies, which are geared towards aging workers. HR policies aimed at aging workers are unwelcomed as they reinforce the negative stereotypes that aging workers belong to a vulnerable social group that requires care and special attention (Hennekam and Herrbach 2015). Numerous researchers have recommended age-awareness training that challenge age stereotypes, educate about the influence of stereotypes on management decisions and organizational performance, and provide practical recommendations for managing an aging workforce (Kunze et al. 2013). Attitudes of management and employees can influence the recruitment, management, and development decisions for aging workers (Appannah and Biggs 2015). Ongoing commitment and support from management is imperative to the success of age-inclusive policies (Midtsundstad 2011). Managers need to be cognizant of the age stereotypes and biases they hold and take proactive measures to mitigate its influences on their decisions (Bal et al. 2011). Evidence from a 6-year field study showed that age-awareness training can decrease age stereotypes, reduce the occurrences of age-related team conflicts, and improve innovation performance (Wegge et al. 2012). However, an earlier study that evaluated the effectiveness of an age awareness workshop showed that while training improved knowledge of aging and the importance of using politically correct language, it did not result in a change in attitudes towards older adults (Stuart-Hamilton and Mahoney 2003). Further systematic investigation to identify effective age-awareness training methodology and approach is warranted.

Flexible Work Arrangements Flexible work arrangement (FWA) provides employees the flexibility to alter their work hours, patterns, and location (Allen et al. 2013). Flexible work schedules, compressed work week, job sharing, telecommuting, and phased retirement are commonly practiced FWA to attract and retain aging workers (Moen et al. 2017). FWA is theorized to reduce occupational stress and improve work-life balance, job satisfaction, and the overall workplace experience of aging workers (Dropkin et al. 2016). Given the physiological decrements associated with aging, the ability to exercise discretion over when and where to work according to their needs (e.g., changing sleep patterns or physical fitness) can be appealing to aging workers (Atkinson and Sandiford 2016). FWA enables aging workers to optimize their use of resources to compensate for age-related vulnerabilities (Kanfer and Ackerman 2004) and sustain work performance (Bal and De Lange 2015). Maintenance HR practices, such as flexible work arrangements, which are designed to help employees maintain their current level of functioning, are associated with increased affective commitment and job satisfaction among aging workers (Kooij et al. 2010). Job flexibility helps aging workers to continue working while attending to social and family commitments, which with age, become more important priorities than career goals (Thrasher et al. 2016).

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Few empirical studies have been conducted to examine the benefits of FWA to an aging workforce, and what has been found is mixed. A large-scale qualitative study with HR managers from 736 firms (Stirpe et al. 2018) found that FWA did not have noticeable effects on employee retention among aging workers. In fact, when the organizations also provided HR practices designed to upskill, motivate, and engage employees, employee retention among aging workers declined (Stirpe et al. 2018). Other studies echoed similar results, indicating that FWAs have limited effects on aging workers’ intention to remain or intention to continue working (ArmstrongStassen and Ursel 2009; Van Solinge and Henkens 2014). More recent studies have found support for the positive effects of FWA on aging workforce. For example, the study by Moen et al. (2016) examined whether added flexibility to when and where the work is completed, greater supervisory support for personal lives, and removal of low-valued work affect the retirement expectations of IT professionals and managers aged 50–64 years in a large Fortune 500 company. The study, which randomly assigned work units to either the experimental group or control group, found that participants in the experimental group expected to retire later than those in the control group 5 years after the baseline. A more recent study found that aging workers (60–65 years) with chronic health conditions were less likely to perceive their health conditions as limiting to work performance when their organization offered flexible work hours and had high levels of psychological safety climate, that is, an organization climate where employees are not fearful of taking interpersonal risks and of the reprehension that may follow if mistakes are made (Vanajan et al. 2020).

Training Training is imperative to support aging workers to sustain healthy and longer working lives as it helps them to acquire essential knowledge and competencies for their role and improves their employability in the labor market. Aging workers, however, receive far less training and development opportunities in comparison to their younger colleagues (Karpinska et al. 2015) due to the assumptions that aging workers have lower learning ability and are likely to leave (or retire) sooner (Hennekam and Herrbach 2015). When aging workers are not provided with adequate training, they face skill obsolescence. Skill obsolescence occurs when job skills and knowledge become outdated, underdeveloped, or decline in productive value, leading to increased risk of unemployment and poorer employment prospects, which in turn decrease the motivation to remain engaged in the workforce, including opting to retire early (Brooke and Taylor 2005). The benefits of training have been recognized by workers and organizations alike. There is evidence showing that when organizations invest in staff development, workers feel valued and appreciated (Kooij et al. 2010). This can elicit a sense of obligation on the part of workers to repay the organization with commitment and productivity (Armstrong-Stassen and Ursel 2009). Access to training opportunities has been associated with increased job satisfaction (Leppel et al. 2012), reduced

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turnover intention (Herrbach et al. 2009), and lower retirement intention (Berg et al. 2017) for aging workers. For training programs to be successful, they should be tailored to the learning styles and developmental needs of the aging workers, which can vary significantly between individuals. It is suggested that ageing workers benefit more from informal, flexible, on-the-job training than from rigid seminars or training circles (Zwick 2015). Aging workers may react negatively towards traditional training method, which tend to focus on school-related skills and abilities, such as memorization and reaction speed, as speed and precision of retrieving information declines with age (Kanfer and Ackerman 2004).

Job Crafting Job crafting refers to the process where individuals exercise personal agencies to change the physical and cognitive boundaries of job tasks, work relationships, and the meaning of the job (Wrzesniewski and Dutton 2001). The original framework by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) theorized that there are three forms of job crafting– task, cognitive, and relationship crafting. Task crafting describes changing the type, scope, and number of tasks that one performs. Cognitive crafting comprises altering one’s perceptions and cognitive representation of their work. Relationship crafting refers to exercising discretion over the type and frequency of social interactions on the job. Tims and Bakker (2010) further conceptualized job crafting based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. They described job crafting as a self-initiated behavior that seeks to improve the alignment between work environment with individual abilities and goals through altering structural and social job resources and challenging and hindering job demands (Moghimi et al. 2015). Job crafting, which is an individualized, bottom-up approach initiated by employees, is suggested to be a more effective strategy than job design, which utilizes a traditional top-down, management-driven approach, for optimizing person-job fit among aging workers (Kooij et al. 2015). Person-job fit is the degree of fit between one’s work-related knowledge, skills, abilities, and needs and what is required and provided by a person’s job (Edwards 1991). Over time, age-related changes in personal attributes can worsen person-job fit. Aging workers may become less capable of performing work tasks at the same intensity (e.g., long working hours) and may place greater emphasis on priorities outside of work, such as health and family commitments (Wong and Tetrick 2017). Organizations need to modify the job requirements to adapt to the evolving needs of their aging workforce to prevent poor person-job fit (Lichtenthaler and Fischbach 2016). Aging, however, does not result in a uniform decline in work ability or work motivation. With different career and life trajectories, individual differences in workrelated attitudes and abilities tend to increase with age (Kooij et al. 2015). Individual work motivation profiles also develop and mature overtime, which may prompt aging workers to engage in personalized task-specific regulation (Stamov-Roßnagel and Hertel 2010). Personalized task-specific regulation includes increasing one’s

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motivation and effort in certain tasks to compensate for declines in other areas to maintain one’s positive emotional state, well-being, and job performance. While job crafting could be used to minimize the growing disparities between ability, motivation, and job requirements as workers’ age, modifying working conditions to accommodate the needs of heterogeneous aging workers, while also maintaining work performance could be challenging for organizations (Kooij et al. 2015; Wong and Tetrick 2017). Few empirical studies have investigated the effects of job crafting on an aging workforce since job crafting was initially conceptualized by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) to the more recent work by Kooij et al. (2015). Lichtenthaler and Fischbach (2016) conducted one of the first studies that explored the effects of job crafting on aging workers’ motivation to continue working beyond retirement age. They found that participants who actively engaged in job crafting through the increasing structural (e.g., accessing training) and social (e.g., receiving collegial support) job resources, challenging job demands (e.g., seeking interesting job assignments), and reducing hindering job demands (e.g., making fewer decisions at work) had higher levels of comprehensibility and manageability of their work. They also found their job more meaningful and were less likely to experience burnout. These, in turn, increased the motivation of aging workers to remain working and delay retirement. Another study in Germany with aging workers in the private sectors found further evidence that job crafting creates more work meaningfulness, which is the key to satisfying and sustainable career for aging workers (Nagy et al. 2019).

Conclusion This chapter aimed to provide insight into the experiences of aging workers– understanding who an aging worker is, the barriers and challenges experienced by them, and what can be done to better support the workforce participation of aging workers. Although the aging process does impact workers, the often-reported negative experiences of aging workers with respect to obtaining and maintaining work stems from the perceptions and behaviors of others, such as colleagues and supervisors. The efforts of government to prolong the working lives of aging workers are severely undermined by the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and perceptions of aging workers. Aging workers have great deal to offer society and organizations, and organizations can play an important role in supporting and encouraging individuals to work at least up to, if not past retirement age.

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Occupational Health Services and Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Problems

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Musculoskeletal Disorders and the Rise in Occupational Health Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MSDs Among Workers in Health and Social Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Can Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Health and Social Care Professionals Be Reduced? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Musculoskeletal Disorder in the World of Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preventing Musculoskeletal Disorders in the Construction Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Risks of Musculoskeletal Disorders Posed by Sedentary Professions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Benefits of Getting Up and Taking a Break from Your Desk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychological and Social Factors and MSDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Does the Effective Risk Management of MSDs Look Like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Getting People with Injuries Back to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Occupational health services, and effective health and safety training, are crucial in any organization to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs). Jobs that require the worker to hold the same working posture or position for prolonged periods, to apply extreme force, to engage in heavy lifting, and to regularly experience physical fatigue elicit important physical work risk factors for MSDs in most professions. This problem is a global threat to healthy ageing, but also WRMSDs cost the British National Health Service (NHS) billions of pounds each year. To mitigate injuries and prevent them from happening altogether, it is crucial that organizations prioritize MSD prevention and risk D. Roy (*) School of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_23

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assessment and embed occupational health into their very philosophy and culture. Awareness should be raised about not just the physical risks, but also psychosocial risks of MSDs, and all of this should be taking place at a time when the working population is ageing. This chapter covers the scale of the problem of WRMSDs and the latest research undertaken in a number of specific work environments that experience high levels of WRMSDs, such as health and social care, construction work, and sedentary occupations. Other objectives are to bring to light the latest developments in ergonomic and human factors research that use biomechanical assessments and movement sensor equipment within laboratories and in situ, to identify important thresholds, and to limit injury during physically demanding activities. At various junctions, it speaks to issues around ageing, concluding by reviewing the important occupational health management interventions that may help. Keywords

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders · Construction · Health and social care workers · Sedentary occupations · Office work · Ergonomics · Human factors · Public health · Occupational health · Ageing · Healthy lifestyles

Introduction In wealthy countries, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are common attributes of a loss to national productivity and premature retirements (Schofield et al. 2012). MSDs, particularly disorders of the back, and upper and lower limbs, are some of the commonest causes of occupational ill health in the UK (Health and Safety Executive 2020a, b, c) and other European countries such as Spain ( Hernández Martín et al. 2019). In the UK alone, during 2018/2019, almost seven million working days were lost due to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (Labour Force Survey 2018/2019). MSDs are prevalent in all sectors, but it is in the construction industry, and among health and social care professions, that significantly higher than average rates are to be found, and sedentary occupations are also contributing significantly to these figures (Dianat et al. 2015). Outside of work, there are contributory actors, such as taking part in sport or home activities. But also levels of fitness, and health and psychosocial factors such as financial worries, lack of control at work, stress, and depression, are also implicated. An MSD can consequently be the direct result of the work someone is employed to do, or may be a preexisting condition that becomes subsequently aggravated by further exposure to risky working practices. Stress can also increase severity of perceived and actual pain and discomfort. And, while the exact mechanisms are still not fully understood, stress is thought to alter our perceptions in terms of our ability to cope, as well as intensifying muscle tension (Sobeih et al. 2009). Stress may cause people to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as excessive drinking or smoking, and could suppress the immune system and induce inflammation mechanisms (Lunt et al. 2007).

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Because multiple risk factors are involved, a holistic approach to managing musculoskeletal health is needed, and should be prioritized by all organizations in an effort to engender good overall health and well-being in their workforce. But importantly it could also enable workers to continue to work as they progress into older age (DWP 2014). Healthy older workers who do not have MSDs can work well into their 60s, so a focus on preventing work-related conditions can extend working lives. The reality is of course that some employers adhere to the law and abide by regulations around health and safety but fail to embrace a holistic approach, and small businesses may lack the resources to provide comprehensive occupational health support for their workers, resulting in some employees having to reluctantly give up work prematurely (DWP 2014). According to the Office for National Statistics (2018) most sickness absences in the last 20 years were attributed to MSDs. An injury can occur when the load on the body exceeds its capacity to handle it and this can happen during heavy lifting, pushing, and pulling (which can cause lower back pain) and also from poor posture, obesity, and ageing (Bevan 2015). The most frequently cited risk factors for workrelated MSDs include working at a fast rate, repetitive motion patterns, frequent bending and twisting, exposure to the cold, and insufficient recovery time. Older workers in particular, who engage in strenuous physical work, require longer recovery times (Kiss et al. 2008). Increasing physical exercise can have a notable effect on the health and well-being of older workers as well as younger employees (Rhodes et al. 2017) and many misconceptions exist about being older (Bohle et al. 2010), as there is a great deal of variation within as well as between age groups when it comes to physical ageing. Unfortunately, those who have already acquired WRMSDs will experience age-specific challenges, but those who remain injury and MSD free into older age, with the right support, could enjoy many years of employment in later life (Ilmarinen 2012). The human body is an amazing piece of biomechanical engineering, but being exposed to heavy physical work and pressure from employers to meet activity targets are not the only health and safety concerns. Another serious issue is the rise in sedentary professions, meaning workers are often sitting for long periods at workstations using computer keyboards, which can result in discomfort, MSDs, stress, and fatigue. Sitting all day is a hazard in and of itself, as it has already been established that obesity, and in the USA a lack of exercise, is related to painful musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis (Hootman et al. 2011). Targeted research remains vital to understand how MSDs may be prevented wherever possible, and to determine the levels of stress that go on to exacerbate MSDs in the workplace.

Musculoskeletal Disorders and the Rise in Occupational Health Management Industrialization is a term used to describe a specific period of economic and social change, during which many countries moved from an economy reliant upon farming to large-scale manufacturing. Little thought during that time was given to if, and

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how, working conditions would impact workers’ health, and because of this, the “Industrial Revolution” era saw some of the worst occupational diseases reported, and perhaps one of the earliest cases of a skeletal disorder was “phossy jaw” where the jaw bone dies (necrosis) from prolonged exposure to white phosphorus, something commonly used at that time in the manufacturing of matches in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and it was not until 1910 that legislation was introduced that prohibited the use of white phosphorus in British match factories (Marx 2008). A number of years later, the continued concerns about the health of machine and factory workers resulted in the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) being passed in GB. This piece of law was designed to ensure that employers provided employees with a work environment free from hazards, including exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, and unsanitary conditions. The Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 forms the basis of current health and safety regulatory frameworks in GB. The Act places responsibility on both the employer and employee to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of individuals across all workplaces, and members of the public who could be affected by work activities. In Northern Ireland, the Health and Safety at Work Order (1978) provides legislation setting out a similar set of responsibilities in respect to the health and safety for employers. The creation of the UK’s first Health and Safety Executive (HSE) followed (and HSE NI), which not only continues to regulate and reinforce UK legislation but has also influenced health and safety laws across Europe and beyond (StaySafe 2019). Consequently, a raft of health, safety, and welfare legislation is in place to educate and hold employers accountable for providing a safe workplace, effectively assessing risk, and preventing problems from occurring, where possible. Changes in the workplace in GB as a result of the Health and Safety at Work Act meant a substantial 73% reduction in the number of workplace fatalities between 1974 and 2007, and nonfatal injuries also fell by 70% (StaySafe 2019). Construction, manufacturing, and farming continue as professions with high risk to life and limb, but today, the sedentary nature of many jobs has become another major risk factor, particularly for work-related upper limb disorders (WRULDs).

Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) As many as 100 million European citizens are believed to be suffering from chronic musculoskeletal pain and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), and 40 million of these workers attribute their MSDs directly to their work (Bevan 2015). In England, MSDs account for 30% of GP consultations (NHS England 2017) and for over 25% of all surgical interventions in the NHS, and this is set to rise significantly over the next 10 years (Arthritis Research UK 2014). This is costing the NHS £4.76 billion each year (NIHR Horizon Scanning Centre 2013). MSDs are also related to a large number of other diseases, including diabetes, depression, and obesity (Arthritis Research UK 2014).

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There are approximately 9.6 million adults and 12,000 children suffering from around 200 musculoskeletal conditions in the UK (NHS England 2017). Osteoarthritis and lower back pain are major contributors to musculoskeletal injury in those over 50 years of age and, along with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and gout, are some of the commonest musculoskeletal conditions globally (Lewis et al. 2019). Significant epidemiological evidence from the USA revealed a link between obesity and deterioration of joints (Felson et al. 1988). And yet, becoming more active and taking regular exercise, as recommended by Arthritis Research UK/Versus Arthritis (2014), can be the best way to improve musculoskeletal health. The problem of a lack in activity is serious, as only one-third of adults in the UK engage weekly in moderate physical activity for half an hour. In a large Canadian study, those who lived with or had osteoarthritis (OA) could subsequently break bones because of their condition and, along with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) sufferers, may not live as long as peers of the same age and gender (Widdifield et al. 2015). The three primary risk factors that cause 39 MSDs in the USA are high force, awkward posture, and long duration or high frequency (Coble 2015). Secondary risk factors that contribute to developing an MSD include soft-tissue compression, low temperature, vibration, impact stress, and glove issues. But across Europe, according to Bevan (2015), it is not only rapid pace of work and heavy loads which are important risk factors, but also psychosocial and organizational factors, such as monotony, low job satisfaction, lack of autonomy and control, and a lack of social support that create stress which can exacerbate MSDs (Bevan 2015). The skilled trades, such as heavy machine operations, building, and plant operations, are occupations that experience significantly higher rates of MSDs compared to all others (Health and Safety Executive 2013a, b). However, in the UK health and social care, services and office-based jobs also have high rates of MSDs, along with poor mental health (James and Walters 1999). According to Carter et al. (2013) in the UK, lower grade office workers are more likely to experience job insecurity and work overload, leading to mental health problems and other health conditions. Similar experiences are found in public sector workers across a number of European states, which historically had experienced better working conditions and are now experiencing longer working hours, resulting in higher workloads and increased job stress levels. This deterioration in working conditions coincided with the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 (EFILWC 2013). The UK Labour Force Survey (LFS 2018/2019) found that 498,000 workers suffered from work-related musculoskeletal disorders (new or long-standing), 40% of which were in the lower back, 41% were in the upper limbs or neck, and 19% were in the lower limbs. While men and women over the age of 45 self-report more WRMSDs than the younger groups, the prevalence rates are highest among males over 55 years old (2250 cases per 100,000 workers) and females over 55 years old (2100 cases per 100,000 females), respectively (HSE, Annual Statistics, 2019). These rates are worrying, given that across Europe, the workforce is also ageing (Walker and Maltby 2012). More people are having to work beyond normal retirement age, because governments have increased the retirement age due to concerns that there will be insufficient money later to meet pension obligations and care for those with

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chronic disease (Bevan 2015). That being said, prevention of MSDs in younger adulthood or middle age could do much to reduce these rates of MSDs in older adults.

MSDs Among Workers in Health and Social Care European healthcare sector employees experience high numbers of work-related injuries, and high incidence rates are consistent with those found in the USA (Okuyucu et al. 2019). The nursing profession is ranked in the top ten professions at great risk of low back pain, and this risk of lower back pain exists across all nations, something a systematic review of 19 years of research of African nurses found. Although incidences of lower back pain were lower among African nurses when compared to the Western and Asian workforce, prevalence of low back pain was nevertheless considerable (Kasa et al. 2019). Nursing in the community brings with it specific risks, as nurses and care workers may not have access to the same equipment that is available in hospital settings and have a tendency to “struggle on.” They may have to kneel for prolonged periods and lift patients who are becoming increasingly obese (VanHoy and Laidlow 2009). This brings challenges for many nations as obesity is now a global epidemic (Jaacks et al. 2019). The degree of pain and discomfort from MSDs is also exacerbated by the levels of presenteeism that exist in health care, something that is particularly prevalent among nurses in the USA (Allen et al. 2018) as well as the UK (Kinman 2019). Presenteeism is where staffs continue to work, even though they are in pain or unwell and are less productive as a consequence. It would be wrong to assume that MSD problems in health care are restricted to the nursing profession. In fact, a US-wide study found that 76% of radiation therapists experience MSDs, most commonly in the lumbar back and neck and shoulders, at rates similar to those found among nurses (Hanania et al. 2020). This study also identified additional risk factors which included smoking, being female, and being obese (Hanania et al. 2019). Among the UK medical profession, a literature review revealed that the risk of MSDs varies according to specialty, but surgeons are at particular risk of MSDs because they have to hold positions for prolonged periods (Vijendren et al. 2015). Compared to 15 years ago, there are now 1.4 million more older workers aged 50 years and over in the UK (Cridland 2017) and the health and social care workforce is also ageing along with the rest of the working population. This reflects a global trend in ageing, and it is anticipated that by 2050, two billion people will be 60 and over worldwide (WHO 2017). It is known that pain is more acute for older physiotherapists with MSDs, and musculoskeletal pain or injury and high workloads are driving physiotherapists to seek work outside of the British healthcare system (King et al. 2013), and this is also happening in other countries such as the USA (Vieira et al. 2016). Midwives are another professional group at particular risk of MSDs, and they are also an ageing workforce, because it was found in 2016 that one-third of NHS midwives were over 50, and while midwives and nurses do not necessarily leave their profession because of injuries, they nevertheless experience

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very high levels of MSDs in the low back, neck, and shoulders (Okuyucu et al. 2019). Older workers are not the only age group at particular risk of MSDs. According to Nyateka et al. (2012), young midwives and young construction workers are age groups at risk due to lack of experience, and beliefs held that they are resilient and have the capacity to withstand exposures to high physical load (Nyateka et al. 2019). Among the midwifery profession risk factors include low job satisfaction, work stress, and being younger because the lower the experience, the higher the risk of MSDs and of developing lower back symptoms. These outcomes are found in the UK, as well as many other European countries (Nyateka et al. 2012; NowotnyCzupryna et al. 2012). Midwives have to perform heavy lifting and hold awkward postures for long periods of time. Also psychosocial factors at work (e.g., too much overtime, high mental pressure, inadequate work support, and inadequate work discussion) are potential antecedents for the development of MSDs, as well as workplace factors. A study which simulated attendance at childbirth and employed ergonomic measurements using OWAS found that midwives have to work while holding unnatural body alignments and experience spinal pain. And, while it was hard to identify spinal overloads, they found that the most frequently occurring incidences of spinal overload affect lumbar and cervical regions altogether, in both junior and senior midwives (Nowotny-Czupryna et al. 2012). Another factor to consider is that MSDs frequently do not occur in isolation, as many who suffer from MSDs will also have other health problems or comorbidities evidenced by a number of studies. For example, a study in a Switzerland hospital found that work- and stress-related musculoskeletal disorders among health professionals were associated with physical workload, psychological stress, and sleep disorders, with sleep disorders primarily being the result of stress (Hämmig 2020). Also, Zhang et al. (2020) found a 14.5% prevalence of a comorbidity between the depression and MSDs among community nurses in the USA, with a significant association found between work-family conflicts and shift length and patterns. Context is also a factor, as found by a large study in Taiwan, which used a nationwide population-based database and investigated new-onset spine disorder associations among physical, occupational, and pharmacy healthcare professionals working in different workplaces. Physiotherapists working in clinics were twice as likely to be at risk of developing spine-related MSDs relative to OTs and pharmacists, and preventative measures were recommended (Liao et al. 2016). del Campo et al. (2017) conducted a case–control study on female healthcare workers. Incidents of MSDs were higher in those with preexisting anxiety or depression compared to those who did not have these conditions. The degree of patient contact was also a risk factor, along with morning shift work. When it comes to primary care nurses, an investigation among Portuguese nurses of self-reported symptoms of WRMSDs (mainly discomfort and pain) found that causes included not taking proper precautions, not taking breaks, and holding and repeating extreme postures for prolonged periods. These behaviors, particularly in a stressful environment, can accentuate mechanical loading of muscles and cause MSDs (Ribeiro et al. 2016). It is clear that occupational prevention programs,

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which include raising awareness of the need to take proper breaks, could go some way to mitigate these occurrences. In another study of 2000 Danish hospital healthcare workers, researchers investigated the risk factors for back injury during patient transfer (Andersen et al. 2019). They found that a lack of necessary assistance devices was a common phenomenon during back injury events, with the top four devices not available being sliding sheets (30%), intelligent beds (19%), walking aids (18%), and ceiling lifts (13%) (Andersen et al. 2019). Poor collaboration and lack of support from colleagues were also identified as psychosocial risk factors, which can increase the risk for back injury. In this instance, providing the necessary lifting equipment, reducing the number of daily patient transfers that take place, and encouraging better cooperation between colleagues can reduce the physical burden, and stop back injuries, or at least reduce them. It is becoming increasingly common to find links between MSDs and mental health problems. Mirzaee et al. (2015) found a significant correlation between mental workload and fatigue in the healthcare personnel. Mental “workload” has become a common concept in ergonomics and human factors, because it represents a topic of increasing importance (Sveinsdottir et al. 2006).

Can Musculoskeletal Disorders Among Health and Social Care Professionals Be Reduced? The British Medical Association (BMA 2016) recommends that employers need to consider how reasonable adjustments can be made to accommodate different worker requirements, particularly where there are heavy physical demands and long hours. Such adjustments should be accompanied by ergonomic education, as it is important to raise employee understanding and awareness, in order to reduce the risk of MSDs wherever possible. Good intentions can however result in a broad-brush approach being taken to health and safety advice around MSDs, and it could prove beneficial if a tailored approach is taken and specific factors are targeted, such as age-related adjustments. Given that younger workers may have misconceptions about what their bodies can withstand, education that is tailored to this age group is needed to raise awareness about their bodies’ capacity. A study of activities within the nursing profession investigated how Iranian nurses could best benefit from an education program targeting the prevention of lower back pain (Sharafkhani et al. 2015). A randomized control trial (RCC) took place targeting MSD and health belief factors. Focusing on held beliefs and perceptions about their health and risks of lower back pain was more effective than standard health and safety training. These findings provide support for the benefits of using a more tailored approach rather than relying on typical education strategies. What may resonate more with younger workers are ergonomic and human factors research findings, which can more accurately assess and pinpoint limits within our bodies when it comes to the amount of pressure it can take and physical load. This research has continued to grow since 1991, when the early work of Kivi and Mattila

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(1991) recognized the need for a scientific assessment and analysis of jobs, where workload was high, and where workers held awkward positions for prolonged periods. They created the OWAS (Oak Working Posture Analysing System) to observe and analyze posture. They found that it was possible to more effectively detect MSD risks when they are used to complement other interventions (Kivi and Mattila 1991). Another study conducted across eight hospitals in Italy employed the disabilities of the arm, shoulder, and hand (DASH) questionnaire and evaluated the association between personal and job characteristics and the risk of upper limb workrelated musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) among operating room nurses (Clari et al. 2016). The prevalence of upper limb WMSDs was 46%. The findings led to recommendations to urgently implement ergonomic interventions alongside job rotation, given that the exposure to risk was elevated DASH scores for female scrub nurses. As mentioned earlier, lower back pain remains a significant problem facing nurses and other healthcare professionals (Kasa et al. 2019). But much can be done to reduce the incidence of lower back disorder. In a systematic review of controlled intervention studies, technical aids for patient handling that could prevent musculoskeletal complaints in health care were assessed, and it revealed that interventions using technical patient handling aids can prevent many musculoskeletal complaints (Hegewald et al. 2018). Given the considerable amount of physical effort that is required when patients are being transferred sideways, or laterally from a bed for example, the tilted table technique provides clear ergonomic benefits as it can completely replace the physical efforts that have to be exerted by the pushing nurse, along with different friction-reducing devices (FRD). However, time is often not on the side of the healthcare worker, and while muscle activation in the pulling nurse can be significantly decreased, making the transfer using devices can take about 7 s longer (Hegewald et al. 2018). Work pressure is consequently a risk factor and needs to be prioritized because performing a transfer of a patient using ergonomic interventions can make a real and positive impact on nurses’ well-being and efficiency (Al-Qaisi et al. 2020). Healthcare workers who are also on their feet all day suffer from foot pain, and this is particularly high among older nurses, having spent many thousands of hours on their feet in the course of their career. Such pain is exacerbated by being overweight (Clari et al. 2016). Despite foot pain being a common problem among workers who spend many hours on their feet, very little has been published about foot pain until recently. Stolt et al. (2020) developed a Foot Health Promotion Programme (FHPP) in Finland, which improved knowledge to encourage better self-care among nurses. The lack of research published on foot pain among healthcare workers is a serious gap in the literature and should be addressed. Staff engagement and empowering to problem solve can yield valuable insights as Richardson et al. (2019) found, when developing occupational health policies with nurses and physiotherapists. The staffs recommended orthopedic assessments along with changes to the workplace, as they believed that this could help foster a culture of safety. Other examples of good practice include the Royal College of Nursing (UK) “Go Home Healthy Campaign” (2018), which encourages employers

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to protect their employees and offers advice and useful resources. The initiative also encourages nurses to take more personal responsibility for adhering to health and safety regulations. In any preventative strategy, it is crucial that support is available to prevent injury when moving patients, and the availability and use of aids are increasingly important according to a review of over 350 studies about the topic, which revealed that significant physical hazards and risks are associated with handling patients, as they are becoming increasingly overweight and obese (Choi and Brings 2015). The recommended solutions include lifting/transfer equipment and devices, ergonomic assessments and controls, no-lift polices, and training and education. What could be of additional benefit to staff is more research that uses rigorous methodology to find the safest way to handle this growing patient population. Ergonomic solutions to lower back pain among healthcare workers come in the form of wearing lumbosacral supports, such as a brace, as they can significantly reduce the range of motion in the lumbar spine and reduce back and neck pain (Hagiwara et al. 2017). Going forward, it is clear that midwives, physical therapists, nurses, radiation therapists, and surgeons are all healthcare professionals that are at particular risk of MSDs (Cridland 2017; Hanania et al. 2020; Kasa et al. 2019; King et al. 2013; Kinman 2019; Okuyucu 2019; VanHoy and Laidlow 2009; Vijendren et al. 2015; Walker and Maltby 2012), because an intrinsic part of their roles requires them to lift or hold patients while in awkward positions for long periods of time. Training and awareness along with lifting equipment and support devices can help prevent injury, but also managers at all levels of a healthcare organization should be made aware of the potential risks of MSDs, both psychosocial and physical, and should ensure that education and awareness training is provided to their staff. This is because they should acknowledge that they are one of a number of people in the organization who hold the ring when it comes to protecting staff from MSDs. A particular focus on younger age groups could increase probabilities that staffs will remain injury free and enjoy long, healthy careers. Any education programs should also emphasize the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, given the relationship between obesity and deterioration of joints, which strengthens with age (Bevan 2015; Felson 1988).

Musculoskeletal Disorder in the World of Construction Construction workers are a diverse professional group who are frequently exposed to lifting, operation of heavy, vibrating machinery, and kneeing or squatting in awkward positions for long periods of time. Because of these high occupational MSD risks, construction workers acquire MSDs faster than other occupational workers (Punchihewa and Gyi 2009). An analysis of the UK Labour Force Survey data over the period of 2009–2010 and 2011–2012 illustrated that manual handling, carrying, and lifting are some of the leading causal factors in the development of WRMSDs, particularly back pain (Health and Safety Executive 2013a, b; Kivi and Mattila 1991). Construction is a particularly precarious profession, and according to annual average rates for 2015/2016 to 2019/2020, the rate of fatal injury in GB in

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construction was about four times as high as the average rate across all industries (except agriculture) (HSE 2020a, b, c). Hazards are everywhere, and risk increases, in part, to tradespeople having to work long hours, and the danger is higher among those who lack the skills necessary to perform the roles asked of them. This can invariably lead to additional problem of occupational stress, as construction workers have been known to report both high levels of stress and muscular skeletal pain (Chakraborty et al. 2018). A common condition experienced among builders is the hand–arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) previously referred to as “vibration white finger.” This disorder is caused by using tools with vibrating hand controls, such as pneumatic drills, asphalt breakers, sanders, and angle grinders (Gibb et al. 2015). While principal contractors must provide personal protective equipment and address any potential hazards by putting safeguards in place, etc. many workers acquire MSDs and will leave construction work because of injury or ill health. In addition to having to adhere to extensive health and safety laws, occupational health and safety managers working in construction also have to withstand the culture of the construction industry itself, where it is common for workers to lead an almost nomadic lifestyle, moving around from contract to contract. As a consequence, despite best efforts, time pressure and short-term contracts may result in workers failing to partake in all of the necessary training made available to them. Younger workers are at particular risk in the construction industry. According to the HSE, the injury rate is three times higher among those who have been in their current job for less than 6 months compared with those with more experience (HSE 2011). The young apprentice program provides an opportunity to those who seek a qualification in construction work. This is a timely opportunity for education and awareness to be instilled among the young, but it could also be equally valuable if extended to older workers who may have missed out first time around (Nyateka et al. 2012).

Preventing Musculoskeletal Disorders in the Construction Industry As with all places of work, adherence to health and safety law and availability of proper assessment and training are crucial for anyone who contracts for construction work. Anyone commissioning construction work in GB, for example, must meet the obligations set down in the HSE (Construction Design and Management Regulations (CDM) 2015). Good practice is for contractors to demonstrate that they have satisfactorily assessed their health and safety management. Welfare facilities should also be provided to workers in GB during any construction work (HSE 2010). One of the challenges for the construction industry as well as other professions is an ageing workforce. While the abolishment of the mandatory retirement age in the UK (Gov UK 2011) provided an opportunity for those who wish to, to extend their working lives, for those who already suffer from ill health and MSDs, working longer may not be an option. Because the State Pension Age has been raised to 66– 68 years, many workers in their late 50s or early 60s will now have to continue to

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work, despite existing MSDs and the risk of further conditions such as RA and OA. Approximately 28% of workers in the construction industry are 50 years old and over in the UK. To ensure that workers can age well, advice from those in supervisory positions should include a reinforcement of the message that working lives can be extended as long as workers do not succumb to MSDs caused by poor posture, work pressure, lack of access to awareness training, or hazards such as inadequate guardrails. General healthy lifestyle advice would also be appropriate given that the older workers over time are also particularly vulnerable to the risk of heart disease (Nuñez 2010). In construction as in other professions, WRMSDs can be reduced or even prevented, and this can extend working lives. Increasing postural awareness among masonry workers through education and experience in ergonomic safety means that they are more likely to remain in the workforce for much longer and do not leave the trade prematurely (Hess et al. 2020; HSE 2010; Welch 2009). This evidence gives weight to the argument that early intervention in the form of ergonomic education and training should be reinforced during apprentice training in all trades. What is also being developed by Malaysian engineers are ways to detect risk using biomechanical assessments and the use of wearable protective equipment, such as exoskeletons that provide support during twisting and turning movements (torque assistance) and can reduce muscular activity by 36% during repetitive lower limb movement (RLLM) (Sado et al. 2019). Furthermore, human factors researchers in Scotland and the USA have employed wearable sensors to perform postural ergonomic risk assessments of carpentry tasks such as laying timber floors, a task that is repetitive, and also for jobs requiring nonstatic postures (Akanmu et al. 2020; Valero et al. 2016). Ergonomic assessments can also use the rapid upper limb assessment (RULA) scoring system to assess the extent to which any posture is creating internal and external stresses on any joint in the body. This can highlight limits to repetitive movements, which can lead to accumulative microtrauma and chronic MSDs (Kulkarni and Devalkar 2019; Menychtas et al. 2020). Worker engagement within the construction industry yields similar benefits to those found with healthcare workers and has been found to be effective in preventing and reducing the prevalence of MSDs in a number of industries globally, something referred to as “participatory ergonomics” (Hignett et al. 2005). Kurien et al. (2018) are another group of researchers who introduced innovative approaches to preventing MSDs by taking construction workers off-site and remotely linking them, and their motions, to a robotic construction worker (RCW). A number of possible construction scenarios were created and their movements captured by a 3D body and hand position tracking system. Using similar sensory equipment, Yan et al. (2017) were also able to show how monitoring the postures of workers fitting concrete buildings with reinforcing steel in Hong Kong could be altered, once their trunk inclination angle and holding times began to exceed acceptable thresholds. Further innovative studies have successfully demonstrated that using a wearable insole pressure system during construction work can successfully identify risk factors for developing WMSDs from awkward working postures

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(Antwi-Afari et al. 2018). All in all, early intervention health and safety training will greatly benefit the construction industry, particularly those workers just starting off. Engaging workers by allowing them to see when and how their body is reaching unacceptable thresholds can educate them in ergonomic safety and could be part of interventions that may extend the working lives of older construction workers (Gibb et al. 2015). There is no shortage of health and safety regulations to support the construction industry, but successful adherence will be predicated upon a commitment to occupational health and safety at every level of management and on the resources an organization is able, and willing, to invest. Going forward, as mentioned earlier, convincing, innovative scientific research evidence from Malaysia, France, China, India, and the USA is growing and can increase both younger and older workers’ understanding about what is safe for them in terms of heavy lifting and repetitive movements (Akanmu et al. 2020; Kulkarni and Devalkar 2019; Menychtas et al. 2020; Sado et al. 2015; Valero et al. 2016). Ergonomic research evidence could be enhanced further if the technology is developed that can measure the posture of a worker, while that worker is moving and lifting, to reduce MSDs of the lower back (Greenland et al. 2011).

The Risks of Musculoskeletal Disorders Posed by Sedentary Professions Being seated all day and not taking regular breaks can be an occupational hazard in and of itself. Computer and keyboard work requires repetitive movements, using the hands and wrists, and people often sit badly in awkward positions. This can lead to increasing discomfort in the lower back, hips, thigh, and buttock areas, and exposure to these working conditions can additionally affect our thinking capacity (Baker et al. 2018). Other health hazards exist for sedentary workers who remain inactive during the working day, such as risk of developing diabetes mellitus and osteoarthritis (OA) in selected joints, with the most commonly affected joints being in the hands and shoulders (Kaka et al. 2019). One large investigation in Turkey found that just over half of office workers who did not regularly exercise were the ones who most frequently complained of pain in the lower back, neck, and back as a result of not taking breaks, while sitting on a chair that supported only the lumbar area and the arms. Other features of their work included having the computer mouse at a distance from the keyboard, having their head inclined at 45 when working, working holding both forearms above the level of the desk, and being in a moderate or extremely stressful workplace (Celik et al. 2018). Brazilian researchers found that features of a workstation, specifically the chair height and arm and back rest, are also associated with poor posture in the upper limbs and contribute to musculoskeletal pain in computer office workers (Rodrigues et al. 2017). A cohort study in Denmark discovered an increased risk of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), which creates pain and numbness in the fingers from high levels of wrist movement (Lund et al. 2019).

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The musculoskeletal problems associated with sedentary work are, of course, not exclusive to office workers, as truck drivers, taxi drivers, and bus drivers also spend many long hours sitting in less than optimum positions and may have little lumbar support. Pradeepkumar et al. (2020) reported that just over half of their study population of Indian bus drivers experienced WRMSDs. Many incidences of MSDs could be reduced, however, by training and education in vehicle ergonomics (proper posture, making seat adjustments, and in-vehicle control adjustments). As a result of their findings, Pradeepkumar et al. (2020) raised concerns that rates of MSDs among middle-aged drivers would continue to increase without ergonomic education and health promotion advice to encourage a reduction in tobacco/alcohol use, healthier eating, and uptake of physical exercise for a couple of hours per week. Because of the lack of research conducted in this area, Hoe et al. (2018) performed a Cochrane review to assess the extent to which physical, cognitive, and organizational ergonomic interventions, or combinations of those interventions, could be utilized to prevent MSDs among office workers. They found inconsistent evidence about whether or not physical ergonomic interventions had positive effects or if an arm support or an alternative mouse could reduce the incidence of neck or shoulder MSDs. The use of supplementary breaks also yielded low-quality evidence of an effect on upper limb discomfort. One conclusion drawn from this research is that further high-quality studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of these ergonomic interventions among office workers (Baker et al. 2018; Hoe et al. 2018). A further evaluation of evidence following a systematic review by researchers in Thailand supported the effectiveness of breaks on reducing low back pain, discomfort, and work productivity in office workers, but highlighted that quality evidence is limited about any effective ergonomic interventions that could reduce MSDs among sedentary professions (Waongenngarm et al. 2018). Nevertheless, the researchers were able to report that taking breaks had no detrimental effect on work productivity and active breaks with postural change may be effective in reducing lower back pain in workers and can prevent discomfort in healthy subjects (Waongenngarm et al. 2018).

The Benefits of Getting Up and Taking a Break from Your Desk A recent meta-analysis using data collected from one million participants established that if people took 1 h of moderate exercise each day, it could eliminate any increased risk of death related to sitting 8 h per day (Ekelund et al. 2016). It is apparent that there is a paucity of intervention research when it comes to measuring any harmful impacts on our bodies from prolonged sitting and keyboard use for office work. However, research is continuing to evolve, and it has been shown that there is value in the regular monitoring of work environment activity to measure time spent sitting and number of sedentary breaks taken. Simply by taking the time to perform these monitoring tasks can reduce sedentary behavior, increase standing time, and reduce lower back pain (Ekelund et al. 2016; Foley et al. 2016). Evidence is also available that if office workers with neck, shoulder, and lower back pain took regular exercise, they reported significantly lower pain scores for their neck, right shoulder, left shoulder, and lower back, compared to those who did

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not take exercise (Shariat et al. 2018). This suggests that interventions to reduce MSDs among those in sedentary jobs should not solely rely on ergonomic modifications, rather occupational health therapists should also incorporate exercise in their treatment programs (Shariat et al. 2018). From the literature available, it is clear that taking breaks and regular exercise can be beneficial to anyone working in a role which requires sitting for prolonged periods, whether it be driving a lorry or operating a computer (Ekelund et al. 2016; Foley et al. 2016; Waongenngarm et al. 2018). This could help mitigate the risk of developing MSDs in the upper body and also improve their cardiovascular health. For those responsible for health and safety in office environments, relevant guidance for those working with visual display units (VDUs) can be found on the HSE website (HSE 2013a, b). It would appear that there is plenty of scope to develop the body of research addressing MSDs and sedentary work and develop ergonomic education programs. Promising research comes from a study in Switzerland of the ergonomic properties of office chairs and different sitting positions taken, to determine how pressure is distributed on the seat pan and the backrest. What makes this research important is that the seat has to bear our total body weight and the length, width, height, or contours of our seat can therefore make a significant difference in our levels of comfort (Zemp et al. 2016). The seat pan is particularly important, but in order to conduct comparison research with different chairs, chair-specific sensor mat calibration is needed. This will make assessing pressure distribution of different office chairs possible. It is crucial that chair-specific sensor mat calibration is used when assessing motion using electromyography magnet resonance imaging (Zemp et al. 2016). We still have much to learn about the optimal office chair properties (surface, cushion properties, geometry, etc.) to track motion, measure subjective comfort/discomfort ratings, etc., and therefore a chair-specific calibration is essential for research particularly with regard to the seat pan. Furthermore, any evaluation of the different seat pan and backrest pressure parameters will support researchers as they design appropriate pressure distribution limitations for future studies (Zemp et al. 2016). Going forward, the overall conclusion from giving consideration to available research on MSDs and sedentary professions is that evidence posits that the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and desk-based jobs can certainly be partially mitigated by a small amount of activity every day (Ekelund et al. 2016; Foley et al. 2016; Zemp et al. 2016) along with ergonomic chairs suited to specific needs (Office for National Statistics 2019). Some of the quality of research undertaken may hamper the development of organizational interventions to reduce the incidence of neck or shoulder MSDs in office environments, and more studies, using robust research methods, could help determine the effectiveness of any potential interventions to prevent MSDs among office workers.

Psychological and Social Factors and MSDs A lack of integrated MSD risk management procedures has been identified as a barrier to more effective workplace practices, and despite evidence existing that work-related psychosocial hazards are harmful and can interact with MSD risks,

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according to Australian researchers, this evidence often does not find its way into current health and safety risk management activities (Macdonald and Oakman 2015). And yet, preexisting conditions and being in constant pain from osteoarthritis can lead to depression and anxiety, which can intensify the pain (Macdonald and Oakman 2015). The extent to which working environments are contributing to stress can be assessed using a number of assessment tools readily available, which can help to identify mental health issues and situational factors. Such tools include questionnaires such as the Karasek’s Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek 1979, 1985) and the model of effort-reward imbalance (Siegrist et al. 2004). On a number of occasions during this chapter, reference has been made to how stress and lack of breaks from workstations and other work-related psychosocial hazards, such as low autonomy, can have additive or even interactive effect on MSDs (Carter et al. 2013; Celik et al. 2018; Chakraborty et al. 2018; Nowotny-Czupryna et al. 2012; Nyateka et al. 2012; Zhang et al. 2020; HSE 2020a, b, c). And yet the impact of psychosocial factors is not widely considered (stress, lack of job satisfaction, depression, lack of autonomy, poor work–life balances, etc.) because their relationship to MSDs is less understood by those responsible for workplace MSD risk management (Macdonald and Oakman 2015). Physical risks or hazards remain the chief concern for many managers, especially in physically demanding jobs such as construction. In addition, this could be an autocratic organizational culture where staff consultation and engagement may rarely, if ever, take place, and yet it can yield benefits as it can improve staff attitudes towards managing risks and empower them to be active players in developing preventative strategies (Hignett et al. 2005; Sharafkhani 2015; Stolt et al. 2020). It is often the case that attitudes of the staffs themselves require an intervention, if we take presenteeism among healthcare workers as one example (Kinman 2019), and also older workers may be reluctant to admit to experiencing musculoskeletal pain for fear of being stigmatized. While there is much variation within and between age groups when it comes to physical strength and how well we physically age, factors that pertain to ageing are relevant to all the professional groups discussed thus far. Contrary to the beliefs of many, the dominant finding in the research literature is that healthy older people with current skills perform as well at work as their younger counterparts, and those over 60 are in fact often better equipped to deal with stressful working environments and pose no greater safety risks. This comes largely to the protective personal properties of expertise, experience, and education (BMA 2016). That being said, there are some inevitabilities when it comes to ageing as the research shows that rates of MSDs are highest among men and women over 55 years old, and in certain professions as health and social care, MSD conditions are more painful in older workers (Clari et al. 2016; King et al. 2013).

What Does the Effective Risk Management of MSDs Look Like? Age positive policies should be part and parcel of any good health and safety risk management plans and should include assessments specific to particular job roles; age should be taken into account and any other potential vulnerabilities, to ensure

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that the work environment and job performance can be carried out safely (Bohle et al. 2010; Ilmarinen 2012; Kiss et al. 2008; Nicholson et al. 2016; Oakman et al. 2016). A holistic approach to assessing and managing treatment for musculoskeletal conditions is necessary, requiring the input of multidisciplinary health professionals, including general practitioners, dieticians, physical therapists, and fitness specialists. Good occupational health and work safety practices should be underpinned by commitment from those in the highest levels of management in any organization. One principal change in any organizational culture that could engender a prevention culture could be to expel the notion that one person, working in a remote part of the building, has the sole responsibility for health and safety. Canadian research has shown that occurrence of WRMSDs is higher when supervisors are not open to their staffs speaking up when they are concerned about occupational hazards (Tucker and Turner 2014). What makes sense then is for people supervising or having responsibility for a group of employees to be suitably supported and qualified and made aware of both physical and psychosocial risks that may exist in their workplace, and importantly understand age-specific risk factors. There is value in empowering workers to be active participants in any initiatives that identify and offer solutions to physical and psychosocial risks (Richardson et al. 2019; Stolt et al. 2020). Training is crucial in both awareness of risk and education that engenders positive attitudes to reporting early indications of MSDs, thus allowing early preventative measures to be implemented (Lunt et al. 2007). Occupational health has an important health promotion role; it is not simply a matter of assessing and managing MSDs, and this chapter has provided evidence that the risk of MSDs can be reduced among all age groups, through regular exercise, tackling obesity, eating more healthily, and giving up unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and maintaining good psychological health (Bevan 2015; Eklund et al. 2016; Felson et al. 1988; Ilmarinen 2012; Pradeepkumar et al. 2020). But again, it should not fall to one person to carry the responsibility for workers in any organization. Given that older people who suffer from MSDs and arthritis are less active, and therefore may be more prone to functional decline and increased mortality, older workers in particular should be encouraged to engage in regular physical exercise such as walking or dancing. The benefits are clear as exercise has been shown to improve skeletal muscle performance in healthy 60-year-olds and above (Beaudart et al. 2017; Ilmarinen 2012; Lundberg and Nader 2008). Added to this, diets high in fruits and vegetables can improve muscle mass in older adults (Dawson-Hughes et al. 2008). A push for further investment in ergonomic research, particularly in relation to sedentary professions, will further support a preventative approach to tackling MSDs in the workplace. Given the high risk of MSDs in the health and social care and the construction industry, advances in technology are welcomed that can more accurately pinpoint where and how muscular skeletal diseases progress and inform tailored, holistic interventions across all professions at particular risk of MSDs (Antwi-Afari et al. 2018; Kurien et al. 2018; Lewis et al. 2019; Stolt et al. 2020). Given the economic cost of a high prevalence of MSDs, it is not only important to prevent MSDs to help the economy, but it will also give older people the opportunity

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to enjoy longer working lives, and thus financial as well as physical and psychological health benefits (Bevan 2015; Cooper et al. 2010; Lunt et al. 2007; Vos et al. 2008).

Getting People with Injuries Back to Work At the beginning of this chapter, it was revealed that in GB during 2018–2019, almost seven million working days were lost due to work-related musculoskeletal disorders (LFS 2018/2019). Support for workers to return to their jobs can reduce the financial burden on the economy and minimize sickness absence (Kiss et al. 2008; Vargas-Prada et al. 2016). One example of an initiative, which can support workers to return to work faster, is a first-contact practitioner model of care called the Musculoskeletal (MSK) Core Capabilities Framework, created to guide employers on the development of MSD support services (Health Education England and NHS England 2018). This provides training guidelines on good practice for multiprofessional teams working in many settings, including early diagnosis. This is a valuable resource, given that a systematic review conducted by Australian researchers revealed that early intervention in the first 2 weeks of sickness absence with injured workers can reduce lost workdays (Nicholas et al. 2019).

Conclusion Musculoskeletal problems are one of the four most common reasons for people taking sick leave in the UK (Office for National Statistics 2018), and a large study in Finland revealed that the rates were higher among those of lower occupational class (Pekkala et al. 2018). And yet many musculoskeletal problems and disorders can be reduced and even prevented through a number of practices, which should be promoted and supported by organizational leaders. Managers should foster a health and safety culture, thereby ensuring that occupational health responsibilities are a core component of the job roles of supervisors at every level of an organization. As reported earlier, psychosocial hazards such as low autonomy, mental health problems, and low organizational support should be considered along with physical risks, and workers themselves need to take personal responsibility for acquiring knowledge and calling it out when they are concerned about their working conditions. By being more proactive, they will be able to enjoy the benefits a more healthy working practice could bring to their personal lives. Other important elements are having a robust monitoring and reporting system in place and encouraging staffs to be actively engaged in initiatives that find solutions to inform good health and safety policies. According to the World Health Organization, MSDs pose a real risk to healthy ageing right across the world (Briggs et al. 2016). Our behaviors and attitudes in the workplace will consequently have an important bearing on the extent to which we become older but healthy adults, absent of musculoskeletal pain or

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disorders. Ensuring that the right people take the right attitude towards occupational health and safety, in all work environments, will certainly be a good start.

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Abasiama Etuknwa and Mariya Mathai

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Common Mental Health Problems (CMPs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Symptoms Associated with Common Mental Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anxiety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stress and Related Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work and Common Mental Problems (CMPs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Impact of Common Mental Health Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Management of CMPs in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Successful Management of CMPs in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Overview of Workplace Management of CMP Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of Up-to-Date Findings on Workplace Management of CMPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gaps in Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Common mental health problems (CMPs) have been recognized as one of the most common causes of sickness absence in developed countries. Despite the effectiveness of interventions or workplace strategies for people sick-listed with CMP, the incidence of work disability due to CMP, days lost to work as a result, and the cost to the economy have shown little or no significant decrease over the years. At the same time, some studies suggest that preventive workplace-based interventions are effective in reducing the prevalence of CMPs. Other studies A. Etuknwa (*) Allied Professions, Sport and Exercise, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK e-mail: [email protected] M. Mathai Norwich Business School, Norwich Research Park, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_24

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imply that the failure to take account of the personal and social factors of sicklisted employees when managing or implementing workplace strategies may be contributing to the insignificant reductions in CMPs. However, a summary of upto-date reviews identifies two main findings for effective workplace management of CMPs: 1. Proactive interventions taking account of employee’s personal and social factors are likely to impact health outcomes or work functionality for people sick-listed with CMPs leading to return to work after a period of absence. 2. Employment outcomes such as job retention for these sick-listed individuals hinge on organizational factors. Hence, one’s ability to remain at work despite ill health due to CMPs is contingent on management practices within the workplace. This book chapter, therefore, aims to highlight the main types and causes of CMPs and their broader impacts. It also aims to identify best CMP management strategies in the workplace to date based on intervention studies and guidelines and other areas for future research that might be useful in reducing sickness absence rates due to CMPs. Keywords

Common mental disorders · Mental health · Occupational health · Management · Employment practices · Sickness absence · Return to work · Workplace interventions · Best-practices

Introduction Work disability caused by common mental health problems (CMPs) has shown a significant increase over the years and is now recognized as the leading cause of sickness absence and long-term disability in developed countries (Corbière et al. 2019; Harvey et al. 2017). The prevalence of CMPs has become a major research focus, especially as the economic cost of sickness absence is yearly growing (Hill 2015). In 2015/2016, work-related stress, depression, and anxiety accounted for a total of 488,000 reported new cases in the United Kingdom, a prevalence rate of 1510 per 100,000 workers with 11.7 million working days lost (Health and Safety Executive (HSE) 2016). Consequently 2018/2019 accounted for 602,000 reported new or long-standing cases with 12.8 million working days lost (Health and Safety Executive 2019) which is evidential of the significant increase in mental health issues in the country (see Fig. 1). Thus, there is a burden on employers and government to have a better understanding of the complexities of CMPs and how to effectively manage it to, in turn, impact on the growing sickness absence rate. Ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of employees in most developing and developed countries is the responsibility of the employer (Akomah et al. 2010; Chu and Dwyer 2002; E.U. 1989). Hence, requiring employers to implement effective workplace strategies to support employees sick-listed with CMPs is not misplaced.

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Fig. 1 Work-related stress, depression or anxiety per 100,000 workers: new and long standing (Health and Safety Executive 2019)

A wide range of practical strategies and interventions have been researched to address the burden of CMPs. However, the need for more proactive strategies instead of reactive strategies is required: proactive interventions, taking account of personal and organizational factors (Thisted et al. 2017). While the effectiveness of a varied number of these interventions on addressing CMPs has been ascertained (Lammerts et al. 2016; Nigatu et al. 2016), the insignificant decline in reported cases of CMPs, both new and long-standing cases, may suggest the need for more sustainablefocused approaches. However, it is still unclear what specific areas need to be addressed to effectively manage CMPs in the workplace. It is possible that while treatment approaches may be useful in helping sick-listed workers attain some level of recovery and work functionality, attaining a level of recovery that facilitates job retention is dependent on workplace management practices. This assumption is as a result of evidence showing that more sick-listed workers are likely to remain at work despite ill health (presenteeism) due to factors relating to the burden of their financial responsibilities (Kinman 2019; Lammerts et al. 2016). Therefore, the issue of presenteeism magnifies the responsibility of employers in providing adequate workplace measures to prevent a relapse. Hence, this chapter’s goal in examining the varied types of workplace interventions and best practices available to sick-listed workers will aid in identifying critical components that are useful for effective management and prevention of CMPs. However, according to Cancelliere et al. (2016) and Alavi and Oxley (2013), achieving more lasting outcomes for people sick-listed with CMPs may not be solely dependent on just the effectiveness of an intervention but may be a consequent of an interplay of many factors. Hence this chapter’s goal is to also examine studies that take account of the effects of a wide range of factors on CMPs’ outcome. This chapter begins with a brief description of the most commonly reported mental health problems and their symptoms in developed countries. Although some of these mental health problems are physically recognizable in patterns of behaviors or social relationships, others are hidden and unrecognizable and just as serious (Street 2005). In this chapter, we also pay specific attention to work-related CMPs and their impacts, as well as an overview of relevant evidence-based approaches and guidelines to manage CMPs in the workplace effectively.

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Common Mental Health Problems (CMPs) In most developed countries, common mental health problems (CMPs) are now the leading cause of sickness absence and long-term incapacity (Harvey et al. 2017). According to Seymour (2010), CMPs are widespread in the general population and a predominant health problem of working-age adults. The most commonly reported forms in the workforce which are usually treatable and preventable in some cases include depression, anxiety, and other stress-related conditions (Harvey et al. 2017; Joyce et al. 2016; Pomaki et al. 2012; Seymour 2010). According to the World Health Organization (2004), depression was ranked as the leading cause of disability, and its incidence was not gender specific. However, in recent times, a review conducted by Seymour (2010) in Great Britain indicates that the incidence of both depression and anxiety is higher among women and in people aged 45–54 years, with a notable upward trend in their rates over the last decade. While arguments on the gender specificity of the incidence of these mental health issues may not be fully confirmed, its impact is evident. However, the widespread incidence of CMPs in the workforce warrants the need for effective workplace strategies to successfully manage and support sick-listed individuals return to work and remain at work.

Symptoms Associated with Common Mental Problems People with common mental health problems have significant challenges with their thinking, mood, or behaviors; however, symptoms vary across different diagnoses (Melrose 2018). The association of mental health problems with experiencing brief stress and sadness is misplaced, especially as mental problems cause significant distress and impair function, making it difficult for sick-listed individuals to cope with the demands of everyday life, whereas normal stress and sadness do not (Melrose 2018). As such, while people who are stressed or sad can still manage to go about their daily living and work obligations, people with more serious mental health problems are unable to manage daily activities effectively. According to findings presented in a 2008 review commissioned by the Health Work and Wellbeing Programme, symptoms associated with mental health problems (e.g., sleep problems, fatigue, irritability, and worry) affect one-sixth of the working-age population of Great Britain at any time which can impair an individual’s work functioning (Lelliott et al. 2008). However, more symptoms are associated with specific forms of mental problems, and understanding how and under what circumstances these symptoms manifest might be useful to workplace leaders in the timely and effective management of cases.

Depression Depression is a mood disorder where people feel sad even when things are going well (Melrose 2018). According to the NHS (2019), there are different types of

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depression and the symptoms can be complex, widely vary across people, persist for weeks or months, and are bad enough to interfere with work, social, and family life. Symptoms of depression can be grouped in three main categories: psychological, physical, and social (NHS 2019). Psychological symptoms of depression could include continuous low mood, feeling hopeless and helpless, low self-esteem, feeling tearful, feeling guilt-ridden, feeling irritable and intolerant of others, having no interest in things, difficulty in making decisions, feeling worried, having harmful thoughts, etc. Physical symptoms of depression could include moving or speaking more slowly than usual, changes in appetite or weight loss, constipation, unexplained aches and pains, lack of energy, disturbed sleep, etc. Social symptoms of depression could include avoiding contact with friends and taking part in fewer social activities, neglecting hobbies and interests, having difficulties in the home, work, or family life, etc. It is important to note that these symptoms are not exhaustive of the full range of symptoms. Additionally, the onset of depression in some cases is gradual and can be difficult to detect (Becker et al. 1985).

Anxiety According to Melrose (2018), anxiety disorders are marked by pathological or extreme anxiety or dread. Anxiety often manifests itself in situations when people are worried, tense, or afraid, particularly about things that are about to happen or will happen in the future (Mind for Better Mental Health 2017). Some authors argue that people with intellectual disabilities are more likely to struggle with anxiety due to slightly different brain structures, limited expressive language abilities, and difficulty understanding social situations perceived as unpredictable and scary (Cooray and Bakala 2005). However, there is limited research in supporting this assertion. Experience of anxiety feels different for everyone and varies based on the level of threat perceived (Mind for Better Mental Health 2017; Huddy et al. 2005); it could be a thought, feeling, or a physical sensation. Some of these symptoms include the following: 1. Physical symptoms: a churning feeling in the stomach, feeling dizzy, pins and needles, restlessness, aches and pains, faster breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating or hot flushes, teeth grinding, nausea, panic attacks, difficulty swallowing, trembling, etc. (Melrose 2018; Mind for Better Mental Health 2017). 2. Behavioural symptoms: increased agitation, crying, repeating comments about feeling afraid, withdrawing, regressing toward more childlike behavior, clinging, and freezing (Melrose 2018). 3. Psychological symptoms: feeling tense, nervousness or inability to relax, having a sense of dread, feeling like the world is speeding up or slowing down, feeling unable to stop worrying or that bad things will happen if one stopped worrying, worrying about anxiety itself, wanting lots of reassurance from people or

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worrying that people are upset or angry with one, worrying about losing touch with reality, rumination, depersonalization, derealization, and worrying a lot about things that might happen in the future (Melrose 2018; NICE 2011).

Stress and Related Disorders Stress is the body’s reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure (NHS 2020). However, experiences of stress can either be acute (brief), episodic acute (frequent due to daily exposure to pressure), or chronic (long term) (Freshwater 2018). Feeling under pressure is something everyone feels at some point as a result of exposure to different stressful situations at work or home. Colligan and Higgins (2006) defined stress in the workplace as the change in one’s mental or physical state in response to workplaces that pose an appraised challenge or threat to employees. Based on this definition, experiences of stress in the workplace are of an acute episodic category; however, where it is not properly treated and managed, it could progress into chronic stress. Other forms of stress-related disorders include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a disorder in which an overwhelming traumatic event is reexperienced (Melrose 2018). According to Zatzick et al. (1997), it is not uncommon for people with PTSD to lose their jobs either because of reexperiencing symptoms or as a result of their inability to cope with reminders of the traumatic event they encounter while at work. Symptoms also vary according to the different types of stress disorders. Symptoms associated with stress include feeling overwhelmed, having racing thoughts or difficulty concentrating, being irritable, feeling constantly worried, anxious or scared, feeling a lack of self-confidence, having trouble sleeping or feeling tired all the time, avoiding things or people that are problems, eating more or less than usual, drinking or smoking more than usual, etc. (NHS 2020). Symptoms associated with PTSD include fear, helplessness, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, nightmares, insomnia, flashbacks, mistrust, intense psychological distress, and self-medication with abuse of a substance (Melrose 2018).

Work and Common Mental Problems (CMPs) While the most commonly reported cases of CMPs are related to issues at work, the same pressure and demands experienced at work can also be experienced outside work, thus significantly reducing the ability of individuals to work (HSENI 2019). According to Shift (2007), non-work-related mental health problems are often a reaction to difficult life events or experiences. Hence, while proper management strategies may be in place at work for CMPs, it may be counterproductive as these non-work experiences or events are ongoing and uncontrollable by the workplace. On the contrary, work-related issues causing or aggravating CMPs are controllable and more likely to be effectively managed.

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Fig. 2 Causes of work-related common mental problems in Great Britain (Health and Safety Executive 2019)

According to Health and Safety Executive’s (2019) recent report, work-related CMPs are often caused by issues relating to workload, lack of support, violence, threats or bullying, organizational changes and other factors (see Fig. 2), aligning with previous suggestions from some researchers on long work hours, work overload, lack of control over work, lack of participation in decision-making, poor social support, and unclear management and work role with some correlation with poor management being notable work factors associated with CMPs (Seymour 2010). How work impacts negatively on an individual, therefore, appears to be multifaceted. According to Sanderson and Andrews (2006), the changing nature of work itself increases the risk of mental issues. For example, studies have shown that working a seasonal, casual, fixed-term, temporary, or subsidized job with no benefits is associated with significantly worse mental health (Etuknwa et al. 2019; Sanderson and Andrews 2006). Hence, when components of the job impacting negatively on health are adequately assessed and adjusted for sick-listed employees, taking account of their symptoms, the risk to health may be substantially reduced.

Impact of Common Mental Health Problems The impact of CMPs in the workplace has serious consequences not only for the sick-listed individuals but also for the productivity of the organization (World Health Organisation (WHO) 2000).

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According to Dietrich et al. (2012), impacts of CMPs on sick-listed individuals are both personal and economic. As cited by Dietrich et al. (2012), part of the closing remark of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the paramount importance of one’s ability to contribute to society. Hence, the mental status of employees determines their performance at work, the rate of sickness occurrence, absenteeism, and staff turnover (World Health Organisation (WHO) 2000). In the event that these employees are absent from work for an extended period, it increases the likelihood of long-term disability, which impacts negatively on their income (Henderson et al. 2005). Consequently, research over the years has consistently shown that individuals with mental health issues are subject to stigma – unfair and unfavorable treatment of people due to their mental health conditions (Sharac et al. 2010). According to Sharac et al. (2010), unfair treatment of individuals sick-listed with mental health issues exists in a variety of settings to include housing, employment, and healthcare, which is likely to influence access to essential services and aggravate already existing conditions. The link between being diagnosed with CMPs and difficulty in gaining employment has been researched for many years, and findings show that while employers often express the willingness to recruit people with CMPs (Herzig and Thole 1998; Bieliauskas and Wolfe 1960; Landy and Griffith 1958), only a few employers follow through in actuality (Manning and White 1995). This position may explain why employees are often not willing to disclose their mental health history to employers to increase their chances of securing a job, on one hand, which in turn increases the prevalence of CMPs among the working-age population (Roberts and Macan 2006). This implication is supported by findings from Sharac et al.’s (2010) study, which showed that disclosure of mental health history has a detrimental impact on success in gaining employment. Conversely, there is evidence also showing that people who have gained employment are afraid of disclosing their mental health problems to their employers due to the perceived risk of jeopardizing their career (Mind 2011). These reservations by employees are not misplaced as evidence shows that compared to people sick-listed with physical conditions, employees sick-listed with CMPs or are returning to work after a period of absence due to CMPs are more likely to be closely monitored, demoted, or questioned more severely (Baldwin and Marcus 2006). Hence, these worker’s fear that their competence would be called to question if employers were privy to their mental health status. In the United Kingdom, the mental healthcare sector has in recent times been under tremendous financial pressures which have led to large-scale cost reduction programs shown to impact negatively on the quality of care provided for patients (Jacobs 2017). Nevertheless, a considerable dearth of evidence suggests that regardless of these financial pressures, people sick-listed with CMPs are less likely to seek help or would minimize their contact with care services in an attempt to avoid being labelled as “mentally ill” (Corrigan 2004). Therefore, as long as societal pressures as a result of poor perceptions of mental health issue persist, reducing the prevalence of CMPs and cost incurred as a result may prove challenging. CMPs are associated with large direct costs not only for individuals but also for society and the economy (Mental Health Foundation 2016). Studies that have

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compared the expenses associated with varying chronic conditions have shown that CMPs are among the costliest to employers (Wang et al. 2008). According to Langlieb and Kahn (2005), employers are a fundamental component of the healthcare system and are also increasingly contributing to policymaking decisions through the provision of relevant information and healthcare services or benefits to employees and their families in some cases. In 2011, it was estimated that it cost UK employers approximately £2.4 billion per year to replace staff lost due to CMPs (Mental Health Foundation 2015). However, this estimated cost increased to £5.4 billion in 2015, suggesting an insignificant reduction in the prevalence of CMPs despite evidence showing the effectiveness of some clinical interventions (Mental Health Foundation 2016). Consequently, based on a 2007 report published by The King’s Fund, mental health-related social and informal care costs in England were estimated at £22.5 billion a year; however, costs were projected to increase to £32.6 billion by 2030 (McCorne et al. 2008). With the economic costs of this scale, it is vital to understand more effective means to manage and prevent CMPs, and the burden of this responsibility rests on employers.

Management of CMPs in the Workplace Whether mental health issues are caused by or aggravated by work, employers have a legal duty of care to manage and prevent ill health in the workplace effectively (Health and Safety Executive 2017). Considering the mental healthcare sector in the United Kingdom in recent times has been under tremendous financial pressures (Jacobs 2017), for some employees, workplace interventions or management strategies may be the only form of treatment or rehabilitation they receive for ill health, hence a need to evaluate the quality and adequacy of these workplace CMP management strategies for lasting outcomes. According to Seymour (2010), a practical approach to the management of ill health such as CMPs in the workplace is likely to avert the related problems and costs often associated with absenteeism, presenteeism, or staff turnover. While there is a strong evidence base on the efficacy and effectiveness of clinical interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating CMPs (Hofmann et al. 2012; Warmerdam et al. 2010), returning to work after these treatments could either make or break the recovery process for sick-listed individuals, especially in working environments devoid of effective management strategies. Conversely, studies also show that due to personal or circumstantial factors, sick-listed workers are more likely to remain at work despite ill health, contributing to the high rate of presenteeism at the workplace, which contributes the risk of work to ill health in environments with poor CMP management structures (Kinman 2019). This increasing prevalence of presenteeism in the workplace questions the quality and effectiveness of up-to-date interventions or management strategies provided at the workplace to manage CMPs. In a bid to control business cost, many employers appear to be more focused on the cost of illness and related expenditures of disability and lost productivity time

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(Langlieb and Kahn 2005). Hence, it is possible that by so doing, the quality and effectiveness of management strategies may be compromised to save cost. However, as long key factors are not taken into account during the implementation of these interventions, sustainable outcomes are not likely to be attained, and neither will cost of ill health reduce (Alavi and Oxley 2013). Therefore, understanding how CMPs can be effectively managed in the workplace is crucial. Some systematic reviews carried out to evaluate the quality, content, and effectiveness of intervention strategies and guidelines (Cullen et al. 2018; Joyce et al. 2016; Pomaki et al. 2012; Seymour 2010) will hence be examined to ascertain the most effective workplace practices in managing CMPs.

Overview of Successful Management of CMPs in the Workplace Tsutsumi et al. (2009) Although evidence on the effects of a workplace participatory intervention on outcomes, promoting good mental health and organizational productivity, appeared to be promising, its effectiveness in a real workplace setting had not been investigated in a randomized control trial (RCT). Hence, Tsutsumi et al. (2009) conducted this RCT to explore the proposed effects of workplace participatory interventions on outcomes among blue-collar workers. The team-based, problem-solving intervention was based on active employee involvement, shared work-related goals, and action planning to improve working environments to reduce risk to mental health. The intervention was process-oriented and focused on identifying and resolving problems in existing practice and improving the environment and job redesign rather than a behavioral change in symptoms of ill health. Findings showed that to initiate and facilitate the intervention strategies successfully, key persons (leaders in charge of implementing participatory intervention) were adequately trained. Workers who participated in this intervention were able to improve their working environment by hazard identification, risk evaluation, group discussions on workplace improvements, and actual planning to realize set goals. The results indicated that workplace participatory intervention was effective in preventing deterioration of mental health which in turn impacted positively on productivity.

Seymour (2010) Seymour conducted a review of the literature between 1980 and 2008 for effective management of CMPs in the working-age population with outcomes being retention at work and return to work after sick leave. While evidence suggests the effectiveness of psychological therapies such as cognitive behavioural methods that focus on reducing symptoms in the treatment of anxiety and depression, on their own, they do not improve employment outcomes such as retention at work or a return to work after a period of absence. Hence effective management of CMPs within the workplace is facilitated by organizational factors in the form of provision of adequate adjustments and flexible working options. Additionally, the significance of the line

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manager’s role in effectively managing CMPS and the need for relevant training to enable them to do this was particularly identified as a key finding of the review. As a follow-up from this finding, a pilot program was conducted in Australia aiming to build the knowledge, confidence, and skills of managers in supporting people with CMPs at work. At the end of the program, impact assessment showed that manager’s knowledge about CMPs and proper management rose significantly, and their attitudes toward sick-listed individuals changed positively; and their confidence to provide support and take actions for these groups of employees improved. Findings consistent with included studies in these reviews showed that for people remaining at work or successfully returning to work after a period of absence due to CMPs is not a function of being entirely free of symptoms, hence the need for less emphasis to be placed on employees being symptom-free before returning to work.

Pomaki et al. (2012) Pomaki et al.’s (2012) review of literature from 2007 to 2009 was aimed at summarizing the evidence on workplace-based prevention of CMPs with primary outcomes being work disability outcomes (retention at work, sickness absence, and return to work), quality of life, and economic costs. While findings showed that facilitation of treatment and psychological interventions, primarily cognitive behavioral therapy, improved work functioning, quality of life, and economic outcomes, interventions had no effects on work disability outcomes. Work disability outcomes were found to be facilitated by a workplace disability management system. This intervention involved mailing information packages on available modified working options and benefits to people sick-listed with CMPs. Findings also showed that workplaces working in collaboration with healthcare services reported greater effectiveness in improving all of the outcomes. Pomaki et al.’s (2012) review, therefore, draws on two main conclusions: (1) workplace-based interventions show promise for preventing work-related CMPs, and (2) non-workplace-based interventions such as clinical-based treatments divorced from the workplace do not typically result in improvements in work functioning and return to work outcomes.

Dietrich et al. (2012) Dietrich et al. (2012) conducted a systematic review of the literature published from 2001 to 2009 on preventive strategies for individuals with depression. Their study found that workplace intervention strategies, explicitly targeting depression, were still yet to be fully developed. Only one prevention intervention targeting depression in the workplace was identified in the literature search. Evaluation of the program showed that providing a diagnosis of depression along with psychoeducation significantly improved symptom severity and remission rates. However, younger persons (below 40 years), particularly women, did not benefit from the program considering the prevalence of depression is more commonly reported among women compared to men. Hence, Dietrich and colleagues called for more evidence-based interventions in the workplace, targeting depression and particularly tailored to target higher-risk groups.

