Well-Being Improvement in a Midsize Employer: Changes in Well-Being, Productivity, Health Risk, and Perceived Employer Support After Implementation of a Well-Being Improvement Strategy

Effect of Government Guidelines and Corporate Governance on Telework Adoption and Occupational Health Measures in Taiwanese-Listed Companies

Background

Telework adoption in Taiwan has surged because of government guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined the disclosure practices of Taiwanese-listed companies, assessing their adherence to government telework guidelines and their correlation with corporate governance, focusing on occupational health measures.

Methods

We conducted a guideline-adherent cohort analysis of the 2020 and 2021 sustainability reports of 295 Taiwanese-listed companies. We assessed their disclosure of corporate measures for teleworking in alignment with two government guidelines, specifically occupational health measures. Using the McNemar test and general estimating equation analysis, we compared the 2020 and 2021 responses and examined their associations with corporate governance rankings.

Results

Telework adoption increased significantly from 2020 to 2021, with 68% of companies reporting new work modes. The mentioning of government guidelines also increased to 67% by 2021. Companies with higher governance rankings were more likely to adopt online occupational health measures, including occupational health services (RR = 2.03; 95% CI = 1.41-2.94; p < 0.001) and mental health promotion activities (RR = 2.01; 95% CI = 1.06-3.82; p = 0.032), than those with low rankings. Although on-site and online occupational health services increased, home workspace assessments did not.

Conclusion

Our findings highlight significant upward trends in the disclosure of telework measures following the issuance of government guidelines. Corporate governance is significantly associated with the implementation of occupational health measures. Amid the evolution of teleworking, both government guidelines and corporate governance have become essential for shaping work arrangements and ensuring workforce well-being.

Prioritizing decision-making of health and well-being response tactics: Incorporating organizational and individual shared demands

As a major energy source in China, the occupational health and well-being (OHW) of miners is a priority. Various statistical techniques have been used to identify factors or assess OHW to provide valuable information for the implementation of health promotion activities. The main bottleneck is the limited focus on solutions that address the demands of both organizations and individuals, and scientific and effective decision-making is pending. Therefore, this study describes the OHW mechanism covering both antecedents and consequences through the driving force-pressure-state-impact-response model. A probabilistic model of management tradeoff analysis was established by using a Bayesian decision network. Causal relationships and dependencies between multiple factors are captured visually. The model was verified and applied with samples of miners (N = 816). The results showed that the comprehensive strategy (R5) was the best tactic, and the management effect of stress (R2) and vulnerability (R3) was prominent. This study provides a valuable tool for managers to identify priority management factors. Prioritizing tactics formulated from dual demands of organizational and individual can ensure project feasibility, operability, and effectiveness. This study is a novel attempt to combine theory with practice, which is timely and necessary for management.

Predicting wellbeing over one year using sociodemographic factors, personality, health behaviours, cognition, and life events

Various sociodemographic, psychosocial, cognitive, and life event factors are associated with mental wellbeing; however, it remains unclear which measures best explain variance in wellbeing in the context of related variables. This study uses data from 1017 healthy adults from the TWIN-E study of wellbeing to evaluate the sociodemographic, psychosocial, cognitive, and life event predictors of wellbeing using cross-sectional and repeated measures multiple regression models over one year. Sociodemographic (age, sex, education), psychosocial (personality, health behaviours, and lifestyle), emotion and cognitive processing, and life event (recent positive and negative life events) variables were considered. The results showed that while neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, and cognitive reappraisal were the strongest predictors of wellbeing in the cross-sectional model, while extraversion, conscientiousness, exercise, and specific life events (work related and traumatic life events) were the strongest predictors of wellbeing in the repeated measures model. These results were confirmed using tenfold cross-validation procedures. Together, the results indicate that the variables that best explain differences in wellbeing between individuals at baseline can vary from the variables that predict change in wellbeing over time. This suggests that different variables may need to be targeted to improve population-level compared to individual-level wellbeing.

