Occupational stressors and job performance: An updated review and recommendations

Role identities of emergency medical services personnel and their associations with intention to leave the profession

BACKGROUND

The scope of emergency medical services (EMS) has expanded from the urgent care of emergency patients to on-call healthcare services provided in the field with a holistic view of the patient's wellbeing. This challenges EMS to find solutions to cover all demands, while simultaneously setting high skill requirements for EMS personnel. Understanding personnel is a critical element in developing functional and resistant EMS. The aim of this study was to investigate how Finnish EMS personnel emphasize the Emergency Medical Services Role Identity Scale aspects of caregiving, thrill-seeking, duty, and capacity; and if these role identities are associated with intention to leave the profession.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional survey (N = 616, 52% women, mean age 32.9 years). Data were collected through social media platforms and analyzed with means, standard deviations, Mann-Whitney U-tests, Kruskal-Wallis H-tests, and binary logistic regression analyses.

RESULTS

Our results indicate that capacity is the most emphasized aspect among EMS personnel, and at the same time, it increases intention to leave EMS. Capacity was followed by caregiving, with no association with intention to leave. Duty and thrill-seeking were the least emphasized and were negatively associated with intention to leave. Additionally, there were also other factors that were associated with emphasizing EMS-RIS aspect and intention to leave.

CONCLUSION

Capacity stands out most strongly in analysis being at the core of the role identity of EMS personnel and was associated with a higher likelihood of leaving intentions. Several other factors were also associated with the intention to leave. Future studies should examine the exact dimensions of capacity that are considered important among EMS personnel and why factors such as work experience are associated with intentions to leave.

All that glitters is not gold! Job insecurity and well-being in STEM research fellows: a latent profile analysis

Job insecurity is now one of the major stressors affecting well-being at work. In academia, researchers appear to be in the most precarious position. To explore the relationship between job insecurity and well-being at work, we analyzed a sample of research fellows belonging to STEM disciplines in Italy. Using a latent profile approach, we identified three "hidden" subgroups: "Safe & Sound"; "Safe not so Sound" and "Neither Safe or Sound." Compared to previous studies, our results show that even within a population of STEM researchers that tends to have good levels of employability and mobility, there are subgroups of people characterized by greater job insecurity and low work commitment, who suffer from emotional exhaustion and cynicism at work level, i.e., more exposed to the risk of burnout.

Effects and Side Effects in a Short Work Coaching for Participants with and without Mental Illness

Employees with mental illness are often the first to be unable to cope with increasingly complex psychosocial work demands. But people without mental illness can also suffer from, for example, high workload. This study compares a short coaching to stabilize work ability for employees with and without mental illness regarding coaching topics, effects on work-related resources, goal attainment, and unwanted events. Individual coaching of three sessions (problem exploration by behavior analysis, practice of new behavior, reflection) was conducted with employees from different professional fields. A medical history was taken to determine whether participants are affected by a mental disorder. All coaching was conducted by the same behavior therapist in training (L.P.W.) under the supervision of an experienced behavior therapist (B.M.). Two hundred and three coachings with three sessions were completed. In total, 103 participants did not have a mental illness (51%), and 100 participants reported a mental disorder (49%). The coaching participants with mental illness had lower initial levels of work-related capacities (more severe impairments) and coping behavior as compared to the participants without mental illness. In the pre-post comparisons, both groups achieved significant improvements in work-related coping after the coaching. There were no differences in goal attainment between both groups. While participants without mental illness reported more unwanted events in parallel to the coaching (30% reported negative developments in life), participants with mental illness reported coaching-related unwanted events (20% felt to be dependent on the coach). Coaching with an individual focus on one topic can improve work-related resources in participants with and without mental disorders. Since participants with and without mental illness experience different unwanted events in coaching, psychotherapeutic expertise is needed in order to set the right focus.