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Joyce et al. (2016) A systematic review of literature from 2001 to 2012 was conducted to examine the effectiveness of workplace mental health interventions on symptom reduction and occupational outcomes. Three main intervention types were identified: primary (increased employee control, physical activity, and workplace health promotion services), secondary (workplace screening, counselling, stress management programs, and psychological debriefing), and tertiary (CBT, exposure therapy, and medication). Their findings showed that interventions with a specific focus on work such as exposure therapy and CBT-based and problem-focused return to work programs had a strong evidence base for improving both symptoms and a moderate evidence base for improving occupational outcomes for people sick-listed with depression and anxiety. The effects of these interventions on work-related aspects such as absenteeism and presenteeism were not explored in the majority of the included studies. Overall, Joyce et al. (2016) conclude that effective prevention of CMPs in the workplace might not be as a result of a single intervention approach but by implementing multiple intervention approaches simultaneously.

Carolan et al. (2017) The aim of this review was (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of occupational digital mental health interventions in enhancing employee psychological well-being and increasing work effectiveness and (2) to identify features of the intervention associated with the highest rate of engagement and adherence. Twenty-one randomized controlled trials (RCT) originating from seven countries (United States, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, and Sweden) and published from January 2000 to May 2016 were identified and included in the review. Included RCTs compared a web-based psychological intervention delivered in the workplace with waitlist control, active control, or usual care. Over half of the interventions were based on cognitive or cognitive behavioral therapy, with three based on stress and coping, two based on mindfulness, and one each based on social cognitive theory, problem-solving training, positive psychology, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Results indicated that occupational digital mental health interventions had a statistically significant effect on both psychological well-being and work effectiveness. However, no statistically significant differences were observed in outcomes between studies using CBT approaches compared to other psychological strategies adopted. Findings from this review also revealed that interventions that offered guidance were delivered over a short period (6 to 7 weeks), utilized secondary modalities for delivering interventions, and engaged users through emails and text messages, and used persuasive technology (selfmonitoring and tailoring) achieved the most significant engagement and adherence. Despite the positive effects of a digital mental health intervention in the workplace on evaluated outcomes, Carolan et al. (2017) suggest the need to conduct further research to understand better the likely challenges and benefits of delivering this intervention in a workplace setting.

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Cullen et al. (2018) A systematic review of the literature between 1990 and 2015 was conducted by Cullen et al. (2018) to synthesize evidence on the effectiveness of workplace-based return to work interventions and work disability management interventions that assist workers sick-listed with both physical and mental health conditions. Evidence was synthesized across three main intervention domains: health-focused, service coordination, and work modification interventions. Strong evidence showed that return to work due to mental health conditions was significantly facilitated by multidomain interventions incorporating at least two of the three domains. There was also strong evidence showing that CBT interventions in the absence of workplace modifications or service coordination components are ineffective in helping people with mental issues return to work. Gayed et al. (2018) This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted as a result of the recognition of the role of managers in negatively impacting the mental health and well-being of employees and the growing need to train these managers on how to reduce workrelated mental health risk factors. Ten controlled trials on workplace interventions for managers with an emphasis on the mental health of employees conducted in four countries (Canada, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom) were identified and included in the review. The review aimed to assess the overall efficacy of workplace mental health education delivered to managers that targeted their employees’ mental well-being. Results from the meta-analysis indicated that managers benefitted from specialized and evidence-based interventions targeted at promoting their understanding of mental health problems experienced by employees. The mental health training notably appeared to increase not only their understanding of mental issues but also their role and responsibility when it comes to the mental health of their employees, their attitude toward mental health at work, and their behavior in addressing mental health issues in general. While a few included studies which assessed the impact of training managers on employee outcome showed some positive effects on sickness absence rate and disability, there was a general lack of high-quality studies evaluating employee outcomes. Hence, Gayed et al.’s (2018) studies were therefore unable to reach firm conclusions concerning overall effects. Wan Mohd Yunus et al. (2018) A systematic review of RCTs was conducted to investigate the effects of universal and targeted workplace interventions on levels of depression. Twenty-two studies conducted in ten countries (the Netherlands, Thailand, Germany, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Hong Kong, Australia, and Finland) between 1987 and 2015 were included. Of the 22 studies included, 14 studies used a targeted approach (offered to specific employees with higher levels of depression), while 8 used a universal approach (offered to all employees). Two main intervention approaches were identified in the included studies: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and interventions combining different therapeutic approaches. While CBT

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was the most frequently used intervention approach in the workplace, however, findings indicated that interventions that combined more than one therapeutic approach showed more promising results compared to CBT alone. Particularly, interventions combining CBT and coping flexibility and delivered in a group format recorded the highest effect size and showed low attrition, respectively. This finding suggests that people sick-listed with depression are more likely to engage and benefit from intervention strategies that involve group participation (universal intervention) rather than singling them out (targeted intervention). These combined interventions were shown to be effective in reducing levels of depression among employees at the workplace. However, Wan Mohd Yunus et al. advise on the need to carefully think through the mode of delivery, as well as the suitability of implementing combined interventions and its fit with the target work population.

Etuknwa et al. (2019) While several studies and systematic reviews have been conducted on the effectiveness of a wide range of interventions, the prevalence of CMPs persists, which raises uncertainties regarding the effectiveness of interventions in sustaining outcomes. Some authors suggest that when an employee’s personal and social factors are taken into account, more sustainable outcomes may be achieved. It was for this reason that Etuknwa et al. (2019) conducted a review of 79 literature published from 1989 to 2017 to assess the impact of personal and social factors on sustainable return to work (RTW) after ill health due to mental health disorders alongside musculoskeletal disorders. Personal and social factors identified in the included studies reporting sustainable RTW outcomes were support from leaders and co-workers, job crafting practices, age, gender, work attitude, self-efficacy, education, economic status/ income, length of sickness absence, and job contract/security. The most consistent evidence for achieving sustainable RTW for common mental health disorders was support from leaders and co-workers, having a positive work attitude and high selfefficacy, being of a younger age, and being of a higher educational level. Findings from this review demonstrate the role of a variety of personal and social factors play in impacting either positive or negative outcomes. It also highlighted the interrelationship between an individual’s personal factors and their social environment in impacting positive RTW outcomes and the need to research further the nature of the interaction between these factors in more detail in ways that would benefit employers in more effective implementation of RTW strategies.

Overview of Workplace Management of CMP Guidelines Based on the scale and impact of work-related CMPs in developed countries, a variety of guidelines on how to effectively prevent, detect, and manage CMPs have been developed for and are easily accessible to workplaces. Even though current trend with the advent of guidelines and adoption of best practice strategies at workplaces may suggest that employers are beginning to act more proactively on mental health issues, employees still feel like they are not adequately supported (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 2018). The insignificant

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reductions in the prevalence of CMPs may suggest that the adoption of recommendations provided in these documents may not necessarily be translating to effective implementation. Hence, it is important to understand the content, quality, and applicability of these guidelines and their overarching impact. According to LaMontagne et al. (2014), guidelines should be based on sound principles or theories, and their feasibility and effectiveness need to be demonstrated in implementation and effectiveness studies. In other words, guidelines should be informed by evidence-based studies, and implementation should be practical. It is, therefore, unclear if current workplace guidelines on effective management of CMPs in the workplace have been developed as suggested by LaMontagne and his colleagues and how that contributes to workplace disability outcomes. Additionally, there is also the persistent issue of how workplace health intervention policies and practice are considered more individual-directed and devoid of integrated approaches, which may be viewed as a contributing factor to poor implementation (LaMontagne et al. 2014). A review of guidelines across developed countries has been conducted and will be briefly summarized below.

Joosen et al. (2015) The aim of Joosen et al.’s (2015) review was to identify occupational health guidelines focusing on the management of mental disorders and stress-related symptoms from different countries worldwide and to describe them, compare the content, and assess their developmental and reporting quality. A systematic search of relevant guidelines was conducted, and 14 guidelines developed from 2000 to 2011 in 5 countries (Japan, Finland, Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands) were considered eligible and included in the final review. Results showed that only 4 of the 14 guidelines were of high-reporting quality. The best described component across all the guidelines was the scope and purpose. As such, some guidelines were lacking in clarity around stakeholder involvement, the rigor of development, and applicability. Consequently, the majority of the guidelines missed clearly formulated vital recommendations. Furthermore, most of the guidelines inadequately reported on editorial independence, barriers, and facilitators for implementation and the procedures used to gather and synthesize evidence. Joosen et al.’s (2015) review also identified the difficulty in accessing available guidelines during the search for guidelines stage. Joosen et al. suggest the need for guideline developers, implementers, and researchers to learn from each other and make guidelines accessible via international databases. To address issues around the quality, applicability, and implementation of guidelines, Joosen et al. (2015) suggest the need for guideline committees to be transparent in publishing the background study and their literature study and clearly describe how they derived recommendations from the available evidence. Dewa et al. (2016) A systematic review of best practice guidelines was conducted to address two questions: (1) What is the quality of the development and recommendations of these guidelines? (2) What are the areas of agreement and discrepancy among the

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identified guidelines related to return to work (RTW) from mental illness-related disability leave? Out of 58 unique documents identified for screening, three guidelines developed in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia were included in the final review. Included guidelines scored low on quality as a result of a lack of transparency on the evidence base linked to recommendations and how the evidence could be applied in practice. There were no discrepancies among the included guidelines, and all agreed on the need for (1) a well-described organizational policy and procedure for the role and responsibility of all stakeholders, (2) a disability leave plan, and (3) a need for a coordinated RTW plan that includes work accommodations. Additionally, one guideline highlighted the importance of supervisor training and mental health literacy training for all staff. Common across included guidelines was the recognition of the role of a variety of stakeholders in aiding successful RTW. The importance of managers working in collaboration with the sick-listed worker to develop appropriate work accommodations and the need for the workplace to support these employees by providing easy access to treatment services was also highlighted. While these guidelines emphasize different aspects of RTW, Dewa et al. (2016) suggests that taking account of all elements could be considered complementary and together provide relevant components of managing mental illnessrelated disability in the workplace.

Memish et al. (2017) Memish et al. (2017) conducted a review of 20 guidelines developed for or easily accessible to workplaces in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Europe on how employers can detect, prevent, and manage mental health problems in the workplace. The review aimed to assess both the quality and content of these guidelines. Evidence showed that the most effective way to prevent, manage, and protect employee’s mental health problems is via interventions designed to target both individual, employee level, and organizational level factors (e.g., leadership styles, workplace climate, or culture). Hence, Memish et al. (2017) suggest that future guidelines should take account of organizational factors to ensure recommendations are comprehensive and concordant with a best practice, integrated approach. The content and quality of guidelines varied significantly, with low scores often as a result of a focus on detection and treatment of mental health problems in the workplace, rather than on protection and prevention. Guidelines which have preventive content were found to be lacking in practical tools and advice on implementation. Development processes of guidelines were also found to be lacking in rigor and input from sick-listed stakeholders. Nexø et al. (2018) Seventeen workplace guidelines developed between 2000 and 2016 and aimed at preventing, detecting, and managing work-related mental health problems in Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, New Zealand, and Sweden were reviewed for quality and content. The review identified three key recommended preventive approaches (primary, secondary, and tertiary) mostly focusing on the role of employers. However, the quality of the guidelines varied considerably, even though in some cases the quality of the scope and purpose and the clarity of presentation

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were high. The quality of stakeholder involvement, rigor in development, and applicability was poor. Guidelines were found to be developed without the backings of evidence-based studies. Therefore, Nexø et al. (2018) conclude that workplaces need better quality guidelines with sufficient rigor and evidence from effectiveness studies to prevent, detect, and manage work-related CMPs properly.

Summary of Up-to-Date Findings on Workplace Management of CMPs An overview of up-to-date evidence has identified consistent evidence on the effectiveness of crucial workplace interventions on two main outcomes: health and employment/disability outcomes. As health outcomes have to do with improving symptoms and work functioning, employment/disability outcomes in these studies included job retention, sickness absence, return to work, and productivity. On the one hand, while cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) was identified as the most widely used intervention for people sick-listed with CMPs, its effects were only found on health outcomes. However, interventions combining more than one therapeutic approach compared to CBT alone were found to show more promising effects on symptoms. Conversely, to achieve employment outcomes, it is suggested that CBT be adopted with other intervention approaches not only focusing on health. More specifically, evidence suggests that CBT implemented in the absence of work modifications is bound to be ineffective in achieving employment outcomes. On the other hand, employment/disability outcomes across reviewed studies appeared to be consistently facilitated by the workplace disability management system. Employees sick-listed with CMPs were found to benefit from interventions that were problem-focused, participatory (group-based), and incorporating work factors such as the provision of adequate job redesign and work accommodation/ flexible working options, training of line managers, a supportive line manager and co-workers, benefits, an ethical workplace culture, and working in collaboration with healthcare services. However, implementing preventive strategies without taking account of personal and social factors surrounding sick-listed employees is likely to impede the attainment of sustainable outcomes. Hence, the importance of taking into account key factors such as employee’s age, level of education, or length of absence when agreeing on appropriate strategies to aid in understanding employee’s likelihood of relapse, ability to understand and adhere to intervention procedures, and likely challenges to transitioning back to work, respectively. The role of managers regarding their competence, their attitude toward sick-listed workers, and their behavior in addressing mental health issues were identified as key to the effective management of CMPs in the workplace. Hence along with adequate training, managers working in collaboration with a wide range of support services to include healthcare appear to provide them with the needed support to make informed decisions regarding appropriate interventions tailored to sick-listed employees. This finding is consistent with Corbière et al.’s (2019) recent study on stakeholders’ role and actions in the return-to-work process of workers on sick leave due to common mental disorders. Therefore, it is clear that effective workplace management of

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CMPs involves multiple disciplines and stakeholders, and the effect depends on the interplay between workplace and social and personal factors. Additionally, multiple studies have shown that effective prevention of CMPs in the workplace might not be a result of a single intervention approach; hence it might benefit employers to consider multiple intervention approaches simultaneously. There is a general lack of good quality guidelines informing effective management and prevention of CMPs in workplaces. While the scope and purpose of review guidelines were considered of high quality, key contents of the guidelines considered of low quality were consistent across all guidelines. These contents include a general lack in issues relating to rigor in development, clarity on the role and competency of all stakeholders, ease of applicability and implementation, and input from sick-listed employees. More importantly, guidelines were generally found to be lacking the evidence base linked to the recommendations. Hence, there is a possibility that the poor-quality nature of guidelines adopted by employers may be playing a significant role in the insignificant reductions of CMPs in the workplace. When stakeholders who manage the implementation of preventive strategies such as work accommodations are unclear on the practical tools to adopt and do not work in collaboration with sick-listed workers to clarify their limitations, ineffective work strategies resulting in aggravating ill health is perhaps unavoidable. Additionally, recommendations informed by research must clearly state practical procedures and tools on what was done and how and under what circumstances strategies work to guide effective implementation better. An overview of these guidelines, therefore, stresses the importance of betterquality guidelines to guide employers on how to manage and prevent CMPs in the workplace effectively. As highlighted in the interventions, the need to train managers or stakeholders who oversee the implementation of preventive work strategies is also identified as a key factor in the guidelines, showing its importance. Therefore, it implies that effective management and prevention of CMPs at the workplace is facilitated to a great extent by competent and supportive managers.

Gaps in Evidence The evidence base on the effectiveness of interventions on health outcomes, particularly for people with depression, is still lacking. However, employees sick-listed with depression in examined studies in this chapter appeared to benefit more from CBT interventions administered together with coping flexibility delivered in group form. Based on the limited evidence drawing the link between these intervention approaches and improved health outcomes for people with depression, a need for further research in this area is essential.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have discussed the most commonly reported common mental health problems, their symptoms, and their impacts. These disorders are recognized as a major public health problem (Goldberg and Gater 1996) and a leading cause of

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sickness absence and long-term disability in developed countries (Corbière et al. 2019; Harvey et al. 2017). The World Health Organization has indicated an increase in the prevalence of these disorders in recent years, affecting (respectively) 4.4% and 3.6% of the world’s population (World Health Organisation 2017). Goetzel et al. (2018) argue that since most of life is spent in working years, the workplace is an ideal setting for public health-informed initiatives that promote mental and behavioral health and prevent illness. As such, we have summarized the effective workplace strategies on managing CMPs and highlighted essential contents to improve guidelines to better inform employers on effective management of CMPs for more significant reductions in the prevalence of CMPs. Hence, it is anticipated that this will aid businesses in saving substantial resources, decreasing presenteeism, increasing productivity, encouraging job retention while reducing healthcare costs, and improving the mental health of their employees. While CMPs are complex and differ in symptoms, depending on the severity, there is sufficient evidence suggesting that taking account of personal and social factors of workers during the implementation of proactive interventions incorporating work factors is likely to yield favorable outcomes – outcomes such as the elimination of the risk of work to ill health to a reasonably practicable level, which in turn reduces lost working days. Because poorly managed intervention processes have been shown to have a high likelihood of aggravating ill health and negatively impacting employment or disability outcomes, the need to train workplace actors (line managers, supervisors, etc.) who manage these implementation processes cannot be overemphasized. Furthermore, a workplace that fosters supportive interactions between leaders, co-workers, and sick-listed workers is likely to enhance work attitudes and self-efficacy, thus impacting on sustainable outcomes. According to Etuknwa et al. (2019), promoting a workplace culture of support is essential to making people sick-listed with CMPs feel valued, worthy, and not necessarily blamed for mental condition.

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Burnout

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Contents Introduction and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Person-Oriented Approaches to Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Worklife Profiles Based on the MBI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Areas of Worklife . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Change Model for Burnout Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual Versus Organizational Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Improving Social Encounters to Alleviate Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Job burnout combines exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy into a syndrome that functions as an occupational condition undermining the quality of worklife. Burnout has negative implications for mental and physical well-being without being a disease in itself. Instead, burnout reflects a breakdown in the relationships that people maintain with their workplaces. Although burnout has been the focus of academic research and management consulting for nearly half a century, little progress has been made on defining effective interventions. Much of the research and advice pertaining to alleviating and preventing burnout focus on individual action, largely ignoring the predominant role of management practices, work demands, resource shortages, and strained personal relationships that research has consistently associated with the syndrome. Given the wide range of workplace M. P. Leiter (*) Deakin University, Geelong, Australia Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_25

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processes and conditions that have been associated with burnout, there is a potential for a wide range of strategies worth exploring to test ways of alleviating the three dimensions of the burnout syndrome. Improving the quality of social encounters at work is one approach considered here. Keywords

Burnout · Work engagement · Areas of worklife · Workplace civility · Organizational intervention

Introduction and Definitions Burnout reflects a breakdown in employees’ relationships with their workplace that is characterized by ongoing exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. The World Health Organization (WHO) in the course of developing the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) made a definitive statement that burnout is not a disease. The combination of exhaustion with cynicism and inefficacy did not in itself warrant the classification as a disease. Instead, burnout functions as an “occupational condition,” parallel to chronic unemployment that is associated with a variety of mental and physical illnesses (https://www.who.int/ mental_health/evidence/burn-out/en/). So, while not a disease in and of itself, burnout signals vulnerabilities to developing diseases. However, referring to burnout as an occupational condition fails to capture the full scope of the condition, its insidious impact on career trajectories (Maslach et al. 2001), and its capacity to persist for years (Leiter et al. 2013; Toppinen-Tanner et al. 2002). If not a health condition, burnout has qualities of a major life crisis focused on a primary life domain. Work defines significant relationships in which people connect with organizations. The relationship may be brief or last a lifetime. The relationship could encompass a full range of personal motives, aspirations, abilities, and values. Or it could be a transactional opportunity to trade labor for money. In this more transactional mode, persistently excessive demands or resource shortfalls would likely prompt exit as people seek better rates of exchange for their labor. They may resign themselves to remaining in problematic jobs during poor labor markets, prompting them to reconsider their options. When work encompasses much more in terms of values and commitments, decisions to exit become more fraught, resulting in more people remaining in place despite difficulties in maintaining sufficient energy, involvement, and efficacy in the course of doing their jobs.

Person-Oriented Approaches to Burnout In their writings on person-oriented approaches, Bergman and Magnusson (1997) emphasized both theoretical and analytical aspects of the perspective. A central theory notion was that a key task for psychology was developing comprehensive

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and integrated models of people. That is, people comprise a multitude of elements and processes, but these components do not simply exist parallel to one another, but they form interactive systems. From that basis, unwrapping the components has a useful but ultimately limited capacity to further understanding. A holistic consideration of entities adds some valuable depth. When considering people individually or in groups, distinct patterns of elements emerge. That is, people do not combine components in the same manner, but the combinations in practice can be distilled into a finite set of patterns. The analytic aspect of personal-oriented approaches rests upon statistical procedures of pattern identification, specifically cluster analysis and latent profile analysis (LPA). These techniques use iterative processes to sort through a large set of individual records on key variables to determine ways in which they combine with one another. In practice, cluster analysis tends toward solutions in which the various profiles are of similar size; LPA has less of a tendency in this way. A critical decision within a person-oriented analysis is determining the number of profiles. The procedure involves running a series of analyses that specify 4, 5, 6, or whatever number of profiles. LPA uses an iterative process, the results of which provide indicators of model fit, none of which are considered definitive on its own. In combination they can inform decisions on selecting the number of profiles to pursue. The indicators include the Akaike information criterion (AIC), the Bayesian information criterion (BIC), and the Lo-Mendell Rubin adjusted likelihood ratio. For AIC and BIC, smaller values indicate a better fit (Williams and Kibowski 2016); for Lo-Mendell and the bootstrapped likelihood ratio test, a significant value indicates a better fit than provided by a model with one less profile (Nylund et al. 2007). Entropy indicates the probability of accurate assignment of cases to a profile. In addition to these statistical indicators that at times may be inconclusive, one examines the extent to which the resulting profiles make sense in light of the theoretical underpinnings of the approach. Finally, profile solutions with very small numbers of participants in any of the profiles are not viable. Profiles offer benefits relative to median or quartile splits, an alternative method of turning continuous scores into categories. Splits receive criticisms first for impoverishing the available information. For example, the exhaustion scale of the MBI General Scale (MBI-GS) has 5 items rated on a 7-point (0 to 6) scale, yielding a range of scores from 0 to 30 with each increment indicating a bit more exhaustion. Analyses that divide these scores into high/medium/low, based on the 33% and 67% points in a normative frequency scale, reduce a 30-point scale to a 3-point scale. That impoverishment of the data reduces the potential degree of subtlety in any analysis based on the categorization. This reduction in the data brings the benefit of labelling a third of respondents has high burnout. That trade-off is of dubious value in that (1) exhaustion is not the same as burnout and (2) there has been no validation of the implicit proposition that any qualitative changes in burnout-relevant experiences or covariants occur at this arbitrary 67% cutoff. This last point pertains to the second criticism leveled at splits: they equate the difference between a respondent who scored just above and one who scored just below the cutoff with a difference between two people who scored on opposite extremes of the categories. The practice

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of slotting responses into high/medium/low has found favor in some professional journals but have little currency in forums that value statistical analysis. Profile analysis adds a level of sophistication to the analysis that reduces the relevance of these shortcomings of unidimensional splits. Its capacity to identify subgroups with distinct patterns on multiple indicators increases confidence that distinctions have a deeper foundation than simply being a little higher or a little lower on a given measure. This confidence increases when the measures thereby combined define a syndrome in which the elements relate to one another in a meaningful way. The results of a profile analysis are more interesting and more useful when the defining elements do not highly correlate with one another. Three highly correlated elements are likely to move in lockstep. Perhaps the elements are reflections of a single underlying construct, or they are all determined by identical situational conditions. When the defining measures are highly correlated, the resulting profiles tend to be high on all three, low on all three, and few variations in between of theoretical or practical interest. In contrast, defining elements that have moderate and uneven correlations with one another create more opportunities for more interesting and useful profiles. That is, if the profiles simply reflect high, medium, and low scores on the defining elements, the profiles would correlate with other measures of precursors or outcomes in the same way as would the elements themselves. Lower correlations among elements increase the possibilities for interesting profiles because a given score on one element does not inevitably imply a similar score on other elements.

Worklife Profiles Based on the MBI The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) generally shows moderately high correlations of exhaustion with cynicism (emotional exhaustion with depersonalization on the original Human Services Scale) with low to moderate correlations of these elements with professional efficacy (personal accomplishment on the original Human Services Scale) (Maslach et al. 2001). Person-oriented analyses using latent profile analysis (LPA) has identified various profiles (e.g., Mäkikangas et al. 2020). One study has used cluster analysis based on the Oldenburg burnout scale combined with the Utrecht work engagement scale (Timms et al. 2012). These analyses have confirmed the two contrasting profiles: negative scores on all three elements (e.g., burnout) and positive scores on all three elements (e.g., engagement). They have found intermediate profiles in which the elements do not move together. Leiter and Maslach (2016) found five profiles in their analyses of two samples. In addition to burnout and engagement, the analysis identified profiles with negative scores on only one of the three elements in combination with positive or moderate scores on the other two elements. These three profiles were labelled ineffective (negative only on efficacy), overextended (negative only on exhaustion), and disengaged (negative only on cynicism). The graph, MBI profiles, shows the average scores for each profile on the MBI elements derived from combined surveys of Australian employees in various

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industries (primarily healthcare, police, financial services, and consulting; N ¼ 989). Engaged has below average levels of exhaustion and cynicism. In fact, it is the only profile in this sample with below average levels on those elements. It also has above average levels of efficacy. In contrast, burnout shows the opposite: very high levels of exhaustion and cynicism with below average levels of efficacy. The ineffective profile has average levels of exhaustion and cynicism combined with low levels of efficacy. The profile reflects more a sense of dullness than distress. In this profile people on average experience exhaustion and cynicism occasionally as do people in general, but they rarely feel confirmed in their efficacy or their impact. In the ineffective profile, people are missing qualities of being engaged with their work, but their state is much less distressed than in the other non-engaged profiles. Overextended is noteworthy for high exhaustion with moderate levels of cynicism. Efficacy is in the positive range, at a similar level as for engaged. This profile conveys an image of people working too long or too hard without sufficient opportunities for rest and recovery. Their high sense of efficacy may be part of what keeps them going. It conveys that they believe in themselves as important contributors to their colleagues or their service recipients. The disengaged profile has high levels of cynicism with moderate levels of exhaustion and moderately low efficacy in this sample. This profile conveys a more distant and discouraged relationship with work. The burnout profile has the worst of all three elements: the most negative scores on exhaustion, cynicism, and efficacy. People in this profile has the longest way to go to return to an average level of experience. And they lack any positive elements on which to build.

Note: N ¼ 989

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A normative database for the Maslach Burnout Inventory General Scale (MBI-GS) including 45,000 entries from a variety of occupations but mostly within healthcare has engaged as the most prevalent profile at 36%. The other four profiles have roughly equal prevalence ranging from 14% for burnout to 18% for overextended. This distribution underscores the importance of a clear definition of burnout in reporting surveys. Articles that report very high rates of burnout for healthcare professionals use generous criteria, such as scoring in the most negative 33% on any of the three subscales.

Note: N ¼ 45,293

Areas of Worklife The areas of worklife model (Leiter and Maslach 2004, 2011; Maslach and Leiter 1997) brought together research linking the three aspects of burnout to matches and mismatches in six areas. Workload refers to the extent to which employees find the amount, complexity, and quality of demands manageable. Control concerns employees’ participation in decision-making and their exercise of autonomy in their work. Reward captures recognition, while community concerns the availability of supportive social encounters at work. Fairness assesses distributive and procedural justices. Values addresses the extent to which employees believe that their values and the organizational values coincide. The model follows a person/job fit framework by conceding that people may vary considerably in their preferred mode of work. For example, some people may be much more concerned with value congruence with their employers, while others may have a more transactional view

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of their employment relationship. Similarly, opportunities or crises within a workplace may make one area of worklife more salient for all employees at times. The areas of worklife model (Leiter and Maslach 2004) depicts the six areas to maintain a consistent balance with the three aspects of burnout. Rather than a unidirectional causal model, influence works broadly. For example, the model proposes that unmanageable workload contributes to exhaustion while exhaustion reduces the range of work demands that people find manageable. Value conflicts with employers may prompt cynicism, while cynicism increases employees’ skepticism about the sincerity of employers’ values. Meta-analyses have confirmed that the policies and practices that define the management environment have distinct relationships with the three aspects of burnout with both exhaustion and depersonalization consistently negatively related to commitment, reflecting the withdrawal aspect of cynicism or depersonalization (Lee and Ashforth 1996). It follows that changes in employees’ experience of exhaustion, cynicism, and efficacy would align with changes in employees’ evaluation of their management environment. The figure, worklife areas across profiles, displays scores on the 6 areas of worklife for each of the 5 worklife profiles compiled from surveys of 234 employees participating in surveys of healthcare and law enforcement personnel in Australia. On the two extremes, engaged is associated with positive evaluations of all six areas of worklife, while burnout is associated with negative scores on all six areas. Ineffective has values close to the midline for five of the areas of worklife but has positive evaluation of manageable workload. People in the ineffective profile are not enthusiastically positive about areas of worklife, but they do not appear distressed either. They appear to find their workload as manageable as those in the engaged profile.

Note: N ¼ 234

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In contrast, the overextended profile is associated with negative ratings of workload, consistent with their defining features of exhaustion. The only other area of worklife that is notably lower than the norm is fairness, which may pertain to workload allocation. Disengaged has an opposite pattern. Workload is rated at the average level while the other five areas of worklife receive negative ratings. These distinct ratings on the six areas of worklife demonstrate a potential value of a personoriented approach. The contrasts across the profiles do not mirror correlational analyses of a steadily more negative view of worklife with more negative scores on the MBI subscales. Instead, the profiles emphasize different concerns for people in the various profiles. The analysis also has implications for taking action to alleviate. Clearly, the burnout profile calls for definitive action that may not be well received in the first instance. That is, people in the burnout profile are exhausted, reducing their inclination to try anything new. Cynicism reflects a lack of confidence in the employing organization or in other people, as reflected in the MBI item, “I just want to do my work and not be bothered.” The low level of efficacy presents another barrier in that people have lost confidence in their own capacity to have an impact through their work. One the full burnout syndrome has established itself in people; alleviating it requires an intense and ongoing course of action to have any impact. Moving people in the other profiles toward the engaged profile does not require as great a commitment. The people in the ineffective profile are not in a deficit position on any of the areas of worklife. Their position is as good as one could hope for on manageable workload. They are not looking for actions to alleviate distress. They may not feel distressed at all. But there may be potential for actions that work with them to develop a better alignment of the other areas of worklife with these employees’ aspirations and values for their work. The overextended profile provides an informative contrast with the burnout profile in that those in the overextended profile have one overriding concern: unmanageable workload. They rate workload every bit as negatively as do people in the burnout profile. But workload is pretty much the only issue for those in the overextended profile. They do experience distress associated with high levels of exhaustion. The assistance they seek is focused: they would appreciate help in addressing unmanageable workload. Their neutrality to positive scores on cynicism and efficacy indicates exceptional strengths in their approach to work. They believe in the value of the work that they do, and they have confidence in their capacity to make a meaningful, competent, and valuable contribution. Rather than the broad range of actions needed to reach and to help people experiencing the full burnout syndrome, people in the overextended profile are only open to action that is clearly designed to help make their work demands more manageable. They are too exhausted to give serious consideration to anything else that someone may want to offer. Offering additional elements would not only be a poor use of limited resources; doing so would likely be met with resistance from those it was intended to help. Essentially, a more accurate, multifaceted assessment of the issues confronting people at work and what they experience in that setting helps to direct action more effectively.

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A Change Model for Burnout Interventions Preventing or alleviating the defining qualities of job burnout remains challenging despite decades of research on the syndrome. Articles exploring the correlates of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy often conclude with considering the potential applications of the findings and a call for high-quality intervention studies. Unfortunately, those intervention studies remain rare. Part of the problem is that intervention research is expensive and takes a long time. A second problem is that field research in work settings requires the cooperation of people within the potential research settings. Their top priority is pursuing their mission of creating products or serving their clientele. To devote time and resources to test a new approach, they would like to feel confident that it will have a beneficial impact. At the outset of an evaluation research project, it is not possible to provide assurance about the approach’s impact: that is what the research is intended to evaluate. Compounding these issues is a general inclination toward individual interventions rather than organizational action. Training individuals to cope more effectively with stress experiences is much simpler than changing the conditions under which people work. Changing work processes requires the cooperation of people in various roles at the participating organization. It takes a long time to define the hoped-for changes, to build the necessary consensus, and to arrange the essential logistics necessary for the project to go forward. Organizational intervention projects encounter various barriers to following the gold standard of randomized control trials (RCT) in their design and implementation. First, the double-blind quality runs counter to the need for active involvement of participants in organizational interventions. It is difficult to change the nature of how people work without them noticing what exactly they are doing differently. The active involvement of participants in designing the intervention may be a critical success factor in the project. Organizational leaders with whom researchers work usually want a promising intervention to be tested on workgroups in need of such an intervention. It is difficult to randomly select workgroups with whom to work. Although people often complain of organizational silos with little communication across departments, there are countervailing patterns of communication throughout organizations, such that it is difficult to keep control units unaware of what is occurring in the test units. The active involvement of participants in the design and implementation of organizational interventions results in a lack of standardization. No two units are implementing the program in exactly the same way. The practical implementation of organizational interventions departs in important ways from the RCT ideal. Evaluating the impact of interventions calls for innovative strategies to overcome subjective perspectives and to identify active mechanisms contributing to change (Nielsen et al. 2008). McKinley et al. (2017) noted the challenges in conducting meta-analysis of intervention studies using workshop formats, in that they could find little or no consistency across studies in the content of such interventions. They attributed this variation to weak theoretical frameworks, leaving much of the intervention design to be responsive to local issues. This approach makes sense for

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developing sustainable intervention; however it presents challenges to identifying the critical elements of an intervention.

Interventions However, work on organizational interventions in recent years has identified qualities of workplace interventions that function as harbingers of success. These qualities are compatible with Kotter’s (1996) perspectives on the design and implementation of change initiatives (also see Lowe 2008; NIOSH 2008; and Peersman et al. 1998). Leiter and Maslach (2014) summarized five central points from these perspectives on planned organizational change. • Urgency: Successful change initiatives have a sense of addressing issues of critical importance to participants. They have a goal that describes the preferred end state and how it differs from the current state. Reducing burnout presents serious challenges due to its stability over long periods. • Targeted and strategic: Successful change initiatives focus on the key leverage points for effecting change. A large body of research identifying the primary antecedents of job burnout provides direction for focusing interventions. Successful change initiatives identify strategies that encompass a variety of specific tactics, any or all of which have a potential to make a difference. A clear focus on an identified target has been recognized as a success factor for organizational interventions that are subject to “mission creep” (a term that refers to the expansion of project objectives beyond the original goal, or mission, of the program design; DeJoy et al. 2010). • Collaborative: Employee participation throughout the intervention process improves chances of success. People do not take kindly to being told what to do. Successful change initiatives begin with, and maintain throughout, a dialogue characterized by close listening, continuous learning, and ongoing adaptation of implementation. This point was emphasized by Halbesleben et al. (2006) and also by Dejoy et al. (2010). • Sustained. Addressing burnout requires an ongoing commitment. Burnout is an enduring condition closely linked with the structure of the work environment. Long-term success requires sustained efforts to maintain gains. Without such effort, the original baseline conditions may become reestablished. The interventions reviewed earlier generally lasted for many months of individual or group sessions (e.g., Salmela-Aro et al. 2004; Mommersteeg et al. 2006). • Evaluated. Successful change initiatives measure progress. Assessment provides a vital flow of information to guide implementation. The adage that “one attends to what is measured” fits well for intervention programs. Clear measurement of primary constructs is essential both to diagnose the situation and to determine if action has had the desired impact (Moulding et al. 1999).

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Individual Versus Organizational Interventions Deciding to take action to alleviate or to prevent job burnout leads to additional decisions about what to target for change and the methods for bringing about change. As noted, much of the somewhat scant intervention research emphasizes improving individual employees’ capacity to cope with the workplace as it is rather than to change the way that the work is being done. In their review of intervention research, Awa et al. (2010) noted that individual focused interventions have been devoted primarily to building resilience, often through various relaxation techniques. The most broadly called-upon approach in recent years was mindfulness. The general expectation was that teaching people to focus their minds in a context encouraging serenity would both have a calming effect at the moment and encouraging a state of mind that would enable people to cope more effectively with demanding situations they encounter in their day-to-day lives. Changing the conditions under which people work goes beyond the scope of these studies. An example of an individual training approach from Ghannam et al. (2020) was focused on medical residents. It provided a 1-day training session that defined the concept of stress, reviewed ways of detecting job stressors and stress outcomes, led participants through method to implement relaxation techniques (including sleep hygiene and breathing exercises), reviewed strategies for cognitive restructuring, and taught techniques for improving time management. The primary focus of these elements was to build participants’ resilience, extending their capacity to tolerate the level of demand that were considered problematic. That is, the current level of demand was accepted as unchangeable. Another study (Hofer et al. 2018) provided participants with a self-help book based on principles from acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) without any reference to participants’ work context. Compared to a waiting list control group that had not yet received the book, the treatment group showed fewer indications of burnout at posttest. An evaluation of a mindfulness, acceptance, and value intervention (MAV) for burnout, using a randomized control trial format, employed a person-centered analysis to determine the extent to which people changed in the test groups. A latent profile analysis found evidence of a profile characterized by diminishing exhaustion combined with increasing skills and practice of mindfulness techniques (Kinnunen et al. 2020). That pattern presaged participants retaining the benefits to well-being at assessments at follow-up intervals of 4 and 8 months after the intervention. In contrast, those who did not combine skill acquisition with decreased exhaustion were unlikely to show subsequent benefits. The authors proposed that additional follow-up training sessions may be necessary when the initial uptake is not evident at the assessment immediately following the training. Another approach includes activities that focus additionally on the physical experiences of stress. A combination of Hatha yoga and mindfulness exercises was found to be helpful in reducing various stress indicators, including exhaustion on the MBI (Sallon et al. 2017).

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The objectives of these studies were not to change participants’ relationship with their work or their work setting. Instead, the objective was to increase participants’ capacities to manage stress when they encountered strained situations.

Changing the Workplace Interventions designed to change the workplace are rarer but do occur. For example, Halbesleben et al. (2006) applied an action research model to the question of reducing burnout. The format led employees and managers through a process of group problem solving to address issues that employees raised about their work lives. The process led to a reduction of both exhaustion and cynicism reported by participants. An important quality of this study was that the focus was not on the mental or physical health of employees but on the way that the work was implemented at the workplace. This put the focus on the managerial domain. That is, managers did not need to develop a new set of quasi-therapeutic skills to address psychological problems among their employees. Instead, they drew upon their managerial expertise to solve problems in how the workplace functioned. In terms of the research format, the method departed from the RCT framework in that (1) everyone was fully aware of who was in the treatment group and (2) no two groups would identify exactly the same problems or devise exactly the same responses to those problems. Instead, the dynamics of a shared, collaborative process was at the core of the intervention. A study by Berg et al. (2008) in Swedish hospitals found a decrease in exhaustion among nurses when the hospital implemented an individualized patient care model. This change gave a broader participation in the decisions that were at the heart of ongoing inpatient treatment. In doing so, the model changed participant’s day-to-day patterns of work. Other studies have actively emphasized individual participation in intervention design, such as Hätinen et al. (2007) that found that individually designed rehabilitation plans were more effective at reducing exhaustion than were individual therapy sessions. Others have argued that participation in problem identification, planning, design, and implementation of action plans is an essential part of the mechanisms to bring about change in the relationships people maintain with their workplaces (Le Blanc and Schaufeli 2008). The pivotal points in the relationships people develop with their workplaces are their encounters with other people. Encounters with supervisors as well as the dayto-day interactions with colleagues play an important role in defining the primary parameters of the workplace culture. An informative metric for evaluating the quality of these encounters is the ratio of civility to incivility in the behavior received from supervisors and coworkers as well as that instigated toward others. The Social Encounters Scale (Leiter 2019a) is an assessment tool that assesses civility and incivility from each of these sources on a consistent rating scheme that ranges from 0 (never) to 6 (every day). Fortunately, for most people (but not everyone) civility occurs more often than incivility.

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Improving Social Encounters to Alleviate Burnout The connection of social dynamics with the worklife profiles suggests that improving the balance of civility to incivility among members of work groups has a potential for alleviating or preventing the defining elements of burnout. One format for improving civility has been the CREW (civility, respect, and engagement with work) process developed by the Veterans Health Administration in the USA, Osatuke et al. (2009). Through a series of facilitated sessions, members of intact workgroups reflected on the quality of their social encounters, with an emphasis on the qualities of civility and incivility that were conveyed and received. They developed the format having confirmed that the level of civility and incivility differed considerably across units, consistent with levels of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. In the first instance, the VHA analysis demonstrated that the CREW process was effective at increasing the level of civility on the participating units in contrast to control groups that remained constant on the civility measure over the study interval (Osatuke et al. 2009). The CREW intervention encompasses the six qualities of change that we propose as necessary for effective interventions. Detailed descriptions of the CREW process are available in Leiter et al. (2012), Leiter et al. (2011, 2012), and Osatuke et al. (2009), but here we will focus just on how CREW is a good example of the new change model for burnout interventions. First, CREW responds to urgency in that workgroups and organizational leaders are often in a state of crises when workgroup social dynamics become dominated by incivility or abusive interactions. As is often the case with field applications of interventions, they were tested with workgroups that expressed an urgent need for action. Participation in the process was not randomly assigned but distributed in response to expressed need. Second, CREW is goal-oriented. Osatuke et al. (2009) emphasize the importance of working toward constructive goals. The primary focus is increasing the frequency of civil exchanges. The approach minimizes passive goals, such as the reduction or elimination of bullying or incivility. A passive goal of eliminating incivility fails to address the constructive behaviors that would replace incivility within the ongoing interactions among the employees. Social encounters are an essential aspect of providing healthcare to patients, so the objective must go beyond eliminating bad behavior to define what needs to replace that behavior in a constructive manner. CREW is targeted on social dynamics that are responsive to action. Changes in social dynamics are expected to be consequential for employees’ experiences of the defining qualities of job burnout. The potential for change is more evidenced in CREW’s collaborative format. The sessions begin by reviewing the results of a survey of the levels of civility and incivility that participants have experienced. The objective of this initial discussion is to determine the starting point for the group. On the basis of this conversation, the group is prepared to set goals that are meaningful to the participants. Rather than provide workgroups with a preset code of conduct or a set of etiquette rules, the process asks participants how they define respect and disrespect in their group. This

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approach allows a collaborative approach to setting goals that acknowledges the wide diversity in social cultures among workgroups. That is, some groups tend toward concise, task-oriented interactions that fit the fast pace of their work and communications. Other settings tend toward more thorough, thoughtful interactions that fit the slower pace and greater depth of their processes. By encouraging participants to define their objectives, the process increases the potential for deeper commitment to those goals. CREW’s strategic quality is evident within the overall design of the process as well as in the specifics of the exercises and topics contained within the CREW toolkit that facilitators use to guide the structure of sessions. The structured exercises that guide CREW’s facilitators are designed to encourage participants to explore ways of interacting with one another. The exercises cover a range of situations, such as expressing appreciation, resolving conflict, or challenging a coworker who has behaved uncivilly during a shared interaction with a service recipient. CREW is sustained over a 6-month implementation. The process’s emphasis on collaboration in implementation and goal setting is intended to increase participants’ commitment to a more civil, respectful workplace. Going forward from the 6 months of sessions, workgroups are largely on their own. For the gains to be sustained over time, the participating workgroups need to experience the benefits of respect and civility. The intention is that both receiving and giving civility will become selfsustaining reciprocally. Assessments of CREW implementations have confirmed these gains at a 1-year follow-up. The evaluation quality of CREW gives it a more credible place within organizational priorities. The evaluations of the process include surveys that capture the relative frequency of civility and incivility in social encounters. It helps to supplement these data with interviews and/or workgroup discussions reflecting on the experience of implementing the process as well as the challenges people have found in sustaining the gains over time. Institutional data on absences, turnover, and complaints provide another reference point for evaluating the impact of the process. A more recently developed workgroup civility approach is SCORE (strengthening a culture of respect and engagement). Preliminary assessments of the approach have encouraging results on improving civility and developing work settings more conducive to work engagement (Leiter 2018). The approach differs from CREW in having only five sessions in contrast to CREW’s 20+ sessions. SCORE uses professional facilitators rather than developing and mentoring volunteer facilitators through a train the trainer format. Also, SCORE is highly structured in terms of the agenda for the five sessions, while CREW uses a less directive approach. Further studies are assessing the impact of SCORE in controlled research formats.

Conclusion Burnout, as an indicator of workplace stress, reflects the social context in which it occurs, making it more of a relationship problem than an individual failing. Despite the importance of context in the development of burnout, much of the advice and

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research on intervention has focused on toughening the employee rather than improving the workplace. This work reflects an implicit assumption that if only people were tough enough, they could endure any amount of poor management, injustices, and abuse without emotional or physical consequences. So, resilience and mindfulness have been the target of intervention rather than management practices or social dynamics. The importance of social context has been especially evident during the COVID pandemic of 2020 that has disrupted relationships with work globally. The disruption has occurred in diverse ways, intensifying the work and risks of healthcare providers while sending entertainers and restaurant workers into unemployment. For some the dominant pressures toward exhaustion arise from intense work demands (ClinicalTrials.gov 2020). For others, cynicism and hopelessness in response to inadequate workplace or government action dominates (Leiter 2019b). The need to abruptly change work methods or change specialty in response to shutdowns or treatment requirements challenged efficacy in many instances (König et al. 2020). Increases in levels of exhaustion and cynicism under these circumstances seem much more a function of the situation than of people having insufficient resilience. Beyond the intensity of the pandemic times, the nature of work has intensified without consideration for the capacity of people to sustain their level of participation. The increased centralization of wealth and the competition for elite positions in finance, medicine, law, and other lucrative fields have created structures that drive people to work very long hours at an intense pace to maintain their position in whatever race is occurring (Markovits 2019). On the other end of the income distribution, people work long, uncertain, and fragmented hours to maintain a home and provide for basic needs (McCallum 2020). From broad social trends to social encounters while passing in the hallway, the design and process of contemporary work define conditions contributing to burnout.

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Workplace Fatigue: The Impact of the Drive

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Is Fatigue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Causes of Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Neurobiology of Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time on Task and Cognitive Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Environmental Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time Without Sleep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Measuring Fatigue at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fitness for Duty Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Continuous Operator Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance-Based Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fatigue in the Work-Driving Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Monitoring Driver Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Managing Driver Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Swiss Cheese Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Threat and Error Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biomathematical Models of Fatigue Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Safety Error Trajectory Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adapted Safety Error Trajectory Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Directions and Opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Fatigue for many people has become an everyday occurrence, particularly due to the demands associated with work hours, lifestyle, work family balance, travel, D. Wishart (*) · D. Barrett Griffith University, Mt Gravatt Campus, Mount Gravatt, QLD, Australia e-mail: d.wishart@griffith.edu.au; daniell.barrett@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_26

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and commuting. Within a workplace, hazards such as fatigue require particular consideration and risk mitigation strategies to ensure a safe workplace. One area requiring increased attention within the work environment is fatigue within the work-driving context. Many people as part of their workday drive for work, and this activity has been identified as a high-risk work activity due to the significant injuries and fatalities attributed to work crashes. The demands associated with work and business and the geographical size of Australia can result in increasing amounts of time spent behind the wheel. Fatigue is a contributing factor to workplace crashes. Fatigue is a product of both physiological and environmental properties and has a significant impact on an individual’s driving ability resulting from decreased psychological functioning, delayed reaction time, poor decisionmaking, and reduced attentiveness. Transport industry safety management systems operate implementing a variety of strategies aimed at reducing the risk of fatigue-related incidents. However, the risk management, monitoring, and prevention of fatigue in the work-driving setting offers unique challenges. This chapter provides an overview of previous fatigue risk management and research and some of the unique challenges associated with the measurement of fatigue. An adapted version of Dawson and McCulloch (Sleep Med Rev 9:365–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2005.03.002, 2005) Safety Error Trajectory Framework is provided along with the implications to organizational culture and work-driving safety across multiple organizational levels. This chapter concludes by suggesting a number of future directions for research and industry aiming to reduce the impact and frequency of fatigue crashes within the work environment. Keywords

Fatigue · Sleepiness · Safety · Safety management systems · Driver incidents · Measurement

Introduction In an ever changing and competitive world of business, work, and careers, people are under pressure to do the job faster, more efficiently, get ahead in a job or career, and optimize market share and consequently are likely to work longer hours for career progression. In addition to the long hours associated with work, is the need to undertake activities to live a healthy and balanced lifestyle along with the challenges of family demands, travel for work, and daily commuting. For many people, it appears that there never seems to be enough hours in the day and fatigue can be all too commonplace. People in today’s society when asked “How are things are going?” often reply with responses attesting to being extremely busy, closely followed up with comments about finishing each day extremely tired or worn out. Fatigue, particularly as a result of increasing life demands, has unfortunately become a daily occurrence. Travel and in particular driving for work also are a daily activity

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for many people either spending long periods of time in the commute to and from work or driving significant distances as part of their job. This chapter discusses fatigue, particularly within the work environment, and outlines the different types of fatigue along with factors associated with fatigue. This chapter discusses the implications of fatigue within the work environment and in particular within the capacity of work-related driving and the implications associated with driving safely. It will conclude by highlighting the current strategies and interventions to address the issue of fatigue within the work-driving context, the applicability of these strategies for managing fatigue in other areas of the workplace and their limitations, and suggestions for future research directions.

What Is Fatigue? The literature around fatigue, workplace fatigue, and driver fatigue often employs different definitions for fatigue and often conflates fatigue with sleepiness. This is further complicated when the antecedents and consequences of fatigue and sleepiness are discussed. Traditionally, sleepiness is simply the tendency for an individual to fall asleep (Lerman et al. 2012). In this manner, sleepiness can be defined as a physiological state, akin to hunger or thirst, where an individual desires sleep (Mullins et al. 2014). Comparatively, fatigue can be defined as a body’s response to reduced sleep or continued physical exertion (Lerman et al. 2012). However, fatigue does not exclusively come in physical forms with physical exhaustion or muscular fatigue (Lerman et al. 2012; Mullins et al. 2014; Shen et al. 2006); it can also come in the form of psychological and emotional exhaustion (Mullins et al. 2014). The exhaustion associated with fatigue has also been described as a lack of energy or tiredness that leads to decreased physical or psychological functioning (Shen et al. 2006). This inclusion of tiredness in this definition of fatigue places sleepiness within the bounds of fatigue. Fatigue and sleepiness have a variety of contributory factors. For instance, biological processes such as circadian rhythms and their variability regulate the human sleep cycles (Lerman et al. 2012), and the homeostatic process balances time awake and time asleep (Satterfield and Van Dongen 2013). Researchers have also described that some of the antecedents of fatigue include time on task and an individual’s cognitive load (Mullins et al. 2014). Research has demonstrated that prolonged cognitive load in the form of a series of strenuous mental tasks significantly increased subjective rating of fatigue and decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity, indicating the body leaves the resting state when experiencing fatigue (Mizuno et al. 2011). Research also indicates that time on task impacts sleepiness with increased length of time spent in a simulated driving activity leading to subjective sleepiness gradually increasing (Ting et al. 2008). Finally, there are a variety of sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, insomnia, and narcolepsy, which have the capacity to contribute to fatigue and tiredness (Lerman et al. 2012). This is not a comprehensive list of the antecedents for fatigue and sleepiness, and indeed, many of these antecedents encompass both fatigue and sleepiness.

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There are also a variety of consequences from individuals experiencing fatigue and sleepiness that will be discussed at length in this chapter. For example, individuals experiencing fatigue display hampered muscle activity and reduced cognitive function due to fatigue that is the result of extended periods of activity (Abd-Elfattah et al. 2015; Lerman et al. 2012). Similarly, individuals experiencing sleepiness display a decreased ability to pay attention to detail, slower reaction time, and impaired judgment when making decisions (Lerman et al. 2012). Such consequences and how they apply to the driving context will be discussed at length in this chapter. With the variety of definitions of fatigue and sleepiness, it would take a full literature review to clarify their meaning, their independent antecedents, and their unique consequences. That is not the purpose of this chapter. As such, this chapter will define sleepiness as the tendency to fall asleep, and fatigue as the broader experience of psychological and physical exhaustion; in this way, fatigue would be inclusive of sleepiness.

Causes of Fatigue The Neurobiology of Fatigue At a biological level, sleepiness is the result of two primary processes: The circadian rhythm and the homeostatic process (Satterfield and Van Dongen 2013). The circadian rhythm is the biological clock governed by the hypothalamus and causes a daily cycle of sleepiness. While this cycle is not completely dependent on light, it is heavily impacted by the light that enters the eyes (Sack et al. 2007). Broadly, the circadian rhythm is the process that causes a person’s feelings of sleepiness at night and alertness during the day (Satterfield and Van Dongen 2013) along with feelings of a slight increase in sleepiness in midafternoon (Sack et al. 2007). Research demonstrates that an increase in workplace fatigue-related incidents coincides with circadian rhythm peak times of sleepiness (Lerman et al. 2012). For example, a study, using a sample of engineer shift workers, found that workplace injuries were more likely to occur during the night shift compared to the day shift (Smith et al. 1994). Furthermore, a study on French Firefighters demonstrated that they experienced the greatest amount of work-related injuries around 2400–0400 h (Riedel et al. 2011) which once again coincides with low points in circadian rhythms. The homeostatic process acts in a different manner to the circadian rhythm (Satterfield and Van Dongen 2013). Rather than causing sleepiness due to the amount of light entering the eyes, it seeks to balance the amount of sleep and wakefulness directly. It increases pressure for an individual to sleep (by making a person feel sleepy), with the increase in time being awake, and removes this pressure with the increase in time spent asleep (Satterfield and Van Dongen 2013; Van Dongen and Dinges 2000). That is, the longer an individual is awake, the more they feel like they need to sleep no matter what time of the day it is. The homeostatic process and the circadian rhythm are both complex processes that interact with one another in a nonlinear manner, and it is not currently possible to estimate the relative

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impact the two processes have on sleepiness (Van Dongen and Dinges 2000). However, these two neurobiological processes have direct relevance for organizational policy and in particular workplace driving. Employee shift and work timetabling should not only consider the particular times of the day associated with circadian rhythms, but also should consider previous sleep patterns and quality of sleep experienced by employees in days and times prior to and during work tasks and shifts.

Time on Task and Cognitive Load In addition to the time of day and humans’ innate biological response, there are several environmental factors that can contribute to sleepiness and fatigue. One such contributing factor is the cognitive load of prolonged time spent on a singular task. An example a study using a driving simulator found that time on task (and time of day) impacted self-reported levels of sleepiness as participants performed six 1-h sessions in a simulator (Åkerstedt et al. 2009). In addition to subjective sleepiness, the results also demonstrated other physical measures linked to unsafe driving such as lane variability and blink duration which were negatively impacted with increased time on task in the simulator (Åkerstedt et al. 2009). Time on task not only impacts physiological and subjective sleepiness, it also impacts individual’s cognitive performance. For instance, research on standardized testing in school and university settings has shown that with each hour later in the day that a test occurs, average performance on tests decreases slightly (Ackerman and Kanfer 2009; Sievertsen et al. 2016). However, with small breaks of 20–30 min, test scores can increase (Sievertsen et al. 2016). Furthermore, research performed with computer-based attention maintenance tasks found that sustained cognitive effort resulted in deficits in individual’s executive attentional abilities (Mizuno et al. 2011). These results therefore demonstrate that within a work setting, sustained attention can have a profound impact on an individual’s level of cognitive fatigue and their ability to function at a high level. Consequently, not only does time on task and cognitive load impact upon work performance, but they also have serious safety implications associated with work-driving tasks.

Environmental Issues There are a range of factors associated with the physical environment that can also impact an individual’s level of fatigue. For example, internal lighting provides a clear example of an environmental factor that could influence fatigue due to the influence that natural light has with circadian rhythms. Previous research has shown that the inclusion of bright lights (1000 lux compared to 100 lux) during artificial night shifts prevented the reduction in alertness and improved individuals’ performance on cognitive tests (Campbell and Dawson 1990). Part of the process of nocturnal work and the exposure to artificial light during that shift (i.e., nurses

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working a night shift) is the returning to a normal sleep cycle. This transition from night shift to a normal day/night sleep cycle forces changes to the circadian cycle. Continued disruptions to these normal cycles can be associated with health issues (Scheer et al. 2009) including diabetes (Knutson 2006) and hypertension (Gangwisch et al. 2006). More recent research indicates that filtering out part of the light spectrum (light below 480 nm) during night shifts can prevent the severe impact on the circadian rhythm and result in improved alertness the next morning (Rahman et al. 2011). While this may provide some benefit to workers associated with shift work, it remains unclear as to the direct benefit that this may offer drivers. In addition, workers’ ability and safety associated with driving home after such night shifts may still be compromised. Research also suggests that temperature is also a factor that can influence individual experiences of fatigue. Higher temperatures tend to produce reduced rates of performance on cognitive tasks and vigilance tasks (Lerman et al. 2012). Temperatures at the lower end of the comfort spectrum (20C/68F) are recommended for indoor workplaces to avoid drowsiness (Lerman et al. 2012). While it is evident that light and temperature can affect fatigue, which has implications for workplace design to reduce the impact of fatigue, other factors associated with fatigue are also important.

Time Without Sleep A major factor associated with workplace fatigue is simply the lack of sleep or the lack of quality sleep. Time without sleep can be separated into chronic lack of sleep and acute lack of sleep (Shen et al. 2006; Winwood et al. 2005). Acute lack of sleep is the occurrence of a bad night’s sleep during the previous 24-hour period, whereas chronic lack of sleep occurs when a person experiences some form of persistence or ongoing instances of a reduced amount of sleep. Generally, adults require 7–9 h of sleep in each 24-hour period to remain healthy (Hirshkowitz et al. 2015). However, sleep quality has also been identified as being extremely important in its relation to fatigue (Nicassio et al. 2002), with continuous uninterrupted sleep being the most beneficial in staving off sleepiness. There are a variety of potential causes for a persistence of reduced sleep including chronic diseases, medication, or environmental factors (Colten and Altevogt 2006), many of which are common within workdriving settings.

Measuring Fatigue at Work There are a variety of challenges associated with definitively measuring fatigue, and consequently, many organizations adopt a risk management approach to addressing the risks and safety implications associated with fatigue. For example, within the transport sector in Australia, there exist established limitations regarding the number of hours a vehicle can be driven for work in a 24-h period. Consequently, risk

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management and mitigation strategies are commonly implemented throughout typical high-risk work sectors such as mining, gas, and utility sectors. In contrast, other work sectors may have more flexible arrangements due to perceptions of less risk or challenges with resourcing demands. For example, health professionals or first responders often must work despite fatigue. For instance, due to particular unscheduled job demand or an extreme incident occurring toward the end of a shift, such workers may be required to respond and, as a result, work a shift longer than 12 h. When such shifts occur in a health care context, it can lead to a variety of negative outcomes for the workers’ on-the-job performance (Rogers et al. 2004), with shift work in general leading to an experience of burnout (Wisetborisut et al. 2014). The risk management process not only includes mandating shift length or time between shifts to ensure employees have the opportunity for sleep, but also monitoring fatigue to determine if workers have adequately rested. There are a variety of methods available for measuring or monitoring fatigue, with the manner in which fatigue is monitored often being a product of the context of the work. Within a work setting, accurately measuring fatigue is highly important to maintain safety for the entire workplace. There are several challenges associated with fatigue measurement with the cost and availability of technology along with the task being performed and what is actually being measured. In addition to ensuring safety within a workplace, not only do fatigue risk monitoring and management strategies need to be scientifically accurate, but they also need to be accepted as valid, if required to be used as evidence in cases where fatigue may have contributed to an incident (Dawson et al. 2014). Fatigue measurement and monitoring methods can broadly be defined as fitness for duty tests, continuous operator monitoring, or performance-based monitoring.

Fitness for Duty Tests Fitness for duty tests is undertaken as assessments that occur prior to an employee having the opportunity, or being permitted, to perform the task that is part of their work. Often these assessments employ technology as a test of reaction time or general cognitive performance on a brief task which are used as proxy measures for fatigue (Dawson et al. 2014). These methods suggest that if an employee performs above a preset standard, then they are deemed to not be fatigued and therefore fit for work. However, a limitation associated with this type of fatigue measurement is that there is little evidence that these fitnesses for duty tests are predictive of fatigue that is experienced across the course of a work shift. Therefore, in regard to fatigue, it is actually only a measure of an employee’s level of fatigue at the beginning of their shift in contrast to a measure predicting fatigue that may be experienced at some stage after that time (Dawson et al. 2014). Furthermore, in regard to fatigue that may occur during the course of a shift, research suggests that there is little consensus as to the frequency with which these tests should be administered across a shift (Dawson et al. 2014).

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The psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) is heralded as the golden standard for measuring fatigue in this manner (Dawson et al. 2014). The PVT is a reaction time test and involves a participant waiting for an expected stimulus (a small bright light on a computer screen) and immediately pressing a button in response to it appearing (Dinges and Powell 1985). The assessment usually lasts 10 min with intervals between the appearance of the stimulus varying between 2–10 s (Dinges and Powell 1985). This measures an individual’s reaction time to the stimulus, and their ability to maintain attention to the simple task (Matthews et al. 2017). In the context of measuring driver fatigue, reductions in driver performance are associated with reductions in performance on the PVT. A simulated driving exercise and PVT assessment repeatedly occurring across a 24-h period with increasing time awake at each assessment found that both driving performance and PVT performance degraded with the lack of sleep (Baulk et al. 2008). However, the authors of this research highlight that reduction in driving performance as a result of time awake was highly variable between participants, but the reduction performance in the PVT as a result of time awake was comparably very stable and did not vary. They describe how this indicates that PVT reaction time is not a sufficient measure of fatigue and should be used in assessments accompanied by other tests (Baulk et al. 2008).

Continuous Operator Monitoring These assessments measure an individual’s fatigue during work. This is done by measuring proxy physiological indicators of fatigue. Unlike fitness for duty tests, these methods can be very costly (Dawson et al. 2014). This is due not only to the purchase price of the technology used, but also due to the fact that that every employee on shift would require this technology to accompany them while they are on shift. Common forms of this technology include measures of eye movements or blink frequency, where others measure brainwaves through EEG, or galvanic skin resistance (Dawson et al. 2014). Such techniques of continuously measuring fatigue can not only be costly, but they could also potentially hinder individual work performance with their physical presence in the workplace. Within the heavy vehicle transport sector, recent developments in the technology space have resulted in technology being trialed that continuously monitors drivers via in-cabin cameras and infrared technology. The purpose of this being to monitor in real-time drivers using facial, eye, and head movements, in addition to other aspects associated with vehicle movements, as indicators of fatigue (Wishart 2020). The technology utilizes a series of algorithms to, in real time, process information and determine if an event should be defined as an indicator of fatigue. From there, a notification can be sent to a designated fleet or transport operator, and a series of alarms and alerts within the vehicle cabin can be triggered, alerting the driver and preventing the fatigue from resulting in a road incident. While this technology appears to offer some safetyrelated benefits through real-time event notification and preventing a fatigue crash, it does not prevent the instance of fatigue events occurring nor predict the possibility of fatigue prior to the driving task.

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Performance-Based Monitoring Performance-based monitoring while not directly measuring fatigue offers some opportunity as a pseudomeasure of fatigue by measuring the continuous performance of an individual. It is believed that measuring an individual’s performance can provide information as to if the individual is experiencing fatigue (Dawson et al. 2014). For instance, if an individual’s work performance is decreasing or in the case of a driver, they are making fewer within-lane corrections, or the vehicle is failing to stay within the designated lane, then this could indicate that the person is fatigued (Dawson et al. 2014). It is important to note that performance-based monitoring requires fatigue to have already impacted an individual’s performance, and consequently such an approach could have substantial safety implications whereby a fatigued person’s reduced performance, if not noticed immediately, could result in a serious workplace incident. Therefore, in performance-based monitoring, if used as a fatigue prevention strategy, it is important to find the correct balance whereby quality of performance has been impacted to an extent that it would indicate fatigue, but where it would not yet be impacting upon safety.

Fatigue in the Work-Driving Context Driving for work has been established as one of the riskiest activities that a person can do in the performance of their job, due to the overrepresentation of work-related crashes and injuries that occur while driving for work purposes (Haworth et al. 2000; Mitchell et al. 2012; WHO 2004; Wishart 2015; Wishart et al. 2011). According to Safe Work Australia (2017) in Australia during the 14 years from 2003 to 2016, approximately two-thirds of all workplace fatalities involved vehicles indicating that vehicles are the highest mechanism of injury to Australian worker fatalities. Experiencing fatigue vastly increases the likelihood of a workplace incident occurring, and 30% of serious workplace injuries are fatigue related (Australian Transport Council 2011). Given the prevalence of fatigue-related workplace injuries and the overrepresentation of work-driving crashes in worker fatalities, work-driving fatigue is believed to be one of the most important factors contributing to all road crashes (Haworth et al. 2000). Furthermore, due to the vastness of countries like Australia, many people drive long distances either for holidays, pleasure, or commuting and traveling for work. Consequently, fatigue is a particularly pertinent issue in the driving community as a result of long-distance travel, monotony, and exposure factors. Other factors that contribute to fatigue within the work-driving environment include work pressure, shift work, personal circumstances, health and well-being, inadequate amount or quality of sleep, sustained mental or physical effort, disruption of circadian rhythms (the daily cycle of waking and sleeping), inadequate rest breaks, and environmental stresses (heat and noise; Lerman et al. 2012). To provide further context of the issue of fatigue while driving, approximately 20–30% of fatalities and serious injuries resulting in road incidents can be attributed to sleepiness (Australian Transport Council 2011). With the frequency of

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fatigue-related crashes, organizational and road safety stakeholders highlight the importance of addressing the problem of fatigue in the workplace-driving context. However, one of the major challenges associated with fatigue-related crashes, and subsequently their prevention, is the difficulty in determining if fatigue played a role in a road incident. Consequently, it is likely that fatigue-related crash statistics, while alarming, are potentially grossly underreported. For example, estimations of fatiguerelated crashes vary across Australian states, due to different methods of measurement and assessment that currently exist (Dawson et al. 2018). Whether or not fatigue is recorded as a contributory factor can often depend upon the outcomes from an investigation utilizing subjective assessments or after-the-fact determinations whereby other potential factors are ruled out, leaving fatigue as the only other potential contributing factor (Dawson et al. 2018). Therefore, the frequency of fatigue as a contributing factor in crashes can vary substantially depending upon the method used (Dawson et al. 2018). Research conducted in the United States also provides compelling evidence as to detrimental effects of fatigue on driving safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey consisting of a representative sample of police-reported road incidents reported that when an individual had 4 h, or less, of sleep, the next day they were 11.5 times more likely to be involved in a road incident, compared to an individual who had at least 7 h of sleep (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety 2016). The results also indicated that the likelihood of crash involvement due to fatigue decreases with each extra hour of sleep that drivers were able to get the previous night (AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety 2016). Further evidence attesting to the impact of fatigue upon the safe driving context can also be demonstrated by the danger associated with traveling in a vehicle with eyes even closing for a short time. For example, a driver traveling in a vehicle at 100 km/h will cover a distance of 111 meters, more than the length of a standard football field, if they happen to not look at the road or close their eyes for a period of 4 s. Another Australian research has highlighted the effects of fatigue by demonstrating that a person who has been awake for 17–19 h has performance capabilities similar to being impaired by alcohol to a blood alcohol content equivalent to 0.05%, the legal limit in Australia for most drivers (Dawson and Reid 1997; Williamson and Feyer 2000). This research provides an indication of the alarming evidence associated with the impact of fatigue. For instance, unlike alcohol impairment whereby there is an easily administered breath test reading that can determine the level of blood alcohol in a person’s system, there currently is no such measurement indicator for fatigue. Within the driving environment, lane variability and lane drifting can also be a fatigue-related factor that can result in head-on collisions or runoff road-type crashes. Lane drift incidents have the propensity to increase gradually with the increased number of hours that the driver has spent awake. A simulated driving study found that after approximately 3, 8, 18, and 24 h awake, incidents of lane drifting increased at each increment, with a large spike in lane drift incidents occurring after 24+ hours (Baulk et al. 2006). Fatigue and lane drift can also be

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influenced by the monotony of the task that is being performed. Research has demonstrated that when performing a monotonous driving activity that lasted 1 h, driver’s number of out-of-lane variations significantly increased in the second half compared to the first half (Trumbo et al. 2017). This demonstrates how passive fatigue can cause increased lane drifting. Increased lane variability occurs as fatigued drivers perform fewer microlane corrections, and more macrolane corrections (Dawson et al. 2014), as they are slower to respond to the gradual and constant drift that occurs when traveling within lanes. Another key factor in the driving setting relative to fatigue is reaction time. Reaction time is a valuable proxy measure for driver performance as it is directly relevant to a driver’s ability to quickly and thus effectively respond to a changing environment. Reaction time, as measured by psychomotor vigilance task (PVT), is known to increase gradually with increased number of hours awake, with a large spike in reaction time after 24+ hours of wakefulness (Baulk et al. 2006). Increased levels of passive fatigue also influence reaction time. A study, examining reaction time of drivers traveling along a simulated highway, found that reaction time increased with the length of time the participants were driving. The road was designed to be as realistic as possible, but to be likened to a monotonous drive with few curves, flat landscape, and low traffic (Ting et al. 2008) suggesting that fatigue may have an adverse effect on reaction time. The complexities of the impact of fatigue on crashes and work-driving safety are further muddied by differences not only in research and definitions associated with fatigue and sleepiness, but also separating the various forms of fatigue. This is important as different forms of fatigue have different causal factors, and thus require different intervention strategies (May and Baldwin 2009). As discussed previously, task-related fatigue can be distinguished from sleepiness, or sleep-related fatigue (Lerman et al. 2012; May and Baldwin 2009). In the context of driving, task-related fatigue can be further separated into passive fatigue and active fatigue. Passive fatigue is caused by an individual performing a monotonous drive, an extended drive, or when they experience cognitive underload. Active fatigue is caused by an individual performing a secondary task, driving through high-density traffic, or when they experience increased cognitive load (May and Baldwin 2009). Although it may seem counterintuitive, there is evidence that performing secondary tasks may be beneficial for driver experiencing passive fatigue. When drivers were performing a secondary task in the form of a song-naming game, this prevented the decrease in performance associated with performing a monotonous simulated driving scenario. This is explained as despite music potentially acting as a distractor, and it was beneficial in instances of cognitive underload (monotonous driving). This increase in allocation of cognitive resources to the environment reduced the impact of fatigue (Trumbo et al. 2017). Separate from the concept of passive and active fatigue, a driver is more likely to experience general fatigue when that driver: has spent an extended amount of time behind the wheel, is experiencing an elevated mental load, or are driving at certain times of the day (Åkerstedt et al. 2009; Borghini et al. 2014; Trumbo et al. 2017). Employees of the transport industry are likely to experience all of these antecedents.

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The most ubiquitous likely being spending long periods of time behind the wheel. This is also a key example of passive fatigue. The impact of extended periods of driving can be felt by drivers very quickly. Individuals performing a simulated monotonous driving task began experiencing reduced performance after only 30 min in the simulator (Trumbo et al. 2017). This exemplifies the problem of the increased time on task as a contributor to the experience of fatigue. The time of day also has a significant impact on the driver’s level of fatigue. Not only does the driver experience a circadian low resulting in a general feeling of sleepiness, but they also would potentially be experiencing a homeostatic pressure to sleep if they spent an extended part of that day awake (Åkerstedt et al. 2009). Together, these neurobiological pressures cause a high level of fatigue, and thus a potential for road incidents, for drivers that work at night.

Monitoring Driver Fatigue Organizations in attempting to address the substantial risks associated with the monitoring and management of fatigue are looking toward the utilization of a variety of technology-related risk mitigation interventions. The use of technology is growing in popularity, particularly in the heavy vehicle transport and logistics industry wherein transport operations require long-haul activities. For a full review of driver fatigue measurements, see May and Baldwin (2009), Sikander and Anwar (2019). Some of the continuous operator monitoring and performance-based monitoring methods are as follows: • Continuous EEG measurement through electrodes placed on the scalp can signal the transition between wakefulness and sleep. • Eye closure measurements determine the length of time that eyelids cover more than 80% of the eye. Poorer scores have been associated with higher ratings of sleepiness and longer reaction time. • Head-nodding measurements are performed by technology that focusses on the driver’s head and monitors its position, providing a buzz if the head moves into a position similar to the driver falling asleep. • Lane departure warning systems employ an external camera to monitor the road ahead of the vehicle and can notify the driver when they move outside of the lane bounds. • Collision avoidance systems in the form of sensors around the outside of the vehicle can notify the driver if they are close to touching obstacles or other vehicles behind or to the side of their vehicle. • A deadman switch can be installed in a vehicle as a button or switch that the drive must continuously press, and if they do not (presumably due to falling asleep), then an alarm is sounded. • Roadway designs through rumble strips can ensure that noise and vibrations are provided to any driver that veers outside of the normally traveled lanes.

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However, while this is encouraging as a means of risk mitigation, challenges still exist associated with the identification of a fatigue-related event whereby the driver and subsequently vehicle are not in the close proximity of assistance or even a safe place to immediately pullover. In addition, it is alarming that instances of the use of such technology provide some evidence attesting to how prevalent instances of fatigue are within the work-driving setting. Furthermore, while such technology is available, it is currently not mandatory and still requires further development to increase reliability.

Organizational Culture Organizational culture is also a very important aspect for any organization to implement any controls in fatigue safety management. In an Australian organizational setting, a poor organizational safety culture was a large predictor of fatiguerelated behavior and fatigue-related near misses occurring (Strahan et al. 2008). Employees’ experience of stress was also a predictor, albeit smaller in strength, of fatigue-related incidents (Strahan et al. 2008). Organizational safety culture was measured by a safety climate scale that included items around communication to workers, individuals being able to express their views, enough employees being available, training, and more, and fatigue-related behavior included driving when not had enough sleep, driving for extended periods of time, driving while fatigued, and driving longer than 2 h without breaks (Strahan et al. 2008). Further research into the behavior of Australian train drivers shows that beliefs such as feeling that they were unable to be relieved midshift prevented them from requesting to stop driving during a shift, no matter the severity of their tiredness (Rainbird et al. 2010). In this setting, there was a fear of letting the other drivers down (Rainbird et al. 2010). This is transferable to long-haul drivers and a potential for a mentality that they “have to” continue driving to make their delivery within certain time parameters. Interventions into organizational culture would likely be best suited to being targeted toward management level within the transport industry. Research from Turkey highlighted that when management was perceived to care about safety, there was a negative correlation with safety-related violations (Öz et al. 2013).