[Evaluation index for a healthy workplace culture in health and productivity management]

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to establish a healthy workplace culture, rather than simply enhancing the content of intervention programs, aimed toward reducing health risks and maintaining and increasing productivity. Previous studies have found that the higher the awareness of employees' subjective evaluation of support for their health, the smaller is the health risk and problem of presenteeism. In health and productivity management, it is necessary to make evaluations from the employees' perspective. This study created an index of healthy workplace culture from the employees' perspective and examined its usefulness as an evaluation index for health and productivity management.

METHODS

A questionnaire survey was conducted using 20 indicators derived from a literature review of the workplace culture of health. The survey was conducted among 50 organizations that were certified as excellent healthcare corporations in 2019. A questionnaire was distributed to 886 employees in 25 cooperating organizations, and responses were received from 435 employees.

RESULTS

The analysis was performed among employees at 43 large and 263 small and medium-sized organizations, and 123 organizations with unknown certification status. Comparison by size showed that the following were significantly better in large organizations: policy on maintaining and promoting health, procedures for handling health issues, program and support for returning to work after a long absence, program and support for improving mental health, and places to consult with employees about health and safety issues. However, the following were significantly better in small and medium-sized organizations: feedback on health issues from supervisors to employees and provision of useful information about health promotion. Organizations with unknown certification status showed significantly worse results for all items. It was evident with all indicators that a strong workplace culture of health resulted in reduced health risks and diminished presenteeism.

CONCLUSIONS

The validity of the index developed in this study demands future verification. However, the index allows the degree of the workplace culture of health to be assessed and may be beneficial in health and productivity management for evaluation from the employees' perspective.

The Benefits of an Employee-Friendly Company on Job Attitudes and Health of Employees: Findings from Matched Employer-Employee Data

Background: This study explored the association of an employee-friendly work environment with employees’ job attitudes (engagement, commitment, turnover intentions, and job satisfaction), and health (mental and general health), applying matched employer–employee data. Methods: The German Linked Personnel Panel (LPP; n = 14,182) survey simultaneously captures the data of employees and the human resources (HR) management of companies. A two-step cluster analysis of 16 items of the HR valuation identified relatively more- and less-employee-friendly companies (EFCs). Logistic regressions tested differences between these companies in the assessment of job attitudes and health of their employees. Results: Compared to less-EFCS, more-EFCS had a reduced risk of poorer job attitudes and substandard health of their employees. For example, the risk for higher turnover intentions was reduced by 33% in more-EFCS (OR = 0.683, 95% C.I. = 0.626–0.723), and more-EFCS had an 18% reduced chance of poor mental health reporting of their employees (OR = 0.822, 95% C.I. = 0.758–0.892). Conclusions: More-EFCS have more motivated and healthier employees. The most distinct factors for more-EFCS were: the existence of development plans for employees, opportunities for advancement and development, and personnel development measures.

Six-Week Online Multi-component Positive Psychology Intervention Improves Subjective Wellbeing in Young Adults

Improving mental wellbeing has a range of benefits for society, including increased productivity, longevity, and resiliency. However, interventions designed to improve mental wellbeing are often only compared to waitlist controls, leaving uncertainty regarding the mechanisms of their effectiveness. The current study in 326 participants assessed a six-week positive psychology intervention against an active control (n = 163) in an online randomized control trial. Outcome measures included life satisfaction, wellbeing (subjective and psychological wellbeing), stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, and self-compassion. The potential moderating effect of participating during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was also explored. The intervention group showed greater improvements in life satisfaction by week six (β = 0.18, p = .014) and were maintained through to 7 weeks post-baseline (β = 0.23, t = 3.07, p = .002) and remained significant when accounting for COVID-19 restrictions. An improvement in composite wellbeing from baseline to 7 weeks post-baseline was detected when accounting for COVID-19 restrictions. Composite wellbeing and total depression and anxiety symptoms improved significantly more in the intervention group for participants with low baseline resiliency resources. These findings support the efficacy of using online multi-component positive psychology interventions in boosting wellbeing and reducing distress symptoms particularly in individuals with fewer resiliency resources who may need added support.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10902-021-00449-3.