Perception of Whole Day Workload as a Mediator Between Activity Engagement and Stress in Workers with Type 1 Diabetes

Associations between various forms of activity engagement (e.g. work, leisure) and the experience of stress in workers have been widely documented. The mechanisms underlying these effects, however, are not fully understood. Our goal was to investigate if perceived whole day workload accounted for the relationships between daily frequencies of activities (i.e. work hours and leisure/rest) and daily stress. We analyzed data from 56 workers with type 1 diabetes (T1D) who completed approximately two weeks of intensive longitudinal assessments. Daily whole day workload was measured with an adapted version of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Task Load Index (NASA-TLX). A variety of occupations were reported including lawyer, housekeeper, and teacher. In multilevel path analyses, day-to-day changes in whole day workload mediated 67% (p<.001), 61% (p<.001), 38% (p<.001), and 55% (p<.001) of the within-person relationships between stress and work hours, rest frequency, active leisure frequency, and day of week, respectively. Our results provided evidence that whole day workload perception may contribute to the processes linking daily activities with daily stress in workers with T1D. Perceived whole day workload may deserve greater attention as a possible stress intervention target, ones that perhaps ergonomists would be especially suited to address.

Safety Stressors and Construction Workers' Safety Performance: The Mediating Role of Ego Depletion and Self-Efficacy

As an important influencing factor of construction workers' safety performance, safety stressor has received increasing attention. However, no consensus has been reached on the relationship between different types of safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance, and the mechanism by which safety stressors influence safety performance remains unclear. This study proposed a multiple mediation model with ego depletion and self-efficacy as mediators between safety stressors and workers' safety performance. Data were collected from 335 construction workers in China. Results demonstrated that: (1) the three types of safety stressors (i.e., safety role ambiguity, safety role conflict, and interpersonal safety conflict) all had negative effects on workers' safety performance (i.e., safety compliance and safety participation); (2) self-efficacy mediated all the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; (3) ego depletion only mediated part of the relationships between the three safety stressors and safety performance; and (4) only part of the multiple-step mediating effects through ego depletion and self-efficacy were supported. This study made contributions by shedding light on the mechanism by which safety stressors influence workers' safety performance and providing more empirical evidence for the relationship between various safety stressors and the subdimensions of safety performance. Additionally, targeted strategies for improving workers' safety performance were proposed according to the findings.

Attending work with chronic pain is associated with higher levels of psychosocial stress

Background and Aims: Much is known about the impact of pain in terms of medical costs and missed work. Less is known about its associations when individuals are present for work. This study examines "presenteeism" by analyzing the psychosocial costs of pain in the workplace, using the 2015 European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). Methods: We conducted cross-sectional analysis of 2384 individuals with chronic pain and 2263 individuals without pain (matched by age and sex) using data from the 2015 EWCS. We compared groups in terms of the following psychosocial factors: supervisor support, job responsibility, team cohesion, discrimination, threats/abuse, job competency, job reward, sexual harassment, stress, and job security. The groups were also compared in terms of days lost due to illness. Results: People with pain were 64% less likely to view their job as rewarding (odds ratio [OR] = 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57-0.65), 47% more likely to be subjected to threats/abuse in the workplace (OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.63-0.73), 30% more likely to report poor supervisor support (OR = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.73-0.82), and 28% more likely to perceive discrimination in the workplace (OR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.71-0.85). People with pain missed approximately nine more days of work per year than respondents without pain. Conclusions: Chronic pain was associated with lower vocational fulfillment and feelings of being ostracized in the workplace. These findings suggest that the presence of pain in the workplace goes well beyond lost productivity due to absenteeism.

Workplace Interventions in Response to COVID-19: an Occupational Health Psychology Perspective

The outbreak of COVID-19 has imposed significant threats to individuals’ physical health and has substantially changed the socioeconomic order and the nature of our work and life all over the world. To guide organizations to design effective workplace interventions to mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19, we take the occupational health psychology (OHP) perspective to propose a framework that highlights important areas for organizations to intervene in order to better protect workers’ physical health and safety and to promote workers’ psychological well-being. Specifically, we integrate the prevention-based public health model with the Total Worker Health (TWH) and OHP-based approaches to propose a comprehensive set of primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions that target different groups of employees with varied exposure risks to the new coronavirus. We believe these proposed interventions can contribute positively to the development of healthy and safe work. Implications of these proposed interventions for workers, organizations, and policy makers are also discussed.