Managing Driver Fatigue Measurement of fatigue is a key aspect in any intervention designed to improve worker or driver safety. However, it is not the first step in mitigating the impact of fatigue. For an organization to maximize the safety of its drivers, it must ensure that fatigue is measured, reported on, and managed in a proactive manner. Furthermore, the strategies and processes that are implemented to manage fatigue must be applicable to the transport context and the unique organizational context. For the transport industry to be a high reliability industry, it must successfully manage fatigue-related safety issues by not only retroactively addressing issues, but also

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proactively implementing safety systems of hazard identification and mitigation (Gander et al. 2011). In such a maximally safe system, the occurrence of an error would be seen as a failure at multiple levels of hazard identification and mitigation, and an error has a trackable trajectory through these failures (Gander et al. 2011; Reason et al. 2006). However, one of the challenges with fatigue-related errors is associated with the real-time measurement and monitoring of fatigue and the intervention prior to the actual fatigue event occurring. Recent strides in the realm of continuous measurement of fatigue for road users have made substantial progress in overcoming this challenge. Furthermore, even when organizations have fatiguerelated measurements and strategies to prevent the occurrence of fatigue-related events, there are many factors outside of the organization’s control which can impact whether an incident occurs. Even with continuous measurement of fatigue, fatigue can still be undetected until the actual error event occurs, which can often be too late when considering the context of an individual operating a vehicle. A number of models developed across safety and other industries may provide applicable frameworks to explain and manage fatigue within the work-driving sector, and a brief overview is provided below.

The Swiss Cheese Model The Swiss Cheese Model is a model of general safety incident prevention and investigation. The basis of the model is that for a safety incident to occur, breaches of multiple safety defenses occur (Li and Guldenmund 2018; Reason et al. 2006). A key tenet of the Swiss Cheese Model is that any one breach is not itself a significant failure, or even breaches at multiple levels. Rather, a series of failures occur simultaneously and in an interrelated manner, which allows for a hazard to pass through successive layers of defenses to cause an incident (Reason et al. 2006). The levels at which controls can be put in place and failures can subsequently occur include organizational factors, local workplace factors, unsafe acts, and defenses (Reason et al. 2006).

Threat and Error Management The Threat and Error Management system originated in the aviation industry but has applicability in a general safety management setting (Brennan et al. 2020; Helmreich 2000). The model separates threats and errors as two distinct and intersecting avenues that safety incidents can occur through. Threat can either be latent, with organizational culture or professional policies, or they can be immediate with environmental, individual, or team factors (Helmreich 2000). Errors, when they occur, follow an immediate error management process starting with the error being recognized, and the management of the error state occurring, which can either lead to a negative outcome or the mitigation of the negative outcome (Brennan et al. 2020; Helmreich 2000). The latent and immediate threats can influence the error

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management process, with individual and organizational factors influencing whether the error is being recognized and how the error state is managed. Despite both the Swiss Cheese Model and Threat and Error Management Model not being explicitly modeled in response to fatigue management, as general models, they are highly applicable to fatigue risk-based management.

Biomathematical Models of Fatigue Risk Management Biomathematical models of fatigue employ quantitative methods to predict the level of fatigue that employees experience in association with different working patterns (Dawson et al. 2011). Broadly, such quantitative methods aim to create models of the levels of fatigue that are associated with different shift patterns (James et al. 2018). From there, predictions can be made about the level of fatigue that employees are likely to experience under specific conditions. This should subsequently inform organizational decision-making around shift and work patterns in light of the fatigue-based risk. Example biomathematical models include models where the amount of sleep that individuals obtain is measured or their level of opportunity for sleep is measured based on shift scheduling. In either instance, minimum benchmarks are required for an individual to be deemed fit for work (Dawson et al. 2011). Furthermore, biomathematical models have the potential of informing the amount of sleep required for safe operation within a specific role to be achieved.

Safety Error Trajectory Framework The Safety Error Trajectory Framework created a safety management system focus on modeling the levels of fatigue safety (Dawson et al. 2012; Dawson and McCulloch 2005). This model recognizes the value of past models such as the Swiss Cheese Model and the Threat and Error Management Model while applying it to a fatigue context with the incorporation of the biomathematical models. The model has five levels as follows: opportunity for sleep, actual sleep obtained, symptoms of fatigue, errors related to fatigue, and the fatigue-related error. Each of the levels preceding the fatigue-related error describes both where safety failures can occur, or where safety controls can be implemented.

Adapted Safety Error Trajectory Framework The below model (see Fig. 1) is an adaptation of the safety error trajectory framework applicable to work driving. The safety error trajectory framework is an excellent marriage of the focus on sleep and the multilevel safety management models that came before. This adapted version expands on this further and incorporates organizational demands directly into the framework. This allows for an explicit recognition of the significance that the type, importance, and salience that the

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Fig. 1 An adapted version of the safety error trajectory framework with the addition of organizational demands/reasonable organizational demands

organizational demands themselves can have on an employee’s experience of fatigue. Similar to the original framework, each level highlighted below can be understood in regard to both how failures can occur and how controls can be implemented. However, a further expansion in the adapted version below is the discussion of how organizational culture can have a significant impact on both the presence of safety failures and the ability for controls to be implemented. Errors or failures can occur at each level as follows: • Level 1: This level includes the opportunity that has been afforded to an individual driver to actually sleep. Fundamentally, this is a probabilistic assumption as it is not certain that an individual would acquire or be perfectly able to acquire adequate sleep when given a certain period of inter-work time. As such, it is important to note that the average amount of sleep that an individual obtains is relevant here (Dawson and McCulloch 2005). • Level 2: This level simply includes the amount of actual sleep that was obtained by the individual. As discussed already in this chapter, the amount of sleep obtained, not only in the past 24-h period, but also in the longer 48-h period, is relevant for immediate experienced fatigue for drivers (Dawson and McCulloch 2005). • Level 3: This level is an expansion of the original safety error trajectory framework and includes demands that are directly placed on the employees, and the degree to which these are likely to invoke fatigue within the individual. Of relevance here is the types of demands and their presentation to the employees. For instance, the demands could include an individual performing a repetitive and

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monotonous task at night, such as long-haul driving along straight and flat roads is more likely to experience fatigue (Ting et al. 2008; Trumbo et al. 2017). Alternatively, higher intensity and more cognitively demanding work can produce active fatigue within a driver (May and Baldwin 2009). • Level 4: Signs and symptoms of fatigue that the individual displays in their behavior or cognitive state can indicate their level of fatigue (Dawson et al. 2011). Clear examples of such behavioral indicators include the increased blink frequency and duration. • Level 5: The occurrence of fatigue-related errors. This is the closest step to a safety incident occurring and may have not occurred simply because of other safety barriers, or because the error was not large enough to result in an incident. For instance, a microsleep and the associated lane drift while driving would be the occurrence of a fatigue-related error; however, it would not necessarily result in a road incident (Dawson et al. 2011). • Level 6: Occurrence of fatigue-related incidents such as a driver being involved in a road incident due to their fatigue. Controls can be in place at each level as follows: • Level 1: Organizational controls at this level include ensuring that employees are provided with opportunity to have enough sleep (Dawson and McCulloch 2005). An example of this would be having a mandatory minimum number of hours between shifts for long-haul workers to ensure that they have had the opportunity to sleep. A further example on long haul is the provision of adequate and suitable areas to sleep. • Level 2: Organizational controls at this level go beyond ensuring that employees are provided with enough time to sleep, to actually ensuring that they obtain that sleep. This is mostly the responsibility of the individual themselves, as they need to obtain an adequate amount of sleep to function at their maximum capacity. To determine if individuals have had sufficient sleep, prior sleep/wake models can be employed (Dawson and McCulloch 2005). However, while sleep hours may provide an indication although organizations primarily record the number of hours at rest, further directions could be explored regarding sleep quality. • Level 3: Organizational controls at this level include ensuring that demands themselves are manageable and realistic, for instance, regulating that workers must have a break after a certain period of time. Furthermore, it would not be conducive to a safe work environment for workers to be presented with demands that require them to work through their breaks, to work overtime, or for them to continue to work even when they feel tired. Managing demands as they are presented to an individual to ensure that drivers delivering products along a timeline have a realistic set of demands set before them can assist as an organizational control. • Level 4: Measurement is a key component to mitigating the impact of fatigue, and this applies primarily at this level and the next. Level 4 is where the organization has the opportunity to assess an individual’s level of fatigue by measuring the

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behavioral indicators of fatigue. This is where technology such as eye closure measures, head-nodding measurement, and self-report measures of fatigue would be found (Dawson and McCulloch 2005). Although it is not necessary for these fatigue assessments to take place within the vehicle, many of these measures currently are in the form of continuous operator monitoring such as eye movements as an addition to fitness for duty assessments. • Level 5: Organizational controls at this level also would include directly monitoring of individuals and the vehicle to measure when close calls occur. Measurements currently utilized within a vehicle are in the form of performance-based monitoring, as it is the fatigue-related behaviors that are occurring at this level. Strategies here can expand beyond simply measuring the level of fatigue and intervening when fatigue is found and could attempt to fatigue proof a system that an individual operates within (Dawson and McCulloch 2005), for instance, automatic warning systems. In comparison to level 4, where the degree to which an individual is experiencing fatigue is measured (e.g., eye closure or head-nodding), level 5 would aim to measure the actual errors that result from that fatigue (e.g., lane drift). It must be noted such errors may not necessarily result in an incident when they are measured. • Level 6: When fatigue-related events do occur, an organization has an opportunity to investigate the circumstances around the event to determine where the failures occurred in the barriers leading up to that incident. This is for the purpose of continual improvement in the fatigue management system within the organization.

Organizational culture also directly pertains to the safety error trajectory framework that is described above at each of the levels as follows: • Level 1: A negative organizational culture at this level could manifest in how employees and managers treat the minimum time between shifts. For instance, in a health setting, nurses frequently work shifts up to 13–15 h long while working consecutive days (Trinkoff et al. 2006). This may arise from an industry culture in health care delivery that may be focused on patient care, at the expense of health care professional well-being. • Level 2: At this level, an organizational culture exists in the descriptive and injunctive norms that employees perceive around the amount of sleep that is to be obtained between shifts. Despite explicit organizational policy positions on sleep that is to be obtained, employees might not pay much attention to such rules, and instead rely on their perceptions of what is acceptable behavior, in regard to amount of sleep to be obtained, based on observing the behaviors of others. • Level 3: At this level, an organizational culture may implicitly have demands that extend beyond the explicit deadlines. For instance, it may be procedure that a long-haul drive must take a break after a certain amount of time on the road; however, doing so may create a delay in delivery that would not be deemed acceptable for one reason or another.

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• Level 4: At this level, an organization culture may not embrace a true safety culture where employees recognize and understand the significance of fatigue. For instance, an organization can build a safety culture by communicating the priority of driver safety over delivery times through ensuring that all drivers are aware how it is acceptable for them to arrive at their destination late if they need to take a fatigue-related break. • Level 5: At this level, an organizational culture can be accepting of errors made by employees. This would encourage a culture where employees feel safe in coming forward with the errors they have made, and not being afraid of punishment, which would encourage them to hide fatigue-related errors, potentially leading to an increased likelihood of a fatigue-related incident. • Level 6: At the final stage, once an incident has already occurred, there is a multitude of ways that an organization can approach the investigation process. If an organization has learning culture where safety ideals are truly attempted to be met, then that would have the potential of reducing future incidents with lessons learned. A negative culture around incidents might be purely a liability approach, where the organization strives to do enough where they would not be financially responsible for any incident, if one does occur.

Future Directions and Opportunities In attempting to address the fatigue issue particularly within the work-driving context, numerous models and risk management frameworks are utilized in conjunction with much laboratory-based research to better understand fatigue and the impact of fatigue on human performance. While fatigue monitoring and management frameworks have improved in recent years, further opportunities and research are required to facilitate continuous improvement and proactive predictability of fatigue events. For instance, the authors are currently involved in conducting pilot research within the heavy vehicle industry sector to investigate real-time driver monitoring technology across numerous transport operations and the impact the technology has upon fatigue prevention, driver behavior and management, and organizational safety culture. Despite the technology providing real-time indications of fatigue, monitored drivers still show signs of fatigue-related incidents or near misses. Future research and technology directions can hopefully advance to develop reliable mechanisms to determine fatigue well in advance of even these indicators prior to embarking upon a trip. In addition, fatigue-related crashes are potentially underreported. To further advance the determination of fatigue-related events, postincident investigations and evaluations into the manner in which fatigue may have interacted with other potential contributing factors need to be improved. Organizational safety systems and frameworks need to not only provide adequate structure to mitigate risk and manage fatigue but also ensure that they are easily administered and industry friendly in application. Consequently, future research and fatigue framework development within the heavy vehicle sector will require

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extensive industry consultation and collaboration to ensure that driving fatigue is addressed in a manner that is workable in a competitive business environment along with ensuring other hazards are not introduced into the system. Finally, while this chapter has focused on fatigue within the workplace-driving setting, there are fatigue and risk management implications associated within other work settings, and any advances in managing and mitigating risk within the workdriving setting may also provide opportunities to further inform general workplace fatigue.

Conclusions and Summary Fatigue is an issue impacting upon the health and well-being of workers across many work environments, including the work driving setting where fatigue is a major contributor to unsafe driving and crashes. This chapter has discussed fatigue and some of the many challenges associated with measuring, monitoring, and managing fatigue. While much of the focus on managing and monitoring fatigue within the work driving setting is upon the driver, organizational safety systems, risk management in conjunction with fostering, and supporting a positive organizational safety culture are paramount to better understanding and addressing the complexities of work driving fatigue. Furthermore, work driving fatigue management systems and processes, to have any success, need to be practical, lack complexity, and improve safety while managing the demands of business.

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Disruption in the Workplace Vocational Rehabilitation in the New World

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Is Vocational Rehabilitation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Timing of Vocational Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of a Collaborative Organizational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Future of Vocational Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Managing Variable and Unpredictable Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personalized Participatory and Customizable Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alternative Business Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Technology-Enabled Vocational Rehabilitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Despite considerable global focus on the right to work, employment rates for people with disability have failed to improve over the last decade. People with disability continue to encounter discrimination, stigmatization, and accessibility issues in securing and maintaining employment. Returning to work after an illness or injury is more likely than ever before, but the evidence to support vocational rehabilitation is limited. The rapid adoption of advanced personalized technologies automation and artificial intelligence along with globalization and evolving business models present new opportunities for the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace. However, parallel to these potential gains are major challenges in promoting equality, well-being, and disability prevention in a 24/7 economy where the boundaries between work and life have become increasingly blurred. Vocational rehabilitation offers a vehicle for managing these E. Kendall (*) · V. McLennan The Hopkins Centre Menzies Health Institute Qld, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: e.kendall@griffith.edu.au; v.mclennan@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_28

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challenges and trends in ways that will enhance experiences for all workers in the future. This chapter examines the trends that have influenced vocational rehabilitation in the past and into the future. Keywords

Vocational rehabilitation · Disability · Workplace · Employment · Return to work

Introduction According to the World Health Organization, at least 15% of the population has a diagnosed disability (WHO 2011) representing 1.2 billion people in 2020. Depending on the way in which disability is defined and recorded in different countries, population prevalence can range from 10 to 40%. In Australia one in five people (20%) has a disability (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016). However, another 20% have long-term disabling conditions that may not be labeled as a disability (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2016). Thus, up to 40% of the population may experience disability at any point in time suggesting that most households will have been affected by disability. Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities affords people with disability “the right to the opportunity to gain a living by work freely chosen or accepted in a labor market and a work environment that is open, inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities.” Further, one of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations is to “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.” The SDGs make specific reference to disability and aspire strongly to a “leave no one behind” agenda (Abualghaib et al. 2019). Access to income from employment is a fundamental marker of social inclusion and participation in society (Lin et al. 2019) but also enables participation in many other activities and contributes to a positive evaluation of oneself. As a result, there is now global consensus that people with disabilities should receive assistance to remain in or (re-)enter work (Ma et al. 2020). Despite this trend toward human rights, the ability to work without discrimination is often denied to people with disability (McEwin 2017). Around the world people with disability continue to be underrepresented in the workplace with unemployment rates of up to 80–90% in developing countries and 50–70% in developed countries (UN World Bank). Labor force participation rates for people with disability in Australia are low (53% of working-age people with disability compared with 83% without disability (AIHW 2019)), and these rates have changed very little over the past two decades meaning that few employers will have experienced the benefits of employing disabled workers. Unfortunately, discrimination remains extremely common in the workforce. Global statistics consistently show that people with disability are employed at significantly lower rates than the general population (OECD 2010). Research has shown that

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employers often hold pessimistic views about the work capabilities of people with disabilities (Bonaccio et al. 2020). In Australia, but also in other countries, the largest proportion of discrimination cases reported to statutory agencies concern disability and particularly employment discrimination (Darcy et al. 2016). Discrimination complaints are most common for people with mental health concerns or stigmatized health conditions, such as HIV. Compared to employees without disabilities, those with disabilities also report less job security and flexibility; more negative treatment by management; and lower levels of job satisfaction (Schur et al. 2017). When injury, illness and disability are not well accommodated or supported at work, workers are likely to be physically present but unable to perform their duties (presenteeism) with detrimental consequences for all stakeholders. Presenteeism has been described as a hidden cost of workplace injury and disability that could be as high as 60% of the total cost (Ammendolia et al. 2016). Further, presenteeism among nursing and healthcare professionals has been associated with an elevated risk of being in receipt of a disability pension in the future even after adjusting for gender, sociodemographic variables, physical and psychosocial working conditions, and self-rated health (Gustafsson et al. 2019). Thus, the cost and impact of this situation are magnified and felt by the entire society. Some researchers have described the disabled population as one of the largest underutilized labor pools (Kruse et al. 2010). Buys et al. (2015) commented on a notable shift in government attitude from viewing those with disabilities as a marginalized welfare group to a solution for important labor shortages. However, attracting qualified applicants with disabilities continues to be a challenge for employers (Bonaccio et al. 2020). Bruyère et al. (2005) concluded that recruitment and application processes actively discourage people with disabilities due to the lack of accessibility. People with disabilities or illnesses are also likely to conceal their condition for fear of discrimination which then obscures the need for employers to implement new processes. The difference in employment rates between disabled and non-disabled people is an important indicator of disability equality (Geiger et al. 2017). Although there is a large amount of disability data available, definitions and indicators vary widely resulting in diverse estimates of prevalence. As Geiger et al. (2017) concluded, there are many defensible ways of measuring disability, but each produces different reported levels of disability accounting for different statistics across the world and across different studies. This effect was demonstrated in a New Zealand study of 2807 randomly selected citizens conducted by Bourke et al. (2020). These researchers simultaneously applied four different methods of disability measurement and identified prevalence rates ranging from 9.1% to 27.7%. Abualghaib et al. (2019) concluded that employment initiatives are hindered by the absence of reliable disability data particularly given that accurately measuring progress towards targets is the only way of bringing attention to gaps and inequities. There is clearly a need for investment in consistent disability measures that allow comparisons across multiple boundaries and intervals. There is evidence to suggest that employers can benefit greatly from the employment of people with disabilities as well as the rapid rehabilitation of those who

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become disabled during their employment (Hartnett et al. 2011). Some of the identified benefits for employers include a more diverse and creative workplace culture, increased morale and enthusiasm among employees, enhanced productivity (and profitability), and a supportive flexible environment that benefits all employees (Lindsay et al. 2018). This return on investment has been demonstrated in multiple studies that have shown exemplary performance by disabled employees when the right accommodations have been put in place (Silvia et al. 2020; Sinden and Martin Ginis 2012) as well as flow on benefits for workers without disability (Schur et al. 2014). Unfortunately, disability employment initiatives aimed at employers often take a social justice angle, encouraging them to be willing to consider employees with disabilities for the greater good of society. This approach can be effective but also underemphasizes the benefits that can accrue to employers who actively promote accessibility and inclusion as fundamental values underpinning their workplace culture. Vocational rehabilitation is a practice that has become increasingly embedded in workplaces and offers a vehicle through which employers can experience the value of employees with disability.

What Is Vocational Rehabilitation? Whether or not someone has a work disability depends on the match between physical or mental status and the requirements of a particular job or work environment at a particular point in time. Thus, work disability is not a static concept and may change across time, workplaces, and tasks (Maestas et al. 2019). Vocational rehabilitation has been specifically designed to address work disability. It is a combination of interventions or an overarching approach designed to assist someone with a disability to remain at work, return to the workplace, or enter employment for the first time. In reality, vocational rehabilitation is not well defined or integrated and is represented by a collection of services, actions and funding incentives tailored to particular situations. There is a lack of clarity about what practices constitute vocational rehabilitation and in the field, practice incorporates an extremely broad set of activities. For instance, Gensby et al. (2014) examined multiple vocational programs and identified an extensive list of activities including early contact with injured or disabled employees, vocational assessments including job analysis and counseling, workplace accommodations (including modified and/or tailored work environments, schedules or duties, transitional work opportunities, alternative placements, revision of workplace roles, redefinitions of tasks and delegation of responsibilities, job replacement, and job sharing), return-to-work coordination or case management, clinical interventions for psychological or physical abilities (e.g., therapy, exercise, ergonomics, motivational training), and ongoing monitoring. Gensby and colleagues (2014) concluded that vocational rehabilitation also consisted of broader activities such as the education and engagement of all stakeholders, development of policies, and implementation of prevention strategies. In the last few decades, a movement has emerged focusing on bringing injury prevention,

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return-to-work, and disability employment programs under an overarching framework, often referred to as disability management (Shrey et al. 2006). This promising development has reoriented many elements of vocational rehabilitation (Buys et al. 2015) by emphasizing the central role of the employer and workplace culture. In reality, however, the delivery of vocational rehabilitation still varies considerably, by necessity and in response to factors such as caseload, the target population, the industries in which services are delivered, the circumstances of individual workers, and the type of funding or regulatory scheme. Despite such diversity, researchers who reviewed a large number of vocational rehabilitation programs found that variation was usually within 12% of a nominated benchmark (Holmes et al. 2020). The most frequently provided services were vocational assessment, work preparation, and return-to-work accommodations. One of the most comprehensive reviews of vocational rehabilitation (Waddell et al. 2013), commissioned by the UK government, examined 450 scientific studies and concluded that there was strong evidence for the combination of work-focused clinical interventions designed to improve work-related skills of the individual and accommodating workplaces designed to ensure the working environment maximizes positive outcomes. Van der Klink et al. (2016) came to a similar conclusion and noted the important distinction between (i) being physically and mentally able to perform at work, (ii) having opportunities to perform, and (iii) being facilitated and allowed to perform by the workplace. Vocational rehabilitation focuses on bringing together these three concepts in a meaningful way by matching individual-focused interventions with workplace-based interventions and broader social interventions to deliver employment success. One of the mainstays of vocational rehabilitation is tailored workplace accommodations, despite some criticism about the lack of theoretical basis or sound evaluation for this process (Doyle and McDowall 2019). Accommodations are the modifications and supports required by workers with permanent disabilities or temporary incapacities to improve their access to work, enable job performance and support job maintenence. These accommodations usually involve changes in work tasks, duration, intensity, or timing of activities. These accommodations are relatively easy to organize, particularly in large organizations where workers and tasks can be rotated or substituted. Although accommodations are more challenging in small business environments, a more significant challenge involves the need for modifications to the physical workplace to improve access or support performance. Retrofitting spaces to introduce accessibility is difficult and costly for employers, so responses are often piecemeal and inadequate to meet the needs of disabled employees. When assistive equipment is integrated into a workplace, it is usually based on the application of standardized modifications that might work for the greatest number of individuals but may not address the specific needs of individual workers allowing them to be competitive and productive at work. Universal architectural design for workplaces is an important aspiration for the future, particularly for large public employers. Similarly, personalizing assistive equipment and allowing customizable modifications are an important focus for the future of vocational rehabilitation.

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The lack of evidence about accommodations in the workplace stems from the nature of evaluation studies in this field. The main focus of evaluations has been on musculoskeletal disorders in employees of large organizations (Kristman et al. 2016). Researchers have concluded that strong evidence supports the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation interventions for musculoskeletal conditions particularly low back pain (Waddell et al. 2013). However, little is known about the effectiveness of interventions in different populations (Alexander and Cooper 2019). Some populations are very poorly researched in relation to employment, resulting in inadequate evidence to inform future program design. For example, the review conducted by Ma et al. (2020) highlighted a paucity of research focused on interventions to support vocational outcomes for adults with childhood-onset disabilities. Although job placement assistance, on-the-job training, on-the-job supports, counseling, and guidance predicted successful employment outcomes, this population is clearly an area for consideration in future. The review by Sweetland et al. (2012) found a lack of large quantitative studies in the area of employment and multiple sclerosis. They recommended further research before any conclusions could be drawn about the effectiveness of particular interventions to support work retention or return to work for this population. Similarly, in a review of stroke programs, Baldwin and Brusco (2011) found a lack of high-quality trials to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation. In cancer populations, Tamminga et al. (2010) concluded that it was not possible to determine the effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation due to the large differences in the content of interventions, samples, and study designs. Even in the area of spinal cord injury, a review by Roels et al. (2016) identified a profound lack of high-level evidence focusing on interventions to improve employment. For more commonly researched disability groups, vocational rehabilitation programs are often radically different leading to inconclusive research. As a result, evidence to support vocational rehabilitation is mixed. For instance, even within the area of musculoskeletal injuries, a Cochrane review showed no high-quality evidence to support or refute its efficacy for enhancing return to work in workers with traumatic upper limb injuries (Hou et al. 2017). A comparison of nine vocational rehabilitation programs for people with hearing difficulties (Gussenhoven et al. 2013) identified vast differences in procedure, duration, setting, and content. The only common elements where conclusions could be made were basic tasks, such as education, the provision of hearing aids and other assistive devices, training in coping strategies and communication, and information about workplace accommodations for employers. Lund and Cmar (2019) sought to understand the differential impacts of vocational rehabilitation for people with visual impairments. Their review indicated that good outcomes were less likely for those with lower levels of education or who were already in receipt of social security income. Similarly, Etuknwa et al. (2019) confirmed that younger age and higher education levels were associated with better outcomes for people with musculoskeletal disorders and mental disorders who participated in vocational rehabilitation. In a review of stroke rehabilitation, Wei et al. (2016) found inconsistent evidence for vocational rehabilitation but noted that

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improvements in fatigue and cognitive function were related to successful return-towork outcomes. Thus, the success of vocational rehabilitation may be evident for particular employees but also predicated on the extent to which it can address workrelated challenges experienced by injured and disabled workers. Researchers have unanimously commented on the complications created by inconsistent measurement of employment outcomes, including a lack of standardized terminology or definitions and the vast differences in the way programs are delivered. As Alexander and Cooper (2019) concluded in their review of vocational rehabilitation, studies lacked detail about components of programs’ timing, duration, and delivery mechanisms limiting reproducibility. Most studies defined employment status dichotomously (i.e., successful versus not successful), whereas other studies used more detailed categories of employment outcomes (i.e., full-time, part-time, employment relative to pre-injury employment, and level of income), and others have included homemaking and full-time studies as employment outcomes, making comparisons difficult or impossible. There are multiple ways of conceptualizing employment outcomes, and each will lead to different conclusions. Comparison groups are difficult to achieve in this area as withholding vocational support from people who have been injured or disabled would be considered unethical in most circumstances. Natural control groups are unhelpful as workers who do not access vocational rehabilitation of any kind are typically those who do not require or want assistance. Not surprisingly, in the review by Baldwin and Brusco (2011), employment rates varied from 12% to 49% across the included studies, and it was difficult to conclude the extent to which any change can be attributed to the intervention. This heterogeneity and variability in study designs limit the development of evidence and clarity about effectiveness.

The Timing of Vocational Rehabilitation The concept of early intervention is central to vocational rehabilitation, yet implementation in practice has been rare, especially in cases of significant injuries and disabilities. Waddell et al. (2013) recommended early delivery of simple low-intensity low-cost interventions that could facilitate rapid (re)engagement with the workplace. Progressively more intensive and structured interventions should then be provided for those who need additional help to access and/or maintain work. For young people with disabilities, early intervention will mean stronger transition programs and school engagement. For people who are injured or become ill at work, it will mean embedding early indications of injury into the workplace to promote early treatment or prevention and maintain a strong employer-employee bond (Bloom et al. 2019; Murphy and O’Hare 2011). Wei et al. (2016) recommended that inpatient stroke rehabilitation programs should focus more on preparation for return to employment particularly for younger people. Similar conclusions have been made in relation to early onset dementia (McCulloch et al. 2016). In the area of brain injury, some researchers have commented on the lack of vocational rehabilitation during hospital treatment (O’Keefe et al. 2019). They concluded that work

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skills could be improved during hospital rehabilitation even though some aspects of vocational rehabilitation might not be feasible. Early commencement of vocational rehabilitation has only recently gained momentum through emerging evidence of its effectiveness (Hilton et al. 2017; Middleton et al. 2015). This approach capitalizes on people’s early hopes and motivations for a return to “normal” life and ensures that the possibilities of (re)entering work or study are communicated early which can also enhance motivation and treatment adherence in other aspects of rehabilitation (Fadyl and McPherson 2010). Finding ways to engage earlier will be a key focus of future vocational rehabilitation in maximizing the likelihood of successful and sustainable employment outcomes. Sustained support over time is also an important yet overlooked element of vocational rehabilitation. Gray et al. (2019) confirmed that clear return-to-work plans and ongoing support in the workplace were particularly important to sustained employment outcomes for injured workers. The lack of long-term vocational support was particularly evident in the study conducted by Jetha et al. (2019). In reviewing 19 studies of interventions designed to promote workforce participation of people with disabilities, Jetha and colleagues identified a clear focus on preparation for employment and transition into work. However, no interventions focused on sustaining employment or advancing the careers of these workers. Similarly, in a review of workplace supports for people with intellectual disability, Carlson et al. (2020) confirmed that programs focused mostly on performance support and maintenance of employment. Some programs focused on supports for social integration in the workplace, but no programs focused on career advancement. Boelhouwer et al. (2020) concluded from their review of cancer survivors that no data were available beyond the first 2 years after cancer treatment. However, physical or cognitive complaints and fatigue occurring later in the course of treatment were negatively associated with work ability suggesting that an impact on employment may be observed in the long term. The absence of longitudinal studies that track outcomes over a longer period of time prevents reliable conclusions.

The Role of a Collaborative Organizational Culture The shift toward disability management in the last few decades has emphasized the importance of the organizational context and the role of employers in creating a supportive environment for workers with disabilities. An interesting illustration of this shift is shown by Main and Shaw (2016) who compared the content of a 2005 conference on disability and employment with the 2015 version of the same conference. In 2005, key themes were clinical in focus with only a few items focusing on the broader working environment. Topics included early risk prediction; psychosocial, behavioral and cognitive interventions and physical treatments to improve work performance; the challenges associated with implementing evidence; outcome evaluation in the workplace; and engaging multiple stakeholders in the process. In contrast, the 2015 conference emphasized organizational and social factors, employer roles and responsibilities, nonclinical approaches, and maintenance of

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employment. The conference members agreed that future research should strive for (a) broader inclusion of workers and workplaces in decision-making, (b) attention to multilevel influences in the workplace, (c) a focus on social as well as physical aspects of work, (d) earlier employer collaboration, (e) more attention to implementation, and (f) a broader assessment of possible outcome domains. Although reviews of vocational rehabilitation practice have continued to reveal a focus on the worker rather than on the workplace environment (Pieper et al. 2019), it is now accepted that work-focused clinical interventions and accommodating workplaces are interdependent and both necessary but not sufficient alone (Waddell et al. 2013). Kristman et al. (2016) found that employers generally understood their focus to be on defining roles and responsibilities, standardizing management tools and procedures, responding to injured workers in prompt and proactive ways, and attending to the individualized needs of workers through accommodations. These responses are enacted primarily through supervisors, so it is not surprising that the role of supervisors in successful employment outcomes has been clearly demonstrated. Etuknwa et al. (2019) found consistent evidence for support from supervisors and coworkers for workers with both musculoskeletal and mental disorders. These researchers used a relatively stringent definition of return to work (i.e., stable fullor part-time employment to either the original or a modified job for a period of at least 3 months without sickness, absence, or re-occurrence of inability to work). Similarly, Jetha et al. (2018) found that positive supervisor reactions to injury were significantly associated with return to work both at the time of a workers’ compensation claim acceptance and 6 months later. In another study, peer support and peer mentoring increased work participation for persons with intellectual disabilities, neurological/cognitive disabilities, and autism spectrum disorder (Smith et al. 2017). Thus, the importance of ongoing positive supervisor and peer processes at work can generate sustainable outcomes. Most researchers have concluded that promoting positive supervisor and peer reactions toward injured and disabled workers is an important vocational rehabilitation strategy. In trying to understand the predictors of respectful interactions, Lappalainen et al. (2019) found that 77% of supervisors had experienced the process of managing an employee with disability and these supervisors had benefited from explicit company policy training in disability management and a functional collaboration with occupational health and safety professionals. When these factors were present, supervisors reported increased willingness to address work-related issues cooperatively with injured and disabled employees. Wagner and colleagues (2018) found that employees in multiple countries were familiar with some type of disability management initiative in their workplaces. As Liukko and Kuuva (2017) noted, disability in the workplace is no longer seen as a medical or individual problem but as a societal and organizational challenge to be solved through coordinated action from a range of stakeholders. For many decades, researchers have emphasized the importance of the way in which stakeholders communicate and collaborate to achieve work outcomes for people with a disability. However, cooperation among stakeholders who are involved in the process has been labeled as one of the main challenges to a more

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inclusive and accepting workplace. In support of this conclusion, an Australian study of workers’ compensation systems (Kilgour et al. 2015) confirmed that health professionals are influential in the recovery process but are not always helpful perhaps because their focus is not on employment. They noted that interactions between health professionals and insurers can significantly affect injured workers’ engagement in rehabilitation. When examining the relationships between insurers and injured workers, Kilgour et al. (2015) found that most interactions were negative, sometimes even causing secondary injury. In one study, injured workers who had chronic whiplash (Peolsson et al. 2020) described the process of returning to work following their injury as a series of setbacks dominated by bureaucracy and being misunderstood by healthcare professionals. Respectful understanding and supportive communication and efficient services were rarely reported by injured workers possibly because these interactions all occurred within a broader adversarial context rather than within a supportive workplace culture where they felt valued. Kristman and colleagues (2016) tried to identify the way in which different models of employee management determined practices and responses by employers. They observed that organizations tended to operate from one or a combination of frameworks that set the tone of their organizational culture and informed decisionmaking. Approaches could be based on (1) biomedical models of disability where responsibility rested on health professionals and individuals themselves; (2) financial management models focused on cost-containment monitoring of statistical trends and short-term profit margins; (3) personnel management models that focus on adherence with regulatory guidelines; and (4) organizational development models where the organization views itself as an ecology of interdependent relationships where actions taken toward injured or disabled workers are emblematic of an overall culture of diversity wellness inclusion that benefits all parties. Several other researchers have focused on how explicit statements about the organizational culture can influence workplace health, productivity and disability employment (Buys et al. 2017). Supportive organizational cultures were those where there was consistency between the organization’s espoused beliefs about the value of injured and disabled employees and the activities that demonstrated this value directly to the workers. When the experiences of workers with disability differed from the expressed values of the employers, employees quickly identified discrepancies. A negative workplace culture impeded vocational rehabilitation, whereas a positive organizational culture was based on a genuine interest in the well-being of injured or disabled workers as well as the entire workforce. Organizations demonstrated this interest through regular clear communication and supportive interactions between supervisors, coworkers, and injured workers. They also provided prompt processing of claims and medical costs and a focus on injury prevention and the general wellness of all staff members. The organizational acceptability of disability or the stigma associated with disclosure may also impact on the extent to which workers divulge information that could inform accommodations. For this reason, Santuzzi and Waltz (2016) argued that employers should overtly communicate the nature of the workplace and set the tone of disability acceptance. In contrast, the absence of proactive

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disability strategies might encourage workers to avoid requesting accommodations. Ironically, at the same time as generating the potential for discrimination and stigma, a diagnosis of a disability provides legal protection to employees through legislation that requires accommodations for these employees (Doyle and McDowall 2019). These findings show that corporate social responsibility might be one of the few ways in which global employment goals for people with disabilities can become reality (Kwan 2020). The rise of corporate social responsibility over the last few decades should naturally emphasize inclusive employment practices. However, as Kwan (2020) noted, equal opportunity for people with disabilities is rarely mentioned in this field, with the emphasis still being on minimum legal requirements.

The Future of Vocational Rehabilitation Global trends such as the aging workforce, technological disruption, and increasing number of work-related legislative frameworks have altered the nature of work over the last few decades. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the way we think about employment and job security. It has escalated the rate of change beyond anything imaginable, altering the workplace itself and how employees interact with each other on a daily basis. It has also changed the way we think about important social systems, such as unemployment benefits, workers’ compensation, insurance, and disability payments (Ståhl and MacEachen 2020). Trends that will become reality for workplaces over the next few years include the emergence of variable and unpredictable health conditions and disabilities that had not previously been considered from a workplace perspective; a highly participatory, personalized, and customizable approach to employment; the rise of alternative selfdirected business models; and the application of advanced technology in the workplace. The next few years may represent a crucial turning point for vocational rehabilitation as it responds to these major challenges. These challenges will necessitate changes in the way vocational rehabilitation is designed and delivered to ensure it is well prepared for this future.

Managing Variable and Unpredictable Conditions The growth of chronic physical and mental health conditions will bring a range of new conditions into focus for vocational rehabilitation. Increased life expectancy and mandatory extensions of retirement age are leading to growing numbers of workers with disabilities and chronic health conditions remaining in the workforce. This situation increases the risk of workplace injuries and threats to productivity created by the deteriorating health of aging workers. Complicating this picture is the fact that age is a significant predictor of employment outcomes irrespective of disability type or the nature of the injury sustained by workers. For instance, in an Israeli study (Savitsky et al. 2020), older workers (aged over 55 years) had an 11fold increased probability of not returning to work compared to other injured workers.

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Further, the efficacy of return-to-work interventions for aging workers is mixed, creating even greater disadvantage for these workers. These conditions are often characterized by ambiguous, fluctuating, and hidden symptoms that will impact on work capability and work identity in unexpected ways. They are not likely to be managed well in the workplace (Holland and Clayton 2020). Workers with some of these conditions might not be aware of their own impairment, or it might not become obvious until circumstances in the workplace change (Santuzzi and Waltz 2016). Work disability might emerge over time as a result of a slow progression as new workplace practices or job demands are implemented or as definitions of disability change. Diagnostic delays or even the absence of a clear diagnosis will make it challenging to engage employers and coworkers in collaborative work accommodations and task modifications. There is currently only minimal assistance for workers with these conditions to retain or regain employment as clearly articulated by Hoving et al. (2013) in relation to arthritis. Waddell et al. (2013) noted that cardiac rehabilitation programs were highly clinical and disease-focused with little emphasis on employment. However, the value of returning to work following a cardiac event has been well documented (Kennedy et al. 2007). Similarly, the value of returning to work following a diagnosis of (and treatment for) cancer is widely known, with most cancer survivors regarding work as a vital aspect of re-establishing their lives (Wells et al. 2013). Cancer rehabilitation programs also tend to overlook vocational goals (de Boer et al. 2009). The workforce prevalence of other complex conditions such as early-onset dementia and other age-related neurological conditions will generate significant challenges for vocational rehabilitation, particularly as people with these conditions are known to not receive reasonable adjustments in the workplace (McCulloch et al. 2016). Other areas where an increasing need for vocational rehabilitation may emerge in the future include climate-related conditions, such as population-induced respiratory disease and mosquito-borne infections. Climate disease has been prioritized by the World Health Organization (2019) as a major challenge for the future, and this challenge will be seen in the workplace. Mental health conditions including those associated with conflict-related trauma, the impacts of drug and alcohol use (e.g., fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, alcohol-related brain damage), and the consequences of domestic violence, are rising rapidly and will impact on workplaces. As the prevalence of mental health conditions in the general population grows, the need to manage the well-being of entire workforces will become more urgent. This year has also revealed the vulnerability of our workforces to large-scale disasters and pandemics. The long-term consequences of COVID-19 is yet to be fully understood, but evidence from previous pandemics suggests that a wave of disability may be experienced in coming years (Helgertz and Bengtsson 2019). COVID-19 has also raised awareness about the importance of particular workforces in the maintenance of our communities during times of disaster (e.g., the healthcare workforce, emergency services and first responders). There is clearly a role for vocational rehabilitation in ensuring the sustainability and “surge capacity” of these workforces. It is not clear yet how equipped vocational rehabilitation is to address these challenges in the future. Employers and providers of vocational rehabilitation will

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need to develop proficiency in supporting workers who have a range of complex and variable conditions which will emphasize the importance of underlying principles rather than disability-specific content knowledge. As Santuzzi and Waltz (2016) rightly pointed out, however, disability in the workplace is already a fluid concept, so this is an opportunity for vocational rehabilitation to expand its boundaries.

Personalized Participatory and Customizable Rehabilitation A recent review of systematic reviews revealed that vocational rehabilitation is most successful when based on personalized interventions designed to address the unique interaction between workers and their specific workplaces (Pieper et al. 2019). Jetha et al. (2019) found evidence to support the positive impact of personalized or tailored supports on preparation and entry into competitive employment for young adults with chronic physical and mental health conditions. However, there was insufficient evidence for the effect of supported employment on other work outcomes (e.g., income, hours worked, or job tenure). Similarly, Smith et al. (2017) found that people with neurological disabilities benefitted from personalized one-on-one (as opposed to group) intervention. Interventions that were more customized to the client’s needs seemed to be the most effective. Although most disability groups benefited from customized work accommodations, the evidence for effectiveness was weaker presumably due to the challenges with controlled trials. The review by Pieper et al. (2019) also showed that multicomponent programs based on a participatory approach that engages employees, employers, and management structures are more effective than single interventions. Participatory approaches based on end-user engagement in design have become more common in all settings and are particularly important in the disability sector where co-design has become an important feature of most programs. Co-design assumes that workers are best placed to identify acceptable solutions for their circumstances, therefore increasing the likelihood of sustainability and effectiveness (Asensio-Cuesta et al. 2019). It also assumes a level of capacity to make decisions for the good of all stakeholders. Brongers et al. (2020) referred to this as a strength-based approach to disability employment. This approach is based on six core principles: (1) the belief that injured and disabled workers can recover, reclaim or transform their lives; (2) a focus on workers’ strengths rather than deficits; (3) a focus on the availability and mobilization of community resources to support employment; (4) the belief that workers should be the directors of their own processes; (5) emphasis on workers’ relationships with key stakeholders such as their employers; and (6) recognition that the process of employment occurs in the community as much as in the workplace. This contextualized, self-determined and co-designed process resonates with many other developments in the disability field and offers a role for vocational rehabilitation. Self-managed solutions make intuitive sense in vocational rehabilitation as the process builds on the natural desire of people to have self-determination. For instance Wells et al. (2013) found that workers recovering from cancer adopted a

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range of self-managed strategies with varied success to facilitate their return to work, namely, (1) communication and negotiation with employers, (2) acknowledging and accepting their own changed capabilities, (3) managing symptoms and rebuilding confidence, and (4) “working smarter.” In this regard, an interesting finding from the recent review conducted by Etuknwa et al. (2019) was that “job crafting” appeared to be a successful predictor of sustainable return to work. Although insufficient evidence was available to draw confident conclusions about this process, job crafting might offer an interesting model of participatory, customized and personalized workplaces for the future. Job crafting involves a worker initiating and overseeing the customization of their workplace role and tasks to suit their individual work functioning needs. This process has been shown to be a positive factor in worker engagement and retention after returning to work (Nielsen 2020) and in the prevention of staff burnout (Demerouti 2015). It closely parallels the process of accommodations used in vocational rehabilitation. Wells and her colleagues (2013) took the personalization and self-management argument one step further noting that “return to work” may be a simplistic way of thinking about outcomes. They observed that the benefits of work are idiosyncratic and time dependent. Santuzzi and Waltz (2016) cautioned that workers will all have different disability identities even if they have the same disabling condition and level of impairment, and this identity will impact on the way in which disability interacts with the workplace. Wells et al. recommended a more nuanced approach to vocational rehabilitation that acknowledges workers’ sense of identity, the meaning and significance of work, and individual circumstances over time. Van der Klink et al. also commented on the complex interaction between the desire for self-determination and necessary dependence on structural conditions that can hinder or facilitate capability. Employment initiatives must negotiate these complex tensions, modify the strategies in response to changing circumstances, and balance the interests of all stakeholders through the multiple vocational transitions that will occur over time (Studer et al. 2017). This approach implies a different model of vocational rehabilitation that could and perhaps should be a natural expectation of any worker and a viable business strategy for employers who wish to maintain productivity and longevity for their workers.

Alternative Business Models Much of what is known about vocational rehabilitation has been learned in large organizations. However future trends suggest that people with disabilities will find themselves in a range of different employment situations including small businesses or self-employment. In reviewing business structures that may create opportunities or hindrances for people with disabilities, Ekberg and colleagues (2016) identified the rise of temporary and contingent employment, virtual or remote work, and lone workers, particularly through the current “gig economy,” characterized by ondemand independent contracting, self-employment, entrepreneurship, and sporadic employment in small businesses. These alternative business structures offer opportunities for people with disabilities to obtain employment without the usual barriers associated with physically inaccessible buildings, limited transport systems, and inadequate access to equipment.

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Self-employment arrangements allow people with disabilities to work in more flexible self-determined ways which suit their own abilities and in their own familiar and accessible setting that is easily adapted to suit changing needs over time (Maritz and Laferriere 2016). Self-employment can also highlight the talents and individuality of workers who have disability rather than the comparisons with others that inevitably occur in competitive employment settings (Griffin et al. 2014). When people with disability are adequately supported and prepared for self-employment, it has positive effects even from the early stage of start-up activities on self-esteem, self-efficacy, and psychosocial well-being (Martin and Honig 2019). However, selfemployment is not without its critics, based on the need for substantial training and support in enterprising and business skills to increase the likelihood of sustained success (Ashley and Graff 2017; Castillo and Fischer 2019). Vocational rehabilitation providers have traditionally been reluctant to support self-employment goals based on the common perception of self-employment as being riskier than conventional employment and less likely to meet corporate key performance indicators in the short-term (Maritz and Laferriere 2016). Not surprisingly, there is a lack of knowledge and skills among vocational rehabilitation professionals about how best to support clients in self-employment endeavors (Kendall et al. 2006). The rise of self-employment and entrepreneurship models for people with disabilities has generated several fundamental criticisms among disability scholars. A major criticism concerns the fact that if workers in these situations are injured or become unwell, they are afforded little protection or security. In small businesses, the capacity to manage illness absences, provide accommodations, support early return to work, provide training, support disabled workers, or implement sustained health promotion programs to prevent injury is limited. Under the rubric of selfemployment, very little assistance is available to people with disabilities who continue to experience precariousness (Dewhurst 2017). Models based on lone employment also allow employees with disabilities to be relegated to jobs that lack coworker interaction which can further marginalize these workers and alienate them from the valuable sources of support (Schur et al. 2017). A more fundamental criticism is that this agenda perpetuates a “triumph over tragedy” argument (Lin et al. 2019) that undermines the need for workplaces to accommodate disability and places responsibility on the worker to be enterprising. Irrespective of these criticisms, entrepreneurship has become a benchmark, and people with disabilities are increasingly defining themselves as entrepreneurs rather than employees. Vocational rehabilitation will need to adapt to these changing models of employment opportunities enabling self-determined economic and vocational participation through empowerment and linkage to real-world employability and enterprising upskilling.

Technology-Enabled Vocational Rehabilitation Most workplaces are currently undergoing some form of “modernization” that involves digital disruption of routine processes and practices. As Scotch and McConnel (2017) hypothesized, this change is likely to accelerate over the next few years with computerization of most processes, 3D printing of bespoke products,

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advanced telecommunications, and, eventually, seamless brain-computer interfaces. Technology brings the possibility for people with disabilities to achieve equality and independence in society. It has become an essential and ubiquitous aspect of life for most people, but for people with disability, it holds the promise of true inclusion. It has the potential to change the way in which people with disabilities are viewed in the workplace because, if used judiciously, it can eliminate disability-related challenges. The Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner (McEwin 2017) commented recently that technology could be a great equalizer in ensuring that people with disability can obtain, retain, and advance in employment. However, he also noted that the digital age represented both an opportunity and a challenge in relation to employment. As Schur and colleagues (2017) pointed out, technology is unlikely to be a panacea for all workers with disabilities and may in fact worsen circumstances for some people. Indeed, disability scholars have argued that technological advances may actually place people with disability in more unequal and precarious positions (Lin et al. 2019). Although technology has flourished in the last decade, technological innovations have rarely been applied to support people with disabilities in their employment or maximize their productivity at work (Kbar et al. 2016). The modern workplace already operates at an extremely rapid pace due to the introduction of technology. Some automated processes may not be easily modified for workers with physical disabilities. Other forms of technology in the workplace will not be easily managed by workers who have cognitive confusion or fatigue making these workplaces inaccessible. Damianidou and colleagues (2019) concluded that the effect of technology differed depending on the type of technology and the work setting meaning that the best approach for the future involves personalized matching of technology to the demands of the job and the capabilities of the worker. Understanding this matching process is, therefore, an important vocational rehabilitation skill for the twenty-first century. The potential of technology to support workers with disability and prevent workplace injury and illness in the workplace is starting to become clear. Researchers (Smith et al. 2017) have shown that assistive technology, especially apps for cueing work-related tasks and behaviors and intense immersion in simulated training prior to, during, and after placement in competitive employment can be effective in supporting employment outcomes. The importance of cognitively accessible technology was also highlighted in an analysis conducted by Damianidou and colleagues (2019). They identified a clear benefit of technology designed to support people with neurological disabilities to perform vocational tasks. They identified 109 features of existing and widely available technologies that could be used in the workplace to support work tasks. However, use of these features depends on the ability of the worker to independently establish and manage them. Thus, a potential future role for vocational rehabilitation counselors will involve thorough knowledge of different technologies and how they can be applied to many different settings and tasks to improve worker capability. Beyond the application of widely available technology, a few innovative and revolutionary systems have been documented in the literature to support disability employment or injury prevention. For instance, Spook et al. (2019) reviewed the use of sensor-based applications to monitor health and well-being in physically demanding jobs. Interestingly

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workers were enthusiastic about wearable sensor applications to measure and monitor job demands, occupational heat, noise, and fatigue. Implementation success was dependent on the quality, comfort and perceived ease of use of these devices, but workers valued the ability to manage and monitor exposure to stresses. They wanted the opportunity to receive real-time feedback and access data themselves if needed. If used in this way, sensor technology could give workers control over their working environments and the way in which they interact with each other, their tasks, and their supervisors. This type of data could also provide employers with better understanding of capability across their entire workforce including workers with disabilities. It would allow them to more precisely manage complex issues such as graduated return to work following injury and accommodations. In a similar vein, Herzog and Harih (2020) developed an automated system to help employers manage the complexity of providing accommodations. In an innovative decision support system, these researchers used artificial intelligence to assist in coordinating tasks, workplace characteristics, worker capabilities, and the accommodation requirements of employees with disabilities. Systems such as this can extend beyond a single employer (i.e., small businesses cooperatives) to generate an inclusive and cooperative environment where people with disabilities can receive suitable accommodations. Virtual and extended reality technology is also providing a new medium to support employment for people with disabilities particularly through improved training and preparation. Michalski et al. (2020) reviewed the evidence for virtual reality for people with neurodevelopmental conditions who were starting employment. They found evidence that training in virtual environments significantly improved real-world performance compared to no-training control groups and real-world training. For people with mental health conditions, Smith and colleagues (2017) also found moderate evidence in support of intense immersion in simulated training prior to, during, and after placement in competitive employment. The application of virtual technologies may soon extend to the provision of holographic support in the workplace and virtual immersion of people with disabilities into workplaces. Artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, holographic technology, and braincomputer interfaces could revolutionize the future experience of injured and disabled workers. These technologies will allow better prediction of outcomes, prevention of injury, informed decision-making, and assistive devices that far exceed the current expectations. Delivery of vocational rehabilitation will be vastly different, and vocational rehabilitation professionals will need to rapidly develop skills in the use of these advanced technologies.

Conclusion This chapter was an opportunity to reflect on vocational rehabilitation over recent decades and the trends that will undoubtedly impact on practice in this field in the next few decades. Vocational rehabilitation has changed a great deal, embracing the shift from its medical origins in the 1950s to a social and human rights model of employment. It has also broadened its focus to acknowledge the central role of

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employers and the culture of the workplace as a determinant of successful outcomes. It has moved from a focus on individuals to a stance that promotes broader shifts in policy and legislative frameworks. However, vocational rehabilitation is likely to face its most radical shifts in the next few decades. Trends such as advanced technology, new business models, personalization, and customization will completely disrupt the world of work and, therefore, the delivery of vocational rehabilitation. In an interesting review of employment programs for people with disabilities, Man, Shu and Sun (2020) shone a light on the problematic fundamental philosophy underpinning much of this field. They, along with other researchers, have argued that the diversity movement required a shift from an “identity-conscious” orientation to an “identity-blind” orientation. Using an identity-conscious approach, minority groups with diverse identities require accommodations and modifications tailored to their special needs. These needs are seen as extraordinary and cast these employees as outliers in need of affirmative action. In contrast an identity-blind approach is about affirming diversity as a valuable component of the workplace. It emphasizes the commonalities across employees and acknowledges the variations in the population that resource managers need to harness for a creative and productive culture. Using this approach, it is not unreasonable to expect that accommodations should be provided to all employees to provide the most fruitful working environment for everyone. Along these lines, a review commissioned by the UK government in 2013 concluded that vocational rehabilitation should become a fundamental element of government strategy to improve the health of all working-age people (Waddell et al. 2013). The next few years will determine whether or not vocational rehabilitation can respond to the trends that will shape practice into the future. Failure to grasp the trends outlined in this chapter will make vocational rehabilitation irrelevant, whereas harnessing them will deliver a product of great value to the workforce and the future prosperity of entire countries.

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Part V Work-Life Interface

Psychological Crossover Definitions, Explanations, and New Directions

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Paula Brough, Mina Westman, Shoshi Chen, and Xi Wen (Carys) Chan

Contents Introduction to Crossover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spillover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Explanations of Crossover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Westman’s (2001) Crossover Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Positive Crossover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Crossover Process Model (Brough et al. 2018b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Spillover–Crossover Model (Bakker and Demerouti 2013) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Developments in Crossover Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossover, Cultural Norms, and Gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossover of Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossover Between Team Members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossover Between Leaders and Followers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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P. Brough (*) Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: p.brough@griffith.edu.au M. Westman · S. Chen Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] X. W. C. Chan Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW), Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia School of Applied Psychology, Griffith Health, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, QLD, Australia e-mail: carys.chan@griffith.edu.au © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_29

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Abstract

This chapter describes the interpersonal transfer process of stress, emotions, and experiences, known as crossover. It defines and differentiates between spillover and crossover and discusses the three main theoretical explanations of the crossover process. It also explains how the crossover process includes the transfer of both positive and negative emotions and experiences, and how recent work has demonstrated the transmission of resources (e.g., self-esteem and social support), between spouses. The chapter also discusses the impact of culture and gender on the crossover process. Finally, it reviews emerging research assessing how crossover operates between team members and how team leaders “affect” their team members via crossover (and vice versa). Keywords

Crossover · Spillover · Stress · Work–life balance · Work–life conflict · Dyads · Teams · Resources

Introduction to Crossover Occupational stress is an increasingly widespread problem, costing our economies billions per annum in costs directly related to sick leave, employee turnover, lost productivity, and compensation payments (Brough et al. 2020). Adverse work conditions are the primary causes of occupational stress, specifically denoted by excessive work demands, inadequate work resources, and psychologically unhealthy work environments (Brough et al. 2020). An important source of occupational stress also occurs from a crossover process, via direct and indirect interpersonal experiences. Thus, one person’s stress experiences can be transferred to a second individual eliciting similar experiences of stress and strain. Crossover is defined as “the interpersonal process that occurs when job stress or psychological strain experienced by one person affects the level of strain of another person in the same social environment” (Bolger et al. 1989, p. 175). Although research focused on crossover has been occurring for over 30 years, it has recently received renewed attention.

Spillover It is important to differentiate between crossover and spillover. Spillover is the intraindividual (i.e., within person) transfer of emotions or affect (e.g., stress or strain) from one domain to a second domain. Thus, stress experienced at work may be “brought home” and the consequences experienced in the home environment. Such consequences include irritation, anxiety, fatigue, and positive and negative coping behaviors (e.g., exercise, alcohol consumption). Spillover, therefore, consists of the transfer of both positive and negative emotions across multiple life domains, but within one individual. Negative spillover has been commonly defined and

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assessed by the processes of inter-domain conflict, specifically work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC), originally described by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985). These terms have also been recently referred to as interference between the home and work domains, delineated as work-to-family interference (WFI) and family-to-work interference (FWI; Brough and O’Driscoll 2015). More specifically, three different types of negative inter-domain conflict/interference have been identified: time-based interference, caused by conflicting time demands from different domains; strain-based interference, caused by strain from one domain negatively impacting the second domain; and finally, behaviorbased interference, when behavioral norms and expectations in one domain conflict with expectations in the second domain. For example, authoritative “command and control” behaviors may be required at work, but are far less relevant within the home environment (Brough and O’Driscoll 2015). Most workers can relate to the stresscausing characteristics of juggling time demands between work and home, and especially those workers who are also parents and carers (i.e., work–life balance; Brough et al. 2014b). Similarly, many individuals have experienced a difficult (stressful) day at work and then had difficulties sleeping that night due to feeling under strain. Behavior-based interference is less prevalent and is commonly restricted to specific employment roles requiring behaviors that do not fit well in family life (e.g., military, police). Considerable evidence over the last 40 years has demonstrated the antecedents, moderators, and consequences of spillover. While these consequences may be positive or negative, the majority of the research focuses on the negative outcomes primarily due to the considerable health and performance consequences such negative spillover may elicit. Numerous studies have demonstrated that negative spillover (i.e., conflict/interference) directly and adversely impacts job satisfaction, family satisfaction, psychological strain, burnout, work engagement, job commitment, and quality of life (Brough et al. 2020; Drummond et al. 2017). In general, work demands adversely impact family life (WFI) more so than vice versa (FWI; Brough and O’Driscoll 2015). Positive spillover has commonly been demonstrated via assessments of the process of enhancement or enrichment between life domains (e.g., Brough et al. 2014a; Chan et al. 2016; Timms et al. 2015). As noted above, while spillover describes the transmission of stress or strain from one domain to another for the same individual, crossover relates to the transmission of emotions and experiences from one individual to another.

Theoretical Explanations of Crossover Westman’s (2001) Crossover Model Based on role theory (Katz and Kahn 1978), Westman (2001) developed a conceptual crossover model which focused on the interpersonal level of analysis (i.e., the dyad). This model remains the key theoretical explanation of crossover and is depicted in Fig. 1. The model describes three specific mechanisms by which both positive and negative experiences and emotions are transferred between individuals.

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Fig. 1 Westman’s (2001) crossover model. (Note: Adapted from Westman, M. (2001). Stress and strain crossover. Human Relations, 54(6), 717–751)

The core assumption of this model is that one person’s experience of stress or strain has an impact on their spouse or partner. Direct crossover is the principal mechanism of crossover and describes the interpersonal transfer of emotional states by empathy (i.e., empathic identification), commonly demonstrated by the transfer of strain between spouses. The basis for this view is the finding that crossover effects appear between closely related partners who care for each other and share the greater part of their lives together. The impact of occupational stress upon the spouses of high-risk employees is evident by, for example, the citations of the high divorce rates of military personnel, police, and prison officers (Beehr et al. 1995; Brough et al. 2016; Westman and Etzion 1995, 2005). It is also evident that distressed leaders, via a process of direct negative crossover, induce stress and strain in their followers (Köppe et al. 2018; Lu et al. 2016). Indirect crossover is the second crossover mechanism and describes how the interpersonal transfer of emotions occurs through personal attributes (e.g., personality traits, positive and negative affectivity, and workaholism) and interaction between individuals (Westman 2002), resulting in the partner’s strain. Thus far, the explanation of crossover as an indirect process has focused on specific coping strategies and interpersonal transactions such as social support, social undermining, and communication style (Westman 2002). Indirect crossover may explain, for example, the compounded impact that an overly critical spouse has upon an individual experiencing strain. Finally, crossover may also occur via common stressors shared between individuals and explains how, for example, a family illness or economic problems may jointly impact a couple and produce shared, common affective states (e.g., dissatisfaction, anxiety) in both partners. Both Westman’s subsequent research and studies of

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independent researchers have tested and supported the tenets of this crossover model and its three mechanisms (e.g., Howe et al. 2004; Lieke et al. 2010; Westman et al. 2011).

Positive Crossover While the original definition of crossover (Bolger et al. 1989) emphasized job stress and psychological strain, Westman (2001) suggested broadening the definition of crossover to include positive as well as negative experiences, emotions, and states. Thus, positive job events may also cross over to a partner via the three crossover mechanisms (direct, indirect, and common experiences) and have a positive effect on their well-being. Just as stressful job demands have a negative impact on the partner’s well-being, positive feelings following positive job experiences can elicit positive effect on partner’s well-being (Westman et al. 2009). Informed by positive psychology, work engagement is one key construct which has been assessed within positive crossover research. Studies have demonstrated the crossover of work engagement (e.g., Bakker and Xanthopoulou 2009; Demerouti et al. 2005; Westman et al. 2009). Studies have also supported the crossover of mood (Munyon et al. 2009; Song et al. 2008), happiness (Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. 2018), and marital satisfaction (Liu et al. 2016; van Steenbergen et al. 2014). Bakker et al. (2005), for example, investigated couples working in various occupations and found evidence for crossover of vigor and dedication (two of the three work engagement factors) between both partners, after controlling for key characteristics of the work and home environments. Westman et al. (2009) also confirmed that vigor crossed over from business travelers to their working spouses. Additionally, Bakker and Demerouti (2009) found that work engagement crossed over from wives to husbands, with the moderating effect of empathy (particularly, perspective taking) strengthening the crossover process. Specifically, men who were more empathic were more strongly influenced by their partners’ work engagement, compared to men who were less empathic. Bakker et al.’s (2011) findings also confirmed the moderating role of perspective taking in the crossover process among Japanese couples, but only for women. That is, women who understood the perspective of their partners scored higher on work engagement with increasing partner engagement. Moreover, they found that engagement crossover was strongest when both men and women were highly empathic. In a pertinent study with dual-earner couples based in China, Lu et al. (2016) assessed how the transfer of work–family conflict occurred between spouses to influence their levels of well-being. The authors reported results to support this reciprocal crossover pathway: that is, an individual’s perception of work–family conflict was negatively related to their spouse’s levels of family satisfaction, physical health, and well-being. This finding illustrates the importance of minimizing work– family conflict for both spouses (rather than just focusing on the work–family conflict of the primary breadwinner), in order to ensure optimal health and satisfaction outcomes for the couple. In a similar study demonstrating positive crossover, Liu et al. (2016) reported evidence for the transfer of work–family enrichment between spouses, which influenced the couple’s subsequent experiences of both

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Fig. 2 The crossover process model. (Note: Adapted from Brough, P., Muller, W., & Westman, M. (2018). Work, stress, and relationships: The Crossover Process Model. Australian Journal of Psychology, 70, 341–349)

job satisfaction and marital satisfaction. For a pertinent and comprehensive discussion of the positive and negative crossover within dual-earner couples, see the recent review by Brough and Westman (2018).

The Crossover Process Model (Brough et al. 2018b) A recent extension of Westman’s (2001) crossover model is the crossover process model (CPM; Brough et al. 2018b), which simplifies the inherent mechanisms within Westman’s original explanation of crossover. The CPM includes withinperson spillover, interpersonal crossover, and dyadic outcomes and clarifies the actual crossover mechanisms that occur across two domains (e.g., home and work) via five distinct steps (see Fig. 2). The CPM describes how stress, for example, is transferred between individuals by these five steps: Step 1 consists of a stress experience (perceived via the cognitive stress process) within one domain (e.g., work). Step 2 is the intra-level stress spillover to a secondary domain (e.g., home). Step 3 consists of the interpersonal stress crossover to a spouse (for example), after controlling for the spouse’s own cognitive stress process. Step 4 is the crossover outcomes (e.g., subsequent strain experienced by the spouse at their work). Finally, Step 5 consists of the dyadic (joint) outcomes (in this example, for the spouse’s personal relationship), which also impacts both individuals over time. This crossover process model is unique in simplifying Westman’s (2001) crossover model by focusing on the direct crossover mechanism and incorporating the known occupational stress process. Hence, constructs within the individual’s psychosocial environments (e.g., job demands, social support, job control) as well as organizational culture are included within the CPM, with the aim of providing a comprehensive framework for more detailed empirical assessments.

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The CPM has also demonstrated how crossover of stress from spouses impacts the health and work performance of employees. Evidence for crossover via both negative and positive pathways was also demonstrated with the CPM: that is, an employee’s positive work event impacted both their own and their spouse’s subsequent levels of work engagement. A contribution of this model is that the outcome of the interaction between a strained individual and his/her spouse is not necessarily negative and instead can be positive because of the contribution of the spouse to the interaction. Importantly, the CPM has been tested with both mixed- and same-sex couples, demonstrating that a mix of genders within a dyad is not required for crossover to occur (Muller and Brough 2017).

The Spillover–Crossover Model (Bakker and Demerouti 2013) A recent crossover model to note is the spillover–crossover model (SCM; Bakker and Demerouti 2013). Bakker and Demerouti (2013) developed the spillover–crossover model (SCM) by integrating the spillover and crossover literatures to gain a better insight into the processes that link the work and family domains. Evidence for the SCM model has been demonstrated in several studies by these authors, including Bakker et al. (2008) and Bakker et al. (2014). The SCM integrates the processes of spillover and crossover, describing how work stress spills over to the home domain, influencing behavior at home, and then crosses over to adversely impact a partner’s well-being. Bakker et al. (2008) reported that job demands were positively related to the employee’s own levels of work–family conflict (spillover), which then influenced their partner’s exhaustion (crossover). The SCM has also demonstrated its validity in the estimation of positive crossover. For example, Bakker et al. (2014) reported that work engagement was positively related to work–family facilitation (spillover), which in turn also predicted own and partner’s life satisfaction 1 year later (crossover). Similarly, via a diary study research methodology, work engagement was found to directly influence an employee’s sense of happiness, which subsequently influenced their partners’ happiness (Rodríguez-Muñoz et al. 2018). Liu et al. (2016) also demonstrated the spillover of work–family enrichment and crossover of marital satisfaction between spouses. In sum, the SCM was supported for both negative and positive emotions and experiences.

Developments in Crossover Research Crossover has received renewed recent attention focusing on expanding its approach from crossover of emotions and experiences to also document the transference of resources between couples and the crossover of experiences and emotions between employees, team members, and from leaders to followers. The next section reviews this recent research, but first discusses the impact of culture and gender on the crossover process.

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Crossover, Cultural Norms, and Gender Cultural norms and gender can each impact both the direct and indirect mechanisms of the crossover process (Westman et al. 2004; Zhang et al. 2013). Westman (2005) noted that the main impact of cultural norms on crossover is through its interaction with gender, particularly with couples based in non-Western cultures. Specifically, the interaction between gender and culture impacts the symmetry and direction of the crossover process, as well as the communication style (e.g., social undermining) within the couple (for a review, see Westman 2016). These studies, which examined the interface of gender ideology, cultural norms, and crossover, generally report that (1) the crossover process exhibited stronger pathways from husbands to wives, and the wives tended to be the recipients of their husbands’ stress and strain; (2) women’s tending behaviors (caring for family members) under stress may lead them to be more sensitive and empathetic to their spouse’s signs of distress; wives were more empathetic and thus more vulnerable to crossover due to traditional gender norms; and (3) the wives were also more vulnerable to crossover because of their role as caregivers. In a similar study by Chan (2018) who studied leader–subordinate dyads in Singapore, subordinates were tolerant of their leaders’ negative emotions, particularly their male leaders’ negative emotions, due to the pervasive gender stereotypes that still existed in these workplaces. Although the number of studies exploring crossover in relation to gender and culture has increased in the past decade, research results indicating the exact nature of their relationships remain inconclusive (Westman 2016). More recent research by Brough et al. (2018b) demonstrated that neither the gender of the initiating partner nor the gender of the recipient partner significantly influenced the crossover process. That is, crossover initiated by both males and females was found to be equally likely to occur and the crossover process occurred regardless of the gender of the second partner. Brough et al. (2018b) also included a rare assessment of crossover with same-sex couples and demonstrated that both the initiation and recipient of crossover occurred regardless of the gender. In contrast, Abeysekera and Gahan (2019) reported that the crossover effects of WFC and FWC were more pronounced for women compared to men, as women continue to undertake primary responsibility for the majority of family duties shared at the couple level. In Dou et al.’s (2020) study, they utilized the spillover–crossover model to examine 157 Chinese managers’ and their spouses’ WFC and life satisfaction. Specifically, they found that husbands’ WFC was negatively related to their wives’ life satisfaction, but wives’ WFC had no impact on their husbands’ life satisfaction. The authors invoked gender role theory to explain this finding, suggesting that husbands were less likely to reduce their family investment in the face of WFC as compared to their wives, due to traditional gender role expectations (Dou et al. 2020). This result is congruent with Westman’s (2016) gender asymmetry finding, which found that wives tended to be more vulnerable to negative crossover than their husbands, as women are still subjected to traditional gender norms, which require them to be the primary caregiver in their families.

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It was also interesting to note that a recent meta-analytical review of the crossover of work stressors, work attitudes, and WFC in dyads by Li et al. (2021) revealed no significant gender differences when they compared male-to-female crossover and female-to-male crossover. The authors also did not find any significant influence of gender egalitarianism, a defining cultural aspect, on the crossover process. In light of the mixed gender symmetry and asymmetry results in relation to the crossover process, we call for more research that explicitly assesses the three-way interaction between gender, cultural norms, and crossover process. While numerous studies have mentioned traditional gender norms as a possible reason for the gender asymmetrical findings, many of them have not measured or controlled for gender stereotypes or norms in their statistical analyses. It would also be insightful to probe the gender effects of crossover in same-sex families (e.g., same-sex couples with children), who have been shown to divide unpaid labor in a more egalitarian way as compared to heterosexual families (Kelly and Hauck 2015). Doing so would also extend the applicability of crossover research to a wider range of dyads beyond leader–followers, spouses, and family members.

Crossover of Resources The suggestion that resources can be transferred between individuals is a highly pertinent development (e.g., Brough and Westman 2018). Evidence indicates that resources such as social support (Ferguson et al. 2016), resilience (Chen et al. 2015; Park and Fritz 2015), and self-efficacy and self-esteem (Neff et al. 2012, 2015) are able to be transferred directly from one spouse to another, positively influencing their work attitudes. This positive interpersonal transfer process indicates that individuals can “adopt” their partners’ resources via crossover to enhance their own pool of resources and consequently their own levels of positive outcomes, including enhancing their work attitudes and work performance. This finding contributes to the roles that individual differences have within the stress process and demonstrates that high-stress job roles may be mitigated with the reception of positive interpersonal support, from a spouse, manager, or close colleague. The influence of social support to mitigate occupational stress experiences has been widely demonstrated in prior studies (e.g., Brough et al. 2018a) and is specifically denoted within some of the key theoretical explanations of the occupational stress process, notably the job-demand-control-support (JDCS) model (Johnson and Hall 1988) and the conservation of resources (COR) model (Hobfoll 1989). The evidence that resources can be transferred between individuals via crossover extends these theoretical explanations of the occupational stress process from an intra-individual process to an inter-personal process. Thus, it appears that responding to experienced stress with a spiral of available resources (as described by the COR model; Hobfoll 1989) can be further boosted by the available resources of your spouse, via the crossover process. Thus, having a spouse and/or a close colleague with high levels of self-esteem for example can, via crossover, boost your

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own levels of self-esteem, adding to your pool of available resources (i.e., resource gain spiral; Hobfoll 1989) and assisting both you and your partner to manage your work stress experiences (Neff et al. 2015). Neff et al. (2012) explained this process with self-expansion theory (Aron et al. 2004), whereby during an intimate relationship, individuals increasingly incorporate their partners’ resources, perspectives, and identities into their own self. Neff et al. (2015) demonstrated, via both a crosssectional and a longitudinal research methodology, the occurrence of the positive crossover of resources such as self-esteem and self-efficacy. Further, their findings also showed that the crossover of resources in the family resulted in an increase in partner’s engagement. One implication of this interpersonal transfer of resources is that for employees within high risk of stress occupations (e.g., police, military, medical staff), one method by which their work stress can be managed is to encourage a positive work culture within their immediate work unit and/or to ensure that they have ready access to a supportive close colleague (e.g., a peer support officer). The impact of organizational cultures upon employee well-being and work performance is increasingly being recognized within the occupational stress literature, especially the benefits of having a supportive supervisor who “sets the tone” of the immediate work-unit culture. See, for example, ▶ Chap. 22, “The Effective Management of Whistleblowing” within this book. It is of course more difficult to ensure that a worker has a supportive spouse (and ideally one with high levels of self-esteem!), although the value of good personal relationships is recognized by many workplaces via their provision of couples counselling sessions offered within their employee support programs (e.g., Brough et al., 2016; Hammer et al. 2011).

