"We just take care after each other": Relational health strategies of nurses and nursing aides working in residential long-term care as a mechanism of in- and exclusion in care teams

BACKGROUND

The health of care workers in residential long-term care (LTC) is under pressure. Scholars emphasize the importance of gender-sensitive and intersectional approaches to occupational health.

OBJECTIVE

To unravel how the health of nurses and nursing aides is shaped by gender, class, age, sexuality and race.

METHODS

A qualitative participatory study. A participatory research team, consisting of academic scholars and nursing aides, conducted semi-structures interviews (N = 20) and one natural group discussion (N = 8 participants) to validate our findings. Thematic data-analysis was guided by gender and intersectionality