Designing work, family & health organizational change initiatives

Details

• Personal Author:
  Hammer LB ; Kelly EL ; Kossek EE ; Moen P
• Description:
  What if all workplaces were designed to change organizational cultures and the structure of work to truly support employees' work and family needs and reduce conflicts? How can employers and researchers create initiatives to improve employment settings to prevent work-family conflict and burnout? Despite a burgeoning literature and the proliferation of work-life consultants and policies, work-family research has had relatively limited impact on how work is managed in many companies today. Yet work-family and personal life conflicts and stress are growing management and public health concerns that impact employees, employers, and families across the globe. Work-family conflict (from work to families and from families to work) is an increasingly critical issue in today's workplace. It has been consistently linked to adverse mental, behavioral, and physical health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease risk, sleep quality, depressive symptoms, burnout, workplace safety, obesity, and addictive behaviors (i.e., smoking and alcohol use). Work-family conflicts are also related to employee productivity, turnover, absenteeism, well-being, and engagement. Despite the importance of work-family conflict for health and productivity, researcher-organizational partnerships have not fostered major change in practice. Poor quality studies have weakened the business case. For example, many studies simply compare workers with and without work-family conflict, overlooking evaluation how the design of workplaces may be fostering conflict. Or policies are introduced with poor implementation such as weak linkage to work procedures, career systems, or management practice. These gaps have resulted in limited employer evidence for prioritizing systemic reduction in work-family conflict in the way work is organized. It has also slowed the diffusion of evidence-based practice. Employers need to use best practice approaches, such as randomized control trials (use of control and experimental groups) of interventions aimed at preventing or reducing work-family conflict in order to foster healthy workplaces. Top management needs to take an active role in preventing work-family stress in how work is managed and organized. In this paper, we describe the development of the most comprehensive work-family organizational change initiative to date in the United States. Our goal is to share an indepth case study with examples and critical lessons that emerged. We draw on our years of experience working with major employers from two industries representative of today's workforce (health care and IT professionals). Employers and applied researchers can draw on this study and lessons to create, customize, and deliver evidence-based interventions to improve work, family and health. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Case Reports Family Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Health Personnel Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological Workplace
• Keywords:
  Biological Effects Case Studies Families Group Dynamics Health Care Health Care Facilities Health Care Personnel Information Dissemination Intervention Job Analysis Job Design Job Stress Management Personnel Professional Workers Psychological Responses Psychosocial Factors Sociological Factors Sociology Stress Stress-related Illnesses Stress-related Injuries Supervisory Personnel Technical Personnel Work-life Balance Work Environment Worker Health Workers Work Operations Work Organization Workplace Studies Work Practices Work Schedules

  More +
• ISSN:
  0090-2616
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement ; Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Indiana ; Minnesota ; Oregon ; OSHA Region 10 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  53-63
• Volume:
  43
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20048238
• Citation:
  Organ Dyn 2014 Jan-Mar; 43(1):53-63
• Contact Point Address:
  Ellen Ernst Kossek, Professor of Management, Krannert School of Management, 4005 Rawls Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, United States
• Email:
  ekossek@purdue.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2014
• Performing Organization:
  Portland State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050901
• Source Full Name:
  Organizational Dynamics
• End Date:
  20081130
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d4490176f44f4b66a859b307f55adb4334e0deae3181cdcf1173db599eeec174771b46327b0b1de5e2427fe75fbd46362c3726151f4e1a62f9872f419d0388c4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/203044/cdc_203044_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 808.43 KB ]