Crossover Between Team Members Edelwich and Brodsky (1980) wrote in as early as 1980 (p. 25), “If burnout only affected individuals in isolation, it would be far less important and far less devastating in its impact than it is. Burnout in Human Services Agencies is like an infection in hospitals; it gets around. It spreads from clients to staff, from one staff member to another, and from staff back to clients. Perhaps it ought to be called staff infection.” It is amazing that it took researchers more than 15 years to focus on crossover at the workplace. In this section, we discuss both crossover among team members and crossover from leaders to followers. As previous crossover research was based on the work–family interface, many prior crossover studies have focused on crossover between life partners in the family (e.g., Bakker et al. 2009). Based on the role theory (Katz and Kahn 1978), Westman (2001) suggested that the same processes that exist between couples may also exist between team members who have frequent interactions. As the simplest level of crossover is the dyadic process, the same principle can be applied to interactions in the workplace. The extant crossover literature also supports the existence of a crossover process in the workplace. Several researchers have focused on the crossover of perceived stress and strain between team members. Bakker et al. (2006), for

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example, investigated the crossover of burnout and work engagement among 2229 Royal Dutch constabulary officers working across 85 teams. Their results demonstrated the crossover phenomenon in the workplace by showing that team-level burnout and work engagement are significantly related to individual team members’ burnout and work engagement. Most of the studies which investigated crossover among team members focused on indirect crossover, specifically examining the associated mediators and moderators. Thus far, empathy, frequency of exposure, similarity, social support, and cohesion have been studied as moderators of the crossover process in the workplace. To elaborate, Bakker et al. (2009) found in a literature review that the main crossover moderators among team members are empathy, frequency of exposure to other team members, and similarity between the focal employee and their team and between team members themselves. In a sample of teachers, Bakker and Schaufeli (2000) also found that the frequency of exposure to colleagues who talked about work-related problems increased the probability of employees experiencing burnout. In trying to understand their colleagues’ problems, the teachers had to tune in to the negative emotions expressed. When the work environment is positive, the closeness and intensive interactions may act as a double-edged sword, causing effective relationships to become dysfunctional and, in the process, facilitating the crossover of exhaustion. Frequent and intense interactions may be positive or negative, contingent on the situation and the parties involved. Thus, frequent and intense interactions may lead to negative crossover if the crossover process is started by an exhausted employee or to positive crossover if the other party is an engaged team member. Emotionally exhausted team members who interact frequently may communicate about their perceptions concerning work and thus convey their perceptions of job demands and a state of emotional exhaustion to the other team members. Westman et al. (2009) found that no direct crossover process occurred between team members. Instead, they reported that social support and cohesiveness each significantly moderated the workplace crossover process between team members. Westman et al. (2009) demonstrated the crossover of job demands and exhaustion in teams that were high in cohesiveness and social support, in which employees presumably interacted with each other frequently. These findings are pertinent and relate to the longitudinal processes of team-level stress and strains. When team cohesiveness and social support are high, problems were discussed openly among team members, and the positive cohesive and supportive team atmosphere intensified the crossover of job demands and exhaustion among team members. Research by Bakker et al. (2001) further confirmed the existence of burnout contagion among general practitioners. Bakker et al. (2003) also found evidence for burnout contagion in the context of a large banking and insurance company. They showed that burnout at the team level is related to individual team members’ burnout scores, both directly and indirectly through its relationship with individual members’ job demands, job control, and perceived social support. Two studies (Bakker et al. 2003; Westman et al. 2009) also found that social support acted as a moderating factor in the crossover between team members. Social

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support can be seen as a property of the team and conceptualized at the team level (Bliese and Castro 2000; Drach-Zahavy 2004). When team social support is high, team members corroborate their teammates’ stress appraisals agreeing that the situation is stressful, which increases subsequent individual job stress and exhaustion. Furthermore, when colleagues provide support to stressed or exhausted team members, the process creates a crossover effect. Listening to others’ work-related problems may remind them that they experience similar problems, thereby intensifying the crossover of stressors and strains between team members. However, it is also possible that for team members experiencing high job demands, supportive interactions between them may alleviate stress and strain in such a way that these interactions between employees prevent stress and strain to crossover. Recently, Zagenczyk et al. (2020) conducted a sociocentric social network study in a US construction company and found that employees had similar levels of exhaustion as their co-workers with whom they had interactions with, from whom they sought advice, and who were in similar position levels, but they did not have the same level of exhaustion as their friends or supervisor. This finding highlighted the importance of exploring the influence of structural and relational patterns (i.e., organizational and work-unit-level culture and climate) embedded within an organization’s formal and informal structures. Meredith et al. (2020) investigated the crossover of burnout through the application of a social network approach, which assumes that some relationships provide more information on the feelings and attitudes of others. Long-term effects of burnout contagion were assessed among 578 teachers working in 12 schools. They showed that interpersonal interactions act as conduits for burnout contagion, especially when relations are strong in terms of frequency, embeddedness, and multiplicity. They conclude that it is important to investigate the functioning of teachers and other employees from an interactionist perspective, rather than treating these individuals as islands that are unaffected by daily interactions. Findings indicated that individuals who are strongly connected to others develop more similar feelings and attitudes. Together, the reviewed studies demonstrate that the majority of published crossover studies between team members found the occurrence of an indirect crossover process. This may be because establishing the mechanism of direct crossover requires a high level of empathy between individuals (i.e., as occurs with partners/ spouses), and this is less prevalent between team members. All but one study examined the crossover from teams to individuals. Multilevel principles suggest that top-down effects, such as from teams to individuals, are generally more powerful than bottom-up effects, that is, from individuals to teams. As argued by Kozlowski and Klein (2000), it is more difficult for an individual to impact the group than for the group (i.e., the “many”) to impact the individual.

Crossover Between Leaders and Followers Leaders play an important part in the success of any organization because they are a key human resource. In addition, they have an impact on their followers’

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performance and well-being (Inceoglu et al. 2018). Most accepted definitions of leadership indicate that the key component of leadership is influence, the ability to motivate people to perform tasks (see ▶ Chap. 2, “Successful Leadership,” in this book). Leaders’ behaviors such as support and empowerment, and fostering a good relationship between leaders and their followers, are leader behaviors that may reduce and prevent stress and improve their employees’ well-being (Bass 1990; Yukl 1994). The question of “How do leaders influence followers’ resources and outcomes?” may lead to the understanding of the processes underlying the influence of leadership and thereby advances leadership theory. Recently, researchers have called for a more integrated perspective on leadership and have suggested examining the role of followership and influence processes between leaders and followers (e.g., Bono and Yoon 2012; Uhl-Bien et al. 2014). See also ▶ Chap. 6, “Beyond the Leadership/Followership Dichotomy,” specifically discussing followership in this book. However, a lack of knowledge still exists regarding how leaders’ stress and wellbeing influence their employees’ stress and well-being. One possible way leaders have a negative or positive impact on their followers is by transmitting emotions and experiences to their followers via the crossover process. The crossover of burnout from leaders to followers, for example, has received scant empirical attention. Since leaders are role models for their followers, the results of leaders’ burnout may be particularly pronounced in their followers’ outcomes (Johnson 2008). Huang et al. (2016) proposed an indirect crossover model of burnout from leaders to followers through changes related to followers’ job and personal resources. The 6-month two-wave longitudinal study among 104 Chinese leader–follower dyads showed that the leaders’ burnout at T1 was negatively related to changes in followers’ job and personal resources over a period of 6 months, which in turn was negatively related to followers’ burnout at T2. These findings are important because they imply that the impacts of leaders’ burnout extend beyond the leaders to their followers. Pan and Lin (2018) also conducted a study among leader–follower dyads in China. They extended the study by assessing leader–member exchange (LMX), which describes the social interaction between leaders and followers (Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995). They found that LMX buffered the positive relationship between leaders’ negative affect and abusive supervision. Their results showed that, among low-LMX dyads, leaders’ negative affect at work cascaded to influence followers’ negative affect at work, their job satisfaction, and personal initiative. These indirect effects were not found in the high-LMX dyads. Liu et al. (2021) combined COR theory (Hobfoll 1989) with the job demands– resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al. 2001) and applied a resource crossover effect perspective to investigate the crossover effect of leadership resources. Specifically, they examined boundary conditions (leader mindfulness) on the exhaustion of university professors. According to COR theory, mindfulness is a job resource, which can prevent the loss of resources and thus alleviate emotional exhaustion. According to the JD-R model, the provision of job resources can relieve the negative impact of job demands and prevent further loss of resources (Schaufeli 2017). Liu

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et al. (2021) found that workplace telepressure mediated the relationship between leader mindfulness and emotional exhaustion. Work telepressure is a fixation with checking and quickly responding to email messages (Barber and Santuzzi 2015) and has previously been assessed within the broader “technostress” concept (e.g., O’Driscoll et al. 2010). Liu et al. (2021) also demonstrated that leader mindfulness can be utilized as a job resource to reduce work telepressure, thus reducing the emotional exhaustion of university teachers. That is, leaders’ mindfulness is a type of leadership-oriented resource investment that helps university teachers to recover their resources and prevent resource loss and alleviate employees’ emotional exhaustion. The authors further demonstrated that while mindfulness increased the possibility of acquiring new resources, self-efficacy in managing negative emotions reduced individual resource loss and prevented further resource loss. Thus, each resource operated in a different way; mindfulness is the preceding situational condition of work telepressure prevention, and self-efficacy is the subsequent boundary condition of work telepressure relief in managing negative emotions. Several researchers have also demonstrated positive crossover (e.g., engagement) from leaders to followers. Gutermann et al. (2016) found in a multilevel field study that leaders’ work engagement was positively linked to that of their followers. Moreover, in order to investigate the processes of crossover they tested the role of leader–member exchange (LMX) and found that the quality of the dyadic relationship is one explanation for the crossover of engagement from leaders to followers. Furthermore, they found an indirect effect via LMX of leaders’ absorption on their followers’ work engagement. These findings indicate that a leaders’ own state of mind concerning their work influences their relationships with their followers and their levels of work engagement. Similarly, Fan et al. (2020) tested the crossover effects of leader’s resilience on their followers’ resilience in a longitudinal study conducted in China. Their results indicated that resilience crossed over from leaders to followers, and the leaders’ resilience contributed to alleviating their followers’ job burnout and facilitating citizenship behaviors by enhancing followers’ resilience. Ma and colleagues (2019) also investigated the effects of leader humility on employee constructive voice behavior based on COR theory and the crossover of resources model. Ma et al.’s (2019) study was conducted with time-lagged and multi-source survey data on a sample of 88 supervisors and 449 subordinates in China. Their results supported the mediation effect, such that leader humility predicted follower constructive voice behavior via boosting follower relational energy. By integrating COR theory and crossover of resources model, this study revealed that boosting relational energy is the mechanism via which humble leaders shape employees’ voice behavior. In a test of the spillover–crossover model, Ten Brummelhuis et al. (2014) assessed the impact of the family on the leaders’ FWC and its subsequent impact on their levels of burnout. Their longitudinal study included 199 leaders and 456 followers and found that leaders’ burnout was negatively related to leaders’ supportive behaviors, indirectly increasing followers’ burnout. They also reported that leaders’ FWC at Time 1 was positively related to leaders’ burnout at Time 2 and predicted followers’ subsequent experiences of burnout. Similarly, leaders’ FWE had

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a positive relationship with followers’ engagement through the leaders’ enhanced engagement. Their findings demonstrate that family influences reach beyond the family, affecting the well-being of leaders and their followers within their workplace. Wirtz et al. (2017) provided a rare assessment of the crossover of emotional exhaustion (burnout) from followers to leaders via a longitudinal study of 315 team members and 67 leaders. They found that followers’ work engagement crossed over directly to their leaders. However, the crossover of emotional exhaustion was moderated by leaders’ emotional self-efficacy. They focused on emotional selfefficacy because it reflects the process of direct empathic crossover more accurately. That is, leaders high on emotional self-efficacy are likely motivated to pay attention to followers’ emotions and psychological well-being, and therefore detect and identify emotions more easily (Bandura 1997; Judge and Bono 2001) and are affected by them. Their results revealed that followers’ work engagement was positively related to leaders’ work engagement 8 months later. This study is the first to show that crossover of emotional exhaustion and work engagement can occur over time from team members to leaders. Obviously, further replications of this study are required to confirm these results and this direction of crossover.

Conclusion and Future Research This chapter has defined and discussed the crossover process, including describing the three key theoretical explanations of how crossover occurs between individuals either within the home or at workplace. Recent research assessing a number of positive crossover constructs (i.e., engagement, resources) is encouraging and emphasizes the impact of the transfer of positive (as well as negative) emotions for workers. This is especially relevant for crossover within our workplaces, and further research is clearly required to confirm the transfer of stress and strain and work engagement (for example) between colleagues, team members, and from work leaders. This issue is of tremendous importance in the workplace. Just as crossover of burnout at the workplace can cause a burnout climate in the organization, we can also consider the concept of “positive contagion,” whereby relaxed, positive employees create a positive organizational culture and an unperturbed organization (Westman 2002, p. 173). The crossover process proposes that a set of resources enhances engagement within work settings, thus enhancing teams’ engagement. This mechanism of resource exchange at the team or organizational level may be fundamental to creating and sustaining engaged teams and organizations. The finding that high job-related self-efficacy is not only beneficial for individual outcomes but also affects their partners via crossover processes has practical implications for dual-earner couples and their organizations. Supporting employees’ job-related self-efficacy at work might positively affect their partners via the crossover processes, which in turn positively affect the partner’s work engagement, ultimately leading to improved performance. Consequently, crossover of resources between partners may contribute to a more engaged and resilient family and more

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Fig. 3 The spillover and crossover processes from managers to followers and from followers to their spouses. (Note: Westman, M., & Chen, S. (2016). The spillover and crossover processes from managers to followers: A research agenda. Presented at the 12th European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology (EAOHP) Conference, Greece, Athens)

resilient organizations. Organizations may facilitate frequent exchanges between engaged colleagues to promote the crossover of engagement among them, with the aim of helping employees, teams, and organizations to utilize caravans of resources that create and enhance engagement. The end result of such a process is an “engaged organization.” By assisting employees to acquire resources that lead to engagement and by eliminating obstacles to resource depletion, stress, and strain, organizations can prevent unnecessary stress and strain and enhance employee well-being and effectiveness. In a similar vein, Westman and Chen (2016) proposed a model suggesting that crossover does affect not only partners and team members but also employees in other organizations (see Fig. 3). According to this model, demands or resources from the manager’s home spill over to his/her work resulting in burnout or engagement, then cross over to a colleague and to the colleague’s spouse at home. A spillover process transfers the burnout or engagement to the spouse’s workplace and impacts their team members via crossover. This chain of spillover and crossover can continue to multiple families and organizations. This is good news if we relate to engagement but bad news if we are considering burnout. The issue of the impact of gender and organizational/work-unit cultures is relevant here and is likely also influenced by experience/expertise – although this is yet to be empirically assessed. Thus, we suggest that the gender of a leader and how they influence their team members may be less relevant in some workplaces (e.g., knowledge-based workplaces) as compared to their experience. In other workplaces (e.g., hierarchically structured, maledominated workplaces), gender may be more influential than experience/expertise. We suggest that these finer considerations of how workers interact and influence each other in modern workplaces are a pertinent area to be considered by future crossover researchers.

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This chapter suggests that a number of important questions with enormous applied potential remain for future investigations. Specifically, is the crossover of resources a phenomenon unique to the investigated resources (e.g., social support, self-esteem, and self-efficacy), or are there additional resources that may cross over? How did/does the COVID-19 pandemic affect the crossover process? Is there a spillover effect from home to work, when work and home are located in the same physical place? Can we design work environments for sharing and fostering resources and limiting the crossover of stressors and strains? Can we facilitate network research in order to direct the crossover of resources among team members? Do negative and positive crossovers operate in the same way within virtual work environments? Does crossover between teammates operate in virtual teams? It is, therefore, clear that over 20 years of crossover research has indeed advanced our understandings of this psychological interpersonal process. These scholarly discussions have generated three key theoretical explanations describing this transfer process within both our work and home contexts. It is also clear that pertinent questions about this crossover process remain, especially in regard to the crossover of resources (positive crossover), occurrence of crossover for employees physically working in their home environments, and crossover between work team members and between manager-employees. We hope that this chapter encourages researchers to address these pertinent questions, and we certainly look forward to another 20 plus years of scholarly crossover discussions.

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A Review of Intervention Studies Melanie De Ruiter and Pascale Peters

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Perspectives on HRM, Workplace Well-Being and Organizational Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Importance of Mutual Gains in a Flexible Work Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of the Type and Nature of Flexible Work Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Search Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Coding Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Effects of Flexible Work Initiatives on Workplace Well-Being and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . Temporal Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spatial Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time-Spatial Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mutual Gains or Competing Outcomes? Effects of Temporal, Spatial, and Time-Spatial Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reconsidering Employee and Organizational Gains: An Inclusive Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Differential Effects of the Nature of Flexible Workplace Initiatives: A Typology . . . . Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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This chapter presents a review of intervention studies that examine the simultaneous impact of flexible work initiatives on both employee workplace well-being M. De Ruiter (*) · P. Peters Center for Strategy, Organization and Leadership, Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Breukelen, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_30

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and organizational performance. We specifically focus on flexible work initiatives that change where (physical boundaries) and/or when (temporal boundaries) employees work (Thompson RJ et al, J Occup Organ Psychol 88:726–749, 2015). Examples include teleworking (spatial flexibility), compressed workweeks (temporal flexibility), and flexible work elements of new ways of working (timespatial flexibility). We exclude initiatives that focus on contractual flexibility such as contract type and part-time work (cf. Joyce K et al, Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2:CD008009, 2010). As flexible work practices are often part of a more comprehensive set of human resource management (HRM) practices, we make use of the broader HRM literature to better understand the effects of flexible work practices on well-being and performance. In particular, we draw from three competing perspectives – the optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspective (Peccei R, Human resource management and the search for the happy workplace. Inaugural address. Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Rotterdam, 2004) – which consider whether human resource practices result in mutual gains for the organization and the employee or whether conflicting outcomes occur (Guest D, Hum Resour Manag J 27:22–38, 2017; Peccei R, Human resource management and the search for the happy workplace. Inaugural address. Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), Rotterdam, 2004; Van De Voorde K et al, Int J Manag Rev 14:391–407, 2012). Inspired by these approaches, our central review question is: “What type of organizational and employee gains, if any, are attained and what type of organizational and employee losses, if any, are incurred through the implementation of flexible work initiatives?” We discuss the key benefits and problems associated with flexible work initiatives in relation to organizational performance and well-being at work and the role the nature of flexible work initiatives plays in this relationship. Keywords

Spatial flexibility · Temporal flexibility · Time-spatial flexibility · HRM · Workplace well-being · Organizational performance · Pessimistic perspective · Optimistic perspective · Skeptical perspective

Introduction This chapter presents a review of intervention studies that examine the simultaneous impact of flexible work initiatives on both employee workplace well-being and organizational performance. We specifically focus on flexible work initiatives that change where (physical boundaries) and/or when (temporal boundaries) employees work (Thompson et al. 2015). Examples include teleworking (spatial flexibility), compressed workweeks (temporal flexibility), and flexible work elements of new ways of working (time-spatial flexibility). We exclude initiatives that focus on contractual flexibility such as contract type and part-time work (cf. Joyce et al. 2010). As flexible work practices are often part of a more comprehensive set of human resource management (HRM) practices, we make use of the broader HRM literature to better understand the effects

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of flexible work practices on well-being and performance. In particular, we draw from three competing perspectives – the optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspective (Peccei 2004) – which consider whether human resource practices result in mutual gains for the organization and the employee or whether conflicting outcomes occur (Guest 2017; Peccei 2004; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Inspired by these approaches, our central review question is: “What type of organizational and employee gains, if any, are attained and what type of organizational and employee losses, if any, are incurred through the implementation of flexible work initiatives?” Based on our results, we discuss the key benefits and problems associated with flexible work initiatives in relation to organizational performance and well-being at work and the role the nature of flexible work initiatives plays in this relationship.

Theoretical Background Theoretical Perspectives on HRM, Workplace Well-Being and Organizational Performance The optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspectives on the effect of HRM on wellbeing and organizational performance consider two types of organizational performance indicators, namely, proximal, i.e., operational performance (e.g., increased quantity and quality of work; organizational citizenship behavior), and distal performance outcomes, i.e., financial performance (e.g., return on investment) (Peccei 2004; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). Moreover, rather than focusing on an individual’s overall feeling of well-being, these theoretical approaches limit the consideration of well-being to workplace well-being (Peccei 2004). Scholars building on these perspectives as outlined in Peccei (2004) generally draw from Grant, Christianson, and Price (2007) and conceptualize workplace well-being to include happiness (e.g., job satisfaction and engagement), health (strain, such as stress and emotional exhaustion), and social well-being (organizational support and trust) (Guest 2017; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). In this chapter, we follow a similar approach. Although we use the terms well-being and workplace well-being interchangeably, we limit our focus to workplace well-being as outlined by Grant et al. (2007). Over the past years, HRM scholars have advocated human resource practices that are explicitly designed to have positive effects on both workplace well-being and organizational performance (Guest 2017; Peccei 2004; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). This so-called optimistic perspective was coined by Peccei (2004) and has come to be known as the “mutual gains perspective” (e.g., Van De Voorde et al. 2012). According to this view, organizational performance follows from HRM systems and policies and practices that lead to more positive affective employee responses and reduced negative employee behaviors at work (Peccei 2004). The notion of mutuality in the mutual gains perspective is founded on social exchange theory, wherein both the organization and the employee are committed to and gain from the exchange. However, due to unequal power in the exchange relationship, the exchange can be perceived to be limited or exploitative (Guest 2017). In practice, therefore, there may also be a negative tradeoff between performance and well-being (Peccei 2004). This

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competing outcome fits with the “pessimistic” and “skeptical” perspectives (e.g., Peccei 2004; Van De Voorde et al. 2012). However, whereas the former assumes a negative tradeoff between performance and workplace well-being, the latter assumes that the relationship between HRM, well-being, and organizational performance may be contingent on situational factors. Moreover, according to the skeptical perspective, effects may be “mutually contradictory” which implies that some relationships between HRM practices and employee workplace well-being can be positive, whereas others can be negative, possibly leading to no net effect of HRM on organizational performance and well-being (Peccei 2004, p. 6).

The Importance of Mutual Gains in a Flexible Work Context Guest (2017, p. 22) argued that a mutual gains focus is increasingly necessary since “changes at work and in the conditions surrounding work risk eroding work-related well-being with harmful consequences for employees, and potentially, for organizations.” In this respect, he points out that technological developments have increased work demands and have led to de-skilling and more close observation and monitoring at work, oftentimes at the expense of employee autonomy, job security, and wellbeing. At the same time, however, he views technological advancements to have the potential to enhance working conditions, as these can open opportunities for automation of routine activities and offer access to information at a distance which enable workplace flexibility for employees in both low- and high-skill jobs. Indeed, flexible work arrangements are mentioned by Guest (2017) to be among the HRM practices that organizations can implement to promote both well-being and performance. Even though scholars in a wide range of fields have studied and evaluated the positive and negative effects of flexible workplace interventions for performance and workplace well-being (cf. Charalampous et al. 2019; De Menezes and Kelliher 2011; Gajendran and Harrison 2007), there is a lack of insight in whether or not the mutual gains hypothesis can be supported in flexible work contexts and whether intended gains are actually attained or if conflicting outcomes occur. Most studies examine the effects of flexible working on performance and well-being in isolation (Allen et al. 2015). However, even though workplace well-being can be viewed “an important outcome in its own right” (Peccei 2004, p. 3), Guest (2017, p. 28) stated that organizations will not “promote well-being on ethical grounds alone.” Therefore, for organizations considering implementing flexible work initiatives, it is essential that studies are conducted which examine the effects on both workplace well-being and performance simultaneously. Such studies can give insights into the mutual gains hypothesis and possible (unintended) tradeoffs or conflicting outcomes. However, due to a lack of research in this area, organizations may be hesitant to introduce new flexible work programs.

The Role of the Type and Nature of Flexible Work Initiatives Scholars distinguish different types of flexible work initiatives based on the extent to which temporal and spatial boundaries can be changed (Thompson et al. 2015).

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While temporal flexibility can be defined as “employer and worker choice regarding the distribution of worked hours,” spatial flexibility can be defined as “employer or worker control and choice regarding place of work” (Joyce et al. 2010, p. 9). Some flexible work initiatives combine temporal and spatial flexibility. For example, work designs that have become known under the banner “new ways of working” (NWW) combine elements of temporal and spatial flexibility (Nijp et al. 2016). Scholars have advocated that when estimating the gain or loss effects of flexible workplace initiatives, a distinction should be made between time and spatial flexibility. Allen, Johnson, Kiburz, and Shockley (2013) indicated that spatial and temporal flexibility are not interchangeable and that each may bring about different challenges for employees. The authors proposed that due to homeworking, employees may need to show greater self-control to overcome distractions (e.g., not watching television) or not engage in personal tasks (such as laundry) as a means to stall working on a dull task. Furthermore, and what became particularly pertinent during the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working cannot be introduced by organizations in a reactive ad hoc fashion (Carroll and Conboy 2020). Human resource managers and immediate supervisors need to carefully consider and reflect on the effects of implementing remote working for employees and how remote working can be introduced in a sustainable way (Carroll and Conboy 2020). In addition, as became apparent based on a recent study in the context of COVID-19, remote working can have effects beyond the employee in the work context as it has been associated with an increase in parenting stress and marital conflicts (e.g., Chung et al. 2020). Moreover, digital communication patterns are likely to change when remote working increases. A recent study, in which digital communication patterns were compared before and during lockdown measures due to COVID-19 wherein homeworking was often required, showed that while employees participated in more meetings and the number of people in a meeting increased, the average length of meetings decreased (DeFilippis et al. 2020). This seems to point to differences between meeting length and participation between employees who work in the office and those who work from home. Although these studies were conducted in a specific context, the current pandemic will likely have a lasting effect on the organization of work, and therefore these studies offer relevant insights regarding the implementation and effects of specific types of flexible work initiatives. Allen et al.’s (2013) proposition about the important differences between time and spatial flexibility is echoed by Thompson et al. (2015), who proposed that “it is phenomenologically different to have the option to alter time and not place, or place and not time, as well as the option to alter both” (p. 731). Therefore, our first sub-review question is: 1: How does flexibility type (i.e., temporal, spatial, and time-spatial flexibility) affect employee happiness, health and social well-being, and proximal and distal organizational performance? The literature on flexible working suggests that the nature of flexible work initiatives (e.g., focused on employee or employer’s interests; level of flexibility; organization-imposed conditions) may also play a role in organizational

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performance and well-being. In a review of flexible work interventions and wellbeing, Joyce et al. (2010) tentatively concluded that interventions geared at increasing worker control and choice (self-scheduling and gradual/partial retirement) can positively affect health outcomes, whereas interventions that were aligned with the employers’ interests had no or negative effects on health. Moreover, Baltes, Briggs, Huff, Wright, and Neuman (1999) found decreased effectiveness of flextime initiatives that had a great deal of flexibility (less than 5 core hours) compared to those with less flexibility. According to the authors, these striking results may be because employees find it more challenging to work together as colleagues may not be at work at the same time. Moreover, higher flexibility may also result in more control for managers in implementing the schedule (Baltes et al. 1999), which may lead to negative employee attitudes toward the initiative. Moreover, when flexible work arrangements are only considered to “accommodate” specific groups of employees (e.g., valued employees or employees with special needs), flexible work initiatives may denounce those employees, limit perceived schedule control, or negatively affect careers (Kelly et al. 2014). Hence, our second review question is: 2: How does the nature of flexibility affect the relationship between flexible work initiatives and happiness, health and social well-being, and proximal and distal performance?

Method Search Strategy To find existing studies on the effects of spatial, temporal, and time-spatial flexible work initiatives, we conducted electronic searches in four online databases (APA PsycINFO; Business Source Complete; Medline; Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection). We used the Boolean term AND to combine search terms from the main categories “spatial flexibility” (e.g., teleworking; homeworking), “temporal flexibility” (flexible scheduling; compressed workweek), “time-spatial flexibility” (flexible work arrangements; flexible work practice), “study outcomes” (performance; well-being), and “research design” (intervention study; experimental design). To increase the likelihood that our search was comprehensive, we reviewed the reference lists of relevant review studies (e.g., De Menezes and Kelliher 2011; Nijp et al. 2012).

Inclusion Criteria After the initial identification of potential articles and removal of duplicates, abstracts were examined to determine if studies adhered to our inclusion criteria. If abstracts provided insufficient information, full texts were examined. First, we only included studies that were published between 2004 and 2020. This specific time period was chosen based on Peccei’s (2004) introduction of the optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspectives on the relationship between HRM, workplace

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well-being, and organizational performance. Second, to overcome limitations of cross-sectional studies and qualitative evaluations of flexible work initiatives, studies had to (i) focus on a specific flexible workplace initiative (i.e., broader initiatives which included temporal and/or spatial flexibility elements but which did not allow for a separate examination of the effects of those flexibility elements were excluded), (ii) provide a sufficient description of the intervention (without a proper description, it would not be possible to identify the type and nature of the initiative), (iii) provide a controlled experimental design (treatment and control or reference group), (iv) provide pre- and post-intervention measures, and (v) have outcomes which should be assessed through objective and/or valid and reliable subjective measurements. Studies that did not meet the first two criteria or studies that met less than four criteria were excluded (an exception is Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011, 2012); see Table 2). Third, to examine whether mutual gains or conflicting outcomes are realized, studies had to include both an assessment of the effects of the workplace intervention on organizational performance and workplace well-being. We noticed that the effects of particular flexible workplace initiatives on performance and workplace well-being were sometimes presented in multiple articles (e.g., NabeNielsen et al. 2011, 2012). In such instances, the results were pooled. Fourth, we limited our search to studies published in peer-reviewed journals. Finally, we only included studies that were published in English.

Coding Strategy The selected studies were manually coded according to the following themes: (i) author and year of publication, (ii) study design and quality, (iii) nature (i.e., level of flexibility/degree of conditionality), (iv) effect on proximal organizational performance, (v) effect on distal organizational performance, (vi) effect on happiness well-being, (vii) effect on health well-being, and (viii) effect on social well-being. The second theme – study design and quality – provided information on the type of flexibility (sub-review question 1), while the third theme focused on the nature of flexibility (sub-review question 2). While coding the flexible work initiatives, we realized the assessment of the nature of the initiatives was more challenging than initially expected. In this section, we therefore elaborate on the coding procedure for this theme. Originally, to code the nature of flexible work initiatives, we intended to use existing dichotomous categories. However, the flexible work initiatives included in our review could not be neatly placed in existing typologies such as employee- versus employer-driven flexibility (Dettmers et al. 2013). We therefore used an abductive approach to determine the nature of the flexible work initiatives. To be more specific, during our coding of the initiatives, we consulted the literature to develop a tentative typology which would aid in the coding procedure. We focused on two dimensions, namely, the level of flexibility and the degree of conditionality of the initiatives. The following categories were developed: “fixed flexibility,” “accommodated flexibility,” “bounded flexibility,” and “hyper-flexibility.” Fixed flexibility refers to an

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atypical work schedule that offers employees flexibility in that the initiative (to some extent) affects employees’ lives outside of work (cf. Kelly et al. 2011), but within the initiative there is little or no opportunity to change when or where one works. Accommodated flexibility was inspired by Kelly et al.’s (2014) concept of “accommodated flexibility” (p. 491) and refers to flexible work practices for which employees have to individually request permission to participate or apply to particular groups that are eligible for flexible working because they fit particular conditions and have to obey to some rules. Accommodated flexibility differs in the extent to which employees are bound by certain conditions set by the organization or stakeholders. Bounded flexibility refers to flexible work practices that are oftentimes collective, intended to empower workers. However, there are also conditions, imposed by the organization or other stakeholders, that limit the employee’s flexibility. Within these boundaries, however, employees have more schedule control than usual. Finally, hyper-flexibility refers to a broad scope of flexibility wherein the employees themselves can fully decide where to work or when to work or both. This type of flexibility suggests that there are no, or hardly any, external conditions to consider and that working hours can be fully determined by the individual employee.

Effects of Flexible Work Initiatives on Workplace Well-Being and Performance Temporal Flexibility In this first part, we review the effects of the temporal flexible work initiatives on workplace well-being and organizational performance (Table 1). In the presentation of the results, we categorized the four interventions according to their subtypes (i.e., flexible scheduling and compressed workweeks). First, we present the characteristics of the two flexible scheduling interventions and discuss their effects on workplace well-being and organizational performance. Next, we present the characteristics of the two compressed workweek interventions and outline their impact on well-being at work and organizational performance.

Flexible Scheduling Kauffeld, Jonas, and Frey (2004) conducted a post-evaluation-only quasiexperimental study in which they examined how a flexible work-time design, compared to a conventional work-time design, affected organizational and employee outcomes in the treatment (n ¼ 17) and control groups (n ¼ 14). The authors used objective and validated self-report measures. We categorized this intervention as “bounded flexibility.” That is, managers used existing data based on, among others, customer counts and delay time measurements to develop a time framework. Within this framework, employees developed a schedule for their team which was based on their needs. Employees themselves were in charge of short-term corrections to the schedule. Moreover, employees were not confronted with rules regarding when they

Flexible scheduling

Controlled experiment, pre- and post-evaluations, objective/ valid subjective data (A) Post-evaluation only, controlled experiment, objective/valid subjective data (B) Controlled experiment, pre- and post-valid data for Well-being; anecdotal evidence organizational performance (C) Bounded flexibility

Bounded flexibility

Fixed flexibility

Level of flexibility/ degree of Study design (quality) conditionality Controlled experiment, Fixed pre- and post-evaluations, flexibility objective/valid subjective data (A) –

Distal organizational performance –

Objective work – performance (+); subjective work performance (+) Subjective – evaluation of quality of patient care ()

Work performance (mixed)

Proximal organizational performance Work performance (0); safety (0)

Social wellbeing –

Social support (+)

–

Stress (0), energy (0)

Cooperation with colleagues (+)

Quality of life, – health dimension ()

Health wellbeing Stress (0); health (0);

– Work satisfaction (+)*

Quality of life, work dimension ()

Happiness well-being Quality of work life (+)

Note. (A) ¼ study design fulfills all five criteria; (B) ¼ study design fulfills four out of five criteria; (C) ¼ study design fulfills all criteria for workplace wellbeing but is less rigorous regarding the assessment of proximal organizational performance. * This finding was significant at the p < 0.10 level  is used to indicate that the outcome was not included in the study

NabeNielsen et al. (2011, 2012)

Kauffeld et al. (2004)

Bell et al. (2015)

Author (year) Amendola et al. (2011)

Type of temporal flexibility Compressed workweek (10-h condition reported) Compressed workweek (13 h and 20 min) Flexible scheduling

Table 1 Overview of spatial flexible work initiatives

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had to be present. Hence, employees had a considerable amount of flexibility, yet only within the framework developed by management. The second flexible scheduling intervention was reported in three studies (Garde et al. 2011; Nabe-Nielsen et al. 2011, 2012) each examining different dependent variables. In the present review, the findings of the three studies are pooled. The quasi-experimental study with reliable and valid pre- and post-surveys examined the effects of flexible scheduling on employee outcomes among eldercare workers in Denmark. Information about organizational effects were derived through postevaluation interviews. We categorized this intervention as “bounded flexibility.” Employees implemented self-scheduling through a computer program. Managers developed the time framework, after which employees were invited to indicate preferred dates. Prior to finalizing the schedule, managers could make final changes (Garde et al. 2011). Regarding employee workplace well-being, Kauffeld et al. (2004) found that employees who took part in the flexible scheduling initiative scored higher on subjective measures of happiness well-being and social well-being than the reference group. In the flexible scheduling intervention among elderly care workers (NabeNielsen et al. 2011, 2012), treatment group employees did not experience a significant effect on health well-being compared to the control group. Results showed that social well-being, in terms of social support, increased significantly from pre- to post-intervention in the treatment group. With regard to effects on organizational performance, Kauffeld et al. (2004) found that employees who took part in the flexible scheduling initiative scored higher on proximal organizational performance measures compared to employees in the control group. These results were echoed for the performance outcomes measured at the group level through objective data. Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011, 2012) assessed changes in proximal organizational performance (i.e., quality of care of patients) through anecdotal evidence based on interviews. Self-scheduling seemed to make it more difficult to ensure quality of care. Employees in the intervention group indicated they had to work with more different colleagues. This was a barrier to performance, as they found it easier to obtain quality of care for patients when they worked with familiar colleagues.

Compressed Workweeks Two intervention studies (Amendola et al. 2011; Bell et al. 2015) examined the effects of compressed workweeks on workplace well-being and proximal organizational performance among police officers. Compressed workweeks are categorized as “fixed flexibility.” Although employees’ personal lives are affected by the implementation of compressed workweeks, employees cannot determine their own hours within this type of initiative. Amendola et al. (2011) compared the effects of a 10 and 12-h compressed workweek to a traditional 8-h workweek, while Bell et al. (2015) examined the effects of a 13-h and 20-min workweek to that of control group employees who worked 10-h workweeks. With regard to workplace well-being, Amendola et al. (2011) found no significant effects on health well-being for the 10 or 12-h compressed workweeks. A significant

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effect was found for happiness well-being (composite measure composed of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job involvement, and schedule satisfaction). The employees in the 10-h shift condition were the most positive about their quality of work life and those in the 8-h shift condition the least. Bell et al. (2015) found a significant negative effect on happiness (work quality) and health (health quality) well-being (measured through subdimensions of quality of life scale) for police officers in the 13-h and 20-min condition compared to the 10-h shift control group. With regard to proximal organizational performance, the results of Amendola et al. (2011) showed that compressed workweeks did not significantly affect several measures of employee performance. Bell et al. (2015) also included several measures of work performance, yet the results showed mixed effects. While several measures of performance were not affected, employees in the 13-h and 20-min shift condition received more complaints compared to the period in which they were working 10-h shifts. Moreover, there was an increase in the number of officers involved in incidents for the 13-h and 20-min shift, while there was a decrease in the number of officers involved for the 10-h shift. Yet, field interrogations were significantly higher among police officers in the treatment group (13-h and 20-min condition).

Spatial Flexibility In this part, we review the effects of two spatial flexible work initiatives on workplace well-being and organizational performance (Table 2). We first present the characteristics of the two teleworking interventions. Next, we discuss their effects on workplace well-being and organizational performance. Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) used a quasi-experimental design with preand post-measurements and a treatment (n ¼ 34) and control group (n ¼ 30) to evaluate the effects of a teleworking initiative on happiness and health well-being and proximal organizational performance within engineering and estimating departments of a construction and property development firm. The teleworking initiative is characterized as “accommodated flexibility.” Only employees with certain levels of performance and long commuting times were allowed to participate in the initiative. The organization limited the number of days employees could work from home to 2 days and restricted the teleworking days to Tuesdays and Thursdays (i.e., organizational conditions). Relevant outcome variables were all assessed through valid and reliable self-report measures. Bloom et al. (2015) investigated the effects of a homeworking initiative among a group of call center workers (N ¼ 249) in a travel agency in Shanghai. A quasiexperimental design with a pre- and post-test was used to examine the effects of homeworking on workplace well-being and proximal organizational performance. The initiative was categorized as “fixed flexibility.” That is, although employees could work from home for a considerable amount of time (4 out of 5 days), the number of days they had to work from home and the exact day of the week they had to be in the office were fixed.

Spatial flexibility

Timespatial flexibility

Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020)

Nijp et al. (2016)

Study design (quality) Controlled experiment, pre- or postevaluations, objective/ valid subjective data (A) Controlled experiment, pre-or postevaluations, valid selfreport measures (A) Quasiexperimental, controlled experiment, pre- or postevaluations, valid selfreport measures (A) Accommodated flexibility

Accommodated flexibility

In-role performance (0), extra-role performance (0)

Employee performance (0)

Proximal organizational performance Employee performance (+), work quality (0)

Engagement (0)

Affective organizational commitment (0), job satisfaction (0)

–

Happiness wellbeing Work satisfaction (+)

–

Distal organizational performance –

Note. (A) ¼ study design fulfills all five criteria;  is used to indicate that the outcome was not included in the study

Type of initiative Spatial flexibility

Author (year) Bloom et al. (2015)

Level of flexibility/ degree of conditionality Fixed flexibility

Table 2 Overview of spatial and time-spatial flexible work initiatives

Fatigue (0), stress (0), subjective health ()

Stress (/0)

Health wellbeing Work exhaustion ()

Support from colleagues (0), support from supervisors (0)

–

Social wellbeing –

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With regard to employee workplace well-being, the results of Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) showed that there were no significant differences between the treatment and control group for happiness well-being. Yet, Bloom et al. (2015) found that employees who took part in the intervention experienced higher happiness wellbeing. Regarding health well-being, Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) found a significant difference between the treatment and control group when no control variables were included, yet when commuting time was controlled for, there was no longer a significant difference. Hence, according to the authors, reduced levels of stress in the treatment group can likely be attributed to the reduction in commuting times. With regard to proximal organizational performance, Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) found no significant differences between the treatment and the control group. The results of Bloom et al. (2015) showed that employee productivity increased in the treatment compared to the control group without compromising quality of work.

Time-Spatial Flexibility In our review of high-quality intervention studies, we identified one study on timespatial flexibility that met our criteria for inclusion. The results of this study are presented in Table 2. Nijp et al. (2016) employed a quasi-experimental pre- and postdesign with a treatment and reference group in which they used reliable and valid measurements to assess happiness, health and social well-being, and proximal organizational performance. This initiative is considered “accommodated flexibility” since the organization could retract homeworking if an employee performed poorly. Moreover, there were several conditions set by the organization. Employees were required to be present at the workplace at least two times a week. Yet, employees who worked fewer than 3 days were prohibited from homeworking. Regarding workplace well-being, the results presented in Nijp et al. (2016) showed no significant effect of the intervention on happiness, social, and two dimensions of health well-being (stress; fatigue). Employees in the treatment group, however, reported a small significant decrease in subjective health. Regarding proximal organizational performance, the results of Nijp et al. (2016) showed no significant effect on in-role and extra-role performance.

Additional Findings Since our theoretical underpinning was based on the optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspective on the impact of HR practices on workplace well-being and performance, we excluded several variables from our analyses. Although these additional variables fell outside the scope of our review, we briefly report on some interesting findings regarding these variables. For example, while we only reported on workplace well-being and proximal organizational performance, both intervention studies on compressed workweeks

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pointed to additional findings. Amendola et al. (2011) showed that while the police officers in the 12-h compressed workweek experienced negative effects on some sleep indicators, this was not the case for officers in the 10-h workweek. A similar result was found in Bell et al. (2015). Compared to compressed workweeks consisting of 10-h shifts, police officers in the 13-h and 20-min shifts reported getting less hours of sleep and having worse overall sleep. Furthermore, results of Amendola et al. (2011) showed that employees in the treatment groups reported less overtime (a significant cost saving for the organization) than police officers in the standard 8-h shift group. Moreover, Bell et al. (2015) reported that total quality of life scores (including dimensions as leisure time, relationships with friends and children, and helping) were lower among police officers in the 13-h 20-min shift compared to those in the 10-h shift. Hence, the 10-h compressed workweek positively affected additional organizational outcomes, while the longer compressed workweeks (12-h in Amendola et al. 2011 and 13-h and 20-min in Bell et al. 2015) had a negative effect on additional employee outcomes including sleep and quality of life.

Discussion This review set out to answer the following review question: What type of organizational and employee gains, if any, are attained and what type of organizational and employee losses, if any, are incurred through the implementation of flexible work initiatives? In this section, we discuss our key findings on the gains and losses associated with spatial, temporal, and time-spatial flexibility in relation to workplace well-being and organizational performance. In addition, we discuss the importance of taking a broader approach to the conceptualization of employee and organizational gains and losses. Moreover, to answer our sub-review questions, we also discuss the importance of the nature of flexible work characteristics. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the approach taken in our review and end with a conclusion.

Mutual Gains or Competing Outcomes? Effects of Temporal, Spatial, and Time-Spatial Flexibility Two intervention studies examined the effects of flexible scheduling on workplace well-being and organizational performance. The results of these studies were similar in some respects but differed in others. When comparing results, it is important to take into account that not all studies measured both types of performance or all three types of well-being. More specially, while Kauffeld et al. (2004) measured both happiness and social well-being, Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011) measured health and social well-being. With regard to social well-being, both Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011) and Kauffeld et al. (2004) found positive effects. These studies differed, however, with regard to proximal organizational performance. While the results presented in

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Kauffeld et al. (2004), based on both objective and subjective measures, showed that proximal performance was higher in the treatment than in the control group, NabeNielsen et al. (2012) showed, based on anecdotal evidence, that employees were less able to provide quality care. Hence, while the flexible scheduling initiative in Kauffeld et al. (2004) pointed to mutual gains for both the employee and the organization, the study by Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011, 2012) pointed to a potential loss for the organization and limited gains for the employee (health well-being was not affected, while social well-being was). Although the studies each examined the role of flexible scheduling, the scope for employee flexibility may have played a role in the differences in outcomes. Even though these interventions can be characterized as bounded flexibility, the employees in Kauffeld et al. (2004) perceived more actual freedom within the confines of a time-framework devised by management, while managers had the final say over the flexible scheduling initiative in Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011, 2012). In fact, based on anecdotal evidence from the interviews, it was concluded that employees considered the initiative to be more beneficial to the organization than for themselves, even though our analysis suggests the opposite. This can be attributed to the fact that employees often had to fill in their preferred schedule during their off time. Hence, the latter intervention may have been perceived by the employees as “pseudoflexibility.” The promise of more control over worktime may not be perceived as such on the work floor, which was also found in an intervention study among patient care workers by Hammer et al. (2016). Rather than being able to have a say over the schedule, employees may not be able to work with colleagues they are familiar with, and managers may gain more control over the scheduling as they have the final say over the schedule (cf. Baltes et al. 1999). Moreover, the outcome may be perceived as affecting the quality of care which the employees, as professional caregivers, deem most important. These two studies on flexible scheduling show that within a particular flexible initiative type, there may still be important differences that may affect the outcome and effectiveness of an intervention. However, the differences may also be a result of the difference in study design. While Nabe-Nielsen et al. (2011, 2012) used selfreported measures to assess employee workplace well-being, anecdotal evidence based on interview data was reported for proximal organizational performance. Hence, the measure of organizational performance was relatively weak. Moreover, the small sample size and lack of pre-implementation measure may have affected the results in Kauffeld et al. (2004). Regarding the studies of the compressed workweeks, there were some interesting differences. While the 10-h compressed workweek positively affected happiness well-being and had no effect on health well-being (Amendola et al. 2011), a 13-h and 20-min shift reduced health well-being (Bell et al. 2015). Additionally, this longer compressed workweek negatively affected happiness well-being. Since both studies examined the effects of different shift lengths, a one-on-one comparison is not possible. Nevertheless, the results seem to suggest that there are limits to positive effects of compressed workweeks depending on the length of a shift. Haley and Miller (2015) compared compressed workweeks to a “zero-sum game.” They

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explained that in 10-h 4-day workweeks, employees have less flexibility on 4 days as two extra work hours are added, yet this is exchanged for 8 free hours on the fifth day. However, the combined results of these studies seem to suggest that it is not necessarily a zero-sum game where employees view the extra flexibility on 1 day as equal or in balance with the limited flexibility on the other days. In the 10-h condition in Amendola et al. (2011), the additional free hours employees gained on 1 day seemed to outweigh, rather than merely balance out, the 2 additional hours they had to work on the other days. That is, employees in this condition showed the highest ratings of work-life satisfaction. The situation in the 13-h and 20-min compressed workweek showed that additional free time gained did not outweigh the costs of working additional hours on the other days (i.e., there was a decrease in both health and happiness well-being). Therefore, we conclude that compressed workweeks cannot simply be viewed as a zero-sum game – where working some extra hours during your shift is balanced out for extra free time another day – it may come at a cost to one’s happiness and health well-being. The results of the two studies that examined the effects of teleworking differed considerably. While one intervention (Bloom et al. 2015) showed positive effects for happiness well-being and proximal organizational performance (which reflects this initiative to have mutual gains), the intervention examined in Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) showed no effects on happiness well-being or proximal organizational performance, while health well-being was only affected when commuting times were not controlled for. In the latter study, mutual gains were therefore not attained. At the same time, the organization was not worse off in terms of proximal organizational performance, and employees did benefit in terms of health well-being due to a reduction in travel time. The difference in the net effect of these initiatives may be due to the level of flexibility and degree of conditionality. That is, while the teleworking intervention in Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020) was considered accommodated flexibility, employees could only participate when they fulfil strict criteria (i.e., long commuting times and high performance) and the organization set the days on which employees were allowed to telework (Tuesdays and Thursdays only), the initiative in Bloom et al. (2015) was considered fixed flexibility. Accommodated flexibility undermines employees’ individual choice to participate in flexible work initiatives, making telework an exception rather than a collective practice, which may stigmatize them. Moreover, employees may feel hindered by the conditions for flexibility dictated by the organization, as they may be perceived as less committed, which may also hinder career progress (Kelly et al. 2014). Consequently, they may not experience much workplace flexibility after all. In Bloom et al. (2015), the initiative was fixed yet offered a substantial degree of teleworking intensity (employees worked at home 4 out of 5 days), which reduced commuting time more than in the initiative presented by Delanoeije and Verbruggen (2020). The substantial degree of teleworking provided these time-based workers more time for non-work activities. For clerical and administrative workers, often time-based waged employees working with measurable output standards or ratios, flexible working may enable work and nonwork task variation that alleviates the demands of repetitive work that is cognitively taxing (e.g., data entry tasks). Also

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skilled professional knowledge workers who telework, often doing more task-based salaried work, may gain time to spend on “autonomous, creative, deep thinking work” or “to engage in meaningful interactions with customers and clients” (Johnson et al. 2020, p. 408). Task-oriented workers may suffer from work intensification, and reduced commuting time is often exchanged for longer hours (Kelliher and Anderson 2010). The findings regarding these two initiatives therefore provide further support for the importance of considering the level of flexibility, the boundedness of the flexible work initiative, and the type of work. The intervention examined by Nijp et al. (2016), which was categorized as accommodated flexibility, did not positively affect proximal organizational performance or happiness, social, and most dimensions of health well-being. Yet, one of the dimensions of health well-being was negatively affected for employees in the treatment group. The finding with regard to proximal performance resembles a finding in an intervention study called STAR in an IT division of a Fortune 500 company by Bray et al. (2018) which did not fit our inclusion criteria and was therefore not included in our review. Bray et al. (2018) also did not find significant results regarding performance; however they did find that employees in their intervention group reported they worked more efficiently compared to the control group, without affecting productivity. In a study based on the same intervention as reported by Bray et al. (2018), Moen et al. (2016) found that intervention workplace wellbeing effects after 12 months (i.e., job satisfaction, psychological distress, and burnout) could be attributed to enhanced schedule control in the intervention group after 6 months. Schedule changes and working at home, however, did not affect well-being. Although the type of workers in both cases are all knowledge workers, the differences between the findings by Nijp et al. (2016) and the STAR intervention could be that the STAR intervention is less restricted and the degree of schedule flexibility higher (Kelly et al. 2014). Moreover, in the STAR intervention, (part of) the workers in the intervention and control group were already used to flexible working (Kelly et al. 2014), which may have enhanced their readiness to change (cf. Hammer et al. 2016).

Reconsidering Employee and Organizational Gains: An Inclusive Approach Our review was limited to happiness, health, and social workplace well-being and proximal and distal organizational performance. Hence, we excluded outcomes such as employee well-being beyond the workplace (e.g., life satisfaction, work-life conflict) and employee outcomes such as career progress. We also did not consider crossover effects to family members (cf. Bray et al. 2013). Regarding organizational performance, we excluded variables as attrition and cost savings, as scholars examining Peccei’s (2004) perspectives limited their focus to operational and financial performance (e.g., Van De Voorde et al. 2012). The omission of these variables is an important shortcoming of the optimistic, pessimistic, and skeptical perspective of the relationship between HRM, workplace well-being, and performance.

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In view of the additional findings (section “Additional Findings”) and considering current workplace trends, including the increase in dual-earner couples and the increased focus on boundaryless careers and employability, we postulate that the theoretical perspectives on the relationship between HRM, workplace well-being, and organizational performance should be reconsidered and extended to include employee outcomes that focus on career development and promotions and evaluate well-being outside of the workplace. Moreover, we propose organizational performance to move beyond short-term efficiency and financial goals and include absenteeism, attrition, reduced real estate costs, and savings in overtime associated with the implementation of different types of flexible work initiatives. This is in line with sustainable HRM perspectives that take into account that workers and organizations operate in wider ecosystems in which short- and long-term effects for both organizations and their employees need to be considered (cf. De Prins et al. 2015). It also resonates with the work of work-life scholars (cf. Moen et al. 2008) and other participants of the Work, Family and Health Network who advocates a broader and integrated multilevel perspective on well-being associated with flexible working, taking into account the work-family-society interface to understand how people understand the quality of work life.

The Differential Effects of the Nature of Flexible Workplace Initiatives: A Typology The results of our review produced mixed findings regarding the extent to which mutual gains or competing outcomes are achieved through the implementation of flexible work initiatives. While some initiatives point to mutual gains (e.g., Kauffeld et al. 2004), others point to competing and ambiguous outcomes (e.g., Nabe-Nielsen et al. 2011, 2012). The mixed findings hold true for all three types of flexible work initiatives (spatial, temporal, and time-spatial flexibility). Hence, the results of our review do not seem to suggest that any of these three types of flexibility show more positive results for both the employee and the organization. In fact, across the flexibility types we found initiatives that had mainly positive outcomes but also initiatives that had some positive and some negative or null effects. Hence, to better understand the differences in intervention outcomes, we considered the nature of the flexible work initiatives irrespective of whether the initiatives were solely spatial, solely temporal, or a combination of time and spatial elements. Based on our analyses, we propose that the nature of flexible work initiatives can best be conceptualized along two dimensions, level of flexibility, and degree of conditionality. We present this typology in Fig. 1. We categorized the interventions as fixed, accommodated, bounded, and hyperflexibility. The latter type was not found, which is likely because in the exchange between an organization and an individual employee, no job can be performed in complete isolation. An opposite type of fixed may be added in the future, now that the COVID-19 pandemic requires employees to work from home for a large part of their schedule (e.g., Anderson and Kelliher 2020) and likely will result in more

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Fig. 1 Typology of the nature of flexible work initiatives

employees working from home in a post-COVID19 society. Within each flexibility type found in this review, however, there were only a limited number of studies. Although the limited number of studies makes it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions, by examining the nature of flexibility for the different initiatives, we were able to show that flexible work initiatives cannot easily be considered equal. Rather, the difference in level of flexibility and degree of conditionality will likely affect the outcome and effectiveness of flexible work initiatives. As can be concluded from Fig. 1, we suggest that the differences in findings between the studies are likely based on differences not only between but also within flexible workplace designs. In addition, inspired by Fan et al. (2019), we suggest that research should focus on constellations of job demands (including working hours, workload, and strain) and resources (including schedule control, schedule variability, and homeworking) to understand performance and well-being. Hence more research is needed to further specify the nature of flexible work initiatives in context.

Limitations In our review, we only included intervention studies that examined the effects of flexible work practices (spatial, temporal, and time-spatial flexibility) on both organizational performance and workplace well-being. Intervention studies that

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examined only one type of outcome were therefore omitted. Although this criterion limits the number of studies included in our review, it allowed us to examine whether flexible work practices are generally beneficial to both the organization and the employee or whether competing outcomes occur. Hence, it allowed us to test competing theoretical perspectives on the relationship between HRM, workplace well-being, and performance (Peccei 2004). None of the intervention studies included in our review, however, examined the mediating role of workplace wellbeing in the relationship between flexible work initiatives and organizational performance. Hence, although we were able to examine whether employees and organizations experienced gains or losses resulting from flexible work practices for each single flexible workplace initiative, we were not able to examine the underlying connection between workplace well-being and organizational performance as suggested by the mutual gains perspective of Peccei (2004). Our analysis of the individual practices showed that common dichotomous categorizations of flexible work initiatives, such as employee-driven versus employer-driven initiatives (Dettmers et al. 2013), do not adequately describe different types of flexible work arrangements. Our review provides an initial starting point to developing a more elaborate typology of flexible work initiatives. The development of such a typology will provide scholars the opportunity to better understand, from a theoretical point of view, why certain types of flexible work initiatives have positive effects while others have no or negative effects. Active use of a typology in scholarly research will contribute considerably to the development of a coherent body of knowledge on flexible work initiatives. In the coding of the flexible work initiatives, we were dependent upon the descriptions of the initiatives provided in the articles. The level of detail differed between studies, which sometimes made it challenging to accurately categorize an initiative. A typology could guide future research in that it offers scholars a common framework to focus on in intervention studies. Nevertheless, the proposed typology presented in this chapter is tentative at best. Considering that we still identified differences in flexibility and conditionality within the four flexibility types, more research is needed to further develop a fitting typology.

Conclusion The results of this review pointed to mixed findings regarding the extent to which mutual gains or competing outcomes are attained through spatial, temporal, or timespatial flexible workplace initiatives. We postulate that to truly understand the extent to which flexible work initiatives result in mutual gains or competing outcomes, a more inclusive approach to employee and organizational outcomes must be taken. Moreover, to better understand why some flexible workplace initiatives result in positive effects for both employees and the organization, we propose a typology (fixed, accommodated, bounded, and hyper-flexibility) based on two dimensions, the level of flexibility and the degree of conditionality.

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefits and Costs of the Provision and Use of WLB Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefits to Employees and Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Costs to Employees and Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Work and Non-Work Factors Influencing WLB Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultural Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Perceptions and Stereotypes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minority Employees and Migrants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intergenerational Workforce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The COVID-19 Pandemic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recommendations for Extending WLB Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FSSBs, Supportive Work–Life Culture, and Two-Way Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fostering Inclusive Behaviors by Tackling Long Working Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shift from Flextime and Compressed Work Weeks to Trust-Based Working Hours . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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In the last decade, we have seen strong growth in published scholarly and practitioner-focused research on work–life balance initiatives which are X. W. (Carys) Chan (*) Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing (WOW), Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia School of Applied Psychology, Griffith Health, Griffith University, Mt Gravatt, QLD, Australia e-mail: carys.chan@griffith.edu.au S. Tay School of Management, College of Business and Law, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_31

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implemented in organizations to assist employees with managing their work and non-work demands. Correspondingly, the goal of this book chapter is twofold. First, we seek to take stock of existing scholarly and practitioner-focused research conducted on work–life balance initiatives, and in so doing, provide a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of work–life balance initiatives on organizations and employees. Second, we contend that despite increased scholarly and practitioner attention on work–life balance initiatives, there remains a significant gap between the provision and promise of work–life balance initiatives and their actual uptake and outcomes. We also discuss how the nature of these issues has changed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what this means for work–life balance initiatives going forward. Finally, we propose several areas to extend existing work–life balance initiatives, which we hope can enhance the effectiveness and intended positive outcomes of work–life balance initiatives. Keywords

Work–life balance · Work–life balance initiatives · Flexible working arrangements · Organizational culture · Employee well-being · Diversity · Inclusion

Introduction In response to growing workforce concerns and changing needs regarding work–life balance (WLB), organizations are now offering initiatives intended to facilitate the combined functioning of employees’ work and non-work roles (Beauregard 2014; Brough and O’Driscoll 2010). Broadly termed as work–life balance initiatives (from hereon, WLB initiatives), these practices can be considered under two main categories of structural and cultural initiatives and, together, they aim to adapt employment settings to employees’ work–life needs (Kossek et al. 2010). Structural WLB initiatives usually take the form of flexible work hours, telework, job sharing, reduced work week, paid parental and carer’s leave, and financial or informational assistance with childcare and eldercare services (Beauregard 2011; Brough and O’Driscoll 2010; Fair Work Ombudsman, 2019; Timms et al. 2015). They may also take the form of cultural WLB initiatives, such as family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSBs), work–family organizational culture, and supportive organizational climate (Kossek et al. 2010; Timms et al. 2015). Although WLB initiatives are increasingly common across most organizations in industrialized economies, they remain underutilized (before the COVID-19 pandemic), complex, vague, inconsistently applied, and evolving in practice and cultural acceptance. Therefore, the goal of this book chapter is twofold. First, we take stock of existing scholarly and practitioner research conducted on WLB initiatives, and in so doing, provide a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of WLB initiatives on organizations and employees. Second, we contend that despite increased scholarly and practitioner attention, there remains a significant gap between the provision and promise of WLB initiatives and their actual uptake and outcomes. We also discuss

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how some of the nature of these issues has changed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what this means for WLB initiatives going forward. We end our book chapter by proposing several areas to extend existing WLB initiatives, which we hope can enhance the effectiveness and intended positive outcomes of WLB initiatives.

Benefits and Costs of the Provision and Use of WLB Initiatives Benefits to Employees and Organizations Multiple studies have shown that WLB initiatives do benefit both organizations and employees. For example, a cross-national study conducted by Lewis et al. (2007) found that the opportunity to use WLB initiatives particularly benefitted working women as they could better manage both their work and non-work (e.g., domestic and care) responsibilities. Similarly, Peretz et al. (2018) in a study including organizations and employees from 21 countries, found that the use of WLB initiatives reduced employee turnover and absenteeism, especially when the organizational culture is supportive and encouraging towards employees’ use of WLB initiatives. In general, there is also a positive spillover effect from employees to organizations as the benefits of using WLB initiatives accorded to employees tend to also bring benefits to the organizations they work for (Brough and O’Driscoll 2010; Timms et al. 2015). Based on longitudinal data from a multi-organization database, Richman et al. (2008) found that WLB initiatives were related to increased employee engagement and employee retention, and that use of WLB initiatives was also positively associated with perceived flexibility by employees. As well as retaining employees through the provision and use of WLB initiatives, organizations can gain a competitive edge through talent attraction. Firstly, job seekers are typically attracted to work for organizations where they can have a healthy balance between their work, family, and personal commitments (Chimote and Srivastava 2013; Thompson and Aspinwall 2009). Secondly, WLB initiatives, in the form of flexible working arrangements, are particularly appealing to parents or primary caregivers who have difficulty staying in the workforce due to their familial or care responsibilities. Specifically, the use of WLB initiatives can enable them to manage their familial or care responsibilities alongside their work demands (Lirio et al. 2008). Correspondingly, organizations are able to widen the pool of talents for recruitment, and in so doing, increase the diversity and inclusion of employees. The bi-directional nature of positive work–family spillover, that is work-tofamily and family-to-work spillover, also indicates that WLB initiatives may produce positive family-to-work experiences for employees. Indeed, as employees are given the time and flexibility to attend to their family and other non-work commitments through the use of WLB initiatives, they tend to experience greater life satisfaction (Beauregard and Henry 2009; Gilley et al. 2015) and increased mental well-being (Baral and Bhargava 2010). Life satisfaction and mental well-being, in turn, have been found to be positively associated with job satisfaction, job performance, and organizational commitment, and negatively related to withdrawal,

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turnover intentions, and actual turnover (Erdogan et al. 2012; Hennekam et al. 2020; Wright and Bonett 2007). Prior studies (e.g., Bagger and Li 2014; Lapierre et al. 2017; Wayne et al. 2006) have also shown that family support extended to employees may manifest in the form of formal (e.g., flexible work arrangements, compressed work week, and extension of organizational benefits to family members) or informal (e.g., FSSBs) WLB initiatives, subsequently facilitating positive work outcomes such as job satisfaction and increased work performance for employees (Chan et al. 2020). Finally, the provision of WLB initiatives also signals to employees that organizations trust them to have more autonomy and control in their work. This, in turn, leads employees to reciprocate with increased job satisfaction, productivity, and competence, resulting in a win-win situation for both the organizations and employees (Brescoll et al. 2013; Lazar et al. 2010). Taken together, organizations have a lot to gain by showing empathy and support towards their employees through the provision of and encouraging the use of WLB initiatives.

Costs to Employees and Organizations However, not all WLB initiatives will result in a win-win situation for both employees and employers (Lazar et al. 2010; Timms et al. 2020). Callan (2007) showed that the wide use of WLB initiatives by employees may increase the work load of others in the same team or department, disrupting workflow and fueling discontent among employees who may experience increased workloads (Callan 2007). Further, while employees access WLB initiatives to accommodate their non-work needs, they risk experiencing isolation from the rest of their colleagues, may still be expected to be easily available, and tend to overcompensate by working longer hours to signal their organizational commitment (Field and Chan 2018). In a review of 164 articles on WLB initiatives, Perrigino et al. (2018) consistently found negative attitudes, emotions, and behaviors associated with WLB policies. They referred to these negative aspects as “work–family backlash” and identified four types of backlash across the articles: (1) inequity – perceptions of unfairness (e.g., being passed on for promotion); (2) stigma – choosing not to use WLB policies for fear of repercussions; (3) spillover – negative consequences of WLB policies beyond the work domain (e.g., work-to-family conflict due to longer working hours at home); and (4) strategic – organizations offering fewer WLB initiatives because they do not benefit top- and bottom-line performance (Perrigino et al. 2018). Bourdeau et al. (2019) distinguished between two types of WLB initiatives: enabling WLB initiatives (e.g., remote working and flextime) “give employees latitude over when, where, and how much they work, which enables them to spend time and energy outside of work to take care of themselves and their family members”; and enclosing WLB initiatives (e.g., onsite childcare and gym facilities) “promote greater availability for work and longer hours on work premises by providing services that employees would otherwise seek outside the workplace” (p. 173). They also proposed that supervisors are more likely to perceive employees who use enabling WLB initiatives as less devoted to their work than those who use enclosing WLB initiatives. This is because employees who use enclosing WLB

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initiatives tend to spend more time at work, and are thus perceived to have greater work devotion. The difference in work devotion attributions, in turn, translates into varying career consequences for employees. Generally, higher work devotion attributions will lead to positive career consequences, as supervisors perceive that employees are devoted to work. However, lower work devotion attributions will lead to negative career consequences, as supervisors may withhold career premiums or invoke career penalties (Bourdeau et al., 2019). Scholars have also drawn attention to the “fit” between employees’ needs and the available WLB initiatives (Halvorsen et al. 2020). There is a common perception that WLB initiatives are primarily “women-only” or “parents-only,” hence employees who do not fall into those categories are less likely to access WLB initiatives (Perrigino et al. 2018). Even if they do use WLB initiatives, they use them discreetly such that their colleagues and supervisors are not aware that they are taking time off (Beauregard and Henry 2009; Ladge et al. 2015). More recently, caregiver-friendly workplace policies (CFWPs) and paternal leave have been implemented in many developed countries in a bid to make WLB initiatives more inclusive (Beauregard and Henry 2009; Williams et al. 2017). However, they are still not always supported by employers and supervisors, sending inconsistent messages on the “usability” of WLB initiatives to employees (Perrigino et al. 2018; Timms et al. 2020). Lastly, not all WLB initiatives are ultimately beneficial to employees. For example, some employees may choose to work evening shifts because that is the time when they have someone at home to look after their children while they are at work. It may seem that the flexible paid hours allow them to juggle between their work and parenting duties. However, it does not necessarily translate into better work and non-work outcomes for employees (Timms et al. 2015), as they could be missing out on spending quality time with their children when they are home from school (Fleetwood 2007). Brough et al. (2009) also found that employees, particularly working mothers, experienced negative consequences (e.g., being passed on for promotion) arising from the use and duration of paid parental leave. When considering both the evidence-based benefits and costs of the provision and use of WLB initiatives to employees and organizations, it becomes clear that merely providing and encouraging the use of WLB initiatives are not sufficient to support most employees. Further, research on the outcomes of WLB initiatives are often inconclusive (Brough and O’Driscoll 2010; Conradie and de Klerk 2019). In the next section, we identify and discuss some recent and relevant work and non-work concepts in relation to WLB initiatives, and building on these insights, we offer our suggestions to enhance the intended positive outcomes of WLB initiatives.

Work and Non-Work Factors Influencing WLB Initiatives Organizational Culture Organizational culture has an essential role in ensuring the integration and subsequent uptake of workplace WLB initiatives. Specifically, a supportive and familyfriendly organizational culture tends to facilitate employees’ receptiveness and use

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of WLB initiatives (Galea et al. 2014; Gilley et al. 2015; Kalysh et al. 2016; Thompson and Aspinwall 2009; Timms et al. 2015). One way to find out whether management genuinely cares about their employees’ needs is via their communications regarding the WLB initiatives offered by the organization. Having WLB initiatives in place does not necessarily mean that the employees are utilizing them, especially if they are not aware of those initiatives (Lazar et al. 2010). In other words, it is important that employees are kept well-informed on the available WLB initiatives, so that they are aware about the various policies and practices which they can adopt to balance their work and non-work commitments. Management must also understand the benefits and potential downsides of using the WLB initiatives, before they advocate for the implementation and use of each WLB initiative (Lockwood 2003). A supportive organizational culture should also pay equal attention to two types of support: instrumental and emotional support (Gilley et al. 2015). That is to say, other than instrumental support in the form of formal WLB policies and practices, emotional support in the form of positive encouragement and understanding from management, supervisors, and co-workers are equally important for WLB initiatives to be effective (Timms et al. 2020). Importantly, the actual encouragement from organizations to utilize WLB initiatives is usually transmitted through middle managers (Parris et al. 2008). However, the use of WLB initiatives by employees is often viewed skeptically by managers who assume that less work will be produced if they were not present to monitor their employees (Sahadi 2020). Therefore, organizations should focus on overcoming any resistance from managers, and ensure they are fully committed to supporting their subordinates in accessing WLB initiatives (Pasamar 2015).

Cultural Traditions Cultural traditions also influence work–life preferences, including employees’ perceptions and uptake of WLB initiatives. A study conducted by Lewis et al. (2007), and subsequently Rajan-Rankin (2016), found that WLB initiatives were often “exported” to developing countries with little consideration of relevant cultural issues. In particular, Rajan-Rankin (2016) found that collectivism, paternalism, racialism, and masculinity intersected to shape employees’ work and family roles in developing countries, often blurring work–life boundaries and encouraging a greater tolerance for this “blurred” reality. If a work–life policy or practice conflicts with, or undermines masculinity (e.g., home-based working was associated with a failure of masculinity in an Indian call center; Rajan-Rankin 2016, p. 236), the subsequent uptake of such WLB initiatives were disincentivized and discouraged. Similarly, Chandra (2012) compared Eastern and Western perspectives of WLB, and found that gender socialization influenced perceptions of WLB in Asian countries, while employees in Western countries generally accessed more WLB initiatives than their Eastern counterparts, specifically reporting fewer working hours and more generous parental leave. Chandra (2012) also found that while American companies

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focused on providing flexible working practices, Indian companies were more comfortable with providing employee welfare programs.

Gender Perceptions and Stereotypes Gender-blind WLB policies and initiatives are also rarely sufficient to address the barriers that women face in the workplace and in the course of their career progression (Doherty 2004). First, many existing senior executives across organizations in various industries still tend to be men (Schäfer and Gottschall 2015; Sherer and Zakaria 2018), which reinforces certain gender stereotypes and leadership prototypes, operating as a form of indirect discrimination against women (Doherty 2004). For example, there is often a need for employees to be supported by senior managers in order to secure key positions when climbing the career ladder, and multiple studies (e.g., Coffman et al. 2017; Cullen and Perez-Truglia 2019) have shown that male managers and employers tend to hire and promote male employees, while female managers and employers were more likely to give both male and female employees an equal chance of being hired or promoted. Further, in organizations with a disproportionate gender distribution, most commonly with more male leaders at the top, female employees tend to be more disadvantaged when it comes to performance evaluations and promotability (Kalysh et al. 2016). This is especially so for organizations which may prefer to hire employees who are better able to prioritize work and commit full-time with regular work hours (Fritz and Van Knippenberg 2018). As employees progress further to senior management, there is also a lower tendency for them to work flexibly despite the provision of WLB initiatives. Some customer-facing industries (e.g., retail and hospitality) tend not to offer their senior level employees WLB initiatives because they need them to work long hours and be present to manage their lower level employees who are mostly working shifts (Doherty 2004). Consequently, this deters women from applying for senior positions and, in some cases, causes them to ask for lower-level positions with fewer responsibilities once they have children. This further hampers female employees’ career advancement and development (Roberts and Brown 2019), and reinforces the predominantly male gender representation at the higher levels across many organizations (Brescoll et al. 2013). Another study by Noback et al. (2016) of 10,000 middle- and top-level managers in a Dutch financial services company found that men who worked part-time or a compressed four-day workweek, earned substantially lower salaries than their full-time working male colleagues. Specifically, Noback et al. (2016) found that opting for alternative work arrangements hindered the career advancement of male employees because doing so deviated from the masculine corporate regime of being available anywhere and anytime. On the other hand, female employees who opted for a compressed four-day workweek benefitted, because most women in the Netherlands generally worked fewer hours due to childcare responsibilities. Nevertheless, Noback et al. (2016) also found that career success was most prevalent

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among male managers with families who did not opt for alternative work arrangements (i.e., they worked full-time, five-day weeks).

Minority Employees and Migrants Some researchers have also found that female employees, particularly those from migrant backgrounds, face even more complex struggles when it comes to balancing their work and family commitments (Ali et al. 2017; Kamenou 2008). For example, a study with female migrant academics showed that some of them may not have the privileges of having their extended family around to assist them in domestic matters, which places them in a more difficult position to balance their work commitments and childcare responsibilities (Johansson and Śliwa 2014). Not having their extended family or established support network places strain on female migrant employees, as they also tend to experience a lack of spousal support, especially if their spouses are from a traditional masculine society (Ressia 2010). Alongside their work and familial responsibilities, female migrant employees are also subjected to discrimination, sociocultural and religious pressures, which WLB policies alone cannot address adequately (Ali et al. 2017). Correspondingly, multiple studies (e.g., Ali et al. 2017; Fearfull et al. 2010) have called for inter-organizational and inter-state cooperation to design, develop, and implement WLB policies and initiatives, and to organize outreach programs in schools, women’s organizations, and religious organizations to raise awareness about the multi-faceted issues migrant women face and assist them in integrating into the workplace.

Intergenerational Workforce WLB needs may also differ across generations as employees are at different stages of their lives (Galea et al. 2014; Thornthwaite 2004) and careers (Pasamar 2015). For example, Beutell and Wittig-Berman (2008) found that Baby Boomers (born 1946– 1964) reported more work–family conflict than Gen Xers (born 1965–1980) in a 1997 data set from a national survey in the United States. In a more recent study, Bennett et al. (2017) found that Baby Boomers reported the least work–family conflict, followed by Millennials (born 1981–1996) and Gen Xers. They explained that Baby Boomers have been in their careers longer than Gen Xers and Millennials, and thus had more access to work flexibility, travelled for work less, and were offered more leave. They also found that Gen Xers reported the highest work–family conflict, possibly due to high demands in both their work and family lives. Further, they suggested the fact that more educated women were staying at home during their children’s early years seemed to imply that companies were not offering enough flexible options to younger parents. The varying work and non-work demands across generations cause challenges for organizations to design and implement suitable WLB initiatives that benefit all employees. Yet, if support for WLB focuses only on

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certain lifestyles, or certain working arrangements, it is likely that maximum benefit will not be realized by organizations or individuals (Kelliher et al. 2019). Therefore, it is important for managers to play an informal role through initiating work–life conversations with their employees and enacting FSSBs that support and respond to both their employees’ work and non-work needs (Kossek 2016). As the workforce continues to shift with more Millennials and Gen Zs (born 1997–present) joining the labor force, coupled with the rise of non-standard employment arrangements such as those on casual or part-time contracts, or those who have multiple jobs, are self-employed, or employed in the “gig economy” (Kelliher et al. 2019), WLB expectations and needs will continue to evolve. For example, younger generations of employees generally place greater value on WLB and thus prefer flexible working conditions as compared to older generations of employees (Lyons and Kuron 2014). Also, more working fathers are participating directly and equitably in child rearing beyond their financial contributions, in what is known as involved fathering (Ladge et al. 2015). Even though working fathers generally perceive their organizational policies to be supportive, entrenched gender norms and expectations within their organizations may make it difficult for them to be an involved father (Brough et al. 2009). Hence, many working fathers still have to deal with work–life challenges through informal, “stealthy” approaches to flexibility (e.g., leaving work quietly for childcare pick-up), for fear of being stigmatized by their team members or becoming targets for layoff if they make use of formal WLB initiatives such as paid paternity leave (Brough et al. 2009; Ladge et al. 2015).