Nurses' Well-Being, Health-Promoting Lifestyle and Work Environment Satisfaction Correlation: A Psychometric Study for Development of Nursing Health and Job Satisfaction Model and Scale

Although promoting healthy work environments to enhance staff members’ health and well-being is a growing trend, no empirical studies on such a model have been conducted in the nursing management field. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate measurement scales and a conceptual model of nurses’ well-being, health-promoting lifestyle, and work environment satisfaction (WHS). A cross-sectional survey was conducted to develop a WHS model and Nursing Health and Job Satisfaction (NHJS) scale. A total of 672 questionnaires were obtained from registered nurses by stratified random sampling for validation analysis. The percentage of total variance explained greater than 92.6%, suggesting a good ability of the scales to explain the variability in participants’ responses. The hypotheses of positive correlations among nurses’ health-promoting lifestyle, well-being, and work environment satisfaction were supported. The WHS model demonstrates the positive correlation with correlation coefficients of 0.57–0.86 among nurses’ health-promoting lifestyle, well-being, and work environment satisfaction. Nurses’ attitudes play a key role in promoting a healthy lifestyle. The most important work environment satisfaction variable for improved sense of well-being is respect from other medical staff. The findings can serve as an instrument for hospital nursing administrators to accurately assess and enhance nurses’ retention rate and health.

Use of Well-Being in Identification of Members With Future Health Risk Factors and Future Diagnosed Chronic Disease

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate if well-being is associated with the development of future health risks or incidence of new chronic disease.

METHODS

A retrospective cohort study was employed using longitudinal well-being assessment survey data from participants of a Fortune 500 US company wellness program, claims based International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnoses, and Cox proportional hazards models to assess associations between well-being and well-being change with future health risk and chronic disease incidence.

RESULTS

Individuals who maintained high well-being and those who increased their level of well-being displayed a significantly decreased hazard of accruing new health risk and new chronic disease incidence; those whose well-being worsened over time showed significant increases in health risk and hazard of new chronic disease incidence.

CONCLUSIONS

Well-being levels and change over time are significantly associated with future development of health risk and disease incidence.

Towards sustainable mental health promotion: trial-based health-economic evaluation of a positive psychology intervention versus usual care

BACKGROUND

Mental well-being could be promoted and protected by positive psychology (PP) based interventions. Such interventions may be appealing for people at risk of anxiety and depressive disorders, but health-economic evaluations are scarce. The aim was to examine the cost-effectiveness of a PP intervention.

METHODS

Participants with suboptimal levels of mental well-being were randomly assigned to an email guided PP-intervention (n = 137) or a wait-list control group (n = 138) with access to usual care (UC). At baseline and 6 months follow-up, data were collected on health care costs. Outcomes of interest were flourishing mental health and treatment response on anxiety and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Bootstrapped mean incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were €2359 ($2899) for flourishing, €2959 ($3637) for anxiety and €2578 ($3168) for depression, suggesting appreciable health gains for low additional costs. At a willingness to pay ceiling of €10,000 ($12,290) for a treatment response, the probability that the intervention is deemed cost-effective ranged between 90 and 93%.

CONCLUSIONS

The guided PP intervention appears to be a promising strategy as seen from both a public health and a health-economic perspective, especially when there is some willingness to pay. When the PP-intervention is scaled up, then outcome monitoring is recommended to better guarantee the longer term cost-effectiveness of the intervention.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

The Netherlands National Trial Register NTR4297. Registered on 29 November 2013. The NTR is part of the WHO Primary Registries.