Organisational Climate, Role Stress, and Public Employees' Job Satisfaction

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model is an integrative theoretical framework for monitoring workplaces with the aim to increase job engagement and prevent burnout. This framework is of great interest since the management of job resources and demands can negatively affect employees, especially in organisational contexts characterised by high job demands. This study uses the job demands-resources model to investigate the relationships between organisational climate, role stress, and employee well-being (burnout and job satisfaction) in public organisations. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The research participants are 442 public employees. A structural equation model was developed (organisational climate, job satisfaction, burnout, role stress). These confirm that organisational climate is correlated with role stress (−0.594), job satisfaction (0.746), and burnout (−0.408), while role stress is correlated with burnout (0.953) and job satisfaction (−0.685). Finally, there is a correlation between burnout and job satisfaction that is negative and significant (−0.664). The study confirms that a positive organisational climate could lead to less stressed and burned-out workers and, at the same time, to more satisfied employees with improved well-being.

What Differentiates Employees' Job Performance Under Stressful Situations: The Role of General Self-Efficacy

The aim of this research is to verify the two-dimensional challenge-hindrance stressor framework in the Chinese context, and investigate the moderating effect of general self-efficacy in the stress process. Data were collected from 164 Chinese employee-supervisor dyads. The results demonstrated that challenge stressors were positively related to job performance while hindrance stressors were negatively related to job performance. Furthermore, general self-efficacy strengthened the positive relationship between challenge stressors and job performance, whereas the attenuating effect of general self-efficacy on the negative relationship between hindrance stressors and job performance was nonsignificant. These findings qualify the two-dimensional challenge-hindrance stressor framework, and support the notion that employees with high self-efficacy benefit more from the positive effect of challenge stressors in the workplace. By investigating the role of an individual difference variable in the challenge-hindrance stressor framework, this research provides a more accurate picture of the nature of job stress, and enhances our understanding of the job stressor-job performance relationship.

The moderating role of intrinsic work value orientation on the dual-process of job demands and resources among Chinese employees

Purpose

– The moderating roles of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model are relatively rarely examined, especially in non-western countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of a personal resource (i.e. intrinsic work value orientation) on the relationships between job demands, job resources, and job satisfaction among a large sample of Chinese employees from both mainland China and Taiwan.

Design/methodology/approach

– Structured questionnaire survey was carried out to collect data from 402 employees in mainland China and 306 employees in Taiwan.

Findings

– The authors found that intrinsic work value orientation amplified the negative relationship between work constraints (a job demand) and job satisfaction. Meanwhile, intrinsic work value orientation strengthened the positive relationship between autonomy (a job resource) and job satisfaction.

Originality/value

– This is one of the few studies that explored the role of personal resources in the JD-R model. One unique contribution of the study is that the authors extended the JD-R model to include the intrinsic work value orientation as a resourceful work value for Chinese employees in two major Chinese societies. Based upon the findings, the authors suggest that personal resources such as work value orientation should be taken into account in the research of the JD-R model. Managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.

Botero I, R. Seibold D. Factors that influence perceptions of work-life balance in owners of copreneurial firms

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that influence perceptions of work-life balance among owners of copreneurial firms. Research on work-life balance in the context of family firms has focussed on the effects that perceptions of balance can have on the emotional well-being of business owners and performance of the firm. Less attention has been given to understanding the factors affecting an owner's perceptions of work-life balance. This paper not only explores the antecedents of perceptions of work-life balance but does so with copreneurs, or couples who own and manage a firm.

Design/methodology/approach

– Data for this study were collected using surveys. In all, 210 copreneurs with businesses in nearly 20 industries answered questions about their perceptions of work-life balance, work-life conflict (WLC), life-work conflict, communication practices, characteristics of their jobs, and spousal support.

Findings

– WLC was negatively related to perceptions of work-life balance. Job involvement, flexibility at work, and permeability of communication were significantly related to perceptions of WLC. Interestingly spousal support did not affect individual perceptions of life-work balance, but had a direct influence on perceptions of work-life balance.

Research limitations/implications

– The sample was not randomly selected, and participants were surveyed at only one point in time. Notwithstanding these limitations, the findings have implications for advancing research and theory in the areas of family business, work-life issues, and communication. While the paper focus on copreneurial firms, the findings may have implications for family firms and co-founded ventures.

Practical implications

– The potential benefits of copreneurs’ increased awareness of these findings (from readings or through coaching) are important given prior research demonstrating that family to work conflict and work to family conflict affect the emotional well-being of family business owners, their satisfaction with work, and firm performance.

Originality/value

– This project offers two important contributions to research in family firms. First, it focusses on copreneurial firms as a unique type of family firm which has the potential to shed light on the differences between family firms. Second, results from this study provide a picture of the predictors of work-life balance for couples who are firm owners.