The COVID-19 Pandemic In 2020, the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has also prompted a sudden transition to remote working, which is unlikely to reverse post-pandemic (Carroll and Conboy 2020). Along with the threat and uncertainties of subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases and other pandemic outbreaks, social distancing, and lockdown measures are likely to be in place for some time or implemented from time to time going forward. The stigma associated with remote working prior to COVID19 has also disappeared, as many companies such as Google and Atlassian are now making certain roles permanently remote even as COVID-19 lockdowns are being lifted (Mishael 2020; Smith 2020). It is clear that structural (or formal) WLB policies and practices such as telecommuting and remote working are no longer relevant, since they are now widely implemented. In contrast, the cultural (or informal) WLB policies and practices including work–family organizational culture and FSSBs have now taken center stage in determining employee well-being and resilience (Vaziri et al. 2020). Taken together, these trends spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic will significantly change the nature and focus of WLB initiatives going forward, hence we explore some recommendations for extending WLB initiatives in the next section.

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Recommendations for Extending WLB Initiatives FSSBs, Supportive Work–Life Culture, and Two-Way Communication Work–life scholars have developed interventions to train managers in FSSBs (Kossek 2016). These interventions are aimed at guiding managers on how to discuss their employees’ work and non-work demands and to set goals to track the effectiveness of their own FSSBs. Also, these interventions have typically focused on subordinates’ FSSB perceptions of their managers. Nevertheless, recent studies such as Marescaux et al. (2020) have found that not only do managers need to be equipped with the skills and self-efficacy to demonstrate FSSBs, they also need to communicate consistent messages to employees to foster psychological safety and maximize the effectiveness of their FSSBs. Importantly, Marescaux et al. (2020) also found that it is important to clarify the expectations of both managers and employees in relation to FSSBs, so that the content of the associated WLB policies, practices, and managerial training are developed accordingly, and there is greater alignment between employees’ work–life preferences and managers’ expectations of their employees’ job performance. Both Marescaux et al. (2020) and Vaziri et al. (2020) also found that FSSBs are particularly relevant and beneficial to employees who prefer to segment or keep clear boundaries between their work and non-work lives. However, efforts to cultivate FSSBs and their subsequent positive flow-on effects for both managers and employees will be in vain if they are not supported by a positive work–life culture (Marescaux et al. 2020; Timms et al. 2015). Correspondingly, we recommend that FSSBs should always be implemented with a supportive work–life culture at the organizational level and two-way communication and mutual understanding between managers and employees. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, FSSBs have also become more prominent in determining employee well-being and resilience, and play an important role in fostering a compassionate organizational culture for employees (Vaziri et al. 2020). To cultivate a compassionate and supportive organizational culture during the pandemic, we recommend that employers provide managers with mandatory training on FSSBs, which is designed to teach managers about the benefits of providing support to help employees with their work and non-work demands, and the different types of supportive non-work (emotional, instrumental, role modelling) behaviors that managers should exhibit to their employees amid the heightened uncertainties present in their social environment (Kossek 2016).

Fostering Inclusive Behaviors by Tackling Long Working Hours With an evolving workforce now spanning five generations (Traditionalists to Gen Zs), it is imperative that organizations take on a diverse and inclusive approach to designing and implementing WLB initiatives (Taneja et al. 2012). However, it is hard to foster diversity in the workplace, especially when the number of female

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leaders remains comparatively lower compared to male leaders across most organizations. In fact, while women made progress accessing positions of power and authority in the 1970s and 1980s, that progress has slowed considerably in the 1990s and stalled completely this century (Ely and Padavic 2020). In particular, Ely and Padavic (2020) found that what held women back at work was not necessarily the unique challenge of balancing work–life demands, but a general culture of overwork accompanied by one-sided encouragement to women to take advantage of WLB initiatives (e.g., going part-time and shifting to internally facing roles which demanded shorter working hours). As a result, women’s careers were often derailed after using these WLB initiatives (see also Brough et al. 2009), while men stuck to the primary identity of an ideal worker, chose not to use WLB initiatives, and thus appeared more dedicated to their work. For WLB initiatives to achieve their intended beneficial outcomes, it is crucial for organizations and managers to tackle overwork culture head-on (Ely and Padavic 2020), especially since Reid (2015) found that managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked 80 h a week and those who just pretended to. What was insightful in Reid’s (2015) research was that both men and women actually encountered similar levels of work–life conflict, but the way women coped was to make use of formal WLB initiatives to manage their work–life conflict, while men coped by experimenting with less formal, under-the-radar ways to maintain organizational commitment. It is thus crucial that employees and managers push back against overwork. Also, as research increasingly demonstrates the business case for more reasonable work hours, organizations are now questioning the drivers, and intended outcomes, of an overwork culture. Since a culture of overwork tends to cascade from the top of the organizational pyramid to the bottom, organizational leaders should lead by example and avoid sending out work communications during non-working hours. It is only through less demanding work hours that women will not be pushed to take up WLB initiatives, and subsequently suffer negative job and career consequences such as decreased job satisfaction and failed promotions (see Brough et al. 2009; Ely and Padavic 2020; Reid 2015). When women are given equal opportunity to succeed in the workplace through an inclusive culture, women’s leadership representation at the top will increase, and so will the diversity of an organization’s workforce (Duke 2017).

Shift from Flextime and Compressed Work Weeks to Trust-Based Working Hours One of the widely implemented WLB initiatives is flextime, which is a work arrangement that allows employees to alter the starting and/or end time of their workdays. Another WLB initiative that is widely implemented is compressed work weeks, which allows an employee to work longer hours on some days and meet their required weekly hours sooner. The employee can then take a day (or part-day) off with the time they have accrued (e.g., a four-day work week or nine-day fortnight). WLB initiatives such as flextime and compressed work weeks have produced a range

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of employee and organizational benefits (Kossek and Michel 2011). However, in reality they offer only limited control and choice to employees and are typically implemented in a way that suits the employer more so than employees (Hyatt and Coslor 2018). Hyatt and Coslor (2018) also found that work intensified when employees accessed these WLB initiatives, leading to job fatigue and decreased job satisfaction. Truly flexible and self-managed work, known as “trust-based working hours”, has grown in importance over the last two decades, but is more widely implemented in Western Europe (especially in as Germany and the Nordic countries; Ilsøe 2010; Singe and Croucher 2003). With trust-based working hours, time becomes a secondary consideration as employers do not control the working time of their employees. Instead, employees become primarily responsible for fulfilling tasks and meeting targets, thus shifting the focus from a time-based to a results-based orientation (Singe and Croucher 2003). Trust-based working hours generally lead to increased WLB, job satisfaction and life satisfaction among employees, as well as greater alignment between working hours and workloads (Ilsøe 2010). Based on a panel data comprising more than 5000 German companies, Godart et al. (2014) also found that trust-based working hours are related to subsequent innovation performance of firms through the autonomy and self-management transferred to employees. Nevertheless, for trust-based working hours to achieve its positive intended outcomes for both organizations and employees, Singe and Croucher (2003) recommended that it has to be implemented with robust manager-employee trust. Manager-employee trust can be fostered through management styles that encourage employees’ self-starting behaviors, such as setting their own goals and deciding where and how they will complete their job tasks. Godart et al. (2014) also cautioned about the potential work–life conflict that may arise as the boundaries between work and life blurs without the need to work fixed hours. Despite its weaknesses, trustbased working hours gives employees the autonomy to choose how they complete projects, and in so doing, facilitates organizational trust and time management among employees. Therefore, trust-based working hours has proven to be more effective than traditional WLB initiatives such as flextime and compressed work weeks in assisting employees to perform better and become more satisfied in their jobs (Godart et al. 2014; Hyatt and Coslor 2018).

Conclusion In this book chapter, we considered existing scholarly and practitioner research conducted on WLB initiatives, provided a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of WLB initiatives on organizations and employees, and identified outstanding gaps between the provision and promise of WLB initiatives and their actual uptake and outcomes. We also discussed how these issues have changed in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they will shape WLB initiatives in the future. We ended our book chapter by proposing recommendations for extending WLB

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initiatives, which we hope can enhance the effectiveness and intended outcomes of WLB initiatives. A more urgent, short-term focus should consider cultivating a compassionate organizational culture alongside the provision and use of WLB initiatives, since the COVID-19 pandemic has led to high levels of job insecurity, the threat of infection, and changes to employees’ living arrangements in a short span of time (Vaziri et al. 2020). In times of uncertainties, no WLB initiatives will assist employees to manage their work and lives better if their organizations and managers do not understand and accommodate the multiple stress and demands they are facing. In the longer term, when the pandemic passes and the global economy recovers from its deep slump, we urge more organizations to work with their employees to consider how they might adjust their work processes and WLB policies and initiatives to implement trust-based working hours. When implemented effectively, trust-based working hours have been shown to reduce working hours (which, as discussed above, fosters workplace diversity and inclusion), increase employees’ job satisfaction, productivity, and creativity, and enhance firm innovation.

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Present and Future Applications Sharon K. Parker, Karina Jorritsma, and Mark A. Griffin

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thrive at Work Framework, SMART Work Design, and Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thrive at Work Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deep Dive into Prevent Harm and the SMART Work Design Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Positioning for Digitalization and Other Future Work Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

In this chapter, we describe an integrative framework that synthesizes organizational approaches to mental health: the Thrive at Work framework. We draw together literature from multiple perspectives to identify three pillars of organizational-level approaches to improving mental health and well-being at work (mitigate illness, prevent harm, and promote thriving); three sub-categories of workplace strategies within each pillar (two sets focused on changing the work; one focused on changing individuals); and multiple tactics for each subcategory of workplace strategies. The comprehensiveness of this framework facilitates a strategic, non-siloed, and multidisciplinary approach towards mental health and well-being in the workplace. In particular, we seek to help organizations to go beyond reactive and/or individualistic approaches to mental health and wellbeing, to the proactive consideration of designing healthy work. Thus work design, and specifically the SMART work design model, is part of the “prevent harm” pillar, and a distinctive element of our approach. SMART refers to work that is Stimulating, Mastery-oriented, Agentic, Relational, and Tolerable. SMART work design addresses the major psychosocial risks that have been S. K. Parker (*) · K. Jorritsma · M. A. Griffin Future of Work Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_37

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identified in research, yet offers a distinct and active perspective in which the focus is on designing SMART work in a holistic way. We provide examples of how organizations can use both the Thrive at Work framework and the SMART work redesign model to improve mental health at work, particularly via enhancing the quality of the work itself. Keywords

Work design · SMART work design · Organizational interventions · Well-being · Stress · Prevention · Thriving · Harm · Case studies

Introduction In many organizations, the dominant discourse around mental health is focused on reactive responses to the mental health problems of individuals. It is imperative to expand the understanding of mental health and its relationship to the workplace. In this chapter, we argue for a more holistic, prevention-oriented, and proactive approach to mental health at work. We present the Thrive at Work framework to support a more comprehensive approach to the management of mental health. This framework has been designed to address six major challenges associated with addressing mental health issues in the workplace that we have observed in discussions with industry partners and organizations over many years. First, the dominant discourse assumes that individuals bring pre-existing mental health issues to work and the organization then needs to respond to these issues. While it is certainly correct that some individuals come to work with mental health struggles, there is little acknowledgement in this discourse that individuals might develop mental health problems as a result of the work itself, or have pre-existing conditions exacerbated by poor work conditions. As a consequence of this reasoning, many organizations focus their efforts primarily or solely on reactive efforts to detect and support mental ill health, such as establishing the provision of counselling services, with insufficient attention to the prevention of harm through creating good work. As we elaborate shortly, there is a vast amount of research linking aspects of work such as task characteristics, social support, and management practices to mental health. A focus on pre-existing issues means this preventative approach is undervalued in many discussions. Second, many organizations focus on the individual as the primary target of intervention, placing the responsibility for mental health almost entirely on the worker. Resilience training is an example. We argue that mental health at work is the joint responsibility of the individual and the organization, requiring a shared role in developing individual and organizational strategies for better mental health at work. In essence, too much attention is given to individual actions to address ill health, and with much less attention to primary interventions focusing on organizational actions to address ill health.

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Third, to the extent that organizations do assume responsibility for improving work, there is a tendency to adopt a compliance-oriented focus on “removing risk”; a perspective that stems from legal requirements to protect workers from harm (including psychological harm). We promote a more positive and proactive approach by encouraging organizations to ensure their work is well-designed and contributes positively to mental health. Fourth, perhaps unsurprisingly given legal obligations to prevent harm to workers, in much discourse in organizations, there is a predominance of focus on mental “ill health,” rather than on fostering well-being. It is of course vital to give serious attention to mental ill health, especially given the growth of mental health problems within society more generally. However, just as the absence of ill health does not define someone as physically well, the absence of mental ill health does not define someone as mentally well. The World Health Organization, for example, defines mental health as “a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.” As we discuss later, we see an important role for promoting well-being in the discussion of organizational mental health. Fifth, the idea that “good health is good business,” which is part of Safe Work Australia’s model of good work design (see https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/ good-work-design) is not widely understood. That is, there is a failure by many in organizations to appreciate how mental health, and poorly designed work, affects performance and productivity outcomes for organizations. There is a tendency to assume that addressing mental health in the workplace is solely a social or legal obligation rather than a potential source of performance and competitive advantage. Finally, our observation is that the approach many organizations take to address mental health issues is piecemeal, siloed, and reactive rather than integrated, strategic, and proactive. For example, although actions and initiatives introduced in business processes can have a major impact on workers’ mental health, there is a tendency to relegate the topic to the health and safety department or human resources. For the above reasons, our overall view is that many organizations are not coming to grips sufficiently with mental health issues in the workplace. In the light of this background, we developed the Thrive at Work framework, which we elaborate here (see also thriveatwork.org.au). Table 1 summarizes these challenges, as well as how our framework addresses them, which we elaborate next.

Thrive at Work Framework, SMART Work Design, and Future Work This section first presents the Thrive at Work framework, example applications, and key research underpinning the framework. We then discuss the importance of good work design for preventing mental health and introduce the “SMART” model of

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Table 1 Challenges in how organizations approach mental health at work and how the Thrive at Work approach addresses these challenges Challenge Focus on individuals bringing pre-existing mental health issues to work, which then needs to be catered for, rather than the role of work in affecting mental health

Focus on the individual as the primary target of change

Compliance-oriented focus on removing risks of work (sometimes referred to as “psychosocial risk management”) Focus on mental ill health alone

Neglect of the business benefits of mental health and well-being Piecemeal, siloed, and reactive approach to addressing mental health in the workplace

How challenge is addressed in the thrive framework Includes three pillars, with the first focusing on accommodation and support of mental ill health (relevant to pre-existing mental health problems) but the second and third pillar go beyond to address how work shapes mental health and well-being Explicit recognition within each pillar that mental health can be improved through focusing on changing the work/organization (first and second category of workplace strategies within the pillar) or changing the individual (third category of workplace strategies within the pillar) The second pillar addresses psychosocial risk reduction but does so via the idea of designing SMART work, a positive and holistic approach compared to more traditional approaches Focus on mental ill health and well-being, including both subjective well-being and eudaimonic (or active) well-being Recognition, especially through the second and third pillar, that ‘good mental health is good business’ The framework promotes an integrated, strategic, and proactive approach, supported by the Thrive at Work audit which helps organizations synthesize practices from diverse departments

work design. We give examples of how the SMART work design model has been used, and can be used, in the light of the technological and other change occurring in organizations.

Thrive at Work Framework Below we present the rationale for the three pillars of the Thrive at Work framework: mitigate illness, prevent harm, and promote thriving. We also outline the key strategies within each pillar, provide example tactics, and briefly describe research relevant to the framework. We also give some examples of the application of this framework.

Overview of Pillars, Strategies, and Tactics The Thrive at Work framework was developed in consultation with industry and with an extensive evaluation of the often-siloed academic literature and professional

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practice. The three pillars—Mitigate Illness, Prevent Harm, Promote Thriving— capture overarching goals for managing mental health, with each pillar addressing a different aspect of the mental health continuum. The distinction between Mitigate Illness and Prevent Harm maps onto Hurrell Jr and Murphy (1996)s distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary intervention strategies according to whether they reduce/eliminate stressors at the source (Prevent Harm) or whether they help employees re-appraise or cope more effectively with stress at work (Mitigate Illness). The distinction between Prevent Harm and Promote Thriving maps onto Parker et al. (2003)s holistic perspective on mental health that unpacked primary intervention strategies into those that prevent ill health, such as by reducing poor well-being or psychological distress (Prevent Harm), and those that promote positive health, such as by enhancing active mental health (Promote Thriving). Overall, therefore, the three pillars capture the key distinctions among work mental health interventions made historically in the organizational literature, and align well with LaMontagne et al.’s (2014, 2019) ‘integrated approach to workplace mental health’ framework (manage illness, prevent harm, promote the positive) distilled from their analysis of intervention strategies across multiple disciplines. Importantly, and in contrast to previous frameworks, we go beyond broad categories of interventions to identify sub-categories of workplace strategies. Specifically, each pillar has three sub-categories of workplace strategies: two of which are targeted at changing the work or organization (e.g., via the development of new systems and practices), and one of which is targeted at changing the individual (e.g., via training programs aimed to build individual-level awareness); a distinction that builds on earlier work about different levels of intervention (e.g., Griffin et al. 2000; Hornung et al. 2010). Each of these workplace strategies then can be executed via various tactics, examples of which are included in the detailed audit tool and implementation guides that are freely available from the website: www. thriveatwork.org.au. Importantly, the specific tactics used by organizations can vary according to the needs and resources of the organization, and can extend beyond those indicated. The resulting three pillars, nine workplace strategies, and multiple tactics create a comprehensive framework that provides organizations with a clear set of evidence-based strategies and potential tactics to address the full spectrum of mental health (see Fig. 1).

Mitigate Illness The pillar of Mitigate Illness encompasses goals to support workers experiencing mental illness, ill health, and injury, regardless of cause. It is well understood that mental illness can impact people across all types of workplaces, and all industries. Approximately 45% of adults between the ages of 16 and 85 will experience a mental health issue in their lifetime (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2008). Many Australian adults who experience mental health issues will be of working age and employed in different roles, across all industries. Research consistently shows that untreated mental illnesses negatively impact turnover, absenteeism, and workforce productivity (see, for example, Safework Australia 2012). Organizations that Mitigate Illness demonstrate to their workforce they are committed to supporting employees experiencing poor mental health. In turn,

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Pillar

Workplace Strategies

Detect & Support Illness

Employee training to support others Monitor mental health Remove barriers to support Employee Assistance Program Crisis support

Accommodate Illness

Injury management process Return to Work process

Increase Individual Resources for Managing Mental Health

Employee training to help self Stigma reduction for help-seeking

Maintain/Increase Job Resources

Stimulating job resources Mastery job resources Agency job resources Relational job resources

Ensure Tolerable Demands

Reduce demands such as cognitive, work load, physical, and emotional demands

Mitigate Illness Monitor, accommodate, and treat illness, ill-health and injury.

Prevent Harm Minimise harm and protect against risk.

Promote Thriving

Example Tactics

Increase SMAR job resources

Increase Individual Resources for Preventing Harm

Job crafting for stress reduction Resilience and coping training Healthy recovery from work

Create Conditions for Growth

Organisational support for growth Transformational leadership Strength-based capability development Continuous learning practices

Create Conditions for Connection

Diversity practices Opportunities for belonging Beneficiary contact Internal knowledge exchange Community engagement

Increase Individual Resources for Thriving

Job crafting for personal growth Positive psychology practices

Optimise well-being and generate future capabilities.

Fig. 1 Thrive at work framework with three pillars, workplace strategies, and example tactics (from thriveatwork.org.au)

employees want to work for and stay in organizations that acknowledge the importance of mental health and assist employees to recover from mental illness (Instinct and Reason 2014). Organizations that mitigate mental illness can experience a significant return on investment, through increased productivity and reduced absenteeism (PwC 2014). We identify three sets of evidence-based workplace strategies that organizations can adopt to mitigate illness. The first two focus on changing the work or organization; the third targets changing individual behavior and attitudes: 1. Detect and Support Illness—organizational strategies to facilitate the early detection and support of employees experiencing mental ill health, including crisis support; 2. Accommodate Illness—organizational strategies to assist employees who have been unwell to recover, while undertaking appropriate and meaningful work; and. 3. Increase Individual Resources for Managing Mental Health—organizational strategies aimed at increasing employee mental health literacy and help-seeking.

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In contrast to the above two categories which focus strongly on changing organizational practices and systems, this category has a focus on building the motivation and capacity of individual workers themselves to manage their own mental health. These strategies often come from clinical psychology, health promotion, and public health perspectives on mental health. Example tactics that can be used to achieve these strategies are shown in Fig. 1. For example, the provision of employee advisory programs (EAPs) is a common tactic used by organizations to support illness.

Prevent Harm Research consistently finds that the work environment and work itself can significantly increase the likelihood of employees developing physical and mental health conditions, including musculoskeletal conditions, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse (e.g., Burton 2010; Demerouti et al. 2001; LaMontagne et al. 2007; Parker 2014). The power and validity of this research are reflected in the world-wide inclusion of these factors (usually referred to as “psychosocial risks”) in most frameworks about work factors and mental health across the globe (see, for example, the US NIOSH models and the UK’s Health & Safety Executive models). The main goal of Prevent Harm, therefore, is to create work environments that protect employees against known psychosocial risks through good work design and organizational management. There is good evidence that changes in work design (or work “redesign”) can improve mental health, especially when accompanied by training and/or when part of a broader systemic change process (see the review by Daniels et al. 2017). Likewise, work redesign interventions can enhance job performance and productivity (for a review, see Knight and Parker 2019) A summary of research (Parker 2015) supporting the role of work design for mental health, including the generation of principles used to underpin Safe Work Australia’s “Good Work Design” principles, is publicly available here: https://www. safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/1702/does-the-evidence-theorysupport-good-work-design-principles.pdf. This pillar relates to prior arguments that too much attention is given to secondary and tertiary stress management interventions rather than primary ones (see Parker et al. 2003; Parker 2015). Secondary interventions aim to limit the consequences of harm, and tertiary interventions focus on treatment, rehabilitation, and compensation after harm has already been caused (as focused on in the Mitigate Illness pillar). In contrast, primary interventions aim to prevent potential harm by addressing the source of the risk (in this case, the risk of poor work design, sometimes referred to as “psychosocial risks”). The Prevent Harm pillar focuses primarily on primary interventions. Importantly, there is a legal imperative to go beyond secondary and tertiary interventions to more preventative approaches. Specifically, Work Health and Safety Legislation identifies that employers have a duty to take reasonably practical measures to protect workers from harm, which entails ensuring that risks are controlled at the highest level of the hierarchy of control (see Parker 2015).

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Prevent harm presents practical strategies within three categories; the first two of which focus on changing work, and the third focuses on changing individuals. The first category is Maintain/Increase Job Resources. Job resources are defined as aspects of jobs that are functional in achieving goals, helping one to manage demands, and/or stimulating personal development (Demerouti et al. 2001, p. 501). We further categorize job resources into the “SMAR” component of the SMART model (elaborated further below). Job resources therefore include aspects of work that make the work Stimulating, that foster Mastery, that enable Agency, and that promote Relational aspects of work. We elaborate these elements shortly. The second category of workplace strategies in Prevent Harm is Ensure Tolerable Job Demands. Job demands are “those physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical or mental effort and are therefore associated with certain physiological or psychological costs” (Demerouti et al. 2001, p. 501). There are different types of demands, such as cognitive (e.g., excessive requirement for vigilance), emotional (e.g., dealing with abusive customers), or physical demands (e.g., heavy lifting requirement). This category is relevant to the “T” in the SMART model below, which refers to ensuring that demands are “tolerable” through managing, preventing, or reducing job demands such that demands do not exceed the personal resources of an individuals. We elaborate this perspective shortly. The third category of workplace strategy in Prevent Harm is Increase Individual Resources for Preventing Harm. This category, like the third category in Mitigate Illness above, focuses on organizational strategies to help individuals themselves to create job resources and effectively manage, reduce, or prevent excessively high job demands. Job crafting, in which individuals actively shape and mold their work to fit their needs and abilities (Tims et al. 2013), is an example of how individuals can boost their job resources or reduce their demands. Other forms of proactive work behavior, such as voice, taking charge, and negotiating idiosyncratic deals, are also ways that individuals can create better work for themselves (Parker et al. 2010). Resilience training is a popular organizational strategy for helping individuals to prevent harm.

Promote Thriving The Promote Thriving pillar has as its goal optimizing employee well-being, or employee thriving, and thereby helps employees to realize their potential and lays the foundation for their outstanding performance. This element of the framework focuses on the well-being end of the mental health spectrum (rather than the mental ill health end). Well-being refers to optimal psychological functioning and experience (Ryan and Deci 2001). Two distinct well-being perspectives are predominant in the literature. The first can broadly be referred to a hedonism, or subjective well-being, and reflects the idea that well-being is about pleasure and happiness (Warr 1994). Outcomes such as the presence of positive mood, life satisfaction, and a lack of negative mood make up subjective well-being, with these states being fostered through individuals’ attaining valued goals and outcomes.

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The second view, the eudaimonic perspective (Waterman 1993), captures the idea that well-being is more than happiness, and is about the realization of one’s potential. Examples of eudaimonic concepts include personal growth, feeling autonomous and independent, self-acceptance, having a clear life purpose, experiencing mastery, and positive relatedness with others (Ryff and Keyes 1995). Some have referred to the eudaimonic perspective as reflecting a more “active” approach to mental health (Parker et al. 2003; Warr 1994) because it contrasts to the notion of people being “passively contented” (for example, people can feel positive by setting very low goals for themselves). We use the term “thriving” to encapsulate both positive levels of subjective wellbeing (hedonic) and high active (eudaimonic) well-being, recognizing that these do not always perfectly align. Living a purposeful and active life can sometimes mean that subjective well-being is negatively affected. As Warr (1994, p. 86) noted: “proactive, risk-taking people may be considered healthy in terms of competence, aspiration and autonomy; but their difficult interactions with the environment may also make them anxious for a considerable proportion of time.” Thus, from a eudaimonic/active perspective, negative emotional states like anxiety can still indicate well-being. They only become a sign of poor mental health if the negative emotional states are sustained over very long time periods or are excessive. Supporting employees to thrive has many benefits for businesses. Research has found that thriving employees are more confident and energized, better able to respond to challenges, and recover quicker from the demands of work (Desrumaux et al. 2015). When employees thrive, this is also linked to sustainable individual and organizational performance (Spreitzer and Porath 2012). Organizations with thriving employees experience greater customer satisfaction and loyalty, productivity, safety performance, and overall profitability along with reduced turnover and absenteeism (Harter et al. 2002). We identify three sets of evidence-based activities and actions that organizations can invest in to create conditions for thriving in the workplace. These strategies often come from the strategic human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational psychology, and positive psychology literatures. As with the other pillars, the first two sets of strategies are work/organizational-level changes, whereas the third targets change in individuals. First, related especially to eudaimonic well-being, organizational strategies can cultivate continuous learning, development, and growth of their employees, which we refer to as Create Conditions for Growth. These strategies help workers to realize their potential, and also assist employees to keep up with the changing nature of work and support their effective performance in uncertain and dynamic conditions. Second, related to both types of well-being, the second category of organizational strategies focuses on maximizing the connection employees derive from their work, which we refer to as Create Conditions for Connection. Having connections and relationships is an important source of subjective well-being, but the social environment (such as having strong networks, feeling well supported) also allows people to thrive and grow psychologically. In the future workplace, given the enhanced interdependence in the work place, connections and relationships are also vital for effective co-ordinated performance (Griffin et al. 2007).

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Third, workplace strategies can foster individuals’ motivation and ability, or their personal resources, to increase their own thriving (Increase Individual Resources for Thriving). Like the third category in each of the above pillars, this category is focused on strategies that enable individuals themselves to create a better work experience. Example tactics include training individuals in mindfulness practices, and encouraging their strengths-based crafting.

Example Applications Organizations understanding what impacts mental health and well-being in the workplace is only one part of the puzzle. Having the knowledge and skills to go about addressing this issue is another. A recent Australian survey found that 16% of organizations have not addressed workplace mental health and well-being because they do not know where to start (Superfriend 2018). A key focus for the development of the Thrive at Work framework has been to ensure that the framework is useable by organizations, and that there is a clear implementation process for adopting the framework to strengthen practice. The Thrive at Work implementation process (see www.thriveatwork.org.au/ resources) includes: – A curated list of research findings and statistics that organizations can use to make a business case for the benefits of developing an integrated mental health and well-being strategy (see website www.thriveatwork.org.au/resources/businesscase/), – An audit process and accompanying audit tool to strategically assess the full range of policies and practices currently in place against the Thrive at Work framework, including their maturity; – Guidance on conducting focus groups, interviews, and employee perception surveys (i.e., methodologies for capturing worker experiences) to assess key components of work known to impact on employee well-being (as outlined by the framework); – A dynamic, interactive platform for depicting results from the employee perception surveys; – Suggested approaches to collecting, collating, and analyzing relevant strategic human resource and business data to provide further indicators of current employee well-being and outcomes of practice; and, – Tools for action planning, tracking, and developing mental health and well-being strategies and practices over time. The Thrive at Work implementation process has been designed to be useful for a wide range of workplaces, with varying degrees of existing maturity. Most of the activities are applicable across a range of industries and organization sizes, and can be scaled up or down where needed. Multiple organizations have utilized the Thrive at Work framework to help develop a more strategic and integrated approach to supporting employee well-being. For example, following an externally led employee perception survey indicating significantly higher rates of mental health conditions and

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lower mental well-being for staff within their organization than the general population, one public sector agency opted to undertake the Thrive at Work audit to assess their existing practices and develop clear action plans for improvement. The audit process was especially important in bringing together diverse and previously siloed practices: The thrive at work [audit] workshops really opened our eyes to where we are at and where we want to be as an organisation. It culminated in key stakeholders in our organisation coming together to have a good look at how we are travelling in relation to doing the best we can to thrive at work... At the conclusion of the workshops we certainly had targets and goals for our future direction of where we are heading. [Audit Participant]

As a second example, encountering increasing levels of staff grievances and interpersonal conflict within a particular division, another company chose to conduct a series of focus groups that would enable staff to unpack challenges and opportunities with their current working environment that moved beyond individual-focused targets for change (i.e., to move beyond conflict resolution and resilience training to include an assessment of the impact of work design and broader organizational practices). These focus group activities were especially helpful for managers to understand the importance of involving participants in a change process: [Following the focus groups] I realised there was a connection between the individual, the managerial and organisational roles. Many staff had good ideas about how to improve things at each level. Improving the working environment could lead to a more team focussed approach towards issues instead of individuals feeling like they had to deal with problems themselves. [Focus Group Participant]

Beyond these specific examples, the Thrive at Work framework is publicly available, and website statistics 1 year after the launch of the framework suggests significant appetite for this type of model nationally and internationally. We are aware of multiple organizations auditing themselves using this framework, and we are also working with a range of organizations to support their implementation of the framework. As we engage in these activities, we are continuing to develop further case studies and guides to assist organizations to utilize the Thrive at Work framework in ways that fit their current maturity. The framework integrates diverse practices and policies across multiple portfolios and helps build a shared mental model and aligned focus among key stakeholders. After organizations adopt the framework, we are also observing the introduction of more mature workplace strategies, with an increasing number of organizations moving beyond taking stock of current implemented practices, to further strategic assessment, such as implementing better metrics to tracking employee experiences and outcomes and evaluating the effectiveness of well-being interventions against the strategic intent of these interventions (e.g., following the roll-out of an employee mental health literacy program do employees feel more confident detecting mental illness and are they more likely to seek early support). We are also observing a move beyond “mitigate illness” to consider “prevent harm,” supported by the SMART work design model.

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Deep Dive into Prevent Harm and the SMART Work Design Model As discussed above, an important rationale for developing the Thrive at Work framework was to shift the conversation in a direction that oriented key stakeholders to importance of work in causing poor ill health, protecting against ill health, and in promoting well-being. We therefore emphasize in the framework the role of work design in shaping employees’ mental health (Prevent Harm), rather than the predominant emphasis in industry on how mental health should be accommodated and supported at work (Mitigate Illness). We also emphasize how the responsibility for good work design lies with the organization at least as much (and sometimes more) than with individuals.

Work Design Is Currently Often Overlooked Despite a great deal of evidence about the importance of a more preventative, work design-based approach to addressing psychosocial risks, it has traditionally been challenging for organizational stakeholders to recognize the importance of work design for employee mental health. On the one hand, there is growing promotion of the idea that mental ill health is common among the working population, such that stakeholders often understand that individuals have mental health problems that derive from their own past circumstances, coping abilities, or personality. From this perspective, mental health is approached through an inclusion agenda, in which the importance of effective work participation from all members of the community is highlighted. At the same time, stakeholders can often appreciate and understand that highly traumatic work events, such as hospital staff member’s exposure to a violent incident, cause distress and mental health problems. In this case, there is an understanding of the moral imperative of caring for individuals exposed to trauma in the course of doing their work. However, it can be difficult for organizational managers and others to understand that people’s day to day quality of work can significantly affect their mental health. Sometimes, for example, only after surveys or focus groups in which data is presented to provide specific “local evidence” (such as developing models that show how SMART work elements statistically predict outcomes like mental health) do stakeholders “get it.” Interestingly, this is not the case when talking to employees themselves—conversations about work stress very quickly turn to factors such as long working hours or micromanagement. As a case in point, in a project investigating the mental health of FIFO workers (Parker et al. 2018a), it was challenging to get some of the stakeholders in the project team to accept findings from our research showing that levels of mental health varied significantly across rosters. Those on long rosters (such as working on site for 4 weeks and then being home for 1 week had significantly greater psychological strain than those with shorter and more even time rosters (e.g., 1 week on, 1 week off; Parker et al. 2018b). Some of the stakeholders interpreted this finding as suggesting that “mentally unhealthy people choose long rosters.” However, since we were informed by workers that they most often cannot select the rosters themselves, and since we were able to use statistical modelling to show why longer rosters

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are experienced as stressful (e.g., longer time away from the family, more personal events missed, greater levels of fatigue, etc.), we were confident that the causality mostly applied in the direction of rosters affecting mental health. In a longitudinal study, we also showed how people’s mental health varied significantly across the roster, with a decline while away on site yet a boost when at home. These variations as a function of roster would not occur if the more simple explanation (that “mentally unhealthy people choose long rosters”) applied. There are a couple of reasons for this tendency of managers and organizational stakeholders to want to attribute mental health to the person rather than the work. One reason is the greater responsibility that comes with recognizing the role of work because it potentially implicates managers’ own actions in other people’s mental well-being. For example, in the case of the rosters, there are cost implications for companies—at least in the short term—in accepting that rosters might affect mental health because they would need to fly workers home more often (longer term, it could well be that the benefits outweigh the costs although such analyses are rarely done). However, a further important reason for neglecting work design is the attribution bias concept from social psychology (specifically referred to as the “fundamental attribution error,” Ross 1977), which refers to the natural human tendency to attribute the cause of negative aspects to an individual’s stable disposition (e.g., a FIFO worker with poor mental health is “not resilient”) rather than the situation (e.g., a FIFO worker with poor mental health has poorly designed rosters). Because of this bias, therefore, it is difficult for managers and others to “see” the role of work design in causing mental ill health. A further challenge in this area is that mental health risks caused by work, or “psychosocial risks,” cannot be understood in quite the same way as physical risks. For example, in contrast to physical risks, there are individual differences in workers’ reactions to psychosocial aspects. When a brick falls on someone’s helmet-less head, it pretty much hurts everyone, irrespective of whose head or when/where the event occurred. High levels of workload, however, harm some people, but not others. High workload can harm a person at one time but not at another time (e.g., workload might be fine until a person goes through a stressful divorce). Such differences between understanding physical and psychological risk make it tricky for organizational stakeholders because they want to manage mental health through a similar approach to physical health, even when such an approach is not appropriate. The SMART work design model was developed to strengthen the focus on work design as a vehicle for improving mental health. Moreover, we developed this model to provide a positive and holistic approach to work design, rather than the more common risk-management approach to work design, as we elaborate below.

The SMART Model of Work Design Work design is defined as “the content and organization of one’s work tasks, activities, relationships, and responsibilities” (Parker 2014, p. 662). Work design applies to all organizations because, to achieve their common goals, organizations

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need to divide labor (break down the goals into smaller tasks and assign them to individuals or groups) and then integrate the resulting efforts (e.g., co-ordinate the work of team members). The division of labor, and its reintegration to meet collective goals, inevitably requires work design decisions about who does what, when, and how. These decisions, in turn, affect what have been referred to as “work characteristics,” or how psychologically important attributes of jobs, such as having “task variety.” In their classic job characteristics model, Hackman and Oldham (1976) specified the importance of five core work characteristics (task variety, task identity, task significance, job autonomy, job feedback) as shaping individuals’ intrinsic motivation, and, in turn, outcomes such as performance, intention to stay, and absenteeism. Since this early model, several further theoretical perspectives on work design have emerged (see Parker et al. 2017, for a review) such as the job demands-control model (Karasek 1979), expansions of the job characteristics model to identify contemporary work characteristics (e.g., Morgeson and Humphrey 2006; Parker et al. 2001), and social/ relational perspectives (Grant 2007; Grant and Parker 2009). All of these perspectives consider how the nature and organization of work affect how people think and feel about their work, and hence shapes outcomes such as job performance and stress. One consequence of theoretical development, however, has been the proliferation of work characteristics since Hackman and Oldham’s (1976) initial five core ones. Indeed Morgeson and Humphrey (2006) identified and assessed 21 work characteristics, and showed their importance for outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job performance in a meta-analysis of over 259 studies (Humphrey et al. 2007). To help understand the relationships among these many work characteristics, and to bring synthesis to a rather overwhelming array of them, Parker and Knight (2020) employed a higher-order factor analytic approach in which they analyzed the interrelationships among 21 work characteristics. From this analysis, they identified five super-ordinate factors of work characteristic: Stimulating (encompassing, for example, task variety and job challenge), mastery-oriented (e.g., role clarity, feedback), agentic (e.g., timing control, method control, participation in decisionmaking), relational (e.g., social support, social contact, and teamwork), and tolerable (e.g., reasonable levels of work load, moderate levels of emotional demands, etc.). The first four super-ordinate factors (stimulating, mastery-oriented, agentic, relational, and tolerable) are all “job resources,” whereas tolerable refers to having in one’s job a level of job demands that do not exceed one’s ability to cope with those demands. Table 2 summarizes these higher-order factors, and for each, shows the work characteristics used in Parker and Knight (2020) that were shown to indicate the factors, the broader set of work characteristics used in the Thrive at Work framework. We also provide a link between the SMART dimensions and some common “psychosocial risks.”

Using the SMART Model to Improve Mental Health We have successfully used the SMART model to improve mental health in the work place (free resources are shown here: smartworkdesign.com); sometimes as part of

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Table 2 The SMART work design dimensions (based on Parker and Knight 2020)

Dimension Stimulating

Masteryoriented

Agentic

Definition from Parker and Knight (2020) A high degree of mental complexity and variety as a result of the nature and organization of one’s work tasks, responsibilities, and relationship When work is organized in a way that one can understand what one’s tasks, activities, relationships, and responsibilities are, how they “fit” in the wider system, and how well they are being executed A high degree of autonomy, control, and influence over one’s work tasks, activities, relationships, and responsibilities

Relational

Experiencing support, connection, and an opportunity to positively impact others as a result of the nature and organization of one’s tasks and activities

Tolerable

Work demands that are not overly taxing of one’s personal resources/coping ability and/or that do not significantly impair one’s ability to carry out non-work roles

Relevant work characteristics Task variety Skill variety Problem solving demands Information processing demands

Job feedback Feedback from others Role clarity Sufficient training Sufficient information

Decision-making autonomy Work method autonomy work scheduling autonomy Participative decisionmaking Flexible working Task significance Beneficiary contact Social support A lack of bullying and conflict

Low levels of role overload Low levels of family-work conflict Other cognitive, physical, emotional, and organizational demands at work including: Injustice demands; badly managed organizational change; emotional pressures

Example psychosocial risks addressed Repetitive work Excessive vigilance Low challenge Poor skill utilization Role ambiguity Inadequate feedback Lack of training Low reward & recognition Low control Exclusion from decisionmaking Excessive monitoring Bullying, harassment & incivility Excessive conflict Isolation/ absence of social contact Poor support Role overload Long work hours Work family conflict Injustice Poorly managed change Emotional pressure Poor environmental conditions Others, e.g., badly designed rosters

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the Thrive at Work process, but also sometimes directly when the client has a clear focus on work design. Typically, an initial step in any intervention process is a diagnosis, both from the perspective of workers (e.g., the degree to which individuals experience SMART work, their mental health and well-being, etc.) and from the perspective of organizational practices (e.g., policies that might influence work design, technological constraints, etc.). The diagnosis can be informal (e.g., in the case of a very small business, it might consistent of a focus group discussion) or more systematic and formal process (e.g., involving surveys, focus groups across the organization, collation of workers’ compensation data; see a free sample SMART diagnosis survey here: smartworkdesign.com.au). After diagnosis, if needed, efforts can be made to increase the extent to which work is SMART. These efforts can range from minor “tweaks” of the existing roles (such as redistributing a responsibility from one person to another) to major restructures of roles, activities, and responsibilities, according to need, as well as the readiness of the organization (for case examples, see smartworkdesign.com.au). Such change often involves not only a re-allocation of roles and responsibilities, but also changes to supporting human resource practices, information systems, and technological change (see Chaps. 8 and 9 in Parker and Wall 1998 for guidance). Discussing all the steps and processes involved in a major redesign is beyond the scope of this chapter, but an overarching central principle is the value of employee participation in any redesign process (see Parker 2015). Also important is the evaluation of any change (that is, measuring the impact on work design and mental health/well-being), as well as an openness to continue developing the work design. As the situation changes, and as redesigns “settle” and as people’s skill sets grow, there is often a need to make further adjustments. SMART work can also be fostered through individual-level strategies such as job crafting (the third set of strategies in the Prevent Harm pillar). These strategies are sometimes referred to as a “bottom-up” form of work redesign that is initiated by individuals themselves, rather than the more top down (management-led) strategies in the Job Resources and Job Demands categories. In fact, scholars have speculated that top down strategies will be most effective when combined with bottom-up strategies that seek to get workers’ ready and willing to embrace work redesigns (Parker 2014), although so far there are few empirical evaluations of this point.

Positioning for Digitalization and Other Future Work Challenges Current concerns about mental health are likely to increase as change accelerates in work tasks and organizational management. We have already witnessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of accelerating introduction of flexible working, as well as, in many industries, the implementation of online work practices and digital technologies. As with most technological changes there is potential for both positive and negative outcomes for mental health. On the one hand, such changes have the potential for enhancing mental health of employees by providing more flexible working conditions and access to new resources. On the other hand, they can

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increase psychosocial risks such as work overload and introduce new risks such as social isolation. Similar arguments about the mixed effects on work design as a result of digitalization-enabled changes such as automation and the algorithms have been identified (see Parker and Grote 2020). This wider research suggests that the ultimate impact of technological and other changes on employees’ mental health will depend greatly on how work is designed, how changes are implemented, and how organizations are managed. For example, our research on working from home during COVID-19 flexible working showed that, for some individuals and organizations, work demands became less tolerable as a result of children being at home and not in care, the speed of the transition meaning some individuals were not well set up for remote work, having highly micromanaging managers (Parker et al. 2020), and increased workloads. For other individuals and workplaces, work demands became more tolerable because of increased autonomy over work hours due to being at home. Importantly, the research also shows that each of these work design factors (e.g., workload, level of autonomy) correlates with psychological distress in the expected ways, consistent with prior research and theory linking work design with mental health. Although these findings are correlations and not causal paths, the implication which we can draw from the much broader research base is that psychological distress will be reduced if people’s work at home is designed to have plenty of job resources (e.g., a variety of tasks, autonomy over work hours and methods) and reasonable demands (e.g., good technological set ups to reduce IT hassles). This suggests the good sense of managers and organizations paying serious attention to the creation of SMART work at home (as well as in the office or the work site); especially crucial given evidence that, during COVID-19, many people have experienced increased levels of psychological distress. For example, in a study based on working from home in the early days on the pandemic in China, we showed the powerful role of social support from peers and leaders in mitigating against some of the challenges of remote work (Wang et al. 2020). Digital transformation more broadly is increasing uncertainty and complexity in many aspects of work (Griffin et al. 2019). Uncertainty is manifest at all levels of the economy from volatile market to insecurity of employment for many individuals. These fundamental uncertainties can act as stressors that negatively impact on mental health. Prolonged experience of insecurity can also lead to changes in wellbeing that are difficult to reverse. Our recent research shows that experiencing job insecurity over long periods of time can lead to declines in personality dimensions (e.g., agreeableness and conscientiousness) that would normally increase over the life course (Wu et al. 2020). In many roles, the complexity of work is increasing as technology creates more varied opportunities for communication and decision-making. Although there is widespread concern that technology might oversimplify work, many future jobs will involve both periods of intense interaction with others and periods of simple but critical tasks such as monitoring for failures. For example, at time, maintainers in highly automated environment will need to respond urgently to safety-critical incidents, often as members of a multidisciplinary team working with technological

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systems that monitor and analyze fault data. At other times, maintainers will have a passive monitoring role that might not require application of skills but still demand high levels of vigilance. As these patterns of work become more common, we will need a new understanding of the impact of work on mental health. New work characteristics, such as variation in workload, are likely to emerge in the future as important aspects of work that should be assessed. We draw two major implications for mental health from the above points. First, digital transformation can have significant negative impact on mental health. Unpredictable demands combined with varying periods of underload and overload will expose more people to psychosocial risks. Second, and less obviously, positive mental health will be an important resource for individual working in future organizations. Uncertain and complex task environments require greater levels of adaption and innovation from individuals if organizations are to operate effectively in dynamic environments. Mitigating mental health illness will be insufficient to develop the motivational attributes and work skills appropriate in these environments. It will be more important than ever to consider how work is designed to prevent mental health problems and to promote thriving at work. Achieving good work, in turn, requires attention to broader issues such as the need to proactively consider work design when designing, procuring, and implementing new technologies (Parker and Grote 2020). An example is the work we have done with the Australian Defence force to help proactively design more human-centered systems for the operation of the future submarines (Boeing et al. 2020). We draw similar conclusions from a review of collaborative technologies such as Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams (Desai et al. in prep). There is a risk that organizations will adopt technology based on superficial features of the technology, without considering the goals and processes of collaboration itself. As the requirements for human collaboration become more demanding, it is important that the technology supports and enhances these requirements, rather than adding further demands. Because technology is intrinsic to much current disruption, organizations can easily be drawn to technical solutions for improving mental health. For example, smartphone apps that monitor physical signals such as heart rate and skin conductance offer the promise objective and immediate insights into employee health. Although there are certainly potential gains from this technology, the promise will not be realized in the absence of the imperatives we have outlined in this chapter. The conditions for SMART work and thriving individuals can be supported—but will not be created—through monitoring and data analytics. It is crucial that the mental health conversation is about the experience of individuals and their work. This will become ever more important as people strive to create and contribute to a future embedded in technological innovation and change. It is also relevant to note that there are exceptionally well-validated methods that already exist for assessing mental health and well-being— they are as simple as asking people! Models such as Thrive at Work and SMART are also readily adaptable to future developments.

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Summary It has never been more important to consider mental health in the context of work. Not only is there a mental health “crisis,” accentuated by COVID but already in existence pre-pandemic, there is vast and rapid change occurring in work. Against this backdrop, it is vital that we consider how to include individuals with mental health issues in work, and how to support them effectively. But just as important, work—when it is poorly designed—can cause mental health issues and/or exacerbate already-present conditions. And when work is well-designed, it can play a protective role and promote thriving, giving people meaning, purpose, a sense of achievement, the opportunity for connection with others, and many more such ingredients for mental health and well-being. We have proposed the Thrive at Work framework as a framework that synthesizes organization’s approaches to mental health, and that deliberately brings to the fore— much more so than is currently the case in many practitioners’ minds—the role of well-designed (or SMART) work. We hope that the comprehensiveness and structure of this framework will help to foster more strategic and non-siloed approaches in organizations to achieving the better mental health and well-being of their employees.

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Workplace Well-Being Initiatives Evaluating the Costs and Benefits

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Emike Nasamu, Sara Connolly, Mark Bryan, and Andrew Bryce

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evaluation Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implementing CEA in the Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goal Setting and Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONNECT+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flexible Working Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mental Health First Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

There is an extensive academic and practitioner literature on what sorts of workplace well-being interventions work and for which types of workers (see Daniels et al., Job design, employment practices and well-being: a systematic review of intervention studies. Ergonomics 60:1177–1196. 10.1080/ 00140139.2017.1303085, 2017; Watson et al., Well-being through learning: A systematic review of learning interventions in the workplace and their

E. Nasamu (*) Social and Political Science University, University of Chester, Chester, UK e-mail: [email protected] S. Connolly Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK e-mail: [email protected] M. Bryan · A. Bryce Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: m.l.bryan@sheffield.ac.uk; a.m.bryce@sheffield.ac.uk © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_38

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impact on well-being. Eur J Work Organ Psychol 27(2): 247–268. 10.1080/ 1359432X.2018.1435529, 2018; Whitmore et al., Promising practices for health and wellbeing at work. A review of the evidence landscape. RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Cambridge, UK, 2018). However, few of these studies include an assessment of the costs of the interventions nor do they provide an approach for evaluating these against the benefits in terms of any improvements in employee well-being. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the use of a well-being cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate workplace interventions and illustrates the technique using four case study examples of workplace interventions. We explore ways in which costs of interventions might be calculated, how the well-being and productivity benefits of interventions might be measured, and finally, how the cost-effectiveness of the interventions might be assessed. Keywords

Workplace · Well-being · Interventions · Evaluation · Cost · Productivity · Costeffectiveness · Case study

Introduction Economic appraisals are widely used in welfare economics to inform judgments across investment choices such as the economic impact of hosting a World Cup or the Olympic Games (De Nooij et al. 2013; Preuss 2004; Rose and Spiegel 2011). Traditional welfare economics has based economic judgments on the concepts of social welfare, and government policy more generally has focused on economic indicators such as GDP, but “During the past decade, there has been growing recognition that the measurement of economic progress needs to extend beyond GDP. The measurement of well-being as a holistic indicator of progress is an appealing alternative generating a good deal of policy interest” (Coyle 2019, quoted on https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/research/research-projects/measuringwellbeing/). This is explicitly recognized in the UK Treasury Green Book (HMT 2018) and in guidelines offered by equivalent departments in Iceland and New Zealand where well-being budgets and policy are being pursued (BBC 2019; The Treasury 2019). The literature on well-being and policy decision-making is in early stages. There are ongoing conversations about how to measure well-being and about what aspects of subjective well-being should be considered for the purpose of making policy (Helliwell and Barrington-Leigh 2010; Helliwell et al. 2012). For example, Senik (2011) noted that the three definitions of subjective well-being, life evaluation, affect, and eudaimonia, although related are quite distinct from one another. There are also ongoing discussions in the literature about how well-being might be used for policy-making purposes and what considerations to keep in mind (Stiglitz et al. 2009; O’Donnell et al. 2014). O’Donnell et al. (2014) considered how well-being might inform policy decision-making which is in its early stages. There are ongoing

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conversations about how to measure policy evaluation and management. In a similar vein, Deaton (2018) explored how well-being-centered policy might be implemented, considering some of the measurement issues related to well-being and the sensitivity of decision-making to these measurement issues. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the UK Office for National Statistics have provided valuable resources to assist in measuring and benchmarking well-being at more macrolevels (OECD 2020; ONS 2020). In the UK, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics identifies improved workplace well-being as one of the key priority areas for government and private sector investments in the UK (APPG 2019). It recommends that employers routinely measure worker well-being and publish the results as standard in annual accounts and that employers put policies in place to train managers on how to promote well-being, address the management of mental health problems, and give people more control over how they do their jobs. Work is important not just for the income it generates but also because it provides an avenue for some degree of self-realization. Over and beyond pecuniary remuneration, other aspects of work which have strong effects on workplace well-being include work-life balance, job variety, the need to learn new things and individual autonomy (De Neve and Ward 2017), as well as managerial competence (Artz et al. 2017). Although people spend most of their time at work, literature has demonstrated that people are not necessarily happy at work (Kahneman et al. 2004; Bryson and McKerron 2017). Kahneman et al. (2004) reported findings in which work, when compared with other activities in the day, is associated with one of the lowest levels of positive affect (the average of happy feelings like warm/friendly and enjoying myself) and one of the highest levels of negative affect (the average of negative emotions like frustrated, depressed, hassled, and worried). Furthermore, Kahneman et al. (2004) reported that interaction with one’s boss is seen as one of the worst interactions in a day; it is associated with the highest level of negative affect and one of the lowest levels of positive affect and is ranked worse than being alone. Since we know from literature that people value things other than money in the workplace, the evidence indicates that improving well-being at work does not necessarily have to do with offering people higher pay. Improving people’s nonpecuniary workplace experience can yield higher levels of overall well-being. The benefits of improved workplace well-being do not only accrue to the employees but also to the employers as improved workplace happiness can lead to improvements in key indicators such as turnover rate, sickness absences, presenteeism, productivity (Oswald et al. 2015), and organizational performance (Edmans 2011).

Evaluation Methods Since employers are faced with limited resources and a plethora of possible workplace interventions, it is important to have some method of determining which interventions yield good returns to well-being. While the academic literature can offer a good starting point for determining which well-being interventions are worth

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considering, in practice, there is limited evidence that providers of well-being interventions are collecting the data or undertaking rigorous evaluations themselves (Whitmore et al. 2018). A practical and intuitive method of evaluating the effectiveness of well-being interventions is essential. The approach usually recommended by economists and undertaken by central governments is to conduct a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) where the monetary costs and the monetary benefits of each intervention are considered and the intervention which yields the higher monetary net benefit is chosen. Businesses might undertake a similar exercise, known as a return on investment (ROI), where the ROI provides guidance on the net gain for every dollar, euro, pound, etc. spent. These are both good methods when the costs and benefits of the intervention are easily expressed in monetary terms or there are well-established methods to convert non-tangible costs or benefits into monetary terms. With well-being interventions, however, the CBA will not suffice as benefits are expressed in terms of well-being, often life satisfaction or job satisfaction, or measures of mental health, and there are no well-established or reliable metrics for converting well-being into monetary values (Clark et al. 2017; O’Donnell et al. 2014). A cost-effectiveness approach still evaluates the costs of interventions in monetary terms but it differs in that the benefits are measured in terms of the broad objectives of the intervention. In the field of medicine, health economists have adopted a cost-effectiveness approach which weighs the costs of a new drug treatment or medical procedure against the health benefits of additional years of life in perfect health, known as a quality-adjusted life years (QALY); see Bryce et al. 2020. In the UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) set a threshold of £20,000–£30,000 per QALY when recommending treatments for provision by the NHS. In well-being economics, a similar approach is taken, but the benefits of the costeffectiveness approach (CEA) are expressed in non-monetary well-being units. While the CBA allows an absolute comparison of costs and benefits in monetary terms, the CEA provides a relative measure, normally expressed as the cost-effectiveness ratio (CER): CER ¼

Net cost per participant Change in well-being per participant

The net cost is a monetary value calculated from the costs of delivery and participation in the intervention minus any benefits in productivity. The well-being benefits are captured from any changes in well-being for participants in the intervention. The changes in well-being for participants can be estimated using a difference in difference approach or a randomized control trial. Thus, the CER is measured in terms of costs of an intervention measured in pounds/dollars and well-being benefits (Layard 2016; Peasgood and Wright 2017). The CER can be used to rank different interventions (assuming that well-being is measured in the same way) where an intervention with a lower CER is more

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cost-effective. An intervention with a negative CER actually saves money. As with a QALY, the CER can been assessed against an agreed threshold; any intervention with a CER below the threshold is considered to be cost-effective. We therefore propose evaluating workplace interventions using CEA. The What Works Centre for Wellbeing (WWCW – https://whatworkswellbeing.org) currently recommends that well-being benefits should be measured using life satisfaction (LS) as a common currency. Thus, the well-being benefits can be measured by the gain to life satisfaction over the number of years that the benefits of the intervention are expected to last. Since life satisfaction is usually measured on a 0–10 scale, we assume that a 1 point improvement in LS is equivalent to a 10pp improvement in quality of health, hence is equal to a tenth of a QALY and is sustained for 1 year. Therefore, an extra unit of life satisfaction over a year converts to a threshold benefit of between £2,000 and £3,000 (based on the NICE threshold for health interventions). Using a common currency of life satisfaction enables different interventions to be compared against each other and also against a CER threshold such as that proposed above. However, this presents a challenge for many workplace interventions, as employers, academics, and providers may use other metrics: perhaps the most common is job satisfaction, but others include mental health, self-esteem, and social support. Layard (2016) proposed a set of exchange rates to convert between life satisfaction and well-being measures, based on observed empirical correlations (see Table 1). It should be noted that the measures considered are all likely to be closely related to life satisfaction: some are alternative measures of well-being (such as Table 1 Conversion rates of different measures of well-being into life satisfaction Well-being measure Life satisfaction (ONSa) Satisfaction with life scaleb Worthwhile (ONS) Happy (ONS) Anxious (ONS) General Health Questionnairec Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scaled,e Satisfaction with job (BHPSf) Satisfaction with income (BHPS) Satisfaction with amount of leisure time (BHPS) Satisfaction with use of leisure time (BHPS) Satisfaction with social life (BHPS) Satisfaction with health (BHPS)

Range 0–10 5–35 0–10 0–10 0–10 0–36 7–35 1–7 1–7 1–7 1–7 1–7 1–7

Source: Bryce et al. 2020 Note: based on Tables 1 and 2 in Layard (2016) and author’s own calculations a Office of National Statistics (ONS 2011) b Pavot and Diener (2008) c Goldberg and Williams (1988) d Kammann and Flett (1983) e Stewart-Brown et al. (2009) f British Household Panel Survey (Taylor et al. 2018)

Conversion rate 1 0.24 0.75 0.72 0.35 0.21 0.25 0.49 0.61 0.57 0.62 0.60 0.63

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worthwhileness or quality of life), while others are domain satisfactions that we would expect to feed into life satisfaction. Where we have these types of measures, we propose using these exchange rates. Other types of measures, such as self-esteem or social support, appear much less directly related to life satisfaction (they may capture very different dimensions of well-being), and it is doubtful that they can be meaningfully converted to life satisfaction. In these cases, we suggest reporting and considering the benefits and costs separately (see case studies 2–4). This can still provide useful information for comparing across interventions, provided that all report the same outcome measure(s).

Implementing CEA in the Workplace Although provision of a workplace intervention will involve monetary costs in terms of delivery and participation, many interventions will yield savings since absence rates and employee turnover may fall and productivity may rise. It is important to ensure that any estimates of the productivity benefits can be related to the intervention rather than other workplace or economic factors. It is recommended that these are estimated by any changes that occur over time among employees who have benefitted from the intervention (a treatment group) in comparison with a group working in the same organization who have not been part of the intervention (a control group). Therefore, the total costs should be calculated net of these cost savings. However, it is often difficult to accurately capture productivity, and unmeasured gains in productivity lead to underestimation of the CER. Similarly, we will underestimate effects if there are unmeasured positive spillovers to the well-being of other workers (not receiving the intervention), family members, or the wider community. Finally, it is important to have an understanding of the duration of any effects of an intervention. Knowing how long effects last may be crucial (noting longer-term effects and costs should be “discounted,” i.e., adjusted for present value over the lifetime of a project) and may alter the acceptability decision. For many organizations undertaking a randomized control trial is administratively difficult and expensive. Pilot studies are often used as a good second best, as these at least allow a contemporaneous control for changes that may arise outside of the intervention. Furthermore, interventions are rarely a single item initiative; rather they form part of a bundle of practices or organizational change. As a consequence, it is hard in practice to establish causality or to attribute well-being or productivity improvements to a particular intervention (Patey et al. 2021). In such cases, it is possible to still be guided by the principles of CEA using the costs of the intervention alongside any before and after changes in key metrics. Here the final decisionmaking will not be made in terms of a CER, rather it will be based on an assessment of key information which reflects costs and outcomes. Bryce et al. (2020) have developed a cost-effectiveness calculator which can be used to evaluate workplace well-being interventions. The calculator provides detailed guidance on estimating and interpreting the CER. It is of most use when

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interventions are randomized control trials, where the calculator can use before and after measures for both a treatment and control group to calculate the CER. It is still very effective when the treatment and control groups are not chosen randomly, as it uses a difference-in-difference calculation which takes account of level differences in well-being or sickness absence/productivity before the intervention. This provides not only estimates for the CER but also confidence intervals which allow us to assess the upper and lower values which are compared against the threshold of £2,500 per year of life satisfaction. The calculator provides the user with the flexibility to either use total costs of an intervention where they are already known or follow prompts to enter relevant costs and changes in productivity. It also allows users to provide details on a range of well-being measures which are then converted into life satisfaction using the conversion rates in Table 1. Daniels et al. (work in progress) used the calculator in their evaluation of a randomized control trial of two mindfulness apps across five police forces in England and Wales (Fitzhugh et al. 2019a,b).

Case Studies We use four case studies to illustrate how a cost-effectiveness approach might be used to evaluate a well-being intervention. The case studies cover a range of interventions in different organizational settings. They are a mix of workplace interventions and human resource management (HRM) practices and vary in terms of scale, scope, and therefore cost. None capture the full set of information or data required to conduct a comprehensive cost-effectiveness evaluation; only one case study uses data collected in a randomized control trial, with the others using before and after comparisons. The examples are chosen to illustrate how the technique might be applied in more real-world business situations and how they might inform decision-making. The first case study uses data collected in a randomized control trial and provides the best evidence of a causal effect of a well-being intervention. The second case study uses data collected where a new HRM tool was piloted in part of a workforce; here we can have some confidence in the results because we are able to contrast the experience of the intervention group with those working elsewhere in the same organization. The final two case studies simply use before and after data. In each case, the costs of the intervention are split into three types: participation, delivery, and other costs. For participation and delivery costs, we estimate the amount of time that was spent engaging with the intervention both by participants and those involved in delivering the intervention and the overall costs of this time. Other costs might include planning, guidance, travel, room hire, or any other costs incurred in the intervention. In making the final estimate of time costs, we add 25% in order to account for non-wage labor costs (National Insurance, pensions, etc.). As noted above, it is important to take account of any impact that the intervention has upon productivity. Productivity benefits might include direct measurable improvements in output or be more indirect, accruing because there are fewer days lost to absences or lower levels of staff turnover. In these cases, we estimate a pro

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rata value using 8 hours for 5 days per week evaluated at hourly rates of pay within the organization. (For simplicity, we assume a standard working pattern of full-time work; obviously an organization would be able to collect a full breakdown of the staff involved and their associated paygrades.) We only use hourly wages to estimate productivity savings based on changes in days lost or staff turnover; in the case of staff turnover, we recognize that there may be further cost savings (National Insurance or pensions) or costs accrued (advertising and recruitment) and there may similarly be other costs/savings associated with absence rates which will be difficult to accurately assess and are not included in the examples below. Furthermore, while in a randomized control trial or a pilot study, it is possible to associate changes to a particular group of participants, it will not be possible where data is collected at a more aggregate before and after basis, meaning that any results should be treated with caution. Total costs  Productivity benefits The net costs are estimated as follows: Number of participants: Finally, as mentioned above, well-being data is not necessarily collected in all interventions. We only have data on life satisfaction in the first case study. The other case studies illustrate how the general principles might be applied where other measures might be used as imperfect proxies (employee engagement, feeling of control, confidence).

Goal Setting and Planning This first case study is an example of a stand-alone well-being initiative that could be offered to staff within an organization. The intervention is a specially designed online version of a clinically proven well-being intervention on goal setting and planning (GAP) for working age adults (Oliver and MacLeod 2018). The program helped employees: • • • •

Identify goals linked to their personal values Develop steps to move toward selected goals Anticipate and deal with obstacles Maintain motivation

The case study uses data collected as part of a randomized control trial on the effectiveness of the online training with 330 public sector employees across the UK. There were 158 employees in the intervention and 149 in the control group. Participants in the intervention reported improved well-being – greater life satisfaction, more positive emotions, less negative emotions, and a greater sense of purpose – 5 weeks after starting the program and then 3 months later. The intervention was an online version of an existing face to face goal setting and planning training course which the research team adapted and piloted with working-age adults. There were 6 online modules, each taking 30 min to complete, and participants had the option of follow-up sessions with the research team. There

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Table 2 Estimated costs for the goal setting intervention Participation costs

Delivery costs

Other costs Total costs

Goal setting – randomized control trial intervention Time spent by employees engaging with intervention and time spent following up with the research team. There were 6 online modules, and each module took around 30 min to complete, so this is estimated as involving 3 h of work time. Oliver and MacLeod allocated 30 min of work time for phone conversations between the research team and the participants.a The participation costs are estimated at 3.5 h of work time. 158 employees  3.5 h  £12.48b  1.25 This involved preparation, focus groups, and telephone conversations with the intervention group. Oliver and MacLeod estimated that this involved 75 h of work time for the research team. 1 researcher  75 h  £28.12c  1.25 There were 2 focus groups; 1 involved 30 min of work-time for 40 national government administrative employees and the second 2 h of work time for another group of 10 national government administrative employees, 50 participants in total engaged in 0.5 h of work time. 50 employees  0.5 h  £12.48  1.25 Travel expenses of £300 Cost of website hosting the intervention of £370 £12,323.05

a

12 of 158 employees actually took up the offer of the telephone conversation with the researcher, so this is an overestimate b The average hourly wage for national government administrative occupations, ASHE 2019 c The average hourly wage rate for higher education and teaching professionals, ASHE 2019

was some travel on the part of the research team in setting up the intervention and the costs of hosting the tool on a website. Estimates for each of the cost elements are shown in Table 2. There are no productivity benefits recorded as part of this randomized control trial; therefore, the actual overall costs are £12,323.05; there were 158 participants and so the net cost per person per year is £77.99. Participants reported a 0.48 increase in life satisfaction after 5 weeks and a 0.44 increase in life satisfaction after 3 months. This compares with a decline in life satisfaction of 0.1 for the control group, so the difference is 0.44 – (0.1) ¼ 0.45. CER ¼

Net cost per participant 77:99 ¼ ¼ £173:31 Change in life satisfaction per participant 0:45

This intervention costs £173.31 per extra unit of life satisfaction for a year. It is deemed to be cost-effective since the CER falls below the threshold of £2,500. However, there are limitations: the study was carried out using waitlist control protocols, which means that the control group accessed the training after 5 weeks, and so we have no long-term follow-up on well-being for the control group. We therefore assume that the average life satisfaction for the control group remains the same for a year. For the intervention group, the last follow-up is at 3 months; we therefore assume that any well-being benefits that are apparent at 3 months persist for a year. A further drawback is that this study did not capture any productivity

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benefits such as reduced sickness, staff turnover, or increased effectiveness at work. Including these may reduce the net cost per participant, hence the CER, and strengthen the case for this sort of well-being intervention.

CONNECT+ The second case study illustrates a significant investment in HRM. CONNECT+ is a personal development program, taking a “whole person” perspective by incorporating employee well-being using a well-being diagnostic tool and coaching – leading to personalized well-being plans and resources. The case study organization (Graham, a construction company, https://whatworkswellbeing.org/practice-examples/ graham/) rolled out the initiative to a pilot group of 400 from their 1,500 employees, so we treat the remaining 1,100 employees as a control group. Estimates for each of the cost elements are shown in Table 3. Graham reports that rates of staff sickness fell by 0.8 days per person per annum (from 1 day per person per annum before the intervention to 0.2 days per person per annum after the intervention). For the 400 employees, we record this as 320 days of absence, which we evaluate pro rata at the average rates of pay (320  8 h  £14.23). Graham reports that rates of staff turnover for the pilot group fell to 1% against the company average of 10%. This amounts to 9% of 400 ¼ 36 fewer people leaving the company per year, evaluated at the average salary (36  40 h a week  52 weeks £14.23). However, this estimate may be considered to be conservative in the sense that we only count the productivity benefits in the first year, when perhaps we would expect the benefits of staff retention to last longer than that. The net costs per participant of CONNECT+ are estimated as follows: Total costs  Productivity benefits £61, 279:53  £36, 428:8  £1, 065, 542:4 ¼ Number of participants 400 £1, 040, 691:7 ¼ ¼ £2, 601:7 400 The productivity benefits associated with CONNECT+ are substantial and result in significant cost savings per employee (a monetary gain for the organization). Since this intervention clearly delivers value for money, other types of evaluations, e.g., CEA, might not be deemed necessary. However, Graham did not record staff well-being (life satisfaction), but we noted that the engagement index rose from an average of 88% in 2017 to 95% in 2018. This is a possible indication of improvements in well-being which would reinforce the economic or business case. Furthermore, there were other indications of improved health and well-being within the pilot group: • Uptake on the Employee Assistance Program rose from 5% to 10%. • Participation in well-being activities rose from 20% to 50%. • Risk of heart attack fell from 60% to 50%.

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Table 3 Estimated costs for CONNECT+

Participation costs

Delivery costs

Other costs

Total costs

CONNECT+ – before and after pilot to be compared with rest of the organization Time spent by employees engaging with personality profiling exercise and workshop, Graham estimated that this involved 2 h of work time for 400 employees. 400 employees  2 h  £14.23 per houra 1.25 Time spent by employees engaging with personal well-being trainer, Graham estimated that this involved 2 h of work time for 400 employees. 400 employees  2 h  £14.23 per hour 1.25 Facilitator time spent training employees on how to engage with personality profiling exercise (DISC workshop), Graham estimate that this involved a 1-hour workshop led by one external facilitator (costs included in the external consultant’s fees) with two HR professionals. 2 HR professionals  1 h  £15.61 per hourb  1.25 Meetings to discuss the possibility and planning of the initiative (DISC personality profiling), Graham estimated that this involved their internal wellbeing team (6 people) working with the external consultants for 2 h. 6 HR professionals  2 h  £15.61 per hour  1.25 Meetings to discuss the possibility and planning of the initiative (personal wellbeing coach), Graham estimated that this involved their internal well-being team (6 people) working with the external consultants for 2 h. 6 HR professionals  2 h  £15.61 per hour  1.25 Preparation of formal documentation for the initiative (Connect þ), Graham estimate that this involved 2 HR staff working for 2 h per week for 4 weeks. 2 HR professionals  8 h  £15.61 per hour  1.25 External consultant’s fees ¼ £32,000 £61,279.53

a

We do not have details on the staff composition for the intervention and so use the average hourly wage of £14.23 for the construction sector, ASHE 2019 b The average hourly wage rate for HR professionals, ASHE 2019

• Risk of obesity fell from 60% to 45%. • Percentage of smokers fell from 20% to 15%. These figures might also have longer-term implications for improved productivity. In addition, as a construction company, the reduced sickness absence, the reduction in staff turnover, and increase in staff engagement could imply that company health and safety indicators are performing well. For example, we might anticipate that there are fewer work-related accidents. These types of gains would be recorded as further negative costs which are not captured in this analysis.

Flexible Working Hours The third case study illustrates the costs involved in a minor change in HR processes. An office with a workforce of 160 employees, which supports students on taught programs in higher education, introduced a program of flexible working hours (flexi-

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time) as a first step in their plan to build a healthy work force and a good working environment. The flexi-time scheme was adopted in response to feedback from staff surveys in which staff expressed dissatisfaction with not having enough control over their workload and work scheduling. The flexi-time scheme is an opt-in scheme, where eligible staff members are given the option to elect into the program (132 employees opted in, costs are estimated for this group). Eligibility is dependent upon staff grade. The scheme gives employees the option to work flexibly around the core work hours (10 am to 6 pm); the flexi-time options range from an earlier start at 7:30 am to a later finish at 6:30 pm. The scheme is managed with employees being trusted to log in their work hours into a flexi-time spreadsheet. The main costs of this intervention relate to the planning and design of the policy and the associated recording system which involved senior administrators and HR personnel. There were some costs associated with the communication of the new policy, team meetings to ensure that staff were fully briefed, and time spent engaging with the flexi-time intervention. Estimates for each of the cost elements are shown in Table 4. For this case study, we have before and after sickness absence and staff turnover rates for the office, and so we use this average to evaluate changes for the participants. However, since there is no control group, we are implicitly assuming that the counterfactual is zero; i.e., sickness rates and staff turnover would have remained the same in the absence of this intervention. This is likely to overestimate any productivity gains since there may have been a reduction in sickness absence within the organization or within the sector, due to other factors outside of the intervention, but which we can’t measure without a control group. The university teaching support office reports that rates of staff sickness fell from 0.84 days per person before the Table 4 Estimated costs for the flexi-time intervention Participation costs

Delivery costs

Other costs

Total costs a

Flexi-time – before and after comparison 5 min for those employees who engaged with the intervention 132 employees  5 mins  £12.71a 1.25 ¼ £174.90 1 h for 82 employees who attended briefing on the intervention 82 employees  1 h  £12.71  1.25 ¼ £1302.78 30 min for 1 employee (grade 8) who prepared newsletter; 5 h, for 3 employees (1 grade 8 and 2 grade 6) who prepared formal documentation; and 2 h for 3 employees (1 grade 8, 1 grade 6 and 1 grade 4) who trained others on how to engage with the interventionb ¼ £546.95 7 h of work time for 19 employees (5 grade 8, 6 grade 6, 8 grade 4) who met to discuss plans, 8 h for 7 employees (2 grade 9, 5 grade 8) who debriefed and developed the policy and recording system for the schemeb ¼ £4,819.63 £6,844.26

We use a weighted average (based on the staff composition of the office) of pay grades when estimating the participation costs (27 grade 6 at £18.68, 7 grade 5 at £12.68, and 98 grade 4 at £11.07). The delivery costs and other costs are based on the following pay grades: £33.67 for grade 9 employees, £25.50 for grade 8 employees, £18.68 for grade 6 employees, and £11.07 for grade 4 employees. b As before we add 25% to account for any non-wage staff costs.