The longitudinal relationship between flourishing mental health and incident mood, anxiety and substance use disorders

Background

High levels of mental well-being might protect against the onset of mental disorders but longitudinal evidence is scarce. This study examines whether flourishing mental health predicts first-incidence and recurrent mental disorders 3 years later. Data were used from 4482 representative adults participating in the second (2010-12) and third wave (2013-15) of the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study-2 (NEMESIS-2). Mental well-being was assessed with the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) at the second wave. The classification criteria of this instrument were used to classify participants as having flourishing mental health: high levels of both hedonic well-being (life-satisfaction, happiness) and eudaimonic well-being (social contribution, purpose in life, personal growth). DSM-IV mood, anxiety and substance use disorders were measured with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) 3.0 at all waves. Odds ratios of (first and recurrent) incident disorders were estimated, using logistic regression analyses adjusting for potential confounders. Flourishing reduced the risk of incident mood disorders by 28% and of anxiety disorders by 53%, but did not significantly predicted substance use disorders. A similar pattern of associations was found for either high hedonic or high eudaimonic well-being. Significant results were found for substance use disorders when life-events and social support were removed as covariates. This study underscores the rationale of promoting mental well-being as a public mental health strategy to prevent mental illness. In wealthy European nations it seems fruitful to measure and pursuit a flourishing life rather than merely high levels of hedonic well-being.

Training Employers to Implement Health Promotion Programs: Results From the CDC Work@Health® Program

PURPOSE

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initiated the Work@Health Program to teach employers how to improve worker health using evidence-based strategies. Program goals included (1) determining the best way(s) to deliver employer training, (2) increasing employers' knowledge of workplace health promotion (WHP), and (3) increasing the number of evidence-based WHP interventions at employers' worksites. This study is one of the few to examine the effectiveness of a program designed to train employers how to implement WHP programs.

DESIGN

Pre- and posttest design.

SETTING

Training via 1 of 3 formats hands-on, online, or blended.

PARTICIPANTS

Two hundred six individual participants from 173 employers of all sizes.

INTERVENTION

Eight-module training curriculum to guide participants through building an evidence-based WHP program, followed by 6 to 10 months of technical assistance.

MEASURES

The CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard and knowledge, attitudes, and behavior survey.

ANALYSIS

Descriptive statistics, paired t tests, and mixed linear models.

RESULTS

Participants' posttraining mean knowledge scores were significantly greater than the pretraining scores (61.1 vs 53.2, P < .001). A year after training, employers had significantly increased the number of evidence-based interventions in place (47.7 vs 35.5, P < .001). Employers' improvements did not significantly differ among the 3 training delivery formats.

CONCLUSION

The Work@Health Program provided employers with knowledge to implement WHP interventions. The training and technical assistance provided structure, practical guidance, and tools to assess needs and select, implement, and evaluate interventions.

An early intervention to promote well-being and flourishing and reduce anxiety and depression: A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

There is growing evidence that fostering mental well-being and flourishing might effectively prevent mental disorders. In this study, we examined whether a 9-week comprehensive positive self-help intervention with email support (TL-E) was effective in enhancing well-being and flourishing and decreasing anxiety and depressive symptoms in a non-clinical sample.

METHODS

A total of 275 participants with low or moderate well-being (mean age = 48 years, 86% female) were randomly assigned to a TL-E (n = 137) or wait-list control group (WL; n = 138). Participants completed online self-reporting questionnaires at baseline and at 3, 6 and 12 months.

RESULTS

Repeated measure analyses revealed significant more improvement on mental well-being (F = 42.00, p ≤ 0.001, d = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.42-0.90), anxiety (F = 21.65, p ≤ 0.001, d = 0.63, 95% CI = 0.39-0.87) and depression (F = 13.62, p ≤ 0.001, d = 0.43, 95% CI = 0.19-0.67) in the TL-E group versus the WL group. The proportion of flourishing in the TL-E group increased from 7 to 30% after 3 months (NNT = 5.46) and to 34% after 6 months (NNT = 5.25). All within group effects were maintained up to 12 months. We found no meaningful dose-response relationship for adherence, nor a clear moderator pattern.