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intervention to 0.5 days per person per month after the start of the intervention. There are 132 participants; we record this as 45 days of absence, which are evaluated pro rata at the average rates of pay (45  8 h working day  £12.71 ¼ £4,575.6). Rates of staff turnover remained unchanged at 0.6% with 1 employee leaving the service in the 6 months before and after the intervention. The net costs per employee of Flexi-time are estimated as follows: Total costs  Productivity benefits £6, 844:26  £4, 575:60 £2, 268:52 ¼ ¼ Number of employees 132 132 ¼ £17:19 In this case study, staff well-being (life satisfaction) is not recorded, so we do not have information on any changes in well-being. We therefore have to assume a zero well-being impact. However, we know from staff feedback that they feel more in control of their work and that this is likely to boost individual well-being and staff engagement with their work, which may yield further productivity gains which are not captured in this analysis. This is a relatively minor change in HR process; although there were set-up costs to develop the system and brief the team, the ongoing costs are low. The net costs of the intervention were £17.19 per participant, and the changes were welcomed by the staff. Although we cannot conduct a full cost-effectiveness analysis, the analysis suggests that this intervention was worth pursuing.

Mental Health First Aid The final case study illustrates the costs of an increasingly common mental health initiative. A local authority in England, with a workforce of 7,561 employees, working in a range of occupations, introduced a program of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) England Champions as part of their healthy workforce plan. The MHFA program provides mental health training to managers and employees on how to spot the signs of mental ill-health and how to offer support and signpost individuals to expert help. The local authority aimed to train 300 managers and supervisors in the first year, and by the end of the year, they had successfully trained 278. While there is a broad consensus that MHFA training helps increase participants’ knowledge of mental health issues, reduces stigma around mental ill-health, and increases supportive behavior toward those who suffer from mental ill-health, the evidence of the longterm efficiency and cost-effectiveness of MHFA programs is weak (Bell et al. 2018; Bevan and Wilson 2019; Boocook and Phillimore 2018). In addition to the MHFA program, the local council authority also ran a campaign to promote awareness of existing well-being measures: • Team well-being questionnaire • In-house mediation • One-to-one support from in-house well-being officers

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Table 5 Estimated costs for MHFA Participation cost Delivery cost Other cost Total costs

MHFA – before and after comparison 47 h for grade L, 25 h for grade E, and 208 h for grade H ¼ £4,538.96a Lumpsum paid to external facilitator ¼ £8,579.40 30 h for grade L, 20 h for 2 grade E employees ¼ £1,209.857 and logistical costs of £8,286.935 £22,615.17

a

Hourly wage rates were provided by the local authority. Grade L, grade E and grade H were evaluated at hourly rates of £20.61, £8.74 and £11.75 per hour respectively

• Employee assistance program • A video about 5 ways to well-being • Email to all new employees outlining well-being support for them The main costs include tendering for MHFA training delivery, the fee paid to the external facilitator, training materials, room hire for the training sessions, travel, accommodation and subsistence while attending the MHFA trainer course, and the time spent by participants undertaking the training. Estimates for each of the cost elements are shown in Table 5. One of the aims of this initiative was to spread awareness of good practice and to achieve a snowball effect across the organization. Those trained as mental health first aiders were selected across different departments and in different roles. Therefore, while the costs apply to those who participated in the training, the benefit is intended to be across the organization. The local authority was able to provide before and after sickness absence and staff turnover rates for their staff. Since there is no control group, we are again implicitly assuming that the counterfactual for these values is zero. The local authority reported that rates of staff sickness absences due to mental health increased from 12,355 to 15,448.60 days per annum. This increase of 3093.6 days is evaluated at the average hourly rate of pay (3093.6  8 h working day  £9.67 ¼ £239,320.90). The local authority reported that rates of staff turnover fell from 10.29% before the intervention to 10.13% after the intervention ¼ 0.16% of 7561 employees giving us 12.09 fewer employees leaving the local authority per year. We evaluated this cost at the average annual salary of employees of the local council authority (12.09  £20,111.36 ¼ £243,146.34). The net costs per employee of MHFA are estimated as follows: Total costs  Productivity benefits £22, 615:17 þ £239, 320:90  £243, 146:34 ¼ Number of employees 7561 £18, 789:73 ¼ £2:49 ¼ 7561 Staff well-being (life satisfaction) is not recorded, so we are not able to calculate the cost-effectiveness ratio. We therefore have to assume a zero well-being impact;

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however, we know that the key indicator of interest to the organization – staff engagement – has improved, and it is likely that well-being has also improved. In the period following the implementation of the MHFA training, the local authority noted increased uptake of in-house mediation (from 7 to 24 requests), increased demand for one-to-one support (from 92 to 135 support sessions), and increased take-up of the employee assistance program (marginal increase from 6% to 6.2% usage by eligible employees). The local authority regards the increased take-up of employee assistance programs as a positive development indicating greater awareness among employees and support from supervisors and managers. Furthermore, managers reported improved confidence in dealing with employees who experience mental ill-health. However, the MHFA was one of a number of initiatives being implemented at the same time, and it is impossible to accurately assign benefits to one single component. Although the upfront costs look significant, given the size of the workforce, the cost per person was just under £3. The estimated impact upon productivity was mixed: higher sickness days (possibly because of greater acceptance or understanding of mental health issues and less presenteeism) but lower staff turnover. The net costs of the intervention were £2.49, and it achieved one key objective which was to improve the confidence of management in responding to employees with mental health problems. This initiative was supplemented with a general awareness raising exercise which has not been costed – there would be relatively minor additional costs associated with the publicity campaign and through the increased uptake of the in-house mediation and employee assistance program. Although we cannot conduct a full cost-effectiveness analysis, the analysis suggests that this combination of interventions was worth pursuing.

Conclusions CEA offers a useful tool for decision-makers when considering which workplace interventions to invest in. Not only does this approach allow us to consider like with like values – costs in monetary terms and benefits in well-being terms – but also it encourages organizations to reflect on the full range of costs, including any savings. The comparison of the CER against an acceptability threshold-here we used a value based on health decision-making in the UK but others might be applied-is also a strength, since different thresholds might apply in different sectors. The CEA is currently developed using life satisfaction as the main well-being metric, while other metrics may also be used. Therefore, the final calculations will depend upon the reliability or validity of the exchange rate. The absence of longerterm follow-up on the benefits of interventions does mean that simplifying assumptions needs to be made; i.e., the benefits are sustained for at least 1 year. Finally, the approach does best suit simple rather than more complex or multifaceted interventions. The method is most appropriate for data collected in interventions where there is a treatment and control group, so that it is possible to compare the difference that an

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intervention makes to the treatment group with any changes that arise due to other common factors in the control group. In the absence of a control group, the implicit counterfactual is that well-being and productivity will not change in the absence of the intervention. Like any tool, the value does depend upon the quality of the information that it utilizes. The reliability of productivity measures is key to evaluating any savings. Direct reliable measures of productivity are hard to obtain, especially in service sector or white collar occupations. Here we have used indirect measure of days of sickness absence or staff turnover. For these to be reliable measures of changes in productivity, we would need evidence collected in a randomized control trial or in a pilot study (as in our CONNECT+ example). In the flexi-time and MHFA case studies, we only had before and after measures which may be affected by other factors. In our set of case studies, we only had evidence on changes in life satisfaction in the goal setting and planning (GAP) case study. The other cases took the general framework of the CEA and compared the monetary costs with a benefit that was defined by the main metric of interest to the organization – employee engagement, control over workload, and confidence. Although a full CEA cannot be conducted to give us clear evaluations in these cases, the approach still allows the organization to assess whether the net costs are acceptable in terms of their own goals. Taking a well-being lens to inform policy decision-making has been gathering momentum. Governments in New Zealand and Iceland have been leading the way in developing well-being budgets. International organizations (OECD) and parliamentary bodies (the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics) also recommend that employers measure well-being and implement initiatives which enhance employee well-being. Clearly, assessing whether a workplace intervention improves well-being is a crucial step that needs to be taken before any initiative is scaled up or rolled out. But, is what we spend on improving well-being worth it relative to the number of people helped and how much their well-being improves? This chapter illustrates how CEA can be used to inform exactly this sort of question. Integrating CEA into business decision-making – as illustrated in these case studies – can help us develop our collective knowledge about what works (or what doesn’t) and how much it costs. The resulting evidence can help to design better initiatives which will improve well-being in the future. Acknowledgments This work is part of the Learning at Work and Wellbeing program of the What Works Centre for Wellbeing (www.whatworkswellbeing.org). We acknowledge the support of our funding partners, administered through Economic and Social Research Council Grant ES/N003586/1.

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Oswald AJ, Proto E, Sgroi D (2015) Happiness and productivity. J Labor Econ 33(4):789–822 ONS (2020) Well-being. Office for National Statistics https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulatio nandcommunity/wellbeing. Accessed 3 Feb 2020 ONS (2011). Initial investigation into subjective well-being from the opinions survey. Office for National Statistics. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/wellbeing/measuring-subjective-wellbeingin-the-uk/investigation-of-subjective-well-being-data-from-the-ons-opinions-survey/index. html. Accessed 02 Feb 2020 Patey J, Nasamu E, Connolly S, Daniels K, Nayani R, Watson D (2021) Evaluating multicomponent wellbeing strategies: theoretical and methodological insights. In: Wall T, Cooper C (CBE) Brough P (eds) The sage handbook of organisational wellbeing. SAGE Pavot W, Diener E (2008) The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. J Posit Psychol 3(2):137–152 Peasgood T, Wright L (2017) A guide to wellbeing economic evaluation. What works centre for wellbeing. https://whatworkswellbeing.org/product/a-guide-to-wellbeing-economic-evaluation/. Accessed 3 Feb 2020 Preuss H (2004) In The economics of staging the Olympics. A comparison of the Games 1972– 2008. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Senik C (2011) Is happiness different from flourishing? Cross-country evidence from the ESS. Rev D’économie Polit 121(1):17–34 Stewart-Brown S, Tennant A, Tennant R, Platt S, Parkinson J, Weich S (2009) Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh mental well-being scale (WEMWBS): a Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish health education population survey. Health Qual Life Outcomes 7(1):15–22 Stiglitz JE, Sen A, Fitoussi JP (2009) Report by the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress Taylor MF, Brice J, Buck N, Prentice-Lane E (2018) British household panel survey user manual volume A: introduction, technical report and appendices. University of Essex, Colchester The Treasury (2019) The wellbeing budget 2019. Te Tai Ōhanga – The Treasury. https://treasury. govt.nz/publications/wellbeing-budget/wellbeing-budget-2019-html#section-1. Accessed 3 Feb 2020 Rose AK, Spiegel MM (2011) The Olympic effect. Econ J 121:652–677 Whitmore M, Stewart K, Pollard J, van Belle J, Yang M, van Stolk C (2018) Promising practices for health and wellbeing at work. A review of the evidence landscape RAND Corporation, Santa Monica/Cambridge, UK. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/ RR2400/RR2409/RAND_RR2409.pdf. Accessed 23 Sept 2020

Part VI Trends and Emerging Challenges for Management

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Implications for the Health and Safety of Digital Platform Workers Penny Williams, Paula McDonald, and Robyn Mayes

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Digital Platforms and the Gig Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Growth of the Gig Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Opportunities Associated with Digital Platform Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Health, Safety, and Wellbeing Risks Associated with Digital Platform Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Operating outside national systems of labor regulation, the characteristics of digital platform work raise new questions about the safety, health, and wellbeing of workers. Digital platform work is said to provide flexibility and improved work-life balance for workers, as well as access to income for individuals who might not otherwise be able to work for health or lifestyle reasons. Emerging research, however, has also highlighted risks to worker health, safety, and wellbeing associated with social isolation, competition for work and algorithmic control, lack of access to protections afforded by employment regulation, and low prices. The chapter begins by defining key concepts and relationships in digital platform work. Estimates of the size, growth, and diversity of this form of work globally are provided. The benefits that digital platform work can offer are contrasted with a discussion of the associated risks, using examples from recent empirical research addressing the health, safety, and wellbeing of workers. The chapter concludes by canvassing a future research agenda in this emerging field.

P. Williams (*) · P. McDonald · R. Mayes School of Management, QUT Business School, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_32

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Keywords

Gig economy · Platform work · Self-employed · Health and wellbeing · Safety

Introduction Over the last decade, digital technologies have driven new business models that have disrupted existing markets and altered traditional employment models. Through a website or app, digital platform businesses provide customers with ready access to goods, labor, and services on-demand. Early digital platforms, such as eBay and Amazon, provided online marketplaces to buy, sell, and auction goods, while others such as Facebook created avenues to share content and promote services (Minifie and Wiltshire 2016). Later platforms enabled peer-to-peer “sharing” of assets such as homes and cars, or even clothing and toys (Pesole et al. 2018). A popular example of this type of platform is AirBNB. Individuals, via these platforms, are able to earn an income from the sale, lease, or licensing of their existing assets. In contrast to online marketplaces and peer-to-peer sharing platforms, digital platforms that provide the facility for individuals to sell their labor have also emerged. These platforms, of which Uber is the most commonly cited example, have been the subject of significant scholarly debate, especially in relation to their impact on workers. Despite providing work opportunities and mediating access to labor, they are neither agencies, nor employers, nor online job boards. Digital labor platforms go beyond advertising job opportunities to algorithmically “matching” workers with jobs in real time. “Jobs,” in this context, are usually discrete one-off tasks, often referred to as “gigs,” which are undertaken by self-employed freelancers or independent contractors (Bryant 2020). By mediating access to self-employed workers, digital platforms broker work arrangements that operate outside of the regulatory and legal frameworks that govern traditional employment, and have created an online labor market that consists of episodic, nonstandard forms of employment that are rarely captured in labor force statistics. This free market system where workers are paid for discrete “gigs” has become commonly known as the “gig economy.” Operating outside national systems of labor regulation, the characteristics of digital platform work raise new questions about the safety, health, and wellbeing of workers. Digital platform work is said to provide flexibility and improved worklife balance for workers, as well as access to income for individuals who might not otherwise be able to work for health or lifestyle reasons. Emerging research, however, has also highlighted risks to worker health, safety, and wellbeing associated with social isolation, competition for work and algorithmic control, lack of access to protections afforded by employment regulation, and low prices. This chapter examines the interwoven and contested debates surrounding digital platform work, with a specific focus on health and safety implications for workers. The chapter begins by defining key concepts and relationships in digital platform work. Estimates of the size, growth, and diversity of this form of work globally are

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provided. The benefits that digital platform work can offer are contrasted with a discussion of the associated risks, using examples from recent empirical research addressing the health, safety, and wellbeing of workers. The chapter concludes by canvassing a future research agenda in this emerging field.

Digital Platforms and the Gig Economy Digital platform work is an emergent feature of the broader labor market characterized by short-term, temporary “gigs” mediated by digital platforms businesses that connect workers who are usually designated as self-employed or independent contractors, to clients/consumers via a website or app. While digital platform firms share some similar features, the architecture of their business models varies widely. Consequently, scholars have attempted to define and categorize digital platforms in various ways. For example, Strowel and Vergote (2018) differentiate between digital platforms that provide: access to information or content (such as Facebook and Instagram); goods and services (such as eBay, AirBNB, or Uber); and access to capital (GoFundMe). Another taxonomy of platform businesses considers how users can differentially earn an income. Income can be earned via digital platforms by buying or selling goods through platforms such as Etsy or eBay; or obtaining crowdfunding via platforms such as GoFundMe or KickStarter; through renting or leasing homes, cars, or other assets via AirBNB, CarNextDoor, or others; licensing creative works on platforms like iStockPhoto; and by providing labor in return for payment (Pesole et al. 2018; Strowel and Vergote 2018). This final category is exemplified by platforms such as Uber and Foodora, but also extends to services such as home maintenance, computer programming, or any type of work that is done by a person. Some digital platforms enable multiple methods of income generation, further illustrating the heterogeneity of platform business models. For instance, in creative work like graphic design and photography, some platforms provide a facility for artists to display portfolios of work, license images or designs for use, as well as opportunities to find clients for whom they will undertake a specific task or produce a custom piece of creative work (McDonald et al. 2020a). It is this broad envelope of digital platforms that are ubiquitously referred to as the “digital economy.” Digital platform businesses connect individuals or businesses seeking labor or service with freelance workers willing to provide that labor or service for a fee. Workers are self-employed freelancers or independent contractors who undertake short term “gigs” that are requested by clients while being distributed and monitored by platform technology. Platform work can encompass tasks that can be either completed online or performed in person at a specified location (Drahokoupil and Fabo 2016; Pesole et al. 2018). For example, services such as data entry, graphic design, and computer programming can all be delivered online, while work that involves driving, food delivery, or home maintenance is usually undertaken “in person.” Importantly, digital platforms that intermediate work that is completed “online” create new boundaryless labor markets, giving clients access to labor that is not

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restricted by physical location or regulatory boundaries. As Drahokoupil and Fabo (2016, p. 2) explain, these platforms connect demand in one location, with remote supply, “possibly based abroad.” Platform work that is completed exclusively online can span highly skilled professional services where the task is allocated to one individual, or alternatively, unskilled work where the tasks can be disaggregated into routine micro-tasks outsourced to a virtual “crowd” of unknown workers (Drahokoupil and Fabo 2016; Coyle 2017; Ticona and Mateescu 2018). For example, on platforms such as Upwork or 99 Designs, clients are matched with, or choose, a preferred worker who has competed with other workers to be allocated the required task (Pongratz 2018). In contrast, Amazon Mechanical Turk and Clickworker are examples of micro-tasking platforms where tasks that require limited time and skills (e.g., image-tagging or categorization) are distributed to a largely invisible workforce who complete the task (Aloisi 2015; Irani 2015). As a subset of gig workers, these workers are known as micro-taskers or click-workers to denote the repetitive nature and minutiae of the tasks they do. While digital platforms operate various business models, there are some important similarities in all platform work. These are succinctly outlined by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) as including: paid work organized through an online platform; the involvement of three parties (the online platform, the client, and the worker); an aim to carry out specific tasks or solve specific problems; outsourced or contracted work; jobs that are broken down into tasks; and services that are provided on demand (De Groen et al. 2018, p. 9; Florisson and Mandl 2018, p. 2). Digital platform workers are freelancers or independent contractors, not employees. They generally provide their own equipment and can choose where and how many hours they work and which jobs or tasks to undertake. However, digital platform workers are also managed, tracked, and evaluated on the platform via the use of technology and algorithms that determine the allocation of tasks, track performance, and manage payments to the worker. The technology adopted by digital platforms represents a form of managerial control that goes beyond what is typically associated with a traditional contracting arrangement in scale and reach. It is these forms of control that raise important questions about the role, relationship, and obligations of digital platform firms to their workers. These questions include who is the “employer” and who is responsible for the health and safety of the worker? The various ways in which digital platform work can be undertaken, and the unique ways in which digital platforms use technology to simultaneously distance and control workers, highlight the complexities of categorizing, regulating, and determining the quality of digital platform work. Platform firms often have no physical location and define themselves as merely “marketplaces” or “technology companies” that connect clients with services. Workers may access work across several platforms simultaneously from anywhere in the world, working for single or multiple clients who may be individuals or businesses, and undertake work occasionally or regularly as they choose. For example, the practice of “multi-apping,” where workers accept concurrent jobs from multiple platforms is common in

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ridesharing and food delivery sectors (Goods et al. 2019). Workers can also register for work with a platform, yet never actually undertake any tasks. The working conditions and experiences of digital platform workers offering in-person services in a defined location are likely to be very different from virtual workers who may be located in a different country to the client or the platform. Working conditions also vary by the type of work undertaken. For example, the work environment of those who care for the aged or people with a disability in their homes is markedly different to the work environment of Uber drivers or software developers. What all digital platform workers share in common, however, is that they are deemed independent contractors who, in most instances, are not protected by an employment contract (and employer obligations therein) or existing labor regulation. This contractually shifts the usual risks of doing business from firms to workers. The diversity and commonalities in the characteristics of digital platforms and the work they intermediate have the potential to impact on the health, safety, and wellbeing of workers in diverse ways that are further complicated by the designation of gig workers as independent contractors. There are known physical hazards, for example, associated with driving for long periods, the use of home cleaning agents, and poorly designed workstations and intensive keyboard activity commonly associated with virtual work (Tran and Sokas 2017). When these activities are performed as paid labor outside of a clear employment relationship, or traditional clientsupplier relationship, the responsibilities for compliance with health and safety regulations becomes obscured. The specific risks for workers are further articulated later in this chapter. The significance of risks to worker health and safety in digital platform work is particularly crucial given its growing size and diversity.

Growth of the Gig Economy Digital platform work is a growing and increasingly diversified phenomenon. Media and scholarly attention have tended to focus on high profile platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Uber, and food delivery platforms such as Foodora and Ubereats. These platforms are often considered trailblazers, in the sense they were some of the first to use internet technologies and algorithms to mediate the distribution and execution of tasks between clients and workers. Digital platform work, however, is now emerging in a vast array of industries, professions, and occupations, both skilled and unskilled. Beyond ridesharing and food delivery, in-person platform work now extends to tasks in home maintenance and odd jobs, domestic services, skilled trade work, education, and aged, disability, and childcare. Virtual or internetbased platform work provides services such as web and graphic design, coding, data entry and clerical services, translation and transcription, project management and professional advice such as financial advice. Available data indicates growth in both the number of platform businesses and the number of workers participating (Evans and Gawer 2016; De Groen et al. 2017a; Heeks 2017; Kässi and Lehdonvirta 2018; McDonald et al. 2020b). While precise estimates of participation vary depending on the specific methods deployed, studies generally indicate that a significant and

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growing minority of the workforce are drawing at least some of their income from digital platform work. In the USA, approximately 1% of adults have been estimated to be participating in digital platform work (Farrell et al. 2018). However, when platform workers who participate as a secondary job or for additional income are included, estimates increase to as high as 8% of the US working age adults (Smith 2016). In the UK, 12.6% of the adult population of internet users were found to have used digital platforms to access work at some time (Pesole et al. 2018), and up to 4.4% currently (Balaram et al. 2017; CIPD 2017; BEIS 2018). Across Europe, participation rates vary from less than 7% in France, Sweden, Poland, and Slovakia to more than 10% of adults in Spain, Germany, and Portugal (Pesole et al. 2018; Piasna and Drahokoupil 2019). In Australia, participation rates are similar. Over 13% of internet users have at some time undertaken work through digital platforms, and 7.1% at the time the survey was completed (McDonald et al. 2020b). Few people, however, engage with digital platforms on a full-time basis. Platform work provides the main source of income for only 2% of all workers in most developed nations (Huws et al. 2017; Pesole et al. 2018; McDonald et al. 2020b). This is because most individuals participate only sporadically to provide additional income when needed or to supplement gaps in their usual income. It remains uncertain whether these patterns are similar in less developed nations because there have been few comparative prevalence studies in these countries. The available evidence suggests, however, that 1.5% of the total workforce, equating to around 40 million workers in the Global South, are earning an income through digital platform work, and that these workers are concentrated in India, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Heeks 2017). Data from the Online Labour Index (OLI) which tracks tasks posted online, supports these estimates, with the largest proportion of digital platform workers being located in India (24%) and Bangladesh (16%) and most client demand originating in the USA and UK (Kässi and Lehdonvirta 2018). Other studies have further suggested that the concentration of demand for online digital platform work in wealthy nations creates a price-driven market and unequal competition between workers in developed nations and those in developing countries, lowering wages and conditions for all workers (Graham and Anwar 2018). These patterns of participation and open-market competition across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries raise crucial questions regarding the pressures, demands, and potential vulnerabilities placed on workers in particular regions. Digital platform workers are demographically diverse; however, some groups are more likely to participate. Young males are more likely to participate in platform work than women and older workers, as are migrant workers and people who would otherwise be unemployed (Eurofound 2019; McDonald et al. 2020b). These patterns vary across different types of work. Women, for example, make up a higher proportion of platform workers doing clerical or data entry and care work, and younger males and students are more likely to undertake food delivery work (McDonald et al. 2020b). The demographic characteristics of those most likely to undertake digital platform work has fueled much of the debate about the opportunities and risks of such work. The participation of migrants, students, and those who

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are unemployed or underemployed underpins concerns that digital platform work exploits vulnerable workers and entrenches them in precarious working conditions. In contrast, advocates of platform work argue that these patterns demonstrate significant new employment opportunities for those who cannot find traditional forms of employment (Minifie and Wiltshire 2016). These opposing positions illustrate other debates about whether, and to what extent, platform work provides greater freedom, flexibility, and choice than traditional forms of employment, or conversely, poorer quality work and associated risks of economic insecurity and threats to physical and psychological safety. These opposing viewpoints in relation to the working conditions of platform workers and the potential implications for safety, health, and wellbeing are considered further in the remaining sections of the chapter.

Opportunities Associated with Digital Platform Work For individuals who find working in traditional forms of employment problematic, platform work may provide a viable alternative. In a tight labor market where permanent positions are scarce, digital platforms can provide easy access to work opportunities. On most platforms, workers do not need to provide evidence of their stated qualifications, experience, or work history to register, and the majority of in-person platform work especially does not require a large investment in equipment, meaning that barriers to entry are relatively low (Eurofound 2019). The prevalence studies highlighted earlier revealed higher levels of participation by people who would be otherwise unemployed, and by migrant workers and students, who may not have the qualifications or experience to successfully compete for permanent employment (McDonald et al. 2020b). Other scholars have also suggested that digital platform work can provide a viable employment option for individuals who may be attempting to re-skill and reenter the workforce after an extended absence or because of limited or outdated education (Coyle 2017; Graham et al. 2017b). Skills creation, choice of work, and the sense of possibility are positive aspects of platform work that can enhance wellbeing (Fernández-Macías 2018; Ropponen et al. 2019). Globally, the rise of virtual/online digital platform work has also opened up crossborder work opportunities. Research demonstrates that this form of work can provide more income and a relatively safer work environment for workers in poorer countries and that it can minimize the usual disruption to family that occurs alongside employment-driven labor migration (Horton 2011; Harris and Srinivasan 2013). In one study of gig workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia for example, local employment opportunities were limited, but workers earned higher incomes by completing micro-tasks online for global clients (Graham et al. 2017b). More commonly, individuals use digital platform work to supplement their existing income stream or to cushion a temporary reduction in their household income. Some workers, for example, participate in digital platform work as a source of income between jobs, following the loss of employment or during a period of forced leave (Minifie and Wiltshire 2016; McDonald et al. 2019). Others use digital

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platform work as a convenient way to access additional funds quickly to cover unexpected household expenses or finance indulgences such as holidays (Graham et al. 2017a; Schor and Attwood-Charles 2017). In this sense, platform work can potentially reduce stress associated with financial instability and provide individuals with a greater sense of control over their personal circumstances. The flexibility and control that platform workers experience in being able to choose how frequently and when to participate in digital platform work make it an attractive work option for those that cannot work “standard” work hours or who are seeking occasional work (Drahokoupil and Piasna 2019). For example, students, who are disproportionately represented in platform worker statistics (McDonald et al. 2020b, p. 34), may be attracted to gig work because of the relative ease with which they can change their work hours when their study schedule changes. Unlike traditional employment, there are no “minimum hours” requirements in digital platform work. Hence, it has been argued that digital platform work also presents a viable work option for people with a disability or other health issue that may limit the hours they can work (De Stefano 2016; Berg et al. 2018). However, this has yet to be empirically explored. Many studies on the motivations of platform workers highlight flexibility and autonomy over their working lives as key drivers of participation (Chen et al. 2019; Lehdonvirta 2018; Wood 2018). A study of Uber drivers in the UK demonstrated that despite relatively low hourly earnings, drivers valued the ability to choose their hours and maintain schedule flexibility, and that this contributed to higher levels of life satisfaction and subjective wellbeing (Berger et al. 2019). It should be noted, however, that drivers in this study were mostly male immigrants from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who also held other jobs, so relatively small increases in income provided by platform intermediated driving may have increased wellbeing to a greater extent compared with those with greater financial resources (Berger et al. 2019). Alongside findings which suggest that platform work confers flexibility and associated wellbeing, other research paradoxically suggests that control mechanisms built into platform business models actually reduces flexibility and autonomy experienced by workers (Shapiro 2018). For example, in Berger et al.’s (2019) study of Uber drivers reported above, platform control mechanisms also resulted in higher levels of anxiety. The negative health impacts associated with platform work are discussed further in the next section.

Health, Safety, and Wellbeing Risks Associated with Digital Platform Work There are many characteristics of digital platform work likely to impact worker health and safety. Despite citing temporal flexibility as a benefit, workers frequently report that the availability of work can be unpredictable and that platform mechanisms control and influence their schedule in ways that can also limit flexibility. In some types of platform work, for example, tasks are allocated based on worker

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responsiveness and the ratings and reviews of clients. Studies have demonstrated how Uber drivers and food delivery riders have been penalized for not accepting ride allocations (Rosenblat and Stark 2016; De Groen et al. 2018; Reid-Musson et al. 2020), and how photographers have lost job opportunities by not responding within minutes to a call for a quote (McDonald et al. 2020a). Hence, platform workers who wish to maintain their ratings or obtain the best paid opportunities, can experience being “constantly on call” with negative ramifications for psychological health and work-life boundary management (Eurofound 2015; Garben 2019). On many digital platforms, work is allocated to those with the best client ratings, and poor ratings or reviews can lead to fewer work opportunities, and in extreme cases, exclusion from the platform, which can occur at the platform firm’s complete discretion (Williams et al. 2021; Ropponen et al. 2019). The need to maintain high ratings and reviews in order secure future work drives worker behavior, including the propensity to work unsocial hours or take greater risks to personal safety in order to achieve a higher rating (Martin et al. 2016; Schörpf et al. 2017; Ropponen et al. 2019; Reid-Musson et al. 2020). Further, creative platform workers have reported working additional hours for free in order to achieve higher client ratings (Schörpf et al. 2017; Nemkova et al. 2019). These studies found that rating and review systems and unrealistic client expectations contributed to both long hours and lower prices for their work. These creatives also described experiencing a consequential diminished artistic expression and sense of meaning in relation to their work (Nemkova et al. 2019). To maintain their online reputation and secure ongoing access to work and income, platform workers avoid taking breaks or cancelling work for any reason including ill health. This behavior has been illustrated in studies of platform delivery drivers (Christie and Ward 2019; De Groen et al. 2018). A study by Christie and Ward (2019) described how drivers worked long hours, avoided taking breaks, and continued working, even when fatigued. The study further explained how the time pressures associated with getting a good rating as a delivery driver fueled risk taking, including speeding, ignoring road signs, and driving in poor weather conditions (Christie and Ward 2019). Such risky behaviors are driven not just by rating and review mechanisms but also by competition from other platform workers. The role of digital platforms as “connectors” encourages opportunistic behavior and competition between workers, driving them to be responsive and market-competitive in order to “win” the job or task (Ropponen et al. 2019; Veen et al. 2019). The consequence of such competition is work intensification in the form of pressure to deliver in tight timeframes and/or for a much lower price. When the prices paid for work are low, many workers have to work longer hours or undertake more tasks simply to maintain their income (Wilde 2016; ILO 2018). Low prices are a particular problem for workers who are reliant upon digital platform work as their primary source of income, not only because they get paid less, but because in working longer hours they lose much of the temporal autonomy that platform work is said to offer (Kuhn and Maleki 2017). For example, Uber has implemented surge pricing that simultaneously encourages drivers to work longer hours at times of high demand, thereby increasing their earnings but at the same time limiting their flexibility (Chen and Sheldon 2015; Newlands et al. 2017). Other

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studies have similarly shown that in order to meet the demands of clients, platform, workers will work long hours or nights and weekends, especially if this increases their remuneration (Pichault and Mckeown 2019; Ropponen et al. 2019; Shevchuk et al. 2019). Long work hours impact worker wellbeing in multiple ways, firstly, via negative effects on work-life balance and well-being, when workers become sleep-deprived, overworked, and exhausted (De Neve et al. 2018; Shevchuk et al. 2019; Wood et al. 2019). For the many platform workers who also have another job, total hours worked may be high, even if participation is intermittent. Secondly, unsocial work hours can contribute to feelings of isolation, and this may be further exacerbated by the independent nature of platform work (De Neve et al. 2018; Tran and Sokas 2017). That is, platform workers frequently miss out on the social benefits of working in teams or collaborating with other workers, instead competing for tasks that they undertake alone, and in the case of micro-workers and click-workers, completely dislocated from any interaction with a human client (Lewchuk 2017; Shevchuk et al. 2019; Kilhoffer et al. 2020). The health implications of stress related to work intensification, night work, and long work hours are well known (De Neve et al. 2018). Yet in platform work, where workers are self-employed contractors, these risks are not the responsibility of either the platform firm or the client to manage. Further, unlike employees, platform workers are not subject to the usual health and safety regulations, or apparatus that provides safeguards around working hours and conditions. Risks to health and safety are not limited to irregular work patterns. Platform workers are also subjected to significant physical safety hazards. Some hazards are obvious, such as falls and machine-related injuries associated with maintenance undertaken in households, and traffic related accidents in transport and food delivery work. Studies have shown how drivers and riders exacerbate these risks by prioritizing speed over road safety and because they can become distracted by responding to the app on their phone while driving (Christie and Ward 2019). Collisions and “near misses” are a common occurrence in digital platform delivery driving (Christie and Ward 2019), and workers experience increased risks of injuries from driving when fatigued or when driving in poor weather conditions (De Groen et al. 2018; Industrial Relations Victoria 2020). Riders are also responsible for the provision and maintenance of their own equipment, such as bikes and safety gear, and are not always obliged by the platform to wear high-visibility clothing or clothing appropriate for extreme weather conditions (De Groen et al. 2018). A lack of adequate protections or faulty equipment can exacerbate risks. As noted earlier, these behaviors are triggered by the functions through which the platform allocates and distributes work and by payment systems that are linked to client waiting times and client ratings. The absence of governance frameworks that regulate or guide the gig economy also expose platform workers to additional risks not usually experienced by employees or agency contractors. For example, delivery drivers have reported experiencing physical and sexual assault in the course of their work, as well as being subjected to legal risks associated with requests to deliver illegal drugs,

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chemicals, alcohol, or stolen goods (Ticona et al. 2016; Huws et al. 2017; ReidMusson et al. 2020). Accessing domestic cleaning or care work via digital platforms can also pose risks for workers who are often provided with little information about the client or the required task prior to accepting the job (Ticona and Mateescu 2018). This can result in potentially heightened safety risks for workers such as exposure to illness, disease, or physical hazards in the clients’ home, and resolutions may be difficult to negotiate (Trojansky 2020). Workers have subsequently described feeling uncomfortable or threatened, having to undertake hazardous cleaning jobs for which they were ill-equipped, or needing to fend off sexual solicitations (Ticona et al. 2016). Platform workers have also reported being subject to racial vilification, discrimination, and harassment (Ticona et al. 2016; Graham et al. 2017b), but they often do not have access to avenues of redress that would typically be available in a traditional employment relationship nor the agency to walk away from a client without risking a poor rating. These encounters are not, however, limited to in-person platform work. Online workers also experience racial and gender discrimination, and they may be excluded from work opportunities because of their location (Beerepoot and Lambregts 2015; Graham et al. 2017b). They may also face physical and psychosocial work hazards. Long hours at workstations that are not ergonomically designed may lead to musculoskeletal or repetitive strain problems, and as noted earlier, feelings of depression and social isolation can emerge from a lack of human interaction (Huws 2016; Shevchuk et al. 2019; Wood et al. 2019). Yet platforms take no responsibility for minimizing risks in home working environments, and nor do workers have access to workers compensation or other forms of company-provided insurance to support rehabilitation if injury does occur (Garben 2019). As independent contractors, platform workers have access to few, if any, worker entitlements, very little income security, and they often experience insufficient access to work through digital platforms (Berg et al. 2018). Work is done on a piece-rate basis, and earnings are frequently unpredictable. Unpaid labor is a fixture of platform work as workers spend considerable time searching and bidding for work, updating profiles, monitoring ratings and reviews, or waiting for tasks or client responses (Berg 2016; McDonald et al. 2019). Through the terms and conditions of use, platforms also have the discretion to change payment rates, or methods of payment, or exclude workers from the platform (Huws et al. 2017; Williams et al. 2021). Clients too can refuse to pay, and platforms usually have limited dispute resolution or mediation processes that support workers to receive fair remuneration in these instances. These features exemplify the precarity of digital platform work. Precarious and piece-rate work is significantly related to negative health outcomes (Lewchuk 2017; Davis and Hoyt 2020), and workers who undertake nonstandard work are at greater risk of injury and illness than those in standard employment arrangements (Howard 2017). The methods adopted by digital platforms to incentivize and reward workers further promote the maladaptive worker behaviors outlined earlier that increase risks to worker health, safety, and wellbeing (Garben 2019). In a traditional employment relationship, such behaviors would attract significant costs for the organization in

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terms of absenteeism, worker turnover, lower performance, or insurance claim costs. Digital platforms, in contrast, are not employers and so avoid all such negative impacts, leaving the worker to bear all the risks. This business model may have longterm implications for society, however, if platform workers are unable to work due to ill health or injury and do not have access to state-provided workers compensation insurance, so must rely on government welfare support systems to live. The management of risk in the gig economy is a challenge likely to be contested through legal avenues. For example, in Australia, all State and Territory Work Health and Safety laws place the responsibility for the health and safety of workers on the “person conducting a business or undertaking” (PCBU) (Safe Work Australia 2019). Whether a digital platform may be classified as a PCBU, and therefore be expected to manage workplace health and safety risks for gig workers, is contested and complicated by factors such as the business model adopted by the platform, the definition of digital platforms as labor hire companies or technology providers, the contractual relationship (if any) between the worker and the client, and the practice of multiapping, where workers work for multiple platforms at once (Horton et al. 2018). Some argue that platforms such as Uber might be reasonably expected to manage known risks; however, platforms who offer a wide variety of tasks could not possibly anticipate or manage the myriad of potential risks (Horton et al. 2018). The question of the client’s responsibility in managing risk remains. Relatedly, the classification of workers in the gig economy has led to many legal challenges (see Howard 2017 and Stewart and McCrystal 2019 for examples) and calls for greater social protections for precarious workers (Benach et al. 2016; Tran and Sokas 2017). Despite a business model designed to circumvent collective action, some groups of workers have begun to mobilize in an effort to draw attention to the significant safety risks they experience (Tassinari et al. 2020). Yet establishing labor protections for a dispersed and isolated workforce, especially where the on-demand labor operates across international boundaries, is challenging (ILO 2016), not least because it threatens the very business models which digital platforms have developed and deployed to disrupt existing markets (De Groen et al. 2017b; Garben 2019). Globally, responses to worker precarity have varied. However, in January 2019, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Global Commission on the Future of Work proposed a Universal Labour Guarantee that would, among other things, establish a set of basic working conditions, limits on hours of work, and safe and healthy workplaces, to address the issues faced by digital platform workers (ILO 2019).

Conclusion and Future Research This chapter has examined the contested debates surrounding digital platform work, with a specific focus on health and safety implications for workers. Research has demonstrated the flexibility advantages inherent in this growing form of work and the variable opportunities it provides, depending on the location and individual circumstances of the worker, for income generation. On balance, however, extent

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research raises a concerning array of economic, social, and health risks – both physical and psychological – faced by platform workers. Such risks are associated with the status of digital platform workers as contractors rather than employees, their relative isolation as workers, low pay rates in some forms of work, and the lack of regulatory apparatus available to workers when things go wrong. As the chapter established, research into the health and safety outcomes for workers in the gig economy is still in its infancy and there remain many unanswered questions that signal important areas for future research. For example, we do not yet know the long-term health consequences of distinct types of gig work, nor the various ways that workers and/or platforms might attempt to mitigate health and safety risks. To date, the literature is also silent on the question of whether health outcomes improve or diminish for platform workers who seek such work due to preexisting health conditions that preclude them from traditional forms of employment. As Benach et al. (2016) note, precarious digital platform work may be better than no work at all. Although driving and delivery work, including its health and safety risks, has been the focus of significant attention, far less research has examined the myriad of other forms of platform work such as care work, educational and translation services, and creative work. There is also a need to extend the current myopic focus on platform work undertaken in developed economies and to additionally explore how workers are affected, for better or worse, in the Global South, especially in parts of the world where there is a more than ample supply of willing workers catering to the demands for cheap labor in the Global North.

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Workplace Mistreatment A Review of the Literature and Agenda for Future Research

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Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . First, What Are We Talking About? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Is Workplace Mistreatment a Big Deal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Are the “Causes” of Workplace Mistreatment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organizational Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relational Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Can Be Done About Workplace Mistreatment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Preventing Workplace Mistreatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helping Victims Cope with Workplace Mistreatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dealing with the Aftermath of Workplace Mistreatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Can Third-Parties Help Address Workplace Mistreatment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perceiving Victim Need and Deservingness: Decision-Tree Model of Intervention . . . . . . . Perceiving Victim Need and Deservingness: Deontic Motivation for Intervention . . . . . . . . Some Future Directions for Third-Party Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victim Humor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victim Talk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Additional Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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T. C. Reich (*) Kings Business School, Kings College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] R. K. Dhensa-Kahlon Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_33

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Abstract

As the line between work and life continues to blur, stakeholders increasingly expect organizations to take an active role demonstrating care and compassion for their employees. This is likely to include preventing and addressing instances of interpersonal mistreatment at work. However, despite decades of research to understand workplace mistreatment in its various forms, effective interventions remain elusive, with recommendations for practice often relying on untested assumptions. In this chapter, we discuss the current state of the workplace mistreatment literature, highlighting some key predictors of both experienced and enacted mistreatment – along with the theoretical perspectives used to understand them – as well as some of the interventions proposed (but rarely tested) to help address them. We also discuss the potential role of third parties – those who witness or learn about mistreatment but are not directly involved – to help address mistreatment, noting the limits of this perspective as well as some important avenues for future research. Keywords

Workplace mistreatment · Workplace aggression · Workplace incivility · Workplace bullying · Interventions · Third parties

Introduction In modern organizations, the line between work and life continues to blur. Employees are spending more of their time engaged in work and work-related activities (Gavin and Mason 2004; Schor 2008). The COVID-19 pandemic seems likely to exacerbate this trend; with millions working from home, the distinction between our work and personal lives is likely to continue to erode (Rudolph et al. 2020). The increasing demands on employees coincide with what Gunter McGrath (2014) termed the “era of empathy,” in which stakeholders increasingly see the role of management as one involving demonstrable care and concern for their employees. An era of empathy is likely to involve organizational intervention in negative interpersonal interactions among employees. Workplace mistreatment is an unfortunately common (e.g., Schat et al. 2006; Rayner 1997) and predictably negative experience for employees. However, despite decades of research, little is known about how to effectively prevent or intervene in mistreatment at work. In this chapter, we review the workplace mistreatment literature to highlight some of the key predictors from the perspective of those who are targeted for mistreatment (“victims”) as well as those who perpetrate it (“actors”). We also discuss some theoretical perspectives used to understand why mistreatment happens as well as how these relate (or not) to potential interventions. Next, we review the potential role of third parties (i.e., those who witness or learn about mistreatment but are not directly involved) to help address (and exacerbate) mistreatment. Finally, we discuss some important avenues for future research.

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First, What Are We Talking About? Workplace mistreatment is an umbrella term for negative interpersonal interactions at work. In the academic literature, researchers have introduced an abundance of constructs that fall under this broad umbrella. Although these constructs represent important conceptual differences (Tepper and Henle 2011), they are measured in very similar ways (see Hershcovis and Reich 2013), making the distinctions among them unclear. For example, “bullying” refers to “a situation where one or several individuals persistently over a period of time perceive themselves to be on the receiving end of negative actions from one or several persons, in a situation where the target of bullying has difficulty in defending himself or herself against these actions” (Einarsen and Skogstad 1996, p. 191), whereas “abusive supervision” reflects “the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper 2000, p. 178). “Social undermining” is a “behavior intended to hinder, over time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, work-related success, and favorable reputation” (Duffy et al. 2002, p. 332), whereas “workplace incivility” is meant to encompass “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect” (Andersson and Pearson 1999, p. 457). The definitions of these terms imply differences with respect to their persistence (i.e., bullying, abusive supervision, and social undermining persist over time, whereas workplace incivility may not), intensity (i.e., abusive supervision involves perceived hostility, whereas incivility is by definition low intensity and ambiguous in terms of intent), and source (i.e., abusive supervision implies that the source is a position of formal power, whereas bullying may be perpetrated by one or multiple people with any form of relationship to the victim). Despite the conceptual differences, in practice, the scales used to measure these constructs are almost identical (Hershcovis and Reich 2013). For example, the (Revised) Negative Acts Questionnaire (NAQ-R; Einarsen et al. 2009) and the Workplace Incivility Scale (WIS; Cortina et al. 2001), which are the most commonly used scales to measure bullying and incivility, respectively, both ask respondents how frequently they were insulted, ignored, and undermined with respect to one’s work. Perhaps even more importantly, neither scale even attempts to capture respondents’ perception of the intensity or the perceived intent of these experiences (Hershcovis 2011; Hershcovis and Reich 2013). This similar approach to measurement likely explains much of the overlap among the outcomes of workplace mistreatment. For example, given its higher intensity, one might expect that victims of bullying would suffer more from their experiences compared to victims of incivility. However, their negative effects on employee attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, turnover intent, and affective commitment) and psychological and physical well-being are effectively the same (Hershcovis 2011). In other words, “at some level all of the research using these different definitions deals with essentially the same thing” (Aquino and Thau 2009, p. 722). As such, we use the term “workplace mistreatment” to refer to the broad literature on negative

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interpersonal interactions at work and draw on findings from across this literature in our discussions below. This chapter is structured as follows. First, we outline the imperative for the study of workplace mistreatment. We then review some key outcomes, as well as predictors, of workplace mistreatment from the perspective of both victims and perpetrators, along with the theoretical perspectives used to explain them. Next, we discuss how these theories connect to ideas for interventions in workplace mistreatment. Finally, we discuss the potential role of third-party observers to intervene in incidents of workplace mistreatment and identify important avenues for further research.

Is Workplace Mistreatment a Big Deal? The short answer is: yes. Although physical acts of aggression are relatively rare, some estimates suggest that nearly half of the employees will experience some form of psychological mistreatment at work (e.g., Schat et al. 2006; Rayner 1997). Victims of mistreatment experience a host of negative outcomes, including increased depression and anxiety (e.g., Cortina et al. 2001; Hansen et al. 2006; Tepper 2000), somatic symptoms (e.g., LeBlanc and Kelloway 2002; Zapf et al. 1996), and posttraumatic stress (e.g., Matthiesen and Einarsen 2004). Experienced mistreatment is also associated with greater work–family conflict (e.g., He et al. 2020), lower life satisfaction (e.g., He et al. 2020; Tepper 2000), and sleep problems (Nielsen et al. 2020). Victims are also less satisfied with and committed to their jobs and more likely to intend to quit (e.g., Bowling and Beehr 2006; Hershcovis 2011; Hershcovis and Barling 2010). The negative effects of mistreatment also extend beyond targets. Researchers have found that third parties to workplace mistreatment – those who witness but are not involved in the mistreatment themselves – experience emotional drain (Totterdell et al. 2012) and stress (Vartia 2001). And a small but growing literature suggests that perpetrators (i.e., those who enact mistreatment toward others) experience negative outcomes as well. For example, Qin et al. (2018) found that while enacting abusive behavior had some positive outcomes for supervisors in the short term, such as greater engagement via improved recovery (especially among supervisors with high job demands and who are low in empathic concern), after a week these benefits more than disappeared. Perpetrators also report poorer performance due to reduced sense of self-worth (Priesemuth and Bigelow 2020), as well as lower need fulfilment and difficulty relaxing at home (Foulk et al. 2018). Indeed, workplace mistreatment is a costly problem for organizations. Some estimate a price tag of $14,000 USD per employee (Pearson and Porath 2009) because of the lost productivity due to the negative effects of mistreatment on victim performance (e.g., Harris et al. 2007; Schat and Frone 2011) as well as their sicknessrelated absence (e.g., Kivimäki et al. 2000; Sprigg et al. 2010). Taken together, there is a clear need to understand workplace mistreatment given its pervasiveness and negative effects on all involved.

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What Are the “Causes” of Workplace Mistreatment? A good deal of research has been conducted to explore the contextual and dispositional factors that contribute to the experience and (although to a lesser extent) enactment of workplace mistreatment from a variety of theoretical perspectives. These theories include (but are certainly not limited to) stress theory, victim precipitation model, and social exchange theory. Although not mutually exclusive, each reflects a different perspective on why mistreatment happens, attributing the cause to organizational, individual, and relational factors, respectively. Although research from the perspective of the target (or “victim”) evolved separately from research from the perspective of the perpetrator (or “actor”), there is considerable overlap in terms of the conclusions (Hershcovis and Reich 2013). As such, in this section, we review some of the evidences linked to these perspectives to help explain why mistreatment happens.

Organizational Factors Researchers have examined workplace mistreatment as both a source and an outcome of occupational stress (e.g., Bowling and Beehr 2006). Meta-analytic evidence suggests that experienced mistreatment is higher among employees working in jobs that lack clarity or predictability with regard to job behaviors (i.e., high role ambiguity) that involve incompatible demands (i.e., high role conflict) and/or involve “too much” to do (i.e., high role overload). Victims of mistreatment also report greater work constraints (i.e., factors that limit a job holder’s enactment of a role) and a lack of autonomy or freedom in terms of how they perform the work (Bowling and Beehr 2006). As an important source of stress, a poor working relationship with one’s supervisor is also associated with experienced mistreatment. Research suggests that employees perceive greater mistreatment when they have a supervisor who adopts an authoritarian (i.e., “do as I say”; Coyne et al. 2003) or a laissez-faire (i.e., a handsoff approach; Skogstad et al. 2007) leadership style. Experienced mistreatment is also associated with perceived interpersonal unfairness from (e.g., Berry et al. 2007; Hershcovis et al. 2007), as well as greater dissatisfaction with (Einarsen et al. 1994), one’s supervisor. The climate of the organization has also been found to predict experienced mistreatment, especially when it conveys a general permissiveness toward mistreatment through a lack of organizational policies that prevent mistreatment and/or shared perceptions that mistreatment goes unpunished (e.g., Ambrose and Ganegoda 2020; Dhanani et al. 2020). Overly competitive work environments, wherein goal achievement is rewarded regardless of the costs involved, are also associated with greater perceptions of mistreatment (Coyne et al. 2003; Vartia 1996). In terms of enacted mistreatment, employees report engaging in more mistreatment toward their colleagues when they experience greater stress at work. Indeed, enacted mistreatment is associated with greater role conflict and ambiguity

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(e.g., Einarsen et al. 1994), greater job stress (e.g., Glomb 2002), higher workload, and lower autonomy (Baillien et al. 2011). Employees also report engaging in more mistreatment when the organizational climate is more tolerant of mistreatment (e.g., Aquino and Lamertz 2004; Barling et al. 2009). Given that victims and perpetrators of workplace mistreatment will typically share a work environment, the overlap between these organization-based predictors of experienced and enacted mistreatment makes sense. Indeed, as Bowling and Beehr noted in their 2006 review, “victims who report the presence of high levels of stressors might be indicating the presence of ambient stressors experienced by everyone in the victim’s work environment” (p. 1000). This view is consistent with resource-based theories of occupational stress, such as the job demands-resources model (JD-R; Demerouti et al. 2001). According to the JD-R, when people perceive greater demands from their job (e.g., high work pressure) relative to the resources they have available to deal with them (e.g., autonomy), they experience strain, exhaustion, and burnout. Therefore, excessive demands (coupled with insufficient resources) from the organization may act as a source of stress leading some employees to lash out aggressively and, consequently, others to perceive themselves to be the victim.

Individual Factors A shared work environment provides one potential explanation for the link between stressful working conditions and mistreatment; however, it is not the only possibility. Indeed, as Bowling and Beehr (2006) acknowledge, “work stressors might produce negative emotional and behavioral responses that encourage victimization” (p. 1000). That is, it may be employees’ reactions to their stressful work environments that make them more likely to be targeted for mistreatment (e.g., Fan et al. 2020). This interpretation would be consistent with the – albeit controversial – victim precipitation perspective, which considers how victims contribute to their own mistreatment through their characteristics and behaviors (Curtis 1974; Schafer 1968). For example, although there is mixed evidence about the relationship between personality variables and experienced mistreatment, one of the few dispositional factors that are consistently associated with victims of mistreatment is negative affect (Aquino and Thau 2009; Bowling and Beehr 2006). Negative affect refers to one’s predisposition to experience negative emotions such as anger, fear, and worry (Watson and Clark 1984). At least three explanations have been proposed to account for this relationship. First, consistent with the stress-based argument proposed above, negative affect could be a consequence of experienced mistreatment, especially over time (e.g., Mikkelsen and Einarsen 2002) (see also Dhanani et al. 2020). Alternatively, employees high in negative affect may be inclined to interpret ambiguous interpersonal treatment from their colleagues as more hostile, thereby perceiving themselves to be mistreated regardless of the perpetrator intent (e.g., Matthiesen and Einarsen 2004). However, a third potential explanation is that – consistent with

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the victim precipitation perspective – employees who display these negative emotions may be perceived by their colleagues as unpleasant, which may provoke mistreatment from their colleagues (e.g., Aquino et al. 1999). Similar bidirectional effects have been proposed to explain the association between experienced mistreatment and victims’ higher trait anger (Vie et al. 2010), lower self-esteem (Bowling and Beehr 2006) and emotional stability (Coyne et al. 2003), and low levels of citizenship behavior (Aquino and Bommer 2003). The potential for victim characteristics to contribute to their being targeted for mistreatment is also consistent with Kim and Glomb’s (2010) finding that victims of mistreatment tend to have higher levels of cognitive ability (reported in their aptlynamed paper “Get smarty pants: Cognitive ability, personality, and victimization”). Interestingly, however, many of the individual attributes associated with experienced mistreatment are associated with enacted mistreatment as well. For example, perpetrators of mistreatment are also characterized by high levels of negative affect and trait anger (Hepworth and Towler 2004; Hershcovis et al. 2007) as well as lower self-esteem (Inness et al. 2005) and core-self evaluations (Ferris et al. 2011). Indeed, although there are exceptions – for example, perpetrators tend to hold more favorable attitudes toward revenge (Douglas and Martinko 2001) – the dispositional characteristics of victims and perpetrators are more similar than different (Hershcovis and Reich 2013). A potential explanation for the lack of clarity about the personality characteristics of victims and perpetrators is that – rather than being different people – victims and perpetrators may instead just occupy different roles. That is, according to Aquino and Lamertz’s (2004) relational model of workplace victimization, victims and perpetrators of mistreatment can only be understood within a relational context; although there may be certain characteristics that predispose individuals to become a victim or to perpetrate mistreatment, the labels “victim” and “perpetrator” actually reflect relational roles, such that neither exists without the other. Aquino and Lamertz (2004) identified four archetypal roles. The “submissive victim” is weak and vulnerable, and therefore an easy target for one keen to dominate. The “provocative victim” is hostile and aggressive, irking to colleagues who may lash out in response. The “domineering perpetrator” seeks status and power and takes advantage of those who present as weak. Finally, the “reactive perpetrator” is quick to anger, especially in response to perceived provocation. According to the relational model, mistreatment occurs when these role occupants interact, becoming “institutionalized” in the interactions between the submissive victim and domineering perpetrator and between the provocative victim and reactive perpetrator. These archetypes present a fractured picture of who becomes a victim as well as a perpetrator of mistreatment. Some victims are fearful and weak, whereas others are obnoxious and irritating. Some perpetrators are hostile and power-seeking, whereas others have difficulty controlling their impulses. Interestingly, all four seem to clearly relate to negative affect; submissive victims are fearful and anxious whereas both provocative victims and reactive perpetrators are quick to anger. However, and perhaps most importantly, neither exists without the other. Victims and perpetrators are inextricably linked and, as we describe below, in some cases may occupy both roles at the same time.

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Relational Factors The potential for employees to be both victims and perpetrators of mistreatment is captured by the social exchange perspective. Based on the work of Blau (1964), social exchange theory posits that behavior within an organization is the result of an exchange process, such that when an individual does another a favor, there is an expectation of a future return (Coyle-Shapiro et al. 2004). Just as recipients of beneficial treatment reciprocate with gestures to benefit the giver, the receipt of negative treatment (e.g., mistreatment) is likely to lead to the reciprocation of harm. Consistent with this view, one of the most robust findings in the workplace mistreatment literature is the strong positive correlation between experienced and enacted mistreatment (e.g., Hershcovis and Reich 2013; Stavrova et al. 2020). Indeed, reciprocating harm as a form of retaliation against a perpetrator is construed as a morally legitimate response to mistreatment (e.g., Bies et al. 1997; Tripp et al. 2002; Aquino et al. 2006). The strong positive correlation between experienced and enacted mistreatment, along with the overlap among the organizational and individual characteristics of victims and perpetrators, led Hershcovis and Reich (2013) to suggest that the labels of “victim” (or “target”) and “perpetrator” may reflect the way mistreatment is measured (i.e., in terms of asking about one’s experienced vs. enacted behaviors) as opposed to capturing different individuals. It is also important to recognize that mistreatment does not occur in a social vacuum. Indeed, researchers have found that victims who are singled out for mistreatment experience worse outcomes compared to those whose colleagues are also mistreated (Duffy et al. 2006; Zhao et al. 2020), and positive treatment from peers can buffer the negative effect of mistreatment from a supervisor (Bendersky and Brockner 2020). Indeed, the potential role of third parties – those present during (or who learn about) mistreatment – to both buffer and exacerbate the negative effects of mistreatment on victims is discussed in detail later. Of course, the perspectives reviewed above represent some (but not all) of the dominant approaches researchers have used to understand workplace mistreatment. Findings suggest that stressful working conditions can lead employees to engage in mistreatment toward their colleagues and that employees’ reactions to these environments and experiences may also contribute to (perceived or actual) mistreatment. However, it is also important to recognize that at least some employees may be engaged in some form of “tit-for-tat” exchange, in which they are both victims and perpetrators of mistreatment. Taken together, the evidence suggests that mistreatment is affected by a range of organizational, individual, and relational factors. As such, effectively addressing workplace mistreatment requires a similarly multipronged approach.

What Can Be Done About Workplace Mistreatment? Compared to research exploring its predictors and consequence, substantially less attention has been paid to how to effectively address or intervene in workplace mistreatment. Often, potential interventions are implied or proposed within a set of

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study implications, but they are rarely tested directly. In a 2015 white paper for the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Hershcovis et al. (2015) classified mistreatment interventions into primary, secondary, and tertiary approaches; we follow this approach below, reviewing some of the evidences related to organizational approaches to preventing, helping employees cope with, and responding to mistreatment at work, respectively.

Preventing Workplace Mistreatment Primary interventions are those aimed at preventing mistreatment from occurring in the first place. In line with the organizational predictors of workplace mistreatment, some approaches have targeted sources of organizational stress. For example, Hoel and Giga (2006) examined the effect of policy communication as well as stress management and negative behavior awareness training using a randomized control trial in five organizations in the UK. Unfortunately, they found little evidence to suggest that these practices were effective in terms of the incidence of experience of bullying. Similarly, in a review of primary interventions which included training employees on workplace relational civility, positive relational management, and emotional intelligence, Di Fabio and Duradoni (2019) were unable to offer much evidence to support their effectiveness, possibly because each addresses only part of the reason why mistreatment happens. The Civility Respect and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW) program, on the other hand, developed by the United Stated Veterans Health Administration has been more successful. CREW involves training employees to better understand their interpersonal impact at work and is associated with improvements in perceived workplace civility (Osatuke et al. 2009), as well as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and trust in management (Leiter et al. 2012), sustained over 12 months. In contrast to the interventions mentioned above, the effectiveness of CREW may be attributed to its multipronged approach. For example, explaining the sustained improvements in civility and respect, Leiter et al. noted, “These gains may be perpetuated because improvements in civility increase the resource base of a work unit, such that civility exchanges are more likely to enhance employees’ self-esteem and energy at work” (pp. 431–432). In other words, CREW integrates efforts to develop individual resources (i.e., self-esteem) as well as better quality exchange relationships among employees, both of which help to manage the demands of a stressful work environment.

Helping Victims Cope with Workplace Mistreatment Secondary interventions seek to equip employees with resources to cope, should they become targets of mistreatment at work. For example, research conducted by Niven and colleagues suggests that victims who are able to reappraise their experience by attributing the perpetrator’s actions to external factors – thereby depersonalizing the mistreatment – experience better outcomes compared to those

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who ruminate on their negative experience (Niven et al. 2013a,b). Niven et al. explain these findings from a stressor-strain perspective, suggesting that rumination about mistreatment serves to prolong the associated strain reaction. Although Niven et al. focused on victims’ internal experiences (i.e., stress appraisals), rumination may influence how victims are perceived by others as well. For example, paralleling the effects of negative affect, those who ruminate about previous negative experiences may be perceived by would-be perpetrators as an easy or deserving target (i.e., candidates for the submissive or provocative victim role archetype; Aquino and Lamertz 2004). In other words, reducing rumination among victims may also lessen the chance they will be revictimized by a would-be domineering or reactive perpetrator. A recent study by Deng et al. (2020) also examined the effect of rumination, but focused on perpetrators of mistreatment (i.e., abusive supervisors). Deng et al. found that rumination led to efforts to reconcile with the victim among supervisors with low levels of independent self-construal (the tendency to define oneself as possessing attributes and abilities that fundamentally separate them from others). However, if the supervisor had high levels of independent self-construal, rumination led them to blame the victim instead. This suggests that rumination – although potentially helpful for encouraging some supervisors to reconcile with those they have mistreated – is generally unproductive for both victims and perpetrators.

Dealing with the Aftermath of Workplace Mistreatment Finally, tertiary interventions focus on the aftermath of mistreatment and aim to reduce the negative consequences. Examples of tertiary interventions include organizational provision of counselling to victims (e.g., Tehrani 2002) or third-party mediators (Saam 2010). Although these interventions seem promising – especially in terms of their potential to improve the stress appraisals and relationships among employees – little research exists on the effectiveness of these approaches. Given the paucity of evidence on effective interventions, disappointingly, the best advice for victims of mistreatment to date seems to be to avoid the perpetrator or to leave their organization altogether (Aquino and Thau 2009; Zapf and Gross 2001). Victims who speak up – which is often a precondition for secondary or tertiary interventions – tend to be targeted for further mistreatment, whereas those who keep mistreatment to themselves experience psychological and physical harm in the form of rumination, depression, stress, poorer immune responses, and disease progression (Cortina and Magley 2003). A potential alternative to this double bind for victims of mistreatment is reflected in the growing literature on third-party intervention, which we discuss next.

Can Third-Parties Help Address Workplace Mistreatment? An alternative route for intervention in workplace mistreatment is presented in the growing literature on third-party observers, or those who witness or learn about an incident of mistreatment but are not directly involved. Third parties are often present

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when mistreatment happens (Glomb 2002; Porath and Pearson 2010), and – although vicarious mistreatment can lead to negative outcomes for them as well (see Dhanani and LaPalme 2019) – researchers have suggested that third-party observers may be well positioned to intervene in incidents of mistreatment. Indeed, several models have been developed to explain when and why third parties intervene in the mistreatment of others, as we discuss next.

Perceiving Victim Need and Deservingness: Decision-Tree Model of Intervention Although focused on observers of sexual harassment, early work by Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly (2005) provides insight into the decision-making undertaken by third parties to mistreatment if, and when, they decide to intervene in the mistreatment of others. Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly reasoned that, because victims of sexual harassment are often unwilling to challenge the perpetrator or report their experience (e.g., Knapp et al. 1997), observers may be better able to provide victims with the help they need. Based on Latané and Darley’s (1970) bystander intervention framework, their model proposed a decision tree wherein observers must first notice the event, interpret it as one requiring some form of action (i.e., intervention), take personal responsibility for intervention, and decide on the form of that intervention in terms of its immediacy (i.e., should I act now or later?) and involvement (i.e., how immersed in the event should I get?). Each step is influenced by several factors. For example, observers are more likely to decide that action is required when the event is unambiguous in terms of the harm caused to the victim. Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly (2005) noted that the most obvious way to reduce event ambiguity is through a direct appeal from the victim for help, “because the target has labeled it as one that requires action” (p. 293). In other words, when a victim makes their need for help clear to a third party, they are more likely to get it. However, according to this model, need alone is insufficient to prompt intervention from third parties, because they still need to take responsibility for doing so. Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly (2005) argued that, among those who determine that action is required, observers would be more likely to take personal responsibility for intervening in the event if they shared a salient identity with the victim, noting “These social connections lead individuals to develop ‘an empathic altruism’ (Turner, 1985: 111), in which they feel obliged to support the needs and goals of other ingroup members” (p. 297). In other words, third parties need to perceive the victim to be someone who is deserving of their help (e.g., by virtue of their personal connection). Third parties who notice and take responsibility for intervening in the event may then intervene, with the form of that intervention dependent on a cost–benefit analysis, such that third parties will select the response that maximizes effectiveness while minimizing potential costs to them. The importance of overcoming the ambiguity of the event and subsequent cost–benefit analysis of intervention was also highlighted in a recent policy capturing review from Jensen and Raver (2020).

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Perceiving Victim Need and Deservingness: Deontic Motivation for Intervention Perceived costs and benefits of intervention feature in other models of third-party reactions as well; however, as in Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly’s (2005) model, they are typically secondary considerations. Indeed, the dominant theoretical lens in the third party to workplace mistreatment literature is Folger’s (2001) deontic model. According to the deontic model, individuals have an evolutionary-based, morally motivated negative reaction to the unfair treatment of others which can motivate them to intervene to restore justice, even at a personal cost. The deontic model proposes that people care about justice because it is a moral “ought” representing how people should be treated (“deon” is a Greek term that refers to one’s duty or obligation; Skarlicki and Kulik 2004), rather than for purely self-interested reasons. In developing their model of third-party reactions to mistreatment, Skarlicki and Kulik (2004) drew on fairness theory (Folger and Cropanzano 2001) to argue that third-party perceptions of (in)justice depend on their judgments of the aversiveness of the event (i.e., would the victim have been better off if the event had not happened?), attributions of intent (i.e., could the perpetrator have behaved differently?), and moral and normative responsibility (i.e., should the perpetrator have behaved differently?). They reasoned that third parties who perceive that a victim was negatively impacted and undeserving of their mistreatment would be more likely to engage in deontic action to restore justice, provided that they perceive that the potential benefits of intervention outweigh the costs. Although Skarlicki and Kulik recognized a number of factors that contribute to this cost–benefit analysis (e.g., the third party’s vulnerability to future mistreatment), a key consideration is the third party’s assessment of their own as well as the victim’s resources. Specifically, they reasoned that third-party intervention would be most likely when third parties “perceive that they can do something for a victim that the victim cannot do on his or her own (Utne & Kidd, 1980)” (p. 207), that is, when the victim needs their help. O’Reilly and Aquino (2011) drew on similar theoretical foundations to develop their model of third parties’ morally motivated reactions to the mistreatment of others. They argued that third parties experience moral anger as an immediate response to the mistreatment of another (Folger 2001). This moral anger prompts a sensemaking process in which third parties determine whether an injustice has taken place based on their perceptions of the severity of harm, attributions of blame to the perpetrator, and victim’s deservingness, which they link to fairness theory’s would, could, and should judgments, respectively (Folger and Cropanzano 2001). If the third party determines that an injustice has indeed occurred, their moral anger is intensified prompting an approach motivation to intervene. However, as in the models described above, O’Reilly and Aquino proposed that the specific form of the third party’s reaction (i.e., whether they punish a perpetrator directly or indirectly, or aid the victim) depends on the third party’s confidence in the organization’s disciplinary system to address the incident without their involvement, as well as the power dynamics among the third party, perpetrator, and victim. Of particular note, O’Reilly and Aquino reasoned that third parties would only act

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to restore justice if they were sufficiently powerful in terms of their resources and (relative) position. Indeed, O’Reilly and Aquino recognized that “when third parties perceive that they have relatively less power than the victim, they may deem their intervention as being less efficacious than if the victim were to act on his or her own to achieve justice or to cope with the harm caused by the perpetrator” (pp. 536–537). In other words, as in the models described above, third parties are only expected to intervene in mistreatment when they perceive that the victim is in need of their help. If the victim does not need the help a third party can provide, intervention would likely be considered inappropriate. Although limited, empirical research provides some support for the expected effects of third-party power on their reactions to this mistreatment of others. For example, in a series of experiments as well as a critical incident study, Hershcovis et al. (2017) found that third parties who had low (formal) power relative to the victim and perpetrator were less likely to confront and more likely to avoid the perpetrator compared to those with high power. The importance of victim deservingness is also increasingly apparent. Given the deontic model’s focus on third-party motivation to restore justice (Folger 2001), it is not surprising that most of the empirical research based on this model has focused on reactions that punish the perpetrator and/or support the victim (e.g., Hershcovis and Bhatnagar 2017; Lotz et al. 2011; Reich and Hershcovis 2015; Turillo et al. 2002). However, mounting evidence indicates that third-party reactions are not always supportive of the victim. For example, using a critical incident design, Mitchell et al. (2015) found that third-party reactions toward victims of mistreatment from supervisors (i.e., abusive supervision) were moderated by third-party scope of justice (SOJ), or their “beliefs about whether another person deserves to be treated disrespectfully and unfairly (Opotow 2012)” (p. 1042). A victim within the third party’s SOJ is effectively deemed to be deserving of fair treatment, making deontic reactions to their mistreatment appropriate. However, if the victim is not included in the third party’s SOJ, their mistreatment would not constitute an injustice, because they are not perceived to be deserving of fair treatment in the first place. Indeed, Mitchell et al. found that while – consistent with the deontic model (Folger 2001) – third parties experienced moral anger in response to the mistreatment of a victim within their SOJ, they actually experienced pleasure (or schadenfreude) in response to the mistreatment of a victim outside their SOJ. Subsequent theory and empirical research have sought to further explore the diversity of third-party reactions (e.g., Qiao et al. 2019; Zhou et al. 2020). For example, in a 2019 theory paper, Li et al. (2019) proposed that third parties would experience schadenfreude (as opposed to anger) when mistreatment was aligned with their own goals. In support of this expectation, Chen et al. (2020) found that third-party reactions of empathy and schadenfreude, as well as subsequent helping behavior, were moderated by their goal competitiveness with the victim. Similarly, Liu et al. (2020) found that third parties who did not depend on the victim for task completion (as well as those high in Machiavellianism and psychopathy) were more likely to experience schadenfreude and less likely to experience anger in response to incivility directed toward a colleague.

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In sum, third-party emotional and behavioral reactions to the mistreatment of others depend at least in part on their perceptions of a victim’s need and deservingness. Although understanding the factors that promote and deter thirdparty intervention in the mistreatment of others is important, most theoretical and empirical work has conceptualized these perceptions as exogenous to the victim. That is, third parties are expected to intervene if they believe that the victim both needs and deserves their help. However, victims may be able to influence third-party perceptions about whether they need and deserve help, in which case they might be able to agentically seek support. In the final section of this chapter, we discuss avenues for future research exploring how victims may be able to encourage or elicit help from third parties.

Some Future Directions for Third-Party Research If third-party reactions do indeed depend on the extent to which they see the victim as in need and deserving of their help, a potentially fruitful avenue for future research is to explore how victims may be able to influence these perceptions. Although there are several means by which victims may be able to send signals about their need and deservingness, in the subsections below, we focus on two in particular: humor and talk.

Victim Humor In the academic literature, “humor” is defined as an event between two or more people in which at least one experiences amusement and appraises the event as funny (Martin 2007). Humor is often used by employees in situations that are perceived as ambiguous (e.g., an uncivil interaction between a perpetrator and victim) or those in which a more direct response is socially risky (e.g., standing up to or reporting a perpetrator) (Duncan et al. 1990). According to Martin et al. (2003), there are four “types” of humor, which differ along two dimensions: the valence of the humor (i.e., positive or negative) and the focus of the humor (i.e., on the self vs. on another). Affiliative humor is positive and other-focused, intended to amuse and connect with others. Self-enhancing humor is positive and self-focused, intended to amuse oneself by adopting a humorous outlook on life. Self-defeating humor is negative and self-focused and involves disparaging the self to amuse others. Finally, aggressive humor is negative and other-focused, intended to disparage others. These different types of humor are used to connect with or repel others (i.e., affiliative and self-enhancing vs. selfdefeating and aggressive), and may thus be a means to signal whether one is deserving of help (i.e., victims who use a positively valenced type of humor may be perceived as warmer and therefore more deserving compared to those who use negatively valenced humor). Humor type may also send signals about victim need;

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for example, because affiliative and aggressive humor is intended for others, their use by a victim could be perceived as a signal of their power. Although these ideas are yet to be fully tested, some preliminary evidence from Dhensa-Kahlon et al. (2019) suggests that victims’ use of humor is indeed associated with third-party perceptions of victim deservingness and need in the predicted direction. However, additional research is needed to determine whether these perceptions translate to third-party intervention (i.e., whether and how they choose to help the victim).

Victim Talk Another potential means by which victims could influence third-party perceptions of their need and deservingness is through their use of talk, or how they discuss or explain their side of an incident of mistreatment with significant others (i.e., third parties) (Baer et al. 2018; Dhensa 2011). Paralleling Niven et al.’s (2013a, b) work on rumination, talk can help victims of mistreatment reframe the perpetrator’s actions in a different light (Baer et al. 2018). Although this research assumes that third parties are both available and willing to engage in talk with victims – suggesting that those approached by the victim will be sympathetic toward them or “on their side” – the type of talk victims engage in may influence third-party perceptions of whether they need and deserve their help. According to Dhensa (2011), two types of talk exist in the aftermath of mistreatment: talk reflecting one’s emotions (venting) or cognitions. Venting, where one expresses their negative emotions, typically signals that one is in distress (KennedyMoore and Watson 2001). As such, venting might influence third-party perceptions that the victim needs their help. However, the negative tone of venting talk – which can include name-calling and/or gossiping about the perpetrator – may undermine third-party perceptions of victim deservingness, as anger is associated with greater perceived power compared to expressions of sadness (e.g., Tiedens 2001; Tiedens et al. 2000). By contrast, by focusing talk on their cognitions and emphasizing their intention to find rational and constructive approaches to problem-solving (Dhensa 2011), victims may be better able to convey their need as well as their deservingness of third-party help.

Some Additional Considerations Although victims may use humor or talk to send signals to third parties about their need and deservingness of help, it is important to recognize that these types of reactions may not come easily to victims. For example, depending on the nature and source of the original offence, victims may find it difficult to make a joke in response. As such, future research would benefit from considering alternative strategies for conveying need and deservingness.

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In addition, a key determinant of the effects of these signals may be the extent to which third parties perceive the accompanying emotional expression to be appropriate (Cheshin 2020). For example, although the experience of sadness is unpleasant for victims, the display of sadness may increase the likelihood that one will receive support or comfort (Hendriks et al. 2008). As such, third parties may perceive a humorous response to mistreatment as inappropriate or inconsistent with the “victim” role, though we suspect this will also depend on the intensity of the original offence. Finally, despite the focus on third-party intervention in mistreatment (e.g., Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly 2005; O’Reilly and Aquino 2011), it is important to recognize that the effects of this intervention are not yet understood. That is, does third-party punishment of a perpetrator or support of a victim actually lead to better outcomes for those involved or the organizations they work for? Additional research is needed to find out.

Conclusion Workplace mistreatment is a significant problem for organizations, and employees will increasingly look to organizations to address it. Understanding when and why mistreatment happens is essential to designing effective interventions; given the range of organizational, individual, and relational factors involved, interventions that address these together are likely to be more effective than those targeting one or two. In addition to organization-based interventions, third parties may offer an important source of support for victims. Although current theory positions victims as relatively passive in this process, we suggest that they may be able to influence thirdparty reactions by signaling their need and deservingness. We encourage additional research to explore these ideas.

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Managing Health, Safety, and Well-Being at Work Within Changing Legal and Policy Frameworks

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Stavroula Leka and Aditya Jain

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hard Versus Soft Law Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evolution of Policy on Health, Safety, and Well-Being at Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at International and Regional Level . . . . . . . . Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at National Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at the Sectoral Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Soft Law Instruments at the Organizational Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Balancing Hard and Soft Law Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to present key policy approaches to managing health, safety, and well-being at the macrolevel (international, regional, national), mesolevel (sectoral), and microlevel (organizational). We will first begin by defining key concepts before proceeding to explain hard and soft law and the evolution of policy in occupational health and safety. We will then present examples of both these types of approaches at various levels. Recent integrated approaches will also be discussed. We will conclude by considering advantages and disadvantages of these various policy approaches and the need of finding balance in policy and practice.

S. Leka (*) Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] A. Jain Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_34

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Keywords

Health · Safety · Well-being · Legislation · Policy · Hard law · Soft law

Introduction This chapter focuses on the role of legislation and policy in managing health, safety, and well-being at work. The work environment and the nature of work itself are both important influences on health, safety, and well-being (HSW). As a result, workplace health and safety or occupational health and safety have been key areas of concern for many years. Traditionally, more focus has been placed on safety concerns in the workplace, while health concerns became more prominent with the changing nature of work. Well-being, on the other hand, is increasingly being considered in relation to work and the workplace in recent years. A good starting point in understanding this evolution in focus and thinking is definitions. According to the Oxford dictionary, safety is defined as the condition of being safe, freedom from danger, risk, or injury. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. In terms of work, this mainly concerns physical aspects of the work environment. However, the changing nature of work has been associated with the emergence of new types of risk relating to psychological and social aspects of the work environment. This has brought about greater focus on health at work. A very influential definition that shaped thinking and action in subsequent years was the World Health Organization’s definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (World Health Organization [WHO] 1948). This definition promoted a more holistic view of health away from a mere focus on physical aspects toward considering social and mental health aspects. Although the WHO definition already refers to a state of well-being, definitions of well-being include additional dimensions to health, such as social, economic, psychological, and spiritual. Well-being refers to a good or satisfactory condition of existence, a state characterized by health, happiness, and prosperity. Obviously, achieving this state is not relevant to the workplace or work alone. As such, actions to improve HSW can be taken within the work context and outside of it. Actions taken in the workplace represent workplace interventions that are implemented in the work setting and consider the characteristics of work environments and workers. On the other hand, actions taken outside the workplace represent public health interventions that are implemented in various settings (e.g., in schools, communities, or countries) and take into consideration the characteristics of particular populations. A key question in terms of HSW interventions when it comes to the workplace concerns responsibility. While every individual is responsible for their own actions in various contexts of life, in a specific setting like the workplace, additional responsibility lies with the employer since the work environment will expose workers to particular work characteristics that might in turn pose a certain level of risk to their HSW. While employer responsibility might be formalized under law, this

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is not the case across countries or in relation to all possible types of risks to workers’ HSW and in particular new and emerging risks, or risks that are either new or gain in prevalence with the changing nature of work. Accordingly, it is important to consider not only legal duties (found in instruments of hard law) that employers have toward their workforce but also ethical duties that will extend beyond legal compliance (often outlined in other types of policies, called soft law). This chapter discusses the role of legislation and policy for managing HSW at work, considering their evolution across time. Various types of hard and soft law instruments are explained, and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. Examples of hard and soft law instruments at micro-, meso-, and macro-level (macro-level refers to the international, regional (such as European), or national level; meso-level refers to the provincial or sectoral level; micro-level refers to the organizational level) are also considered.

Hard Versus Soft Law Approaches On the basis of existing literature, Leka et al. (2011a) classified policy-level approaches as: • • • • • • • • •

Legislation development Standards at national/stakeholder levels Stakeholder/collective agreements International organization action Social dialogue initiatives National strategy development Development of guidelines Economic incentives/programs Establishing networks/partnerships

When developing policy approaches, the ideal is for complementarity to exist across various initiatives whether they are focusing on public or occupational health issues, economic issues, social security, or sustainability. However, it has been widely acknowledged that such complementarity rarely exists due to different priorities and perspectives among policymakers (Iavicoli et al. 2014). This concerns also policies of relevance to HSW. In addition, the development and implementation of policy approaches is dependent on the context in which these take place. This means that approaches will vary across countries, both within developed countries and between them and developing countries. Indeed, certain perspectives and approaches (e.g., human rights) might be very limited in specific countries due to conflicting interests and priorities, values and cultures, and historic developments. This presents important challenges for the translation of knowledge into practice in these contexts. Let us first consider the different types of policy approaches and their aims. Approaches developed and implemented by various stakeholders at the international, national, regional, sectoral, and enterprise level to promote HSW at work include “hard” or

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“regulatory approaches,” e.g., laws and regulations such as national legislation, International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, and European Union directives, as well as “soft” or “nonbinding/voluntary” approaches developed by recognized national, regional, sectoral, and international organizations which may take the form of specifications, guidance, social partner agreements, and establishment of networks and partnerships. Hard law is defined as a policy relying primarily on the authority and power of the state in the construction, operation, and implementation, including enforcement, of arrangements at international, national, or subnational level (Kirton and Trebilcock 2004). Hard law, based on the concept of “legalization,” is also used to refer to legally binding obligations that are precise (or can be made precise through adjudication or the issuance of detailed regulations) and that delegate authority for interpreting and implementing the law (Abbott and Snidal 2000). Statutes or regulations in highly developed national legal systems are generally taken as prototypical of hard legalization (Abbott et al. 2000). At the intergovernmental level, they can take the form of legally binding treaties, conventions, and directives. Soft law in contrast refers to policies that rely primarily on the participation and resources of nongovernmental actors in the construction, operation, and implementation of a governance arrangement (Abbott and Snidal 2000). According to Ikenberry (2001), in a soft law regime, the formal legal, regulatory authority of governments is not relied upon and may not be even contained in institutional design and operation. Furthermore, there is voluntary participation in policy development and a strong reliance on consensus-based decision-making for action and, more broadly, as a source of institutional binding and legitimacy. In such a regime, any participant is free to leave at any time and to adhere to the regime or not, without invoking the sanctioning power of state authority (Ikenberry 2001). State and non-state actors can achieve many of their goals through soft legalization that is more easily attained or sometimes preferable. Soft law can provide a basis for efficient international “contracts,” and it helps create normative “covenants” and discourses (Abbott and Snidal 2000). Soft law instruments range from treaties, which include only soft obligations (legal soft law), to nonbinding or voluntary resolutions and codes of conduct formulated and accepted by international and regional organizations (nonlegal soft law), to statements prepared by individuals in a nongovernmental capacity, but which purport to lay down international principles. They also include voluntary standards designed and adopted by businesses and civil society to guide their shared understanding (Chinkin 1989; Kirton and Trebilcock 2004). The following sections will discuss the evolution of policy on HSW and present examples of hard and soft law instruments developed in various countries.

Evolution of Policy on Health, Safety, and Well-Being at Work Hard and soft law on HSW at work have evolved in line with socioeconomic and political development across time as well as new knowledge and evidence. Stakeholder interests have also shaped these developments, and with the number of stakeholders having vested interests in HSW, the policy landscape has become more complex.

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Early policies were mostly focused around safety and to lesser degree health. For example, in the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution changed the way the workforce worked with the introduction of mechanization and large-scale factories, bringing with it dangerous working conditions. These factors led to industrial accidents and child labor for extremely long hours in hazardous conditions. As a result, new legislation was introduced in newly industrialized countries, e.g., in the UK; the first piece of occupational safety and health (OSH) legislation, the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, was introduced in 1802. It was targeted at those employed (particularly children) in cotton mills and other factories with 3 or more apprentices employed or 20 employees; it restricted the working day to 12 h and envisioned a phased elimination of night work. During this period there was apprehension toward prosecuting employers for OSH issues on the basis that they provided jobs to society, an argument that still prevails to this day and has led to a trend toward deregulation in many countries. Early OSH regulation was piecemeal and ad hoc which resulted in an excessive number of pieces of legislation in many countries. However, a shift took place in the 1970s with the introduction of new legislation (e.g., Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in the UK, based on the Robens Report on Safety and Health at Work in 1972) that was meant to be goal setting rather than prescriptive, changing the focus to prevention rather than compensation. This shift was seen as a way to ensure risk to health and safety was dealt with by those who created it but also promoted the concept of self-regulation which is inherent in soft law approaches. The risk-based approach gained in importance through the introduction of legislation with a strong focus on the principle of risk management. For example, in the European Union, the Framework Directive on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work was introduced in 1989. It focused on systematic risk assessment and internal competence. It also established the principle that the employer has a duty to ensure the safety and health of workers in every aspect related to their work, crucially broadening the scope of health and safety with the inclusion of issues such as the organization of work and social relationships. This was timely as new findings around this time highlighted work-related stress to be a significant issue affecting the workforce. This has remained constant over the past 30 years and has meant that more specific legislation around health (including psychological or mental health) has been introduced in many countries as well as many additional soft law instruments in this area. At the same time, developments were taking place in the soft law arena as well. For example, in the UK, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 also introduced Approved Codes of Practice (ACoPs). ACoPs are important because they allow some flexibility in dealing with legislation. Failing to comply with a provision of an ACoP was not in itself an offence, but if a statutory requirement is not satisfied in some other way, then one could be found guilty of contravening the regulation or sections of the HSWA (Fairman 1994). In this way, ACoPs are considered quasilegal forms of guidance. The concept of ACoPs existed before the 1974 Act. They were common in certain sectors, for example, they were well regarded by managers and trade unions as underpinning safety in the mining industry.

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Standardization is another area of soft law that has seen increased development over the years. The first national standards body to be established was the British Standards Institution (BSI) in 1901, while in the USA the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) was established in 1918. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was officially established in 1947, with 67 technical committees. In terms of occupational health and safety, BSI collaborated with OSH experts and stakeholders from around the world to create the OHSAS 18001: 1999. A second partner document, the OHSAS 18002:2000, was established as a guideline for implementation of 18,001. Following years of consultation on the need for an international standard on health and safety, ISO 45001 was developed and launched in 2018. A practical guide to the standard for small organizations followed, while ISO45003 on psychological health and safety at work was published in 2021. Apart from standards, other forms of examples of soft law include social partner agreements or guidance and tools available at regional, national, or sectoral level. For example, in Europe, participants in European social dialogue – ETUC (trade unions), BUSINESSEUROPE (private sector employers), UEAPME (small businesses), and CEEP (public employers) – have concluded a number of “voluntary” or autonomous agreements. Examples include framework agreements on telework (2002), work-related stress (2004), harassment and violence at work (2007), inclusive labor markets (2010), and digitalization (2020). An autonomous agreement signed by the European social partners creates a contractual obligation for the affiliated organizations of the signatory parties to implement the agreement at each appropriate level of the national system of industrial relations instead of being incorporated into a directive. Social partners then have to report implementation activities in each EU country to the European Commission. Other voluntary approaches include sectoral policies which are comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated initiatives targeted to address a sector’s specific objectives. As in the case of macrolevel policies, the development of “meso” sectoral policies usually involves consultations with several stakeholders (both public and private) and user groups at the national and supranational (e.g., European) levels; however only sector specific stakeholders are involved. Recently, approaches and models have been developed that aim to integrate the various specialist views on HSW at the workplace. An important reason was the need to combine the two often separated worlds of traditional occupational health and safety and workplace health promotion. While the first focuses on the prevention of occupational or work-related injuries and diseases, the second aims to prevent or reduce public health issues at the workplace, especially those that can be influenced through lifestyle interventions. Examples of these approaches exist at national level (e.g., US NIOSH Total Worker Health™) and international level (e.g., WHO Healthy Workplace Model and ISSA Vision Zero).

Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at International and Regional Level A global example of international hard law comes from the International Labour Organization (ILO) through the issuing of occupational health and safety (OSH)-related

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conventions. These instruments seek to establish basic standards to ensure workers’ health and safety. If ratified, a convention comes into force 1 year after the date of ratification and is legally binding. Ratifying countries commit to applying the convention in local legislation and practice and to regularly reporting on its application. While conventions No. 155, No. 161, and No.187 are recognized as the three key OSH conventions, there are several conventions of relevance to HSW (see Jain et al. 2018). Global initiatives also exist within the “soft law” approach. Examples include ILO recommendations or standards set by international standardization bodies. As with ILO conventions, recommendations are drawn up by representatives of governments, employers, and workers. Recommendations are designed to establish standards through the provision of guidance usually (although not necessarily) related to an existing convention. For example, recommendation 164 on Occupational Safety and Health (1981) is directly relevant to the convention of the same title. Another example from the ILO is the Seoul Declaration on Safety and Health at Work (2008) which asserts that entitlement to a safe and healthy work environment is a fundamental human right. It follows that this should be protected through responsible practices at the policy and business levels, and efforts have been made through corporate social responsibility initiatives to address these issues. In terms of comprehensive soft law approaches, mentioned earlier, in 2017, the International Social Security Association (ISSA) launched the first global campaign to improve safety, health, and well-being at work. The campaign aims to engage companies worldwide to systematically cut down on occupational accidents and diseases by investing in a healthy and motivated workforce. “Vision Zero” is a transformational approach to prevention that integrates the three dimensions of safety, health, and well-being at all levels of work. The ISSA’s Vision Zero concept is flexible and can be adjusted to the specific safety, health, or well-being priorities for prevention in any given context. It includes guidance on seven golden rules of Vision Zero: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Take leadership – demonstrate commitment Identify hazards – control risks Define targets – develop programs Ensure a safe and healthy system – be well-organized Ensure safety and health in machines, equipment, and workplaces Improve qualifications – develop competence Invest in people – motivate by participation

Associated with these 7 golden rules are 14 proactive leading indicators that organizations can use to implement good practice in managing HSW based on the principle of prevention (Zwetsloot et al. 2020). The Framework Directive 89/391/EEC on Safety and Health of Workers at Work, mentioned earlier, is an example of a regional hard law instrument. It lays down employers’ general obligations to ensure workers’ health and safety regarding work, “addressing all types of risk.” To target more specific aspects of safety and health at work, a series of individual directives were also adopted, although the Framework Directive continues to apply to all areas of work. Where the provisions in individual

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directives are more specific and/or stringent, these provisions prevail. Individual directives tailor the principles of the Framework Directive to specific tasks, specific hazards at work, specific workplaces and sectors, specific groups of workers, and certain work-related aspects (European Commission 2004). The individual directives define how to assess these risks and, in some instances, set limit values for certain substances or agents. Over 60 individual EU directives which set minimum health and safety requirements for the protection of workers have been adopted and implemented in the EU. Any standards established in individual directives are the minimum standards deemed necessary to protect workers; however, member states are allowed to maintain or establish higher levels of protection. On the other hand, in terms of regional soft law, the implementation of some of the European social partner agreements has been evaluated by the European Commission. For example, the European Commission published the results of a study on the implementation of the autonomous framework agreement on “harassment and violence at work” in 2016. The implementation actions have slightly tended toward less “binding” activities (guidance, declarations, translation, and dissemination) than it was the case for previous European autonomous framework agreements. However, several sectoral agreements emerged as a result. In 2009, European social partners from the commerce sector adopted a toolkit entitled “Preventing Third-Party Violence in Commerce.” One year later, multi-sectoral guidelines to tackle third-party work-related violence and harassment were signed by European social partners in the commerce, healthcare, local and regional government, private security, and education sectors. In the European railway sector, a good practice guide and recommendations were adopted to promoting security and the feeling of security vis-à-vis third-party violence. More recently, the European Community Shipowners’ Associations and the European Transport Workers’ Federation agreed on guidelines to shipping companies for eliminating workplace harassment and bullying. In particular, the trade unions in the education sector have also been very active in this field, having drafted an implementation guide to the cross-industry autonomous framework agreement for teaching unions and practical guidelines for anti-cyber harassment measures in education (European Commission 2016).

Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at National Level National laws may conform to criteria established in international (e.g., if the country has ratified an ILO convention) and regional policies (e.g., EU directives); however, there are large variations in the scope and coverage of national health and safety laws (ILO 2004). To implement national legislation, most countries have designated occupational health and safety authorities and inspection systems to ensure compliance. In several countries, particularly developed countries, there are mechanisms for national surveillance (collection and analysis of data) on health and safety, tripartite (employers, trade unions, and government) consultation mechanisms or bodies, access to occupational health and safety services, occupational health and safety research institutions, and links with worker injury insurance schemes and institutions.

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For example, in Australia, the Work Health and Safety Act, which is supported by relevant regulations and several codes of practice (Safe Work Australia 2016), establishes the general duties that are placed on various parties involved in the conduct of work. The relevant regulations focus on various aspects pertaining to health and safety at work including falls, driving, and electrical safety, as well as plant and structures, construction work, hazardous chemicals, asbestos, major hazard fatalities, mines, and a review of decisions, exemptions, and prescribed serious illnesses. National legislation can also focus on more specific issues. For example, in Sweden, the “Organisational and Social Work Environment” (AFS 2015: 4) provisions, which came into effect on 31 March 2016, regulate knowledge requirements, goals, workloads, working hours, and victimization. The provisions have been developed in consultation with the labor market partners and have a focus on preventive work environment management. These regulations concretize the Swedish Work Environment Act, which is a general legislation, and clarify – as well as supplement – the systematic work environment management that all employers are obliged to carry out. At national level, an example of soft law approach comes from Japan. The Mental Health Action Checklist is a list of 30 action items which could be useful in improving the psychosocial work environment (Yoshikawa et al. 2007). It is a tool developed for facilitating worker participation, and it is a guide for improving work environments for worker mental health based on collecting, sorting, and classifying more than 250 good practices obtained from successful cases among Japanese workplaces. It focuses on six technical areas: sharing work planning, work time and organization, ergonomic work methods, workplace environment, mutual support in the workplace, and preparedness and care (Yoshikawa et al. 2007). It has been extensively used in workplaces in Japan and has been shown to be effective in reducing depression and sick leave among workers. For example, an intervention study demonstrated that a worker participatory approach using the checklist was effective in reducing job stressors and depression among white-collar workers (Kobayashi et al. 2008). Similarly, the Management Standards for Work-related Stress, developed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in the UK (Mackay et al. 2004) and adapted by INAIL in Italy (Iavicoli et al. 2014), include guidance, survey, and focus group tools that allow organizations to benchmark their practice against good practice standards (for a discussion on their evaluation, see Iavicoli et al. 2014).

Examples of Hard and Soft Law Instruments at the Sectoral Level Several sectoral directives have been developed by the European Commission. Examples include Directive 2017/159/EU – Work in Fishing Convention of 19 December 2016 – and Directive 2010/32/EU, prevention from sharp injuries in the hospital and healthcare sector of 10 May 2010. These sectoral hard law instruments are the result of agreements concluded at sectoral level by social partners.

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There are several examples of soft law initiatives at the sectoral level. The Work and Health Covenants in the Netherlands are such an example. From 1998 until 2007, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment actively encouraged and subsidized a sectoral approach to OSH risk management. The overall aim was to achieve a reduction of about 10% in exposure to sector-specific OSH risks over a period of approximately 3 years. These sectoral risk management projects were called Work and Health Covenants. A covenant can be described as an agreement between employers and employee representatives of a sector who – in the presence and with the advice of the ministry – agree on the risks to tackle, the approach or measures to take, and the specific goals to be formulated at the sectoral level. About 50 high-risk sectors (i.e., sectors in which either 40% of workers or at least 50,000 workers were exposed to primary work risks, including high job demands, high physical demands, and working with health-damaging chemicals) participated in the initiative (Taris et al. 2010).

Examples of Soft Law Instruments at the Organizational Level Organizations themselves also develop internal guidelines and standards on the basis of existing legislation and soft law policies and good practice principles. These may be done through business networks or directly by a specific organization. For example, policy approaches can be developed and implemented at the interorganizational level, where civil actors, with or without the involvement of governmental actors, organize to promote specific areas of interest. For example, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Europe is the leading European business network for corporate social responsibility for more than 10,000 organizations. Its mission is to support member companies with integrating CSR into the way they do business on a daily basis. CSR Europe sees the issue of HSW in the workplace as core to CSR objectives. Initiatives have focused on wellbeing at work and more recently the future of work. Several examples also exist at the organizational level. Box 1 refers to such an example from an oil and gas company in Norway (Bergh et al. 2014), which adapted international good practice guidance to develop its own standards and processes for the management of psychosocial risks in the workplace.

Box 1 Establishment of Internal Requirements and Guidelines for Psychosocial Risk Management – Statoil (Now Equinor), Norway

In the process of establishing psychosocial requirements into the company’s corporate requirements, a focus on the design, management, and organization of work needed to be incorporated into the existing requirements. The psychosocial requirements that were added into the existing requirements included the following aspects: “workplaces and work processes should be (continued)

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Box 1 (continued)

organized in a way that prevents employees from being exposed to psychosocial hazards with risks of developing ill health. Effort should be made to avoid work-related stress and ill health due to the psychosocial working environment. Coarse psychosocial hazard identification should be performed regularly on an annual basis. Attention should be paid to determinants such as job content, workload and work schedule, job control, interpersonal relationships at work, role in organization, bullying, home-work interface, and organizational change. Health and working environment risks, including psychosocial risk, should be managed in a systematic, ongoing manner within the organizational context. Results from the coarse psychosocial hazard identification should indicate where to implement further in-depth assessments in line with best practice principles for psychosocial risk management described in the guideline for the psychosocial risk management approach. The requirements in relation to the psychosocial work environment also include hazards such as violence, bullying, and harassment at work. Complaints of bullying should be handled in accordance with the internal work process for handling bullying cases.” Furthermore, a guideline for psychosocial risk management (PRIMA) was developed as part of the company’s internal requirements. The guideline was adapted through the Psychosocial Risk Management Excellence Framework (PRIMA-EF) (Leka and Cox 2008). Some adjustments were made in order to fit the company’s management system. One of the more important adjustments was to introduce “upside risk” into the guideline for managing psychosocial risk. This was in line with how the company defines risk in two dimensions: upside and downside risk. Risk is defined as the deviation from a specified reference value and the associated uncertainty, i.e., positive deviation ¼ upside risk and negative deviation ¼ downside risk. A guideline is, in this company, listed as advisory documentation and is a description of recommended practices, techniques, methods, and user manuals. As such, the guideline is the application of the risk management framework to psychosocial risks in the workplace. It is based on the principles of prevention in line with the control cycle. Steps in the psychosocial risk management process include: 1. Trigger in-depth psychosocial risk assessment. 2. Start-up and familiarization: plan ahead and prepare the organization. 3. Risk identification and assessment: identify psychosocial factors that may affect employees’ health (both upside and downside risk should be included). 4. Identify interventions: involve employees in discussions when identifying interventions. Make an action plan. (continued)

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Box 1 (continued)

5. Risk intervention: implement action plan in order to deal with the identified factors. 6. Evaluation: recommendations and further work must include an evaluation of the short-term and long-term effect of the measures. Findings and interventions should be evaluated and included in a systematic and continuous evaluation and improvement of the psychosocial work environment. It is important to include the entire control cycle and through this process achieve organizational development and training. PRIMA is based on the process of triangulation: using multiple data collection methods and cross-checking the reliability and validity of the data collected. The method is based on a review of organizational documentation and systems, qualitative methods (such as interviews and focus groups) and quantitative methods (surveys). PRIMA is facilitated by experts with appropriate training and experience in psychosocial risk management. Source: Adapted from Bergh et al. 2014.

Balancing Hard and Soft Law Approaches As we have discussed in this chapter, both hard law (binding) and soft law (voluntary) policy approaches have been developed and implemented to address HSW at work. Both of these approaches have several advantages and disadvantages. Hard law offers the legitimacy, the strong surveillance and enforcement mechanisms, and the guaranteed resources that soft law often lacks. Hard law has been reported to be one of the most important motivators for organizations to engage with HSW (EU-OSHA 2010). However, a hard law approach, promoted alone, may have some drawbacks. OSH regulation in the EU and other developed countries covers traditional health risks (e.g., physical risks) and emerging risks (e.g., psychosocial risks). However, in practice, actions mostly target traditional hazards, for example, chemical hazards (HSE 2005), as these are perceived to have the greatest potential to disable or kill (WHO 2010). As the focus has moved away from this, toward the prevention of ill health, the regulatory approach has been found to be less effective due to the lack of specific coverage of risks, and unclear terminology. This has brought about confusion among experts, policymakers, and other key actors like employers, employees, and occupational health services (HSE 2005; Leka et al. 2011b). Additionally, a regulatory approach is most likely to be effective in developed countries, where a more advanced framework is available to effectively translate policy into practice. Indeed, in developing countries, OSH legislation often does not meet international standards and is often not enforced (Joubert 2002). Furthermore,

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most workers are not covered by these laws. However, even in developed nations, there have been ongoing challenges in relation to law enforcement since enforcement agencies (e.g., labor inspectorates) have found their resources cut in light of budget reviews (Leka et al. 2015). A further issue is that nations might choose not to make use of legislative policy initiatives where available. Many countries (both developed and developing) choose not to ratify ILO OSH conventions. Furthermore, there is a desire to minimize the regulatory burden placed on organizations, especially SMEs (HSE 2005). Additionally, if dissatisfied with the state of legislation, business can lobby for changes in legislation (Bain 1997). Similarly, if deterrents are not established properly, this may fail to regulate organizational behavior, and organizations may view fines as “operational licenses” to be paid (McBarnet 2009). Businesses have also become extremely adept at dealing with legal burdens through the art of “creative compliance” where legislation is adhered to but only superficially and not in “spirit” (Gold and Duncan 1993). In these cases, enforcement is not an option because in the strictest of senses, these organizations have not violated any laws. A further issue is that regulation is designed to target minimum requirements (EU-OSHA 2010). Thus, even if one envisioned a scenario where organizations were compliant with these requirements, it is questionable whether the high-level goals established by organizations like the WHO and ILO could be achieved. In contrast, soft law offers advantages such as timely actions when governments are stalemated; bottom-up initiatives that bring additional legitimacy, expertise, and other resources for making and enforcing new norms and standards; and an effective means for direct civil society participation in global governance. These benefits are particularly important at a time when the demands of intensifying globalization may outstrip capacities of national governments (Kirton and Trebilcock 2004). Soft law has also been found to be more precise and user friendly than hard law in relation to HSW (Leka et al. 2015). Nonetheless, the soft law approach comes with its own challenges. It may lack the legitimacy and strong surveillance and enforcement mechanisms offered by hard law. With a broader array of stakeholders, soft law may promote compromise, or even compromised standards, less stringent than those delivered by governments acting with their full authority (Chinkin 1989). Soft law can also lead to uncertainty, as competing sets of voluntary standards struggle for dominance and as actors remain unclear about the costs of compliance or its absence and about when governments might intervene to impose a potentially different mandatory regime (Kirton and Trebilcock 2004). There are also some overarching issues that concern both approaches. One of them relates to the fact that policies are made and implemented in multi-actor contexts, and the various stakeholders frequently view problems and solutions differently, and some will try to influence the aim and direction of a policy all the way through the policy process. Such situations call for more attention to be paid to different rationalities and lines of argument (Hanberger 2001). The economic argument relates, for example, to availability and provision of resources, unemployment rates, labor productivity, as well as social factors such as freedom of association and

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union participation in public policy. The political argument relates to the system of governance (federal, central, unitary, intergovernmental), political stability, etc. The context has a direct impact on the policy framework for HSW, the actors who are included or excluded from the development of policies and their perception of HSW risks, the process of negotiation, development and implementation of these policies, and policy outcomes. These have an impact on the actions taken by governments, regions, and organizations to manage HSW and alleviate possible negative outcomes in terms of incidence of accidents, diseases, health conditions, and related business outcomes (e.g., absenteeism, presenteeism, and human error). In order for balance to be achieved between different approaches, it is important to align perspectives across key stakeholders and across different types of policies and social and economic agendas. Increasingly, emphasis is being placed on the integration of HSW policies, both at the organizational and the national level. At the organizational level, there is growing recognition that HSW is associated with strategic and often intangible benefits (Johanson et al. 2007; Zwetsloot and van Scheppingen 2007), thus a need for alternatives to business cases narrowly oriented toward economic outcomes. The need for a holistic approach is particularly important, not only for financial reasons but also for legal and moral reasons, which drive businesses to engage in HSW (EU-OSHA 2015). At the national policy level, the collaboration between different policy sectors reflects the trend of the cooperation and interdependence between occupational safety and health, occupational health services, human resource development, and business management (Anttonen and Räsänen 2009). The increased recognition of the role played by various stakeholders and the need for their active participation has led to the development of the Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach (Ollila et al. 2013) which can facilitate the mainstreaming of HSW policies across sectors and levels. The use of integrative approaches, such as those advocated by the HiAP approach applied to work and employment (Rantanen et al. 2013), can facilitate the aligning of perspectives and mainstream HSW at the societal level. Rantanen et al. (2013) applied the HiAP approach to work, health, and employment. Recognizing the roles of national, intergovernmental, and supranational political and policy actors and the need for integrating their various HSW policy mandates, approaches, and initiatives, they proposed a multi-sectoral policy intervention framework. This framework is a chain process with several entry points that can be used to align these varied approaches and initiatives. Policymakers can utilize such entry points as opportunities arise, as they work toward reaching the objective of sustainable health, work ability, and quality of working life for workers (i.e., decent work and decent life), and implement actions which need active multisectoral and tripartite collaboration and contribution (Rantanen et al. 2013). For balance to be achieved in the HSW policy arena, it is important for policymakers to ensure the integration and coordination of policies relevant to HSW at work. Decisions in relation to HSW policy development are complex, and the actors involved in the process will represent different political, cultural, and process influences and therefore, in turn, will have an impact on decisions being

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made when translating knowledge into policy and practice to address HSW issues. The development of comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated initiatives targeted to address HSW requires consultations among several stakeholders (both public and private) across sectors and user groups at the national and supranational levels. At the same time, regulators should ensure the availability of appropriate services, infrastructures, and human resources for promoting HSW.

Conclusion This chapter presented key policy approaches to managing HSW at the macrolevel (international, regional, national), mesolevel (sectoral), and microlevel (organizational). The evolution of OSH policymaking was outlined with the concepts of hard and soft law explained. Examples of binding, voluntary, and integrated policy approaches were then presented. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches and challenges in translating knowledge into policy and practice were discussed. An alignment of perspectives and approaches would be the ideal way forward in relation to HSW, and steps have been made in the right direction as has been discussed in this chapter. For this to be achieved, there needs to be a balance among evidence, capabilities, and morality, and this concerns both the policy and the organizational level.

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Psychological Adjustment and Post-arrival Cross-cultural Training for Better Expatriation

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A Systematic Review Sheetal Gai

, Paula Brough, and Elliroma Gardiner

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Purpose of This Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-Cultural Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Psychological Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cross-Cultural Training (CCT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evidence of CCT Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Search Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Descriptive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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S. Gai (*) Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing and School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: sheetal.gai@griffithuni.edu.au P. Brough Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: p.brough@griffith.edu.au E. Gardiner School of Management, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_39

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Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CCT Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abstract

Globalization has produced increasingly multicultural workplaces, resulting in a proliferation of cross-cultural difficulties for expatriate employees and their work organizations. Expatriate workers often experience high levels of stress, and because of this, the rate of mental ill-health among expatriates is increasing. The review argues that examining psychological adjustment can advance our understanding of the role of mental health in expatriate success. Thus, this review first examines the prevalence and significance of measuring the psychological adjustment dimension among multinational corporation (MNC) expatriate workers in the cross-cultural literature. Second, this review examines the role of cross-cultural training (pre-departure and post-arrival) and its effectiveness on expatriation success. This review analyzed 22 empirical studies published between 1994 and 2020 that examined either or both: (1) crosscultural adjustment, emphasizing the psychological adjustment component, and (2) cross-cultural training, emphasizing the effectiveness and impact of pre-departure and post-arrival cross-cultural training on long-term expatriation success among MNC expatriate workers. This review was conducted with a specific goal of increasing our understanding of the role of psychological adjustment and how appropriate cross-cultural training may increase expatriate success. Keywords

Expatriate employees · Stress · Cross-cultural adjustment · Cross-cultural training · Information and communication technology

Introduction In the digitalization era, global assignments have become increasingly important for multinational corporations (MNCs). To achieve this objective, MNCs continue to increase international employment opportunities worldwide (Liu 2020, July 30; ILO 2019). MNCs primarily depend on expatriates for growth and advantage (Singh and Mahmud 2018). Research traditionally considered “expatriate” as people who were sent to work in another unit of the same company located in a foreign country, referred to as organizational expats (Cerdin and Selmer 2013). However, new trends in the international job market are making way for “independent internationally mobile professionals” expatriates, commonly referred to as “self-initiated expatriates” – a highly skilled worker with unique expertise, knowledge, and technical

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skills (Cerdin and Selmer 2013; Doherty 2013). With increasing globalization, the expatriate workers will consist of 87.5 million employees in 2021. Expatriate workers are key contributors to the rapidly expanding information and communication technology sector (ICT; Foged et al. 2019). Indeed, the ICT sector is one of the largest sectors for employing highly skilled expatriates, followed by the hospitality sector (OECD 2020). ICT expatriates are employed within many product and services industries, including information technology, education, digital, media, telecommunication, financial, insurance, construction, manufacturing, retail, and other services. Overall, the ICT MNCs have become culturally diverse entities, with highly skilled employees migrating temporarily and permanently to numerous host countries. Since 2016, the ICT industry has produced considerable gains and economic growth worth US$ 11.5 trillion globally, equivalent to 15.5% of global GDP (Henry-Nickle et al. 2019, March 29). According to an OECD (2020) report, the numbers of expatriate workers have increased exponentially since 2005. Foreign-born workers in OECD countries now amount to approximately 14% of national employees, compared to 9% in 2005. Correspondingly in the United States, this population has increased to 18% from 16%, and in Australia, an increase of 30% from 26%. It is further illustrated in the report that the ICT sector is one of the largest sectors for employing highly skilled expatriates (50% the USA and 53% OECD countries), followed by the hospitality sector (27%). For instance, in the United States, the percentage of recent migrant expatriates working in this sector accounted for a total of 7% in 2018, from only 2% in 2005. Similarly, in European countries, there are almost 4% of expatriates working in the ICT sector. Working abroad requires an adjustment to the host country. Expatriates experience a transition period where they prepare to leave their home country and then arrive, adapt, and work in the host country (Sussman 2011). This transition includes several emotionally demanding challenges (Haslberger et al. 2013), especially when significant cultural differences exist between the home and host countries. A recent review of MNC expatriate employees revealed that 83% reported experiencing psychological stress due to the cultural gap between their home and host countries, primarily caused by the new environment, family routine changes, and daily interactions with society (Chen 2019). MNC expatriate workers also commonly experience occupational stress due to heavy workloads, long working hours, working across multi-geographical locations, and pressure from their managers and clients (Upadhya and Vasavi 2006). One of the costliest elements of expatriate management is expatriate failure, commonly experienced in terms of inadequate job performance, adjustment problems, and an early return to the home country (Sterle et al. 2018). When expatriates do not adjust well to their host country, they may experience high levels of psychological distress, resulting in burnout, social withdrawal, poor work performance, low job satisfaction, and turnover (Harari et al. 2018; Sterle et al. 2018). Expatriate failure estimates are as high as 40%, and these failures cost MNCs an average of US$ 2 billion a year (Burgess 2016). Expatriate failures are primarily attributed to inadequate assessments of expatriate’s adaptability skills, with an average of 20% of

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expatriates experiencing notable difficulties in adjusting to the new host country (Singh and Mahmud 2018). It is, therefore, in the interests of multinational organizations to improve the longterm success rate of expatriate employees. An emerging school of thought suggests a direct approach in examining levels of psychological strain experienced by expatriate employees and how this strain and other challenges impact the adjustment of these expatriate workers within their new host environments (Davis et al. 2018; Platanitis 2017). Clearly, the need for continuous adaptation and transition support is fundamental to ensure the successful adjustment and retention of expatriate employees (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013). Cross-cultural training (CCT) is one such method designed to enhance expatriate workers’ successful adjustment and retention. The cross-cultural training market is expected to grow by US$1.22 billion by 2024 (Maida 2020). This growth is primarily driven by the need to offer improved expatriate adjustment experiences in order to retain staff (Arcari 2019; Javvadi 2016). However, given the continuing quantity and costs of expatriate failures, this improved CCT support is clearly not successful (Schickel 2018). To enunciate the common deficiencies in cross-cultural adjustment and training and the subsequent economic consequences for employers, a systematic review of the pertinent issues related to expatriate worker adjustment is required. The current study reviews the evidence concerning MNC expatriate worker adjustment, the availability of cross-cultural training programs for these workers, and the effectiveness of such programs. This review aims to highlight the training advances required to ensure expatriate workers’ successful long-term employment, especially those employed within the MNC ICT sector.

Purpose of This Review The current chapter has three aims. First, to assess the cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) challenges that MNC ICT expatriate workers commonly experience. Second, to assess the available forms of cross-cultural training and analyze its effectiveness in terms of better expatriation success. Third, since methodological issues have long been acknowledged in the literature, this review evaluates the evidence of empirical research and theoretical trends and provides recommendations for advancing knowledge in this field to improve and explain expatriation success.

Cross-Cultural Adjustment Cross-cultural adjustment is defined as the process of adaptation to living and working in a foreign culture (Okpara and Kabongo 2011). Adjustment is considered successful if expatriates effectively navigate the demands of living and working in a new host country. Nevertheless, given the multifaceted nature of adjustment, the extant literature has examined antecedents of adjustment and its outcomes, from a sociocultural perspective, such as length of assignments, age of expatriate, and prior international experience. Most expatriate research, to date, excludes psychological strain factors that influence adjustment (Doki et al. 2018).

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Psychological Adjustment Cross-cultural psychological adjustment is a psychological contact process emphasizing stress and mental well-being factors that impact cross-cultural adaptation for expatriate workers while in their new host country (Haslberger et al. 2013). Psychological adjustment refers to the general emotional and affective state of well-being and life satisfaction, focusing on an individual’s beliefs, perceptions, values, ideologies, and attitudes (Gebregergis et al. 2019). Psychological factors play an important role in influencing adjustment during expatriation (Shin et al. 2003). Working abroad is typically a difficult experience; adapting to heightened stress contributes to the development of mental health disorders among MNC expatriate workers (Doki et al. 2018; Valk 2003). For example, Truman et al. (2011) reported that expatriate workers experienced a 50% higher risk for mental health problems, such as internalizing problems (stress, suicide, anxiety, loneliness, and depression), externalizing problems (attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct and impulse control), and substance misuse disorders, compared to native workers. Expatriate workers may also experience challenges with cognition such as difficulties with understanding relationships, misunderstandings caused by cultural differences, frustration, insomnia, fear of isolation, the uncertainty of the future, concerns over health and security, and decreased well-being (Chen 2019; Doki et al. 2018; Gai et al. 2011; Vijayakumar and Cunningham 2019). Ward and colleagues (2001) reported that successful cross-cultural adjustment is the culmination of enhanced emotional resilience, effective cognitive restructuring, and the display of appropriate behavioral and social skills. Thus, achieving a holistic approach that features learning and exhibiting new behaviors and cognitive changes in the host culture is crucial for a successful adjustment (Zhang 2013). Therefore, it is necessary to clearly understand the psychological adjustment that expatriate workers experience within their new host country (Sussman 2011). The current review investigates evidence of psychological adjustment within MNCs. Informed by this work, our first research question therefore is: Research Question 1: How often is psychological adjustment assessed within the cross-cultural literature for MNC expatriates?

Cross-Cultural Training (CCT) Evidence of CCT Effectiveness CCT aims to improve an individual’s intercultural learning skills by developing the cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies necessary for successful interactions across dissimilar cultures (Ko and Li Yang 2011). Most CCT programs primarily provide advanced cultural information such as social and behavioral etiquette, advice on housing, shopping, and medical care; courses on residential briefing (housing, school); and environmental briefing (climate, geography) via pre-departure training. The majority of current CCT programs rarely focus on

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helping MNC expatriate employees develop their coping strategies or consider the expatriate employees’ challenging situations when residing in the host country (Persson and Segerud 2017). Evidence indicates that while cross-cultural training commonly has a positive effect on adjustment dimensions, CCT (especially pre-departure training) is often perceived as problematic, particularly because of the conflicting results regarding the tangible benefits of this training for the expatriate workers (Abdullah and Jin 2015; Mnengisa 2017). Most pre-departure CCT programs are aimed at generic cultural changes and have standard structures suitable for all expatriates, including standard goals such as establishing familiarity with the host country, language training, and general etiquette; living standards; and basic cultural norms (Pruetipibultham 2012). As a result, most existing CCT for MNC expatriate workers is unsuccessful in reducing expatriate failure costs, and the long-term expatriation benefit is intermittent. There are several reasons for current CCT failure that exhibits minimal effectiveness. First, the short CCT programs; 1 day of training does not enable expatriates to fully understand the changes they will likely experience upon arrival. Second, expatriate management is currently adopted as a one-size-fits-all function, when a more tailored, situation-specific approach would be more effective. Third, the simplistic implementation of CCT is problematic and commonly includes the lack of effective designs, a wide range of included models, different types of training, and the complexity of the subject (Joshua-Gojer 2012). For training programs to be effective, they need to consider whom an intervention works, why, how, and what circumstances it is crucial (Biggs and Brough 2015). Continuous cultural adaption requires expatriates to develop new skills. Recent research is advocating CCT to be integrated with the individual’s psychological needs while in their host country, that is, the receipt of CCT training post-arrival (Chen and Chang 2015). Informed by this research, our second research question, therefore, is: Research Question 2. What types of cross-cultural training programs are available, and how effective are they in MNCs? The challenges of developing effective CCT programs have attracted recent scholarly attention, highlighting the need for tailored programs to better meet MNC expatriates’ adjustment needs within their host environment (Robert and Goemans 2014; Tahir and Ertek 2018). For these training programs to be effective, they require a firm grounding in both theory and empirical evidence (Brough and Hawkes 2019). The extent to which the CCT adjustment programs reported in the literature adopt this evidence-based foundation is currently not clear. Theoretical Perspectives. Theoretical development is important for all applied research fields; however, within the cross-cultural literature, clear theoretical explanations of expatriate adjustment are scarce (Davis et al. 2018). Existing reviews indicate CCT programs are rarely informative, primarily because the development and design of these programs are not firmly associated with theory (Lenartowicz et al. 2014). Recent observations noted that the inadequate use of theoretical explanations contributes to the difficulty in measuring improvements in expatriate

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adjustment (Takeuchi and Wang 2019). The common theoretical models cited within the MNC’s cross-cultural literature, including Black et al.’s theory (Cheema 2012), social learning theory (O’Sullivan et al. 2002), and the theory of cultural shock (Wurtz 2014), are predominately approached from a sociocultural aspect. In sum, the increasing dynamic of the adjustment paradigm now requires a more comprehensive framework to provide a clear theoretical explanation of long-term expatriate adjustment. This review’s final research question, therefore, is: Research Question 3: Which theories are commonly utilized to best explain crosscultural adjustment and training within the MNC cross-cultural literature?

Method Design This systematic review adopts the 15-step framework devised by Pickering and Byrne (2014) and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement (Moher et al. 2009). The process included focusing on research questions, explicating search, selecting protocols, and specifying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Inclusion criteria included empirical, original quantitative research, qualitative/mixed method, thus facilitating the reproducible and replicable design and accommodating diverse combinations of heterogeneous variables (Maxwell et al. 2020). Articles within this review were searched and categorized through a structured search process using relevant keywords. The identified literature was examined against a series of inclusion standards that represented the current research topic (Pickering and Byrne 2014). Only studies that informed psychological adjustment issues and/or evaluated the effectiveness and impact of pre-post cross-cultural training were considered for this review. Included studies were those with MNC expatriate workers (not student samples) as research participants. Meta-analyses and theoretical or conceptual papers were excluded as part of this review (Chen and Gardiner 2019; Sit et al. 2017).

Search Strategies Keyword searches across four electronic literature databases were conducted in June 2020: ProQuest (yielding 7166 returned items, of which 6591 were extracted); Scopus (yielding 2772 returned items, of which 2074 were extracted); PsycINFO (yielding 1294 returned items, of which 103 were extracted); and Web of Science (yielding 179 returned items, of which 27 were extracted). The search terms (Table 1) were consistent across all databases. In addition, the results were restricted to academic empirical articles published on or before June 30, 2020. Table 1 summarizes the search terms and inclusion/exclusion criteria employed by the current review.

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Table 1 Inclusion-exclusion criteria and search terms Inclusion Psychological adjustment Cross-cultural adjustment Effectiveness and impact of cross-cultural training (pre-post)

Exclusion Literature reviews, metaanalyses, theoretical or conceptual papers Student population articles

Working expatriate employees in technology industry/ sectors English language empirical peer-reviewed articles Gray literature

Non-technology sectors

Search terms Expatriate employees* OR “working abroad” OR “IT employee*” OR “highly skilled IT worker*” OR “skilled technology employee*” OR “skilled visa*” AND acculturation* OR adjust* OR stress* OR well-being OR “wellbeing” AND intervention* OR “stress management*” OR “expatriate employees management*” OR “cross-cultural training*” OR “intercultural training*”

Non-English articles

Studies published after June 2020

Note. Wildcard “*” was used to assure that all the possible combinations of the lexeme of research keywords were obtained. This was done keeping in mind the diverse nature of this research and to ensure that all research terms and concepts were well covered. “IT”/“technology” sector is referred as multinational corporations in the most review studies

Data Extraction The screening process for identifying the eligible articles is summarized using the modified PRISMA statement flow chart in Fig. 1. First, articles from each database were merged in an EndNote reference library, and the stated extraction process was followed. A total of 11,411 articles were identified, and duplicates were removed (n ¼ 2614). Of the remaining 8797 articles, a total of 6292 (titles and keywords) and 2400 (abstract reading) articles were removed because they did not meet the inclusion criteria. Second, a total of 105 articles were selected for a full review. Third, 54 articles were excluded because they did not meet the review criteria after the full-text screening, and 29 articles were further removed because they were only conceptual or theoretical. Finally, a total of 22 relevant articles met all the eligibility criteria for synthesis. The data were entered into an electronic database by the first author (SG). Methodological rigor was achieved where all 22 articles were evaluated by the third author (EG). The inter-rater reliability of 100% was established using Cohen’s coefficient, indicating a strong agreement between the two coders.

Data Analysis Research Question 1. For the first research question, codes were developed based on the existing framework of the recognized categories of adjustment dimensions

835

Scopus

PsycINFO

Web of Science

Identification through Databases (n = 11411)

ProQuest

Psychological Adjustment and Post-arrival Cross-cultural Training for. . .

Identification

40

Included

Eligibility

Screening

Records after duplicates removed (n = 2614)

Records screened (n = 8797)

Full-text articles assessed for eligibility (n = 105)

Records excluded Title/Keywords (n = 6292) Abstracts (n = 2400)

Full-text articles excluded (n = 83)

Studies included (n = 22) quantitative synthesis (n = 17); qualitative synthesis (n = 4); mixed method (n = 1)

Fig. 1 Modified PRISMA statement. (Note. Criteria for exclusion of literature and meta-analyses of theoretical or conceptual papers, non-English articles, and studies published after June 2020)

(e.g., Black and Mendenhall 1991). The dimensions’ classification drew upon the three-dimension model of CCA: general adjustment, work adjustment, and interactive adjustment (Black and Mendenhall 1991). The analysis assessed evidence for psychological adjustment in this MNC expatriate literature.

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Research Question 2. For the second research question, codes were developed to identify the different types of training and the training effectiveness described within the selected articles. Codes were also developed to identify the types of training offered before arrival (pre-departure training) or in the host country (post-arrival training). Additionally, evaluations of CCT programs’ effectiveness were categorized via two codes: “validated via survey” and “validated via implementing.” The “validated via survey” category represented articles that evaluated CCT effectiveness by using survey methods and/or interviews with expatriate trainees. The “validated via implementing” category included articles that administered a CCT program and studied the program’s effectiveness. The impact of training methods as an influencing factor in determining the effectiveness of programs was also assessed. Research Question 3. For the third question, codes were developed to identify the theories cited in the reviewed articles. Specifically, literature that included at least one theory that guided the research hypotheses and/or the training within a study was coded as “theory-based.” Studies that alluded to theories within the introduction and/or discussion sections but that did not directly inform the hypotheses and/or the training were coded as “partially theory-based.” Articles that did not refer to any theory were coded as “non-theoretical” (Burgess et al. 2020).

Results Descriptive A total of 22 empirical studies published between 1994 and 2020 were included in the review. As shown in Fig. 2, one to two articles on this topic have been published annually. Surprisingly, the data indicated that empirically based studies in this field are relatively scarce, for example, no research was published in many years in this period (specifically in years 1995–2000, 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013). Table 2 summarizes the demographic details and the research methods of the included studies. Most studies adopted a quantitative research design (n ¼ 17; 77%), four studies (18%) included a qualitative research design, and one study employed a mixed method design (4.5%). Nineteen articles were published in peer-reviewed journals, one article was a full conference paper, and two entries were postgraduate dissertations. The data indicated that expatriate movement is higher from developed to developing economies (n ¼ 11; 50%; e.g., USA to India), followed by developed to developed economies (n ¼ 10; 45%; e.g., UK to USA). A smaller proportion of studies represent expatriate employees moving from developing to developed economies (n ¼ 3; 13%; e.g., India to Australia) and developing to developing economies (n ¼ 3; 13%; e.g., India to Malaysia). Thus, the results clearly demonstrate a focus on the Western (developed) expatriate perspectives (n ¼ 16; 72%) within this literature. Participants described within the research studies were predominately male (n ¼ 3267; 75%; female, n ¼ 766; 25%) and employed in the information technology telecommunications, banking/financial services, and engineering sectors. Over half (n ¼ 2298; 57%) of the respondents held undergraduate degrees, and approximately 35% (n ¼ 1411) held a master’s degree.

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Fig. 2 Frequency of publications between 1994 and 2020

Data Analyses Research Question 1. The analysis revealed that 18 studies (81%) investigated general adjustment, 16 studies (72%) investigated work adjustment only, and interaction adjustment was reported in 15 studies (68%). Seven studies (31%) investigated psychological adjustment as a single dimension. Psychological adjustment refers to a person’s subjective well-being and satisfaction within the new host country, whereas the sociocultural adjustment refers to the individual’s ability to fit into the new culture (Selmer 2002). Psychological adjustment is best interpreted with the stress and coping framework, emphasizing the negative consequences of cross-cultural interactions that produce mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, and stress (Ersoy 2020; Okpara and Kabongo 2011). Expatriation without psychological comfort within the new culture makes it difficult for expatriates to develop appropriate skills to adjust (Wang and Tran 2012). To summarize, although the literature suggests that adjustment to psychological challenges is central to successful adaptation, the specific psychological adjustment process undertaken by expatriate workers is rarely assessed. How expatriates experience psychological adjustment while living and working in the host country remains an under-explored area. Research Question 2. Table 3 presents evidence of how the reviewed studies evaluated and measured the effectiveness of CCT on the adjustment dimensions. The results revealed five studies (22%) which focused on pre-departure training aspects, with two of these studies (9%) validating their effectiveness via a training program and the remaining three studies (13%) validating their effectiveness with self-report

Okpara and Kabongo Chien Selmer

Hutchings Fish

7

10 11

8 9

Wang Cheema Puck et al.

Author(s) Caligiuri et al. Shah and Barker Reichard et al.

4 5 6

3

Articles # 1 2

2003 2005

2012 2010

2011

2012 2012 2008

2014

Year 2001 2017

B A

A B

B

B, D A, B A, C

A

Geographical mapping of expatriation A C

Table 2 Demographic details of included studies

22 244

90 651

226

228 15 339

219

N 73 47

Qualitative Quantitative

Quantitative Quantitative

Quantitative Quantitative Mixed method Quantitative

Quantitative

Study design Quantitative Qualitative

N/A Undergraduate 42.4% and higher 36.97% N/A N/A

More than 50% master’s and PhD

82% undergraduate degree and 18% master’s degree N/A N/A N/A

Education N/A N/A

N/A N/A

12 months 60 months

24 months

12 months 84 months 22 months

N/A

Total average expatriation experience 10.6 months N/A

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Selmer Fish and Bhanugopan Chen and Shaffer Li-Yueh Lee Abdullah and Jin Selmer Wurtz O’Sullivan et al.

15 16

2001 2014 2002

2006 2015

2018

2002 2008

2016

2005

1994

B A, B A

D

A, C

B B

B

B, D

A

95 206 4

197 4

191

343 244

120

224

251

Quantitative Quantitative Qualitative

Quantitative Qualitative

Quantitative

Quantitative Quantitative

Quantitative

Quantitative

Quantitative

97% were graduate or above 25% undergraduate and 75% master’s N/A N/A N/A

Undergraduate and higher

66% undergraduate degree, 32% master’s N/A N/A

N/A

53% had university degree

48 months N/A N/A

0–60 months 156 months

N/A

48 N/A

N/A

20 months

N/A

Note. MNCs ¼ broad representation of different sectors in the high-tech industry, comprising of information, insurance, media, banking/financial services industry. Expatriation of participants from developed to developed countries ¼ A; developed to developing countries ¼ B; developing to developed ¼ C; and developing to developing ¼ D. N/A indicates that the relevant information was not available

20 21 22

18 19

17

14

13

Brewster and Pickard Waxin and Panaccio Okpara

12

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Table 3 Theoretical approach, dimensions of adjustment with focus in CCT and method of validity of training

Article # 1

2

3

4

5

6

Key theories Met-expectation theory (Vroom 1964) Integration of multiple theoretical perspectives Cross-cultural PsyCap and broaden-andbuild theory on positive emotions (Fredrickson 1998) Cognitive adjustment

Social learning (Bandura 1977), cultural shock (Oberg 1954), adult learning, sequential model theory (Knowles 1970) Not indicated

Theory categorization Theory based

Type of CCT PDT

Theory based

PAT

Theory based

PDT

Cross-cultural adjustment – general and psychological orientation

Partial theory based

PDT and PAT

Partial theory based

PDT and PAT

Expatriate employees adjustment – generic, interactive, and work and job (psychological orientation) Emotional adjustment, spousal adjustment, work adjustment, and interactive adjustment

N/A

PDT

7

International adjustment (Black et al. 1991)

Theory based

CCT method

8

Social learning theory (Bandura 1977)

Theory based

CCT method

Dimensions of adjustment Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Work and interaction adjustment

Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions and teaching method (psychological orientation) Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions and teaching methods

Validity of training method – discussed/ demonstrated Validated via implementing Validated via survey/ interview method Validated via implementing

Validated via survey method

Validated via survey method

Validated via survey method Validated via survey method

Validated via survey method

(continued)

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Table 3 (continued)

Article # 9

Key theories Not indicated

Theory categorization N/A

10

Not indicated

N/A

11

International adjustment (Black et al. 1991)

Partial theory based

12

International adjustment theory (Black et al. 1991) Not indicated

Partial theory based

PDT

N/A

CCT method

Theory based

CCT method

Theory based

CCT

Psychological, sociocultural, and anticipatory adjustment

Validated via survey method

Partial theory based

PDT and PAT

Psychological, sociocultural adjustment

Validated via survey method

Theory based

CCT

Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions

Validated via survey method

13

14

15

16

17

Intercultural adjustment model (Parker and McEvoy 1993) International adjustment (Black et al. 1991) The notion of anticipatory adjustment (international adjustment theory; Black et al. (1991)) International adjustment theory (Black et al. 1991) Stress model (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). Model of spouse adjustment (Shaffer and Harrison 2001)

Type of CCT PDT and PAT PDT and PAT PDT and PAT

Dimensions of adjustment Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Psychological, sociocultural adjustment (psychological orientation) Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions

Validity of training method – discussed/ demonstrated N/A

Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions and teaching methods Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions and teaching methods

Validated via survey method N/A

N/A

N/A

Validated via survey/ interview method

(continued)

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Table 3 (continued)

Article # 18

Key theories Contingency theory

Theory categorization Partial theory based

Type of CCT CCT

19

Not indicated

N/A

PDT

20

Not indicated

N/A

PDT

21

Social learning theory (Bandura 1977) Integration of multiple theoretical perspectives

Theory based

PDT and PAT PDT and PAT

22

Partial theory based

Dimensions of adjustment Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Cross-cultural adjustment – three dimensions Effectiveness of cross-cultural training Effectiveness of cross-cultural training Effectiveness of cross-cultural training

Validity of training method – discussed/ demonstrated Validated via survey method Validated via survey method Validated via survey method Validated via survey method Validated via survey method

Note. Table depicts only studies that presented theory based that guided the hypothesis and/or interventions/training and partial theory did not inform the hypotheses and/or interventions. N/A ¼ indicative of theory based CCT not applied in studies. Abbreviations: pre-departure training (PDT); post-arrival training (PAT); cross-cultural training (CCT)

surveys. Nine studies (40%) evaluated the effectiveness of both pre-departure and post-arrival training with a survey, for the three dimensions of adjustment (i.e., general, work, and interaction adjustment), while five studies (22%) evaluated the effectiveness of pre and post CCT for psychological adjustment. Of these five studies, one study (4.5%) validated the effectiveness via implementing the pre-departure training on the psychological dimension (Reichard and Louw-Potgieter 2014) and reported that a generic one-size-fits-all strategy is not scalable. Instead Reichard and Louw-Potgieter (2014) suggested the use of positive psychological capital (PsyCap, referring to an individual’s positive psychological state of development) within the cross-cultural context. Their results revealed statistically significant increases in cultural intelligence (F(1, 70) ¼ 11.83, p < 0.001) and positive emotions (F(1, 63) ¼ 38.24, p < 0.001) and a significant decrease in ethnocentrism (F(1, 70) ¼ 16.64, p < 0.001), after PsyCap training. Four other studies (18%) also validated the pre-departure and post-arrival training effectiveness on the psychological dimension via the survey (Cheema 2012; Fish 2005; Fish and Bhanugopan 2008; Selmer 2002). Correlation analyses and statistical tests of significance for each of the quantitative studies (n ¼ 17; 77%) revealed mixed findings, with some failing to find any relationship and others finding positive as well as negative associations between CCT programs and adjustment dimensions (e.g., Abdullah and Jin 2015; Puck et al.

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Table 4 Summary of contents covered and duration of training exhibited in the inclusion studies Article # 1

3

4

5

12

Content covered General aspects of the target culture were also covered: housing, shopping, medical facilities, recreational/ entertainment facilities, social customs/etiquette, culture shock, and dominant values in the host country. 14 dimensions – business issues: business protocol, work ethic, management style, how to motivate personnel, how to give feedback, and problem-solving Cross-cultural PsyCap training – four phases to increase efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience targeted exercises focused on creating self-awareness, reframing past events, building broad cross-cultural interaction skills, and identifying multiple strategies for success in crosscultural interactions General CCT, language training

CCT – (a) cultural shock and transition; (b) professional and working life; (c) cultural awareness and understanding; (d) language and communication; (e) general cultural training; (f) living in China Residential briefing courses, environmental briefing, and cultural orientation and information giving

Type of training Pre-departure training

Duration 1 day

Pre-departure training (classroom)

2 hours per session

Pre-departure training, postarrival training

Average pre-departure training one day ¼ 49.1%. Average post-arrival training one week to one month ¼ 46.5% N/A

Pre-departure training and post-departure training

Pre-departure

1 week intensive

2008). For instance, Puck et al. (2008) found that neither participating in CCT nor the length of pre-departure training was predictive of work and interaction adjustment. However, the authors reported a small positive effect between training comprehensiveness and general adjustment. One study found that post-arrival training had the most positive influence on expatriate workers’ adjustment and performance, compared to pre-departure training (Wang and Tran 2012). The study also demonstrated a strong positive correlation between the work adjustment dimension and

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Table 5 Summary of cross-cultural training method results Article # 7

Training methods General conventional training, specific conventional training, general experimental training, and specific experimental training

8

Symbolic learning and participatory learning, experiential learning

13

Pre-post conventional and experimental (general and in host) – training methods conventional (general and in host), experimental (general and in host)

18

Experiential learning, perceived need for training

Results Revealed specific experimental CCT was the most significant predictor of expatriate adjustment (R2 ¼ 0.53; p < 001). Specific experimental training and psychological adjustment (r ¼ 0.45, p < 0.05) Participatory learning has a better impact on adjustment dimensions, especially work adjustment. Symbolic learning (mean ¼ 2.77; SD ¼ 0.62). Participatory learning (mean ¼ 2.84; SD ¼ 0.59) Specific experimental training methods are most effective on all three dimensions – work adjustment (F ¼ 6.93, p < 0.01), interactive adjustment (F test ¼ 15:68), and general adjustment (F ¼ 8:57, p < 0.01) – especially if delivered in host country Perceived need for expatriate employees training had significant impact on the effectiveness of training (R2 ¼ 0.548, p < 0.000). Experiential training method has significant influence on effectiveness of training and improves the three adjustment dimensions (R2 ¼ 0.654, p < 0.000)

Note. All four studies established strong positive correlation between specific experimental training methods and expatriate employees’ adjustment dimensions

post-arrival training and predicted that post-arrival training is highly beneficial for effective expatriate adjustment. Four studies (18%) used qualitative semi-structured interviews to measure training aspects and to assess the need for post-arrival CCT. Thus, understanding the potential adjustment dimensions is central to establishing what specific type of CCT is most likely to help expatriates best adjust to their new cultural settings. The “method of training” was also identified as an important component for promoting successful adjustment. Tables 4 and 5 summarize the CCT contents, duration of the training, and training method within the reviewed studies. Two-thirds (n ¼ 17; 77%) of the reviewed studies mentioned the use of didactic sessions in their CCT. The sessions mostly comprised of lecture-driven group discussions on predetermined cultural issues such as language, etiquette, understanding housing procedures, shopping, medical care, and recreational facilities. However, there was minimal indication that any evidence-based individual or group activities, role plays, cognitive restructuring, or rehearsals of behavioral strategies were included in these group discussions. The most common training content

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covered during CCT was information/briefing sessions (a one-way communication of hard facts) of culture awareness, culture shock and dominant values of the host country, cultural orientation, cultural awareness, business protocol, language training, job-related training, and management training (Caligiuri et al. 2001; Lee and Croker 2006; Selmer 2010). Six studies (27%) reported the duration/length of the training duration from one hour to one week, with the average duration of CCT being one day. Four studies (18%) explicitly concentrated on training methods and put forward a comprehensive training program that included specific experimental approaches. The studies demonstrated that tailored CCT is more beneficial in comparison with generic traditional CCT (Okpara and Kabongo 2011; Waxin and Panaccio 2005). For instance, Okpara and Kabongo (2011) noted that expatriate managers experiencing difficulty with psychological adjustment due to life changes, stress, and depression did not benefit from the general conventional CCT to help them cope within the host country. Lee and Croker (2006) highlighted that identifying a perceived need for training has a significant impact on the effectiveness of the training. Further, some studies reported that an experiential training approach had positive benefits for expatriates while adapting to the new culture (Chien 2012; Lee and Croker 2006; Waxin and Panaccio 2005). Chien (2012) asserted that participatory learning methods such as role play, simulation, and real-time experiences were significantly higher in quality as compared to symbolic learning methods such as factual training via verbal-and-written language and observation. Overall, the results demonstrated that the experiential training method is a significant predictor of successful adjustment. Research Question 3. Table 3 also summarizes the theoretical approaches represented in this dataset. Only nine studies (40%) were classified as being theory-based. Seven studies (31%) were partially theory-based, because the theory was only included in the introduction or discussion sections and did not directly inform the method or results sections. The most frequently cited theories by ten of the reviewed articles (45%) were Black et al.’s (1991) U-shaped theory and social learning theory (Wurtz 2014). Cross-cultural theories, including adult learning (Cheema 2012), sequential model theory (Okpara and Kabongo 2011), and intercultural adjustment (Shah and Barker 2017), were also cited, but to a lesser extent by two of the studies (9%). Six studies (27%) were non-theoretical and did not mention any theoretical perspectives at all. Four studies (18%) described theorybased training methodologies. Two studies (9%) adopted a partial theory-based approach to developing pre-departure and/or post-arrival training programs from a psychological adjustment perspective.

Discussion The cross-cultural literature identifies values, beliefs, and behavioral perspectives as major concerns for expatriate employees (Kuo 2012). However, most empirical studies to date examine the adjustment of an MNC’s expatriate employee from a

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sociocultural perspective: the impact of geographical distance, length of the assignment, and the employee’s age and family circumstances on adjustment (Polón 2017). Only a small group of articles in this review investigated the significance of viewing psychological adjustment as a single dimension and reported that the specific aspects of psychological strain experienced by MNC expatriate workers experience remain unclear (Chen 2019). Andersen (2019) revealed that psychological well-being is a term rarely employed within this field and reported that only one-third of studies measured psychological well-being and/or psychological strain. Both Doki et al. (2018) and Haslberger et al. (2013) reported the importance of identifying psychological adjustment strategies for MNC expatriate employees, emphasizing the importance of assessing the specific dimensions of affect, behavioral, and cognitive psychological adjustment during expatriation. The current review clarifies the need to comprehend these experiences better to implement successful adjustment strategies within the host countries for expatriate workers. Overall, the extant literature demonstrates that psychological adjustment, together with sociocultural adjustment, is a crucial aspect of cross-cultural research and is worthy of future attention; this is the first recommendation this review offers.

CCT Effectiveness According to Haslberger et al. (2013), the actual adjustment in the adaptation process is a persistent phenomenon and starts upon arrival in the host country. For training to support the adjustment, it must provide competencies designed to understand and manage the conflicting situations arising from daily challenges (Joshua-Gojer 2012). The research assessed by this review highlighted that the mere existence of CCT is not enough. Given the poor history of existing CCT (especially pre-departure training) effectiveness, many MNCs do not provide CCT for their employees, which is commonly considered unnecessary (Cheema 2012; Shen 2005). For CCT programs to be beneficial, they are required to assist employees to develop the necessary skills to adjust successfully, not only before the transfer (pre-departure training), but this assistance should be continuously integrated based on experiential interactions within a learning environment upon arrival (Abdullah and Jin 2015; Joshua-Gojer 2012). Mendenhall and Stahl (2000) advocated three new areas for effective CCT programs: host country real-time training, global mindset training (skills for resolving specific problems related to cross-cultural challenges), and internet-based training. Therefore, it is vital to develop specific, experimental cross-cultural training for expatriate workers in real-time while they adjust to their new host country. This type of training is anticipated to reduce the negative effects on the psychological strain that expatriates may experience within their new culture (Okpara and Kabongo 2011). This approach will also best assist expatriate employees in adjusting their cognitive process (i.e., “mental maps”) and adapting their behavior during expatriation adjustment phases (Wang and Tran 2012).

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Only a handful of researchers have examined the effects of post-arrival training, clearly suggesting a more rigorous form of training strategies is required, specifically targeting expatriate workers’ psychological issues while living in their new host country (Takeuchi and Wang 2019). While post-arrival cross-cultural programs are relatively rare, they have exhibited significant positive effects on adjustment by directly facilitating the change process upon arrival. It is reported that post-arrival CCT programs also counteract the commonly experienced “surprise upon arrival” situations (Fish 2005, p. 227). Importantly, Kuo (2012) emphasized both the importance of the timing of the CCT and an employee’s motivation to learn as key aspects for a successful adjustment in the host country. Reichard and Louw-Potgieter (2014) reported that when these two aspects coincide with expatriates’ psychological strain experience in the host country, a training program is more likely to be effective. Thus, educating expatriate workers about psychological resources results in higher adjustment effectiveness (e.g., increase in cultural intelligence, positive emotions, and decrease in ethnocentrism). Hanzmann (2016) also claimed that CCT programs would be beneficial if the learning material is adjusted to the individual’s actual psychological state and experience. Other training components, including the specific training content and the teaching methods employed to deliver the program, also appear to influence these programs’ effectiveness (Chien 2012). In sum, the results of the current review highlight that post-arrival CCT assists in enhancing expatriate adjustment dimensions within the host country as compared to pre-departure training. Therefore, the second recommendation offered by this review is for a greater focus on the development and administration of effective post-arrival CCT, in order to increase the long-term success of expatriates’ adjustment (Al Mahrouqi 2018). Subsequently, this review also strongly reaffirms that the lack of empirical crosscultural studies undermines progress in this field, potentially masking the true benefits of CCT on adjustment (Joshua-Gojer 2012). The data produced by this review also demonstrate that the development and evaluation of training programs are rarely theoretically based (Cheema 2012). Therefore, researchers must identify the theoretical perspectives that drive the training programs they develop, as this will comprehensively explain how CCT facilitates an expatriate’s success on an overseas assignment. Therefore, our third and final recommendation based on this review’s findings is that subsequent cross-cultural research includes accepted theoretical perspectives to inform the design, assessment, and evaluation of their CCT programs. In sum, this evidence echoes recent calls to increase the theoretical rigor and research precision of studies investigating the adjustment and training of expatriate workers (Davis et al. 2018; Sit et al. 2017). Based on the relevant theoretical dimensions reviewed, this paper summarizes that the study of expatriate adjustment and training emanated from two main theoretical foundations, that is, culture learning (learn the sociocultural knowledge and cultural practices) and social identification models (inter-group perceptions and relations) (Zhou et al. 2008). However, for expatriates to be effective in their host country, they need to develop competences to help reduce stress and facilitate coping

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(Sussman 2011; Zhou et al. 2008). This review identified few studies with stress and coping theoretical frameworks (understanding the psychological transitions with outcome variables variants of psychological well-being), for example, Lazarus and Folkman’s stress model and broaden-and-build theory on positive emotions (Chen and Shaffer 2018; Reichard and Louw-Potgieter 2014). Moreover, recent research indicates that CCT programs with both behavioral and affective components along with cognitive dimensions were found to be more effective than cognitive (didactic)alone programs (Sit et al. 2017), thus suggesting there is increasing need to orient extending research within the context of a comprehensive psychological theory of cross-cultural adjustment and training.

Research Limitations Because of the focused nature of this review, there were several research limitations. Only articles from an MNC ICT sector perspective were included. The review only considered peer-reviewed empirical articles published in the English language, potentially limiting the scope of evidence evaluated. Due to problems with the search terms execution, the small number of included studies limits the generalizability of the findings to other occupations and other expatriate populations. In addition, the review focused only on quantitative outcomes represented in the articles, not emphasizing any qualitative data. There is scope for future research to focus on qualitative data to explain CCT programs effectiveness, especially when a majority of the programs are non-theory based.

Conclusion This review adds to the expatriate employees’ existing literature, especially within the host country perspectives. The MNC ICT sector, with its remarkable growth projections is among the top recruiter of the expatriate population globally. The fact that international assignments are costly and that the main reason for expatriate failures is adjustment-related issues, this review is clearly relevant and timely. An expatriate employee’s success is their willingness to embark on new experiences, learn, and successfully adjust to working and living in a foreign culture. Usually, expatriation is a stressful process, and global MNCs must be aware of the challenges and recognize the importance of expatriate employee well-being. It is necessary to better prepare expatriates to adapt to the changing cross-cultural environment by improving their social and psychological well-being. The extant literature demonstrates that due to a lack of empirical evidence, there is no clear picture of CCT concerning the adoption of successful research designs, content, effectiveness, and implementation perspectives (Joshua-Gojer 2012). As a result, this field requires further advancement in the synthesis of the literature and applications for future research.

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Research in the post-arrival, cross-cultural adjustment and training field is an emerging area of interest. This review is the first to present the interrelationships between cross-cultural psychological adjustment and available CCT for the MNC technology sector to assess expatriate employees’ success within their host country. In summary, the results of this review inform broader debates concerning the inclusion of psychological adjustment components (He et al. 2019) and the appropriateness and limitations of current CCT (Hånberg and Österdahl 2009). This review recognizes that it is time to clarify the limitations of pre-departure training as being a useful standard by which to ensure expatriate success. Instead, this review demonstrates that a conceptual shift within CCT research is urgently required, suggesting that continuous CCT programs in the host country are vital for expatriate employees’ successful adjustment.