LIMITATIONS

It is unknown whether results were influenced by the email support that accompanied the self-help intervention since TL-E was only compared to a wait-list condition. The generalizability of the findings is limited by the self-selected sample of mainly higher-educated women.

CONCLUSION

A guided positive self-help intervention might be considered as a new mental health promotion strategy because it has the potential to improve well-being up to the status of flourishing mental health, and to decrease anxiety and depressive symptomatology.

Factors affecting pain relief in response to physical exercise interventions among healthcare workers

The aim of this study is to identify factors associated with musculo-skeletal pain reduction during workplace-based or home-based physical exercise interventions among healthcare workers. Two hundred female healthcare workers (age: 42.0, BMI: 24.1, average pain intensity: 3.1 on a scale of 0-10) from three hospitals participated. Participants were randomly allocated at the cluster level (18 departments) to 10 weeks of (i) workplace physical exercise (WORK) performed in groups during working hours for 5 × 10 minutes per week and up to five group-based coaching sessions on motivation for regular physical exercise, or (ii) home-based physical exercise (HOME) performed alone during leisure-time for 5 × 10 minutes per week. Linear mixed models accounting for cluster identified factors affecting pain reduction. On average 2.2 (SD: 1.1) and 1.0 (SD: 1.2) training sessions were performed per week in WORK and HOME, respectively. The multi-adjusted analysis showed a significant effect on pain reduction of both training adherence (P=.04) and intervention group (P=.04) with participants in WORK experiencing greater reductions compared with HOME. Obesity at baseline was associated with better outcome. Leisure-time exercise, daily patient transfer, age, and chronic pain did not affect the changes in pain. In conclusion, even when adjusted for training adherence, performing physical exercise at the workplace is more effective than home-based exercise in reducing musculo-skeletal pain in healthcare workers. Noteworthy, obese individuals may especially benefit from physical exercise interventions targeting musculo-skeletal pain.

The Value of a Well-Being Improvement Strategy: Longitudinal Success across Subjective and Objective Measures Observed in a Firm Adopting a Consumer-Driven Health Plan

Objective:

The objective of this study is to evaluate effectiveness of a firm's 5-year strategy toward improving well-being while lowering health care costs amidst adoption of a Consumer-Driven Health Plan.

Methods:

Repeated measures statistical models were employed to test and quantify association between key demographic factors, employment type, year, individual well-being, and outcomes of health care costs, obesity, smoking, absence, and performance.

Results:

Average individual well-being trended upward by 13.5% over 5 years, monthly allowed amount health care costs declined 5.2% on average per person per year, and obesity and smoking rates declined by 4.8 and 9.7%, respectively, on average each year. The results show that individual well-being was significantly associated with each outcome and in the expected direction.

Conclusions:

The firm's strategy was successful in driving statistically significant, longitudinal well-being, biometric and productivity improvements, and health care cost reduction.

Direct and Mediated Relationships Between Participation in a Telephonic Health Coaching Program and Health Behavior, Life Satisfaction, and Optimism

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to examine the direct and mediated effects of a telephonic health coaching program on changes to healthy behaviors, life satisfaction, and optimism.

METHODS

This longitudinal correlational study of 4881 individuals investigated simple and mediated relationships between participation in a telephonic health risk coaching program and outcomes from three annual Well-being Assessments.

RESULTS

Program participation was directly related to improvements in healthy behaviors, life satisfaction and optimism, and indirect effects of coaching on these variables concurrently and over a one-year time lag were also supported.

CONCLUSIONS

Given previous research that improvements to life satisfaction, optimism, and health behaviors are valuable for individuals, employers, and communities, a clearer understanding of intervention approaches that may impact these outcomes simultaneously can drive greater program effectiveness and value on investment.