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Implications for Employee Health and Well-Being Elsa Underhill

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Declining Union Membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Unions Protect Worker Health and Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How Effective Are WHS Representatives? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Does Direct Employee Participation Offer an Alternative to WHS Representatives? . . . . . . . . . Does Employee Participation in Nonunion Workplaces Improve Worker Well-Being? . . . . . . . Discussion and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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This chapter considers the implications of changes to trade unions and independent worker representation for employee health and well-being. It shows how employee involvement, through worker health and safety (WHS) representatives supported by trade unions, has been widely recognized as a critical means of preventing workplace injuries and improving workplace health and well-being. However, as union membership declines, can workers continue to be effectively involved in decisions concerning their workplace health and well-being? Do other forms of employee participation offer sufficient involvement in workplace decisions to protect workers from adverse health and safety outcomes? This chapter reviews the processes which strengthen the impact of WHS representatives on worker health and well-being and assesses whether alternative employee participation processes can offer comparable levels of protection to workers. The chapter concludes that direct employee participation is insufficient to protect worker well-being, and a stronger foundation of collective representation is E. Underhill (*) Department of Management, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8_40

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necessary to overcome current weaknesses in employee voice through shared decision-making in workplace health and safety. Keywords

Trade unions · Occupational health and safety · Worker representation · Employee participation · Worker well-being

Introduction The focus of this chapter is upon how the decline of trade unions and independent worker representation affects employee health and well-being. Employee involvement, through independent work, health, and safety (WHS) representatives supported by trade unions, is widely recognized as a critical means of preventing workplace injuries and improving worker health and well-being. As union membership declines, how can workers continue to be involved in decisions concerning their workplace health and well-being? Do other forms of employee participation offer sufficient involvement in workplace decisions to protect workers from adverse health and safety outcomes? In this chapter, we look at the occupational health and safety (OHS) and worker well-being implications of these changes. This chapter reviews the multiple processes which strengthen the impact of WHS representation on worker health and well-being and assesses whether alternative employee participation processes can offer comparable levels of protection to workers. This chapter begins with an account of the factors that have contributed to declining union membership in most developed economies. The next section explains how unions contribute to improvements in worker health and well-being. Unions do not always act alone. In many workplaces, both union and nonunionized, worker health and safety representatives can also deal with health and well-being issues. The following section considers the importance of WHS representatives in unionized workplaces and explains the role of unions in supporting and improving the effectiveness of WHS representatives. The declining role of unions, and union power, has adverse implications for the sustainability of independent WHS worker representation and well-being. Do alternative forms of employee participation offer comparable benefits? Fourth section considers how direct employee participation has evolved as an alternative to union representation, and emerging problems in direct participation. While there is only limited research on the effects of employee participation on worker well-being in nonunion workplaces, the next section considers those findings, and in particular the failure to address psychosocial hazards. This chapter concludes that factors that have contributed to the decline of unions are also barriers to effective worker representation, leaving a gap that is not filled by direct employee participation. Given the likely prognosis that weakened employee voice will lead to an upsurge in managerial prerogative and declining health and well-being outcomes, there is a need to reconsider how public policy can rectify the growing imbalance in management and worker power.

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Declining Union Membership Trade union membership in most advanced industrial economies has declined steadily since the 1980s (Visser 2019). In Australia, around 2.5 million workers belonged to unions in 1976, compared to around 1.5 million in 2018, or 14% of the workforce. While a small number of industries such as health, education, and public administration have maintained relatively high levels of union membership (30– 40%), growth industries such as hospitality and retail have fallen to negligible levels (Parliamentary Library 2018). This international trend toward falling union membership is of concern to policy makers charged with promoting worker equality and rights, such as the International Labour Organization [ILO] (the labor agency of the United Nations), and the subject of much international research. Studies have repeatedly identified common factors which have contributed to the loss of union membership, and power, over the past 40 years. First is structural change in the economy, with employment shifting away from traditionally unionized industries (such as manufacturing) toward service work (such as hospitality and retail) (Peetz 1998; Mundlak 2020). Globalization has contributed to this shift, with multinationals turning to low-cost production in developing countries which in turn undermine conditions and institutions in developed economies through the threat of offshoring. This has undermined traditional union strongholds such as manufacturing, and also emerging industries of the 1990s such as call centers and software development (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman 2019: 100). Second is change to organizational structures as vertical integration gives way to horizontal networks and supply chains (Mundlak 2020). Larger organizations, formerly the bedrock of comprehensive union collective agreements, have increasingly become networks of outsourced suppliers, competing on low margins and unwilling to engage with unions. These networks of suppliers pose enormous organizing challenges for unions that seek to access workers dispersed across a large number of employers and workplaces. Third, and related to the second, is the growth of precarious forms of employment, such as casual, zero-hours and pseudo self-employment/sham contractors. Around one-quarter of the Australian workforce are now employed as casuals, and another 10% on an independent contracting basis. Working more irregular hours, and less engaged with a single workplace, these workers are highly vulnerable to dismissal should they join a union. Also the benefits which unions negotiate for permanent employees, such as fair grievance processes or consultation on workplace change, are of negligible value to precarious workers without secure employment (Stanford 2019). Fourth, governments have privatized their services extensively since the late 1980s, shifting workers from stable unionized public sector positions to more fragmented organizations that are dependent upon tendering processes based primarily upon cost containment (Mundlak 2020). Tenured public sector employment has been reduced, displaced by casual temporary agency workers excluded from restrictive public sector headcounts. Fifth, from the 1980s, neoliberalist government policies in most western economies promoted regulatory reforms that reduced union power through a range of wide-reaching measures including restrictions on

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compulsory unionism and industrial action, limiting union rights to enter workplaces, and narrowing the scope of collective bargaining (Isaac 2018). Unions have struggled to protect past gains, and lacked resources to extend union membership. Finally, individualist and anticollectivist policies promoted by governments are reflected in shifting social values which promote individual over collective rights, and reinforce the belief that unions are a relic of the past. They are no longer regarded as relevant to a mobile, educated workforce. Young activists, formerly the future of unions, are drawn instead toward identity politics, and social/NGO movements as a medium for change, rather than to work-based institutions such as unions (Mundlak 2020). These factors have all contributed to a substantial decline in union presence and power. Accompanying the decline has been a rise in concern about growing economic inequality which is one outcome of the changes discussed above. The ILO, for example, has stated “Among policy-makers, ILO constituents and the general public alike, there is a growing consensus that the current trend of rising inequality is not only undesirable, but also unsustainable” (ILO 2020). In this chapter, we focus upon the implications of union decline for worker health and well-being and, in particular, the role of WHS representation and employee participation in health and safety.

How Unions Protect Worker Health and Well-Being Research findings are clear that unionism has a positive relationship with good health and well-being outcomes. Trade unions provide a mechanism for collective voice at the workplace. They can offer formal representation at the highest level such as through representation on company boards and work councils, but in most developed economies, they offer collective voice through elected representatives, such as shop stewards or job delegates. Collective representation offers a range of benefits to workers. These include the “union wage effect” whereby employees in unionized workplaces earn more than their counterparts in nonunionized workplaces; better terms and conditions of employment; and protection for employees that are otherwise reluctant to raise concerns with management for fear of discrimination or dismissal (Ollé-Espluga et al. 2019). Turning to worker health and wellbeing, unions have historically played a critical role in the development of occupational health and safety [OHS] protection (both legislative and workplace based) and in workers’ compensation. As Quinlan et al. (2010: 470) summarize: “unions help workers raise OHS issues, provide logistical support for health and safety representatives (such as training) and have increasingly used collective bargaining and industrial tribunals to address OHS issues.” Early studies of the impact of unionism upon worker health and well-being focused upon injury outcomes, with findings consistently demonstrating unionized workplaces had lower injury rates compared to nonunion workplaces (Walters and Frick 2000). With the growing awareness of psychosocial risks, studies turned to evaluating the impact of unionism on employee well-being, especially during periods of organizational change when occupational stress and anxiety is heightened.

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Consistent with the injury-based studies (measuring OHS outcomes based upon injury rates), these studies also found union presence has a direct and positive bearing on employee well-being (e.g., Godard 2010; Bryson et al. 2013; Douglas et al. 2017; Ogbonnaya et al. 2019). Bryson et al. (2013), for example, explained how unions can mitigate the negative effects of organizational change through negotiating changes that better accommodate workers’ needs; through consultations that bring a sense of procedural fairness; negotiating job security commitments that facilitate the delivery of organizational change; providing social support to reduce the impact of stress and work strain on those undergoing organizational change; and achieving wage increases that deliver worker acceptance of change. However, as we have observed, union membership has been declining – a fact which must call into question how widespread the positive effects of unionism on employee health and well-being remain. In the following section, we examine how WHS representatives can function in that environment.

How Effective Are WHS Representatives? In most western economies, WHS representatives are supported by legislative rights, such as the right of representatives to information about workplace risks, the right to stop work when those risks pose a threat to workers’ health and well-being, the right to resources including time off from normal duties to perform OHS duties, and the right to be consulted over OHS risks. These rights, enshrined in law, are intended in part to prevent organizations from discriminating against OHS representatives whose actions can prioritize workers’ well-being over production. However, many of these rights can be circumscribed in practice when consultation, rather than negotiation, is the minimum prescribed standard and there is no union presence at the workplace to demand management negotiate over OHS. Ultimately, management retains the right to decide how OHS is managed, subject only to complying with their obligations under the relevant OHS laws, and directions from OHS inspectors (James 2009). Hence, better outcomes linked to WHS representatives are interrelated with the support those representatives receive from unions, and their ability to draw upon industrial power to counter managerial power. In unionized workplaces, WHS representatives have been typically well trained, usually through comprehensive union-supplied training based upon labor education principles. Training means they are better informed to participate effectively in OHS decisions. They also have external expertise to draw upon. The expertise of union health and safety officials, as well as union-based networks of WHS representatives, can be quickly drawn upon when issues arise beyond their scope of knowledge (Loudoun and Walters 2009). Thus, they are not wholly reliant upon information supplied by their employer. This positions them to inform and mobilize coworkers and, when necessary, challenge management decisions which may prioritize other organizational objectives over health and well-being (Walters and Frick 2000; Walters et al. 2005; Hall et al. 2006; Walters and Nichols 2009; Quinlan et al. 2010; Walters and Wadsworth 2020). Together these factors pressure managers to

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increase the importance they place on OHS, improve the way they manage it, and develop a long-term commitment to maintaining better OHS standards (James 2009; Underhill et al. 2016). Predictably, WHS representatives are more likely to exist in unionized workplaces because of a greater awareness of OHS and worker rights, and because of a greater ability to activate those rights without fear of reprisals (Quinlan et al. 2010; Ollé-Espluga et al. 2019). In addition, under Australian law and to varying degrees in international jurisdictions, union involvement in workplace health and safety is underpinned by laws which offer unions a role in the election of WHS representatives, give a right to enter a workplace to investigate suspected breaches of WHS laws, and allow consultation with workers about health and safety at work (Safe Work Australia 2019). Yet, not all unionized workplaces have active WHS representative structures in place. Also, international research suggests that WHS representatives are struggling to remain active and independent of management. In Canada, for example, Lewchuck et al. (2009) found the rise of neoliberalism and decline of management commitment to WHS representatives, and OHS in general had contributed to a growing reluctance of workers to activate WHS representation. There was also an emerging disinterest in OHS by workers and unions as the management of such issues became more professionalized. In the United Kingdom, Walters and Nichols’ (2007) study across three industries found that without senior management commitment to OHS, even unionized workplaces struggled to recognize WHS representatives – a fact demonstrated by a lack of time to perform duties and by management unwillingness to share OHS information. WHS representatives’ involvement was at the discretion of management. Workforce views were ignored and senior management placed an emphasis on procedural issues rather than the substance of managing workplace OHS. In Denmark, research has identified unionized organizations where OHS has become integrated or mainstreamed into other management processes, and WHS representatives in turn have become incorporated into management systems and structures. The impact on OHS outcomes of this potential shift in WHS representatives’ independence, accompanied by distancing from the workers whom they are supposed to represent, has not yet been evaluated (Hasle et al. 2019). Finally, a recent Spanish study (Ollé-Espluga et al. 2019) found that when WHS representatives were relatively inactive and not widely known within the workplace, workers turned to management for OHS information. As a result, they were poorly informed about which OHS issues they could act upon, while psychosocial risks were commonly dismissed as “just part of the job.” The declining power of unions at workplace level coupled with the growth of unitarist management approaches also appears to be curtailing the role of WHS representatives. Walters and Wadsworth’s (2020) study of WHS representation processes (including both WHS representatives and OHS committees) in 147 organizations in seven EU member states identified three common trends. First, WHS representatives were offered only limited support and cooperation by employers and managers. They were allowed insufficient time and resources, for example, to attend WHS training and to perform their roles even though those roles were formally

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recognized. Second, they were marginalized by safety management systems which focused upon behavioral change and direct employee participation. Third, their activities were incorporated into OHS management systems which were controlled by management. Their independence was thus undermined, and coworkers saw them as another layer of management, promoting compliance with individualized behavior-based safety systems and communicating management’s messages. Since management shaped and controlled the processes for WHS representation, and WHS representatives regarded management as holding superior knowledge about OHS, they turned to management for advice, rather than an external source such as a union. Walters and Wadsworth (2020) interpret this trend to be, in part, a reflection of the broader shift toward a stronger unitarist managerial philosophy within which workplace health and safety is not regarded as an area of conflict, and WHS responsibilities become individualized rather than protected by collective interests. They also note, importantly, that there is not yet a body of evidence to support the effectiveness of a unitarist approach to mitigating OHS risks. The evidence discussed in this section shows that declining union membership is associated with growing weakness of WHS representation. External unions are less likely to provide an independent source of strength, while WHS representatives have become increasingly dependent on management for information or have been sidelined from management structures and processes. As WHS representatives risk further marginalization, do other forms of employee participation provide a sustainable alternative?

Does Direct Employee Participation Offer an Alternative to WHS Representatives? Researchers have found that as unionism has declined, organizations have shifted away from indirect representation, through employee-elected WHS representation, to more direct methods of employee participation in OHS (Walters and Wadsworth 2020). The concept of employee participation has held different meanings over time, and between different key stakeholders. It can involve as little participation as suggestion boxes, more immediate involvement in day-to-day work such as semiautonomous teams, joint consultation on major issues such as workforce redundancies, or employee representation on work councils taking major organizational decisions. It can be pseudoparticipation, where information sharing amounts to little more than persuading employees to agree to a predetermined outcome, or (less commonly) full participation where power is shared equally between employees and management (Pateman 1970). Gollan and Xu (2015) summarize the evolution of the meaning of employee participation, commencing in the 1960s/1970s when unions held significant workplace power, and collectivism was the norm. Employee participation was seen as an extension of unionism, promoting workplace democracy as a fundamental principle in a democratic society, through formal channels of employees’ direct and representative involvement in decision-making throughout the organizational hierarchy. In

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the 1980s, as unionism began to decline and human resource management professionals emerged, employee participation was narrowed in scope from collective to direct employee involvement, and to decisions limited to the immediate job situation. Organizations viewed this transformation from collective to direct participation as a means of improving efficiency and productivity, far removed from the principles of workplace democracy espoused 20 years earlier. By the 1990s, with the expansion of knowledge work, organizations focused upon employee empowerment through means such as semiautonomous team work, eventually followed in the 2000s by an emphasis upon employee engagement and employee voice. The evolution described by Gollan and Xu (2015) illustrates how the concept of employee participation has changed from a form of workplace democracy to a human resource strategy with a far stronger focus on organizational objectives. Reflecting this, a study by EPOC in the early 2000s found the shaping of direct participation in EU countries was mostly developed without input from employee representatives (EPOC 2005 cited in Knudsen et al. 2011). A consequence of these shifting sands of employee participation is the lack of agreement over what the concept actually means for employee practices. As Wilkinson et al. (2020) point out the meaning and form of employee participation differs considerably across disciplines. Human resource professionals, for example, are more likely to view employee participation as the promotion of employee engagement to indoctrinate a more committed workforce. From an industrial relations perspective, however, there is an expectation that workers will have a degree of autonomy, and will exercise collective voice to create a countervailing source of power against management when having input into organizational decision-making. Despite diverse views on desired forms of employee participation, there is agreement on the overriding characteristics which can be categorized as direct or indirect participation, and formal and informal participation. Direct participation involves individual workers and may involve minimal communication between workers and their supervisors but may also extend to quality circles and problem-solving teams. The form it takes is largely at the discretion of management. Hence Wilkinson et al. (2020: 11) note “employers interested in paternalism, social welfare or HRM arrangements would tend to eschew the traditional collectivist adversarial model for direct communications of voice.” Indirect employee participation involves representative processes such as WHS representatives. It is more likely in unionized workplaces, with job delegates representing workers in collective negotiations, or through formal processes such as consultative committees (Gollan and Xu 2015); it offers scope for more significant issues to be determined with input from employees. This distinction is important from a health, safety, and well-being perspective because resolving WHS issues can involve reprioritizing organizational resources, extensive sharing of information, and acknowledging that not all expertise is held within the organization. Knudsen et al. (2011) add a further two fundamental characteristics of employee participation: It involves employees’ influence on decision-making, and it takes place in a context otherwise dominated by management prerogative. In other words, it involves employees having some degree of influence over decisions which would otherwise be determined by management. In this way, it represents a modification to traditional organizational decision-making hierarchies.

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These basic characteristics point to a major weakness of direct participation for worker health and well-being. The form and content of direct participation is predominantly determined by managers that control the process, thereby limiting its scope to matters which do not encroach on managerial prerogative; individual workers are not well placed to negotiate the breadth and depth of issues that may need to be addressed to remedy WHS risks (both physical and psychosocial). Indeed, the risk of challenging organization decision-making hierarchies is itself likely to deter many workers from attempting to do so (Ollé-Espluga et al. 2019). Yet, there are sound reasons for involving employees in OHS, with employee involvement being shown repeatedly to benefit organizations from an OHS perspective, and those benefits can flow to other aspects of employee performance such as greater commitment to organizational objectives. Quinlan et al. (2010) observe that first, because employees are undertaking the work tasks, they understand them best and can use that knowledge to identify risks and hazards which management may not be aware of. Second, the solutions that flow from that knowledge can be more effective and less costly than those offered by external advisors with more superficial understanding of the work. Third, involvement in OHS problem solving brings ownership of solutions, including dissemination of information and better understanding of why particular solutions are adopted. Finally, feedback on OHS programs provides a better path to creating new and improved approaches and operations, rather than relying on more abstract and remote measures such as lost time injuries. The next section examines if there is evidence of a willingness by management, in nonunionized firms, to constructively engage employees in direct participation to resolve OHS issues.

Does Employee Participation in Nonunion Workplaces Improve Worker Well-Being? Direct evidence on this question is inconclusive. Only a small number of studies have explicitly examined OHS issues when researching employee participation in nonunion workplaces. Gomez et al. (2010) examined the emergence of various forms of voice in Britain and found widespread use of employee voice in nonunion workplaces, arguing that the demand for voice does not go away in nonunion workplaces – it is instead supplanted by other forms of direct voice promoted by HRM professionals. However, while more individualized forms of voice involving problem-solving groups, team briefings, and meetings between management and workers allowed some information sharing, they did not extend beyond consultation into negotiation. Informal processes such as raising OHS issues at meetings or in day-to-day communication between workers and supervisors offered other pathways to sharing concerns but were also framed, and thereby limited, by management. Donaghey et al. (2011) also documented a nonunion case involving direct employee representation processes in the United Kingdom. They tracked the progress of a consultative process in which the scope and function was progressively narrowed and weakened, ensuring that managerial prerogative was preserved. Over time,

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workers felt their concerns could be voiced but not addressed, while management viewed the process as a means of eliciting ideas to complement organizational effectiveness and assist organizational change. Donaghey et al. (2011: 179) concurred with earlier studies that “non-union workplace voice is unlikely to be meaningful unless supported by legislation/regulation – left to their own devices many employers introduce weak forms of employee voice of which workers may be sceptical.” A recurring theme in research evaluating employee participatory processes is that workers can raise concerns, but too often they are not listened to or their concerns are not acted upon. Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman (2019), for example, concluded that employee participation is “inherently ambiguous, often intended to legitimise managerial authority by offering employees the illusion of influence (‘pseudoparticipation’) through mechanisms such as team work” (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman 2019: 93). Quinlan’s (2014) international analysis of fatal incidents and major disasters in high hazard industries, while not exclusively a study of employee participation processes, found management’s refusal to acknowledge worker or supervisor safety concerns were one of ten pathways to “death and disaster.” According to Quinlan, “reasons why these concerns were ignored include the hierarchical nature of work relations and the consequent downgrading of subordinates’ views or expertise to make judgments; the top-down nature of safety systems and inadequate feedback loops; overriding priorities like production deadlines; and unwillingness to accept unwelcome news. . . the importance of listening to a range of narratives is seldom accorded sufficient recognition” (Quinlan 2014: 188). Turning to Australia, there is a gap in contemporary knowledge about the extent to which employers share information, encourage employee participation, and respond to worker concerns about OHS. The most recent research, conducted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (the peak national body for trade unions) in 2019, involved a survey of more than 25,000 workers (ACTU 2019). Respondents (union and nonunion) reported that while employers were willing to meet with staff and appeared open to complaints, they were unwilling to make the necessary workplace changes that would prevent further injuries (ACTU 2019). The situation was notably poorer among nonunion respondents who were twice as likely as union members to report that they were never consulted about safety at work. While survey respondents were more likely to have a keen interest in OHS, more than 60% still reported having experienced poor mental health because psychological hazards had not been addressed; most said their employer did not take mental health issues seriously. The failure to address psychological hazards, notwithstanding a shift toward direct employee participation intended to encourage engagement and commitment, reflects the weakness of participatory models. Knudsen et al. (2011: 380) note that, in theory, an expansion in employee participation should enhance job control in ways that improve the balance between demands and control identified by Karasek (1979) as a major source of occupational stress. But instead, there has been “a simultaneous increase in direct participation and work-related stress and stressrelated illness, thus indicating that contemporary forms of participation may be framed in ways that fail to secure the type of employee job control that Karasek

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identified and advocated.” Knudsen et al. (2011) examined 11 Danish workplaces with varying degrees and forms of worker participation to assess how employee participation interacted with quality of work environment. The best psychosocial work environments were found in workplaces where both direct worker participation and strong collective participation were integrated, supported by worker and management commitment to shared decision-making, including the form and content of direct participation at task level. This meant, for example, downward pressures for high job demands could be “confronted in ways that prevent strain and stress” (2011: 394). Here, “participation was based on the common understanding that it should benefit employee well-being as well as performance” (Knudsen et al. 2011: 393). Importantly, participation models developed by management and dominated by direct participation, with only weak or nonexistent representative participation, were not associated with a positive psychosocial work environment. A similar outcome was found for those with representative participation but only weak direct participation, where work pressures continued to dominate everyday working life. They concluded that “As long as workplace democracy rests on an informal foundation it remains fragile and depends very much on the values and convictions held by management” (Knudsen et al. 2011: 394). Studies of the impact of direct worker participation on worker well-being are consistent in their findings that participation is insufficient, on its own, to support a safe and healthy work environment. Even in jurisdictions which require information sharing and consultation with employees by law, such as the European Union and the EU Directive Establishing a General Framework for Informing and Consulting Employees, research has identified multiple ways in which employers fail to comply with either the form or the spirit (or both) of such consultation (Hickland et al. 2020). Hickland et al. (2020: 2) describe the processes by which “employers silence employee voice by failing to either disclose information or abstaining from genuine dialogue, which is a vital precursor for meaningful employee voice.” They categorize employers’ responses into three groups: avoidance, suppression, and neglect. Each of these are utilized with respect to participation in workplace health, safety, and well-being issues depending on the context and institutional framework. Like Knudsen et al. (2011), they note that the widespread emergence of occupational stress points to the failure of employers to recognize the importance of employee voice in mitigating risks (by genuine consultation on organizational change) and identifying solutions. Without a formal process for the involvement of worker representatives, employees are likely to be subject to the vagaries of local management on how often and on what issues their views may be sought (Hickland et al. 2020). As Wilkinson et al. (2020: 11) note, “line managers form relationships at the workplace level that can frustrate, lubricate or bypass voice opportunities.” The reach of employee participation in decision-making can also be colored by managerial perceptions of which employees are more suitable for engagement in decisionmaking (Timming 2005). On the other hand, employees may also choose not to participate when the participatory system is viewed as ineffective, when they lack the resources to meaningfully participate, or when they fear the consequences of such participation (Wilkinson et al. 2018).

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More formal participative models, which incorporate collective interests and representation rights and move beyond “voice without muscle” (Kaufman and Taras 2010, cited in Wilkinson et al. 2020: 12), are needed. This is particularly important in relation to psychosocial hazards where the shift toward individualized, behavior-based management perspectives, such as offering “healthy lifestyle programs” rather than addressing fundamental causes such as work intensification, job insecurity, and workplace bullying, has become more commonplace (Oakman et al. 2018; Walters and Wadsworth 2020). The failure to address psychosocial hazards has been widely identified in research across developed economies as a major concern for the future well-being of the workforce, and in turn organizational performance. Dollard and Neser (2019) warn that with future workplaces designed for intensive productivity without consideration of worker well-being, “we are heading for an increasingly and permanently mentally unhealthy world of work, with flow on effects to families and communities around the world.” Employees in nonunionized workplaces, reliant solely upon direct participation processes, are poorly placed to resist these trends. The eradication of fundamental workplace risks involves a conflict between the rights and interests of employees and those of their employer. Even unionized workplaces struggle to make headway against managerial prerogative on these issues (Walters and Nichols 2009).

Discussion and Conclusion What prognosis does this chapter offer on union and WHS representations and its effects on employee health and well-being? The evidence discussed above suggests prospects may be poor. First, in recent decades, union membership has declined rapidly, along with the union power necessary to support WHS representatives. Second, while data on the number of WHS representatives is unavailable, international research suggests their role appears to be dividing in both positive and negative directions. On the one hand, the Danish experience points to such professionalization of WHS representatives that they are integrated into management structures (Hasle et al. 2019). On the other hand, the EU experience more broadly points to WHS representatives becoming more dependent upon management for expertise, while viewing OHS through a managerial lens which limits their perspective on the need to pursue worker well-being. Also, with the decline of collective voice, organizations are turning to more direct employee participatory models which are shaped by management and attuned to reinforcing managerial prerogative. These approaches are consistent with behaviorbased approaches to managing OHS which are also becoming more widespread, such as individual counseling, resilience, and lifestyle programs. They ignore the foundational principle of OHS (to make workplaces safe by removing risks) focusing instead upon changing worker behavior. All these direct participation approaches leave decisions in the hands of management whose interests override those of workers.

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International research highlights the weaknesses of direct employee participation as an alternative to union-backed WHS representation. In their crudest forms, employee participation models are typically introduced and framed by management, and participation is limited to issues which benefit organizations while assuming that employees benefit enough to remain engaged with the process. They are akin to “trickle down economics,” where the elite receive all initial gains, with the expectation that some gains will trickle down to the bottom of the hierarchy. However, too many threats to worker well-being, such as psychosocial risks which are now recognized as a major health concern in advanced economies, cannot be eradicated without substantial change to work organization, employment practices, and organizational hierarchies. These issues are not trivial or easily remedied. They require substantial management commitment to genuine employee involvement and engagement in decision-marking processes, and a willingness to overturn established structures and processes in order to enable healthy, socially responsible practices. They also require employees to acquire skills, knowledge, and resources, including access to expertise in negotiating workplace change, to influence health and wellbeing. However, studies of employee participation have not found sufficient management commitment toward recognizing the right of employees to engage in genuine decision-making. Even WHS representatives in unionized workplaces can face a high level of resistance from management; without strong countervailing power, employee voice is easily overlooked or ignored. Improvements in OHS, including the right to independent worker representation, have been achieved through a history of worker activism and pressure, not through the cooperation and trust which management believe they are promoting through employee participation (Walters and Quinlan 2020). To some extent, an explanation for poor employee commitment to adequate participation can be found in the same factors that explain declining union membership. First, organizations forced to prioritize costs to compete in global markets will also fail to prioritize employee involvement in OHS where that potentially raises short-term production costs. Second, organizational structures that have evolved through outsourcing and privatization to produce reduced core organizations with networks of suppliers increasingly rely upon a more precarious workforce that remains distanced from employee involvement in OHS. Workers with job insecurity, irregular working hours, low pay, and high job demands will not be included in participatory processes. They are at greater risk of victimization for raising concerns, and poorly placed to draw upon the support of fellow workers when expressing concerns (Underhill and Quinlan 2011; Quinlan 2016). The very notion of employee participation is at odds with employment systems that rely upon on call workers, show a lack of commitment to employees, and pay low wages. Instead, Pilbeam et al.’s (2020) systematic review of international studies on outsourced work found a range of safety risks associated with economic and reward pressures were heightened among workers employed in outsourced functions. Third, the more individualist philosophies that underpin neoliberal government policies, and support unitarist management styles, also encourage managers to believe, mistakenly, that worker well-being can be suitably managed at an individual

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level. This runs counter to one of the defining strengths of union-based WHS representation that “successful resolution of many health and safety matters requires a deeper and wider understanding of their organisational context” (Loudoun and Walters 2009: 182). Unitarist managers are unlikely to accept that individual solutions are not solutions but are pushing the risks, and costs, of poor workplace environments onto workers. Excessive work hours, for example, may continue to be regarded as a personal problem when raised by individual workers on an ad hoc basis. Yet in reality, excessive working hours are more likely to be part of a poor psychosocial working environment impacting a group of workers, many of whom are reluctant to voice their concern for fear of retribution. What then are the options for worker involvement in workplace health and wellbeing in the absence of union-supported WHS representatives? WHS representatives are (in most advanced economies) supported by legislation which gives them rights beyond those typically associated with employee participation, such as the right to information, resources, training, and paid time to fulfill their role. These rights exist irrespective of whether they are located in unionized or nonunionized workplaces. However, research into unionized workplaces has found these rights are more likely to be asserted, because of the nature of the training WHS representatives receive (including developing an understanding of the importance of work organization), and their ability to draw upon union OHS and negotiation expertise. Underpinning these attributes is their capacity to use coercive power to force management to prioritize and act on OHS concerns. Where this coercive power is lacking in nonunion workplaces, an active, well-funded state labor and OHS inspectorate can support WHS representatives’ rights. However, such representatives can still encounter organizational resistance to acting upon OHS issues, especially those organizations operating in highly competitive markets. State-funded inspectorates can threaten prosecutions, but they do not have a constant workplace presence, and they do not offer a collective countervailing power. As such, they can assist WHS representatives, but they cannot ensure their effectiveness because they cannot fill the void created by union decline. Other forms of employee participation in nonunion workplaces can take the form of joint OHS-consultative committees. These might be seen as an alternative to WHS representation, because they rely less on the skills and expertise of individual employees. The experience of OHS joint consultative committees, commonly promoted by legislation, is instructive. A study by Eaton and Nocerino (2000 cited in Quinlan et al. 2010) in the United States found two factors likely to compromise their effectiveness: First, they needed the scope to act on genuine OHS issues, and not simply trivial or housekeeping matters; and second, they needed to be trained. Ideally, a more equitable distribution of employee participation in organizations through formal joint committee processes might, as Aristotle (1996 cited in Timming 2005) observed, result in managers being surprised at finding “excellence” in the most unlikely of places. Even the lowest paid and the least educated employees are capable of both “governing and being governed” (Aristotle 1996: 189) given the right opportunities. However, not all managers reach this conclusion although Hasle et al.’s (2019) Danish study highlights how organizations that prioritize social

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responsibility have also promoted and integrated OHS into their management systems. It is unknown, however, whether professionalizing WHS representatives results in disengagement from fellow workers in such a way that is contradictory to the concept of worker representation. Also, it should be recalled that Hasle et al. (2019) studied unionized firms; whether nonunionized firms embrace OHS so comprehensively under the banner of corporate social responsibility is unknown. Research overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that better OHS outcomes are achieved in workplaces with WHS representatives, supported by unions that offer a countervailing power to organizations. Such arrangements are socially responsible and offer financial benefits to organizations. However, establishing effective WHS representation in nonunionized organizations is challenging. They may be supported by organizational resources, but they lack independence, and their knowledge is likely to be organizational specific and therefore limited. Even with management commitment to their role, it is difficult to envisage how they might be empowered sufficiently to fill the gap created by the absence of collective power. Under these circumstances, it is clear that concerns about a pending crisis in workplace health and well-being must still be seriously considered.

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Underhill E, Quinlan M (2011) How precarious employment affects health and safety at work: the case of temporary agency workers. Relat Ind 66(3):397–421 Underhill E, Quinlan M, Walters D, Wadsworth E (2016) Evaluating the role of CFMEU OHS representatives in improving occupational health and safety outcomes in the Victorian construction industry: interim report. Deakin University, Melbourne Visser J (2019) Trade unions in the balance. International Labour Organisation, Geneva Walters D, Frick K (2000) Worker participation and the management of occupational health and safety: reinforcing or conflicting strategies? In: Frick K, Jensen PL, Quinlan M, Wilthagen T (eds) Systematic occupational health and safety management: perspectives on an international development. Pergamon, Amsterdam, pp 43–66 Walters D, Nichols T (2007) Worker representation and workplace health and safety. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Walters D, Nichols T (eds) (2009) Workplace health and safety: international perspectives on worker representation. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke Walters D, Quinlan M (2020) An international history of coalminers’ actions to voice resistance to the appropriation of their safety and health, 1870–1925. Relat Ind 75(2):376–400 Walters D, Wadsworth E (2020) Participation in safety and health in European workplaces: framing the capture of representation. Eur J Ind Relat 26(1):75–90 Walters D, Nichols T, Connor J, Tasiran AC, Cam S (2005) The role and effectiveness of safety representatives in influencing workplace health and safety, Research report 363. Health and Safety Executive, London Wilkinson A, Gollan PJ, Kalfa S, Xu Y (2018) Voices unheard: employee voice in the new century. Int J Hum Resour Manag 29(5):711–724 Wilkinson A, Dundon T, Donaghey J, Freeman RB (2020) Employee voice: bridging new terrains and disciplinary boundaries. In: Wilkinson A, Dundon T, Donaghey J, Freeman RB (eds) Handbook of research on employee voice. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 2–18

Index

A ABC framework, 78 Ability-enhancing practices, 377 Ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) model, 377 Abusive/destructive leadership, 21 Abusive leadership, 72 Abusive supervision, 127 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), 607 Accident underreporting individual level, 70 organizational level, 71 Accommodated flexibility, 694, 699, 702, 703 Accommodations, 643, 644, 652 Active destructive leadership, 72 Active followers, 122 Activists, 125 Acute/chronic health problems, 276 Ad-hoc basis, 491 Affective perception, 295 Affective reaction, 295 Age-awareness training, 537 Age discrimination, 529, 534, 536 Age diversity, 536 Age-friendly climate, 536–537 Ageing obesity and, 549 process, 6 professional groups, 562 social care workforce, 552 Ageing worker ageism, 533–534 chronological age, 529 cognition, 531 description, 528 gender norms, 535 homogenous, 530

individual’s control, 530 occupational health and safety, 532–533 ‘older’ or ‘mature’ worker, 529 organizations, 529 physiology, 530–531 principles, 530 psychosocial, 531–532 social identities shift, 534 workforce participation, 528 Ageism, 533–534 Aggregability, 516 Aggression, 790 AirBNB, 770, 771 Akaike information criterion (AIC), 599 Antecedents-Behaviour-Consequences framework, 78 Anticipatory justice, 299 Anti-cyber harassment measures, 816 Anti-retaliation models, 445 Anti-social behaviors, 126 Anxiety, 577, 578 Approved Codes of Practice (ACoPs), 813 Archetypes, 793 Areas of worklife model cynicism/depersonalization, 603 employees, 602 employment relationship, 603 implications, 604 ineffective profile, 603 law enforcement, 603 meta-analyses, 603 multifaceted assessment, 604 organizational values, 602 overextended profile, 604 person-oriented approach, 604 surveys of healthcare, 603 syndrome, 604

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Brough et al. (eds.), Handbook on Management and Employment Practices, Handbook Series in Occupational Health Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29010-8

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874 Areas of worklife model (cont.) uni-directional causal model, 603 values conflicts, 603 workload, 604 Artificial intelligence, 655 Augmentation hypothesis, 79 Authentic/ethical leaderships, 44 Authentic leadership, 72, 74 Automated system, 655 Avoidance-focused coping responses, 127

B Bad follower, 122 Barbuto’s theory, 124 Bayesian information criterion (BIC), 599 Behavioral approach, 18, 359 Behavioral governance theory, 235 Behavioral inhibition, 359 Behavioral safety, 78 Behavioral symptoms, 577 Behavior-based approach, 79 Behavior-based interference, 667 Benign followers, 124 Between-person level, 82 Between-person relationships, 81 Bidirectional effects, 793 Biomathematical models, 629 Biomedical models, 648 Board of directors, 230 employee health and well-being establishing a culture, 237 making OHS, 237 oversee operations, 238, 239 performance indicators, 238 practical guide, engagement, 242, 243 engagement in OHS drivers, 239, 240 level of competence, 239 opportunity, 240–242 responsibilities, CEOs incentivizing and controlling, 234 priorities, 236 social influence, 235, 236 supporting and encouraging, 235 Bounded flexibility, 694, 701 Broaden-and-build theory, 55, 56 Burnout, 6 change the workplace, 608 contagion, 676 employees’ relationships, 598 evaluation research project, 605

Index individual vs. organizational interventions, 607, 608 interventions, 605, 606 MBI, 600–602 occupational condition, 598 organizational action, 605 organizational leaders, 605 organizations, 598 participants, 605 social context, 611 social encounters, 609, 610 syndrome, 605 transactional mode, 598 workplace stress, 610 Bystanders, 125

C Callous-manipulative behavior, 83 Cancer rehabilitation programs, 650 Career opportunities, 272 Career satisfaction, 49, 401, 403 Career selection, 484 Career skills, 48 CarNextDoor, 771 Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), 559 Case studies, 737 Chair-specific sensor mat calibration, 561 Change management, 160–162, 164 Charismatic and transformational approaches, 20 Chief executive officers (CEOs), 231 Civility, Respect, and Engagement with Work (CREW) collaborative format, 609 evaluation quality, 610 goal oriented, 609 intervention, 609 process, 609 strategic quality, 610 sustained, 610 targeted, 609 urgency, 609 Veterans Health Authority, 609 Climate disease, 650 Coding strategy, 693 Cognition, 531 expectancy, 74 instrumentality, 74 valence, 74 Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), 581, 585, 589 Cognitively accessible technology, 654

Index Cognitive restructuring, 126 Cohen’s coefficient, 834 Cohesion, 28 Collaborative team learning, 76 Collective engagement, 493, 494 Colluders, 124 Color bar, 334 Common mental health problems (CMPs), 6 anxiety, 576 behaviors/social relationships, 575 best-practice strategies, 586, 588 cognitive/cognitive behaviour therapy, 584 complexities, 574 components, 579 depression, 576, 583, 585 digital mental health intervention, 584 economic cost, 574 effective management, 582 effectiveness, 586 effective workplace strategies, 576 employees, 574 employment outcomes, 582 evidence-base, 590 financial responsibilities, 575 impact, 579–581 interventions, 575 intervention strategies, 582 intervention types, 584 lack of participation, 579 management, 581, 582 management strategies, 578 multi-domain interventions, 585 outcomes, 591 practical strategies, 575 proactive interventions, 575 psychological therapies, 582 psychological wellbeing, 584 RTW, 586 stress-related conditions, 576 sustainable-focused approaches, 575 symptoms (see Symptoms, CMPs) treatment and psychological interventions, 583 up-to-date evidence, 589, 590 work disability, 574, 583 working-age adults, 576 workplace-based prevention, 583 workplace interventions, 585 workplace management, 575, 586–589 workplace participatory intervention, 582 work-related aspects, 584 work-related issues, 578 Comparison groups, 645

875 Compassionate leadership, 104–105 Compassionate Leadership Behavior Index (CLBI), 105 Compensation claim, 647 Competency approaches, 95 Compliance, 124 Compressed workweeks, 696, 697, 700–702 Conceptual distinctiveness, 80 Conceptual distinctness, 80 Conceptualizing leadership, 121 Conformers, 124 Conservation of resources (COR) model, 673 Conservation of resources theory (COR), 53, 54, 59, 271, 274, 358, 403, 465–466 Construction industry, 557–559 workers, 556–557 Constructive manner, 126 Contingency approach, 18–19, 408 Contingent reward leadership, 74 Control mechanisms, 505 Coronary heart disease (CHD), 293 Corporate boards, 5, 231 Corporate governance model, 236 Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 649, 818 Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), 752 Cost-effectiveness approach (CEA), 752–755 Courageous followership, 121 COVID-19, 650 Critical HRM (CHRM), 513 Critical perspective, 379–380 Cross-cultural adjustment (CCA), 830 Cross-cultural training (CCT), 830–833 Crossover cultural norms, and gender, 672–673 inter-personal transfer, 674 leaders and followers, 676–679 occupational stress, 666 person’s stress, 666 positive, 669–670 process, 6 of resources, 673–674 team members, 674–676 Crossover Process Model (CPM), 670–671 Culture learning model, 847

D Decision making, 118, 648 Decision-tree model, 797 Degree of self-realization, 751 Demand experience-sampling, 84 Deontic motivation, 797–800

876 Depression, 576, 577, 583 Descriptive group, 120 Despite equality legislation, 333 Destructive leadership, 123, 125, 126, 130 Developmental HR practices career development, 397, 399 career self-management and satisfaction, 399 career stage and employee age, 409 communication, 411 definition, 394, 396 detrimental effects, 410 developmental performance appraisal, 397, 399 distinctive consequences, 410 employee evaluations, 399 employee performance, 397 employee’s perceptions, 400 employee well-being, 395, 396 example measures, 398 factors, 403 implementation, 394 low-quality employee-employer relationship, 408 management, 412 manager behaviors, 403, 408 meta-analytic support, 400 over time impact, 411 performance appraisal, 399 performance management system, 400 perspectives, 395, 401, 404, 406 supporting well-being (see Well-being) theoretical development and research, 410 trade offs, 409 training, 397 Diehards, 125 Digital communication, 691 Digitalization positioning, 742–744 Digital platform work, 770 future research, 780 and Gig economy, 771–773 health, safety and wellbeing, 776–780 opportunities associated with, 775–776 Direct crossover, 668 Directive performance management, 507–511 Disabilities of the arm, shoulder and hand (DASH), 555 Disability, 135, 137, 138, 140, 146–148, 151, 332, 344, 640, 641 category, 338 management, 643, 647 medical/individual problem, 647 models, 334, 335

Index organizational acceptability, 648 payments, 649 stakeholders, 647 strategies, 649 technology, 654 work, 336 Disclosure, 142, 146–148, 487, 488 Discrete event, 271 Discrimination, 135, 136, 138, 337, 484, 485, 640, 641 Dispositional resistance to change (DRTC), 263 Disruptive change, 163, 164 Distal performance, 689 Distributive justice, 287, 301 Diversity, 713 management, 332 Double-edged sword, 675 Downside risk, 819 Downsizing, 4, 195, 196 art-based intervention, 179 beneficial program, 185 complex effects, 183, 184 depression-free subjects, 183 depressive feelings in employees, 177 deteriorated functions, 178 direction of causality, 182 endocrinological changes, 181 full spectrum effects, 179–181 genetic factors, 178 health consequences, 185 health effects, 176 HPA axis, 177, 178 ill health development, 177 large-scale reactives, 182 long term unemployment, 176 organization of, 184 pattern of reactions, 178 phases, 177 prescription of medication, 183 response to possibilities, 176 stress mechanisms, 177 unemployment effects, 179 work organization, 178 youth unemployment, 184 3D printing, 653 Dual-earner couples, 669 Dyads, 672, 673, 677 E Economic appraisals, 750 Economic indicators, 750 Effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model, 271, 272, 463–464

Index Emotional exhaustion, 274, 679 Emotional intelligence, 18 Emotion-focused approach, 126 Empirical articles, 47 Empirical test, 451–453 Employee(s), 791 health, 291, 395, 410 life cycle, 394 participation, 856, 861, 862, 864, 865, 867, 868 voice, 492 Employee health and wellbeing, 94–96 compassionate leadership, 104–105 UK health and social care settings, 104 Employee-organization context, 275 Employee-organization relationship, 270 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), 491–493 Employee well-being, 47, 59, 395–397, 401 effective implementation of lean management for sustainable, 218–223 impact of lean management on, 211–214 job demands-resources model, 214–218 Employer-employee bond, 645 Employment conditions, 231 Employment market, 534 Employment opportunities, 653 Empowering leadership, 72, 74 Enabling performance management systems, 511–512 End-user engagement, 651 Environmental Issues, 620 Equity theory, 287, 300, 304 Ergonomics, 553, 554, 556, 558, 560, 561 Ethical culture, 5, 418, 419 drivers, 425–427 management, 427–429 organization, 420–422 unethical behavior, 429, 430 virtue, 422–424 Ethical decision-making (EDM) I-EDM, 440 organizational theories, 443 theoretical models, 440 training, 441 Ethical virtues, 421 Ethnicity, 334 Eudaimonic well-being, 46, 735 European Commission, 816 Evidence-based safety leadership, 73 Expatriate employees adaptation and transition support, 830 CCA, 830

877 CCT effectiveness, 830, 846–848 contents covered, 843 correlation analyses, 842 cross-cultural literature, 845 cross-cultural theories, 845 cross-cultural training method, 844 data analysis, 834, 836 data extraction, 834 descriptive, 836 design, 833 duration of training, 843 effectiveness, CCT, 837 frequency of publications, 837 hospitality sector, 829 host environments, 830 ICT sector, 829 inclusion-exclusion criteria, 834 method of training, 844, 845 MNCs, 828 modified PRISMA statement, 835 multinational organizations, 830 OECD countries, 829 organizational expats, 828 participatory learning methods, 845 psychological adjustment, 831, 837, 846 psychological capital (PsyCap), 842 psychological dimension, 842 psychological distress, 829 psychological stress, 829 psychological well-being, 846 qualitative semi-structured interviews, 844 research limitations, 848 search strategies, 833 search terms, 834 self-initiated expatriates, 828 social learning theory, 845 socio-cultural perspective, 846 statistical tests, 842 theory-based, 845 transition, 829 United States, 829 U-shaped theory, 845 validity of training, 840–842 Expectancy theory, 74

F Fairness at work definitions and measurement, 287, 289 health (see Health-related consequences) justice, 286 (see also Organizational change) organizational changes, 286

878 Fairness at work (cont.) relevance, 289, 290 wider consequences, 296, 297 work-related consequences, 291 Fairness Heuristics Theory, 299, 302 Fairness perceptions, 289 Family satisfaction, 667 Family-to-work conflict (FWC), 667 Fatigue, 616–618, 621 adapted safety error trajectory framework, 629–633 causes, 618–620 continuous operator monitoring, 622 fitness, duty tests, 621, 622 managing driver, 627, 628 measurement, 621 monitoring driver, 626, 627 organizational culture, 627 performance based monitoring, 623 work driving context, 623–625 Fight-flight-freeze stress, 126 Financial management models, 648 Fixed flexibility, 693, 702 Flexible scheduling, 701 Flexible work arrangement (FWA), 537–538, 713 Flexible work initiatives, 7, 693 Flexible workplace, 690, 705, 706 Follower-centric approach, 118, 119, 123 Follower confrontation, 126 Followership, 118 behaviors, 120 characteristics, 120 components, 122 conceptualizations, 119 definition, 118, 119 destructive leaders, 123 dichotomy, 128 leadership, 119 limitations, 126 literature, 120 outcomes, 120 perspectives, 122 practical implications, 129 research, 120 theoretical lenses, 121 theories, 121 virtual teams, 127 Follower typologies, 118, 124, 125, 130 Foodora, 771 Foot Health Promotion Programme (FHPP), 555

Index Formal team leader, 128 Fostering employee wellbeing, organizational goals, 515–518 Framework for managers, 515–518 Friction-reducing devices (FRD), 555 Full-range leadership framework, 71 G Gender, 333 identity, 482, 483, 490 neutral language, 489 norms, 535 General systems theory, 384 Generativity, 274 Gig economy, 7, 652, 770 and digital platforms, 771–773 growth of, 773–775 Global trends, 649 Goal-misalignment problem, 508 Goal setting and planning (GAP), 756, 764 GoFundMe, 771 Group engagement model, 301 H Hand arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), 557 Happiness, 396, 409, 410 Harassment/violence at work, 816 Hard/regulatory approaches, 812 Hard/soft law instruments balancing, 820–823 international and regional level, 814, 816 national level, 816, 817 organization level, 818 sectoral level, 817, 818 Hard law, 812 Hard vs. soft law, 811, 812 Harm, 733–734 overlooked, 738–739 SMART model, 740 Health, 396, 410 conditions, 538 professionals, 648 and well-being, 272, 275 Health, safety and wellbeing (HSW) hard and soft law (see Hard/soft law instruments) hard vs. soft law, 811, 812 influences, 810 interventions, 810 policy evolution, 812–814 social and mental health, 810

Index Health and Safety at Work Act, 550 Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 817 Health and Safety Executive’s (2019), 579 Health and Safety Regulations, 556 Health and Social Care Workers ageing, 552 jobs, 551 MSD workers, 552–554 professionals, 554–556 Health in All Policies (HiAP), 822 Health-related consequences causal and reversed relationships, 295 longitudinal evidence, 292, 294 reversed effects, 295, 296 underlying mechanisms, 294, 295 Health Work and Wellbeing Programme, 576 Healthy leadership, 93 Healthy lifestyles, 556, 558 Hedonic well-being constructs, 46 High commitment management, 396 High involvement, 396 High Performance Work Practices, 396 High-performance work system (HPWS) approach, 363, 396 Holistic leadership model, 23 Homophobia, 487, 493, 497 Horizontal modes, 128 HR attributions, 401, 402 HR perceptions, 401, 402 HR practices, 221–223 HR process, 401 Human factors, 554 Human resource development (HRD), 314 Human resource management (HRM), 5, 94, 222, 314, 394, 482, 494, 688–690, 692, 704, 706 Human resource management (HRM) practices, 370, 755 benefits of, 370 conceptualizations of, 371–372 critical perspective, 379–380 implementation of, 380–382 integrationist perspective, 372–374 isolationist perspective, 374–375 methodological issues, 382–385 mutual gains perspective, 377–379 practices, performance and black box, 375–377 Human resources (HR) policies, 536 Humiliation tactics, 123 Hybrid control, 521

879 Hybridity, 520 Hyper flexibility, 694 Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenocortical (HPA), 177

I Ill-being, 51 Illnesses, 641 Impairments, 136 Implementer, 125 Implicit followership theories, 121, 122 Implicit leadership theories, 121 Inclusion, 138, 143, 332, 336, 339, 482, 483, 488 criteria, 692 Inconsistent leadership, 77 Incremental change, 162, 163 Indirect crossover, 668 Individual(s), 272 attributes, 793 characteristics, 273 practices, 706 Individualist, 125 Informal learning, 316, 317, 325 Informational justice, 288 Information and communication technology sector (ICT), 8, 829 Injured workers, 648 Injuries, 70 Injury illness, 641 Innovation teams, 128 Insomnia, 274 Insurers, 648 Integration, 57 Integrationist perspective, 372–374 Integrative model, 21–24 Intentional vs. unintentional behaviours, 70 Interactional justice, 288 Interdependent relationships, 122 Internalization, 57 International Classification of Diseases (ICD—11), 598 International Labor Organization (ILO), 814 International Social Security Association (ISSA), 815 International Standardization Organization (ISO), 814 Interpersonal justice, 288 Intersectionality, 345 Interventions, 79, 651, 704, 788, 790, 794, 795 Intimation tactics, 123

880 ISO 45001, 814 ISO 45003, 814 Isolationist perspective, 374–375

J JD-R model, 318 Job Characteristics Model, 740 Job crafting, 539–540 Job-Demand-Control-Support (JDCS) model, 673 Job demands, 59 Job Demands Control (JD-C), 318 Job demands-control-support framework, 464–465 Job demands-resources (JD-R), 461–462 model, 53, 214–218, 272, 539, 677 theory, 358–359, 403 Job insecurity, 274 Job placement, 644 Job-related self-efficacy, 679 Job resources, 214 Job satisfaction, 553, 667 Job security, 255 Justice, 286, 289 enactment, 290

K Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), 508

L Labor force, 640 Labor Force Survey (LFS), 551 Labor market, 176 Labor process theory, 211, 379 Laissez-faire leadership, 71 Latent profile analysis (LPA), 600 Layoff survivors, 195, 196 Leader behavioral integrity, 76 Leader-centric approach, 118 Leader-follower interaction process, 125 Leader-member exchange (LMX), 19–20, 49, 52, 408, 677, 678 patterns, 30 Leadership, 68 academic and general literature, 16 causal modelling, 32–33 characteristics, 4 definition, 16 economic lens, 33 followership dichotomy, 130

Index framework, 17 integrative model, 21–24 leader, 17 multi-level perspective, 17 power distance, autonomy, and culture, 32 safety-related outcomes, 4 servant, 4 task characteristics, 31–32 theoretical approaches, 17–21 Leadership review employee creativity, 25 employee engagement, 24 performance, 25 PsyCap, 26 wellbeing and burnout, 25 Lean foundations, 220 Lean implementation, 219 Lean job demands, 224 Lean job resources, 215 Lean management, 210 effective implementation for sustainable employee well-being, 218–223 impact on employee wellbeing, 211–214 job demands-resources model, 214–218 Lean social pillar, 220 Lean transformation, 5 Legalization, 812 Legislation, 811, 813, 818, 821 Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) collective engagement, 493, 494 disclosure, 487, 488 emergency support measures, 495 equality, 495 ERGs, 491–493 facing criticism, 496 homophobic/transphobic bullying, 483 inclusion, 482, 483, 488 interventions, 496 organizational challenges, 482 policies and practices, 494 risk of tokenism, 486, 487 signals, 489, 490 social diversity issues, 483 systems, 490, 491 unprofessional, 483 workplace challenges, 484–486 LGBT ideology, 496 Life-limiting conditions, 341–344 Line manager competencies behaviors, 93 employee health and wellbeing, 94–96 health, safety and wellbeing, 100–102

Index health and wellbeing activities, 93 preventing and reducing stress, 96–99 promotion, prevention, maintenance, 92 Line managers, 223 Lipman-Blumen’s malevolent followers, 125 Live with contract breach, 270 Longitudinal research designs, 84

M Macro level policies, 814 Male-to-female crossover, 673 Malevolent followers, 125 Management, 418, 420, 423, 425 Management and employment practices ageing process, 6 cause of ill-health, 2 COVID-19 impact, 9 COVID-19 pandemic, 3 downsizing, 4 employee wellbeing, 5 employment landscape, 9 followership, 4 gig economy, 7 impact of change on health, 5 leadership, 4 line managers role, 2 management competencies, 4 management of change, 4 managers and workplace accommodations, 4 mutual gains, 2 occupational health, 2 psychological contract, 5 psychosocial safety climate, 6 reasons, 2 standard differentiation, 3 work-life interface, 6 Management-by-exception active (MEA), 71 Management-by-exception passive (MEP) leadership, 71 Management competencies employee health and wellbeing, 94–96 health, safety and wellbeing, 100–102 health and wellbeing, 106–110 preventing and reducing stress, 96–99 supporting employees, 102–104 sustainable employee engagement, 99 Management Competencies for Preventing and Reducing Stress (MCPARS), 96 Manager competencies, see Line manager competencies Managers’ assessments, 451

881 Managers behaviors, 72 Managing engagement, 101 Managing return to work, 102–104 Managing wellbeing employee health, 94–96 health and, 93, 106–110 manager behaviors, 102 manager participants, 106 SMCIT, 99 workplace, 92 Masculine-coded words, 489 Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), 600–602 Maslach Burnout Inventory General Scale (MBI-GS), 599, 602 Maturity Model for Management Development Programmes, 108 Mean certified sick leave, 253 Measurability, 516 Mediating mechanisms, 49 Mediators, 75, 77 Mental health, 192, 197 care sector, 580 conditions, 650 problems, 831 Meso-level explanation, 440 Meso sectoral policies, 814 Meta-analysis, 18, 21 Meta-analytic evidence, 75 Mindfulness, 48 acceptance, and value intervention, 607 and meditation interventions, 105–106 Moderators, 273 Modernization, 653 Modern positive approaches, 20–21 Morally-motivated reactions, 798 Motivation-enhancing practices, 377 Multi-component programs, 651 Multi-disciplinary approach, 440 Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), 129 Multilevel analysis, 382–383 Multi-level theoretical explanations, 440–441 Multinational corporate (MNCs), 828 Multiple sclerosis, 644 Muscular-skeletal problems, 6 Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), 548, 644 construction industry, 557–559 construction workers, 556–557 effective risk management, 562–564 in health and social care, 552–554 health and social care professionals, 554–556 multiple risk factors, 549

882 Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) (cont.) occupational health management, 549–550 prevalence, 550–552 psychological and social factors, 561–562 sedentary occupations, 548 sedentary professions, 559–560 taking a break, 560–561 workers to return jobs, 564 Musculoskeletal injuries, 644 Mutual gains perspective, 2, 377–379, 396, 410

N Natural control groups, 645 Negative behaviors, 123 Negative emotions, 274 Negative safety-related outcomes, 74 Negative workplace culture, 648 Neurobiology, 618 New ways of working (NWW), 691

O Objective measures of exposure to organizational change, 249 downsizing, 250–251 mergers, 252 privatization, 252 research, 253–254 restructuring, 251–252 unit-level upsizing and downsizing, 252 Occupational health management, 549–550 support, 549 Occupational health and safety (OHS), 231, 395, 532–533, 856 boards’ engagement, 239–242 boards of directors responsibilities (see Boards of directors) employee health impact on organizational performance, 232, 233 employee relations, 234 integrated systems, 234 poor working conditions, 232 prevention of risks, 232 protection and promotion, 234 risks, 232 strategy, 237 training and development, 234 Occupational health guidelines, 587

Index Occupational safety and health (OSH), 102, 813, 814 Occupational stress, 666 Office work, 560 Older worker aged 45 years and over, 529 description, 530 early retirement intentions, 535 health and safety risk, 533 homogenous view, 530 noisy environments, 531 psychosocial working conditions, 532 social experiences, 532 stereotypes, 535 Operational performance, 689 Operative management, 230 Opportunity-enhancing practices, 377 Optimistic perspective, 689 Organizational and Social Work Environment, 817 Organizational career management, 399 Organizational change attributes, 298 boundary conditions, 302, 303 before change, 299, 300 defining, 161 disruptive change, 163, 164 during and after change, 300, 301 emergent, 162, 163 implications, 170, 171 intervention studies, 303, 304 organizational capability, 170 performance, 167, 168 pre-change time, 298 primary objective, wellbeing, 166 secondary objective, wellbeing, 165, 166 stability, 301, 302 sustainable management, 168, 169 timeline, 298 wellbeing, 164 Organizational change and employee health and well-being objective measures, 250–254 recommendations for future research, 261–263 subjective measures, 254–261 Organizational context, 646 Organizational culture, 627, 712, 713, 715, 716 Organizational design, 163, 166, 168–170 Organizational development models, 648 Organizational efforts, 482 Organizational factors, 791–792 Organizational goals, 515–520

Index Organizational interventions, 605, 606 challenges, 730 individuals, 728 legal obligations, 729 mental health issues, 729 Organizational justice, 440, 447 definition, 286 dimensions, 288 gender, 303 literature, 289 mental health, 292 meta-analyses, 291 perceptions, 291, 295 sickness, 293 work-related consequences, 291 (see also Fairness at work) Organizational leadership ethical organizational culture, 31 ever-changing nature, 30–31 non-executive leadership, 29 psychosocial safety climate, 30 Organizational-level variables, 446 Organizational performance, 688–690, 692–694, 696, 697, 699–704, 706 Organizational resources, 402, 403 Organizational strategies in ageing age-friendly climate, 536–537 FWA, 537–538 job crafting, 539–540 training, 538–539 Organizational stressor, 272 Organizational system, 119 Organizations change, 160, 161 Organization’s ethical climate, 448 Organizing modes, 128, 129

P Participants, 125 Participation restrictions, 136 Partner, 125 Passive destructive leadership, 83 Passive followers, 122 Peer mentoring, 647 Performance appraisal, 399 Performance management, 505 control-oriented and learning, 512 directive, 507–511 enabling, 511–512 evidence-based insights, 515 involvement-oriented, 512 physical wellbeing, 504

883 planning and evaluation, 514 systems, 518–520 wellbeing, 505–506 Performance-related well-being, 52 Personalization, 490 Person-centered approach, 81 Person conducting a business or undertaking– (PCBU), 780 Person-job fit, 539 Personnel management models, 648 Person-oriented approaches components, 599 critical decision, 599 elements, 599 entropy, 599 processes, 599 profile analysis, 600 techniques, 599 theoretical/practical interest, 600 value statistical analysis, 600 Physical health, 191, 273 Physical symptoms, 577 Physiology, 530–531 Policy decision-making, 750 Policy-level approaches, 811 Political environment, 496 Positive contagion, 679 Positive crossover, 669–670 Positive emotions, 55, 60 Positive organizational culture, 648 Positive resolution, 276 Positive safety leadership, 73 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 338, 578 Post-violation model, 276, 279 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Statement (PRISMA), 833 Prejudice, 337 Prescriptive group, 120 Presenteeism, 641 Preventing work stress, 96–99 Prevention-focused safe behaviors, 70 Private companies board of directors, 230 OHS (see Occupational health and safety (OHS)) problem, 231 vs. public organizations, 231 responsibility, 231 Proactive followers, 122 Proactive followership, 122, 128, 129 Problem-focused approach, 126 Procedural justice, 288

884 Productivity, 319, 325 norms, 337 Programs timing duration, 645 Pro-social reporting, 443 Pseudo-flexibility, 701 Psychological capital (PsyCap), 26 Psychological contract breach, 270–273, 275 accumulative, 277 career, 272 chronic health problems, 275–277 definition, 271 emotional exhaustion, 274 empirical investigations, 271 employee burnout, 273 event-based, 277 experience, 271 health, 273, 278 infancy, 273 insomnia, 274 macro context, 275 mental health, 272 moderators, 278 negative effects, 277 negative emotions, 274 negative health, 273 organization, 271 organizational context, 274 physical health, 273 research designs, 279 stress, 274, 277 theoretical development, 277 violation, 271, 273, 279 Psychological contracts, 270 Psychological contract violation, 271 Psychological health, 462, 467–469, 471, 473 Psychological safety climate, 28 Psychological strain, 667 Psychological symptoms, 577 Psychosocial behavioral, 646 Psychosocial health, 531–532 Psychosocial risk, 195, 200, 201, 203, 204 Psychosocial Risk Management Excellence Framework (PRIMA-EF), 819 Psychosocial risk management (PRIMA), 818–820 Psychosocial safety climate, 30, 360 conservation of resources theory, 465–466 countries and occupations, 469–471 effort-reward imbalance model, 463–464 extension of strategic HRM, 466–467 functions, 467–469 and job demands-control-support, 464–465 and job demands-resources, 461–462

Index practice and intervention, 473 research design and measurement, 472–473 and safety signal theory, 462 Psychosocial work environment, 817 Psychosocial working conditions, 641 Psychosomatic strain, 274 Public health, 191, 192, 204 Public sector employees, 272 Public-service workers, 447

Q Quasi-experimental design, 697

R Race, 333 Randomized control trials (RCT), 554, 582, 584, 605 Recession, 190–192 effects and management, 195–202, 204 occupational safety and health management, 192–195 Referent power, 123 Rehabilitation, 641 Relational approaches, 19–20 Relational coordination theory, 220 Relational justice, 288 Relationships, 22 Relative deprivation, 287 Repetitive lower limb movement (RLLM), 558 Replicability, 517 Resource(s), 666, 671, 673–674 allocation theories, 53, 56 caravan passageways, 465 Return on Investment (ROI), 752 Return to work (RTW), 586, 588 interventions, 650 plans, 646 Revenge-seeking, 271 Reverse causality, 383–385 Revolutionary systems, 654 Risk management, 813 Risk of tokenism, 486, 487 Robotic Construction Worker (RCW), 558 Role-playing activities, 130

S Safety, 810 citizenship behavior, 69, 75 climate, 75 coaching, 79

Index compliance, 69 error trajectory framework, 629 initiative, 69 participation, 69 performance, 69 signal theory, 462 Safety leadership, 71, 78 behaviors, 72 dark side, 83 interventions, 79 positive side, 82 Safety-oriented interactions, 84 Safety-related behaviors, 69 dimensions, 69 goal, 69 work, 69 Safety-related outcomes, 73 Safety-related policies, 68 Safety-specific transformational leadership, 79 Same-sex marriage, 489 Satisfaction, 48 Scholars, 47, 48, 68 Scope of justice (SOJ), 799 Second-order two-factor structure, 122 Sedentary occupations, 548 Sedentary professions, 559–560 Self-control, 56 Self-determination, 652 Self-determination theory (SDT), 53, 56, 57, 75, 378 Self-directed business models, 649 Self-efficacy, 674 Self-employed, 770, 771, 778 Self-employment, 653 Self-esteem, 674 Self-managed solutions, 651 Self-management skills, 76 Self-regulation theory, 74, 76 Self-scheduling, 696 Sensor-based applications, 654 Servant leadership, 60, 72, 74 career satisfaction, 49 career skills, 48 definition, 44 elements, 44 empirical articles, 47 empirical studies, 57 employees well-being, 59 eudaimonic well-being, 49, 50, 55 group-level, 50 hedonic well-being, 48, 49 ill-being, 51, 52 individual-level, 58

885 JD-R model, 53, 54 job demends, 59 leader-centric, 54 meta-analyses, 44 methodology, 46 mindset, 44 mode, 44 motive, 44 multiple stakeholders, 44 negative, 47 organizational performance, 45 positive, 47 predictor, 47 satisfaction, 49 scholars, 47 stakeholders, 47 team-level, 50 theoretical framework, 45, 52 vs. transformational leadership, 45 well-being, 46, 47 work engagement, 50 Sexual harassment, 797 Sexual orientation, 482, 483 Shared leadership, 121, 127 Shared mental models, 27 Sickness absence, 574, 576, 583, 585, 586, 589, 591 Signal/attraction-selection-attrition theories, 485 Simplistic dichotomies, 130 Simultaneous influence, 450 Six-factor structure, 122 Skeptical perspective, 689, 692, 699, 703 Skill development, 401 Sleepiness, 617 SMART work design, 739–740 digitalization positioning, 742–744 dimensions, 741 prevent harm, 738–742 thrive at work, 730–737 Social dynamics, 609 Social Encounters Scale, 608 Social exchange theory, 45, 52, 58, 73, 75, 84, 287, 378 Social identification model, 847 Social identities shift, 534 Social identity theory, 439 Social information-processing theory, 73 Social learning theory, 45, 53, 73, 845 Social support, 464, 675 Social symptoms, 577 Social vacuum, 794 Social well-being, 396, 409, 410

886 Society for Human Resource Management, 489 Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), 795 Socio-affective components, 33 Softer lean management practices (SLPs), 217 Soft law, 812 Soft/non-binding/voluntary, 812 Spatial flexibility, 688, 691–693, 697, 699, 700 Spillover command and control, 667 enhancement or enrichment, 667 transfer of emotions, 666 Spillover-crossover model (SCM), 670–671 Stakeholders, 44, 47, 60, 647 Standardization, 814 STAR intervention, 703 Stigma, 485 Strain-based interference, 667 Strategic HRM, 466–467 Strategies, disability inclusion, 345, 346 Strength-based approach, 651 Strengthening a Culture Of Respect and Engagement (SCORE), 610 Stress, 729, 731, 733, 740, 829, 831, 837, 848 Stress and related disorders, 578 Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool (SMCIT), 97, 99 Stroke rehabilitation, 644 Structural power, 123 Structure or production-oriented, 18 Subjective measures of exposure to organizational change downsizing, 255 implementation of technology, 257 mergers, 256–257 privatization, 256 research, 259–260 restructuring, 256 Submissive/aggressive reactions, 126 Supervisor Support for Return to Work (SSRW), 103 Supportive organizational cultures, 648 Susceptible followers, 124 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 640 Sustainable employee engagement, 99, 101 Symptoms, CMPs anxiety, 577, 578 depression, 576, 577 mental health problems, 576 stress and related disorders, 578 Synergistic effect, 373, 399

Index T Taoism, 118 Target similarity model, 291 Task-and people-focused leadership, 18 Task characteristics, 31–32 Team building, 130 Team characteristics/dynamics, 24 Team-high quality member exchange (TMX), 50 Team leadership cohesion, 28 learning, 27 potency, 28–29 psychological safety climate, 28 shared mental models, 27 viability, 29 Team-member exchange, 52 Teams, 676, 679, 681 Technology, 654 Telepressure, 678 Teleworking, 702 initiative, 697 Temporal flexibility, 688, 691, 692, 694 The Civility Respect and Engagement in the Workplace (CREW) programme, 795 Theoretical approaches behavioral, 18 charismatic and transformational, 20 contingency, 18–19 modern positive approaches, 20–21 relational, 19–20 trait, 17–18 Theoretically-driven conceptual framework, 222 Theoretically-grounded empirical studies, 53 Theoretical mechanisms, 45 Theoretical models, 58 Theorizing wellbeing, 318 The swiss cheese model, 628 Third-parties additional considerations, 801–802 decision-tree model, 797 deontic motivation, 797–800 victim humor, 800–801 victim talk, 801 Threat and error management, 628 Thriving example applications, 736–737 mitigate illness, 731–733 pillars, strategies, and tactics, 730–731

Index prevent harm, 733–734 promotion, 734–736 at work framework, 732 Time-based interference, 667 Time consuming global system, 400 Time-spatial flexibility, 688, 691, 692, 699, 700, 704, 705 Total preventative maintenance (TPM), 221 Toxic triangle, 124 Toyotism, 210 Trade union, 856 membership, 857, 858 non-union workplaces, 863–866 well-being, 859 WHS representatives, 859–863, 866–869 worker health, 858 Training, 315, 316, 318, 321, 324, 325, 538–539 Trait approaches, 17–18 Transactional active leadership, 76 Transactional leadership, 20, 71 Transformational change, 258 Transformational leadership, 18, 20, 44, 71, 74 Transitioning, 486 Transphobia, 487, 493, 497 Traumatic upper limb injuries, 644 Tyrannical leadership, 72

U Uber, 771, 777 Uncertainty management model, 299 Uncertainty-related problem, 519 Undervaluing, disabled people, 338, 339 Unemployment, 176 Unemployment rates, 640 Unethical behavior, 418, 431 Unintentional safe behaviors, 70 Universal design, 143, 146 Unsafe behaviors, 70 Upside risk, 819 U-shaped curvilinear relationship, 74, 77

V Varied experiences, disability, 339–341 Verbal harassment, 485 Vertical modes, 128 Veterans Health Authority, 609 Victim humor, 800–801 Victim talk, 801

887 Virtual/extended reality technology, 655 Virtual teams, 127 Vision Zero, 815 Visual display units (VDUs), 561 Visual impairments, 644 Vocational rehabilitation, 642–644 businesses/self-employment, 652, 653 challenges, 650 clinical/disease-focused, 650 employment opportunities, 653 employment outcomes, 646 future, 649 interventions, 646 personalized interventions, 651 physical/mental health, 649 positive supervisor, 647 principles, 651 processes, 6 technology, 653, 654 timing, 645 workplace environment, 647 Voice definition, 354–356 employees, 361 future research for well-being, 363 human resource role, 363 manager’s role, 362 and wellbeing, 357–361

W Well-being, 46, 127, 129, 164, 314–317, 324–326, 729, 734–736, 738, 744, 810 definition, 356–357 employee HR perceptions and attributions, 401, 402 employees’ role, 361 human resource role, 363 manager’s role, 362 organizational resources, 402, 403 skills development and career satisfaction, 401 theorizing, 317, 318 and voice, 357–361 Westman’s (2001) Crossover Model, 667–668 Whistleblowing description, 438 effective management, 441–443 empirical test, 451–453 hypothesized multi-level, 444

888 Whistleblowing (cont.) interactions, 450–451 managers impact, 448–449 multi-Level theoretical explanations, 440–441 organizational behavior, 439 organization impact, 446–448 partial test, 452 prevent observed wrongdoing, 438 process model, 450–451 regulatory context impact, 444–446 reporter’s impact, 449–450 research implications, 453–454 response model, 439, 443–444 theoretical perspectives, 439–440 Within individuals, 81 Within-person level, 82 Work and Health Covenants, 818 Work-based learning, 314, 315 benefits, 319, 320 implementing, 323–326 processes, 5 scope, 315–317 theorizing, 317–319 trade-offs, 320–323 Work design example applications, 736–737 mitigate illness, 731–733 overlooked, 738–739 pillars, strategies, and tactics, 730–731 prevent harm, 733–734 promote thriving, 734–736 Work disability, 136–138, 650 Work engagement, 50 Work environment, 810 Worker participatory approach, 817 Worker representation, 856, 867, 869 Workers’ education, 534 Worker well-being, 856, 864, 866, 867 Work–family interface, 674 Work-family-society interface, 704 Working conditions, 462, 464, 467, 470 Work-life balance, 487, 667 Work–life balance initiatives, 7, 712 benefits, 713, 714 costs to employees, 714, 715 COVID-19, 719, 723 cultural traditions, 716 flextime, 721, 722 fostering inclusive behaviours, 721 gender perceptions, 717 intergenerational workforce, 718, 719 migrants, 718 minority employees, 718

Index organizational culture, 715, 716 recommendations, 720 stereotypes, 717 Work-life interface, 6 Workplace accommodations, 135, 136, 138, 139 benefits, 139–141 career planning, 151 development, 149 flexible work locations, 144 flexible work times, 144 handling the disclosure, 147, 148 idiosyncratic deals, 145 implementation issues, 141–143 individual preferences, 145 initial implementation, 148, 149 performance review, 149 recruitment and selection processes, 146, 147 stage, employment cycle, 150 types, 140 universal design, 146 Workplace bullying, 789, 795 Workplace challenges, 484–486 Workplace environment, 647 Workplace incivility, 789 Workplace interventions, 575, 581, 583, 585, 589 Workplace mistreatment aftermath, 796 bullying, 789 COVID-19 pandemic, 788 helping victims, 795–796 individual factors, 792–793 negative interpersonal interactions, 789 organizational factors, 791–792 preventing, 795 relational factors, 793–794 sickness-related absence, 790 victims, 790 Workplace policies, 489 Workplace wellbeing, 688–690, 693, 694, 696, 697, 699, 700, 703, 706 case studies CONNECT+, 758, 759 costs of intervention, 755 data collection, 755 flexible working hours, 759–761 GAP, 756–758 HRM, 755 mental health first aid, 761–763 net costs, 756 productivity benefits, 755 effects, 751

Index evaluation methods CBA, 752 CEA, 752–755 interventions, 751 life satisfaction, 753 practical and intuitive, 752 ROI, 752 government and private sector investments, 751 non-pecuniary workplace experience, 751 wellbeing economics, 751 Work-related consequences, 291 Work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs) biomechanical engineering, 549 description, 549 employment, 549 MSD, 548 occurrence, 563 postural awareness, 558 primary care nurses, 553 risk factors, 549 Work-related skills, 643 Work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs), 550

889 Work-relevant relationship functions, 60 Work stress, 464, 467, 553 Work telepressure, 678 Work-to-family conflict (WFC), 667 Work-to-family interference (WFI), 667 World Health Organization (WHO), 580, 598, 810 World market, 176 Wrong-doing internal reporting, 453 organization, 446 reporter/manager/organizational outcomes, 450 reporting, 450 situational characteristics, 454

Y Youth unemployment, 184

Z Zero-sum game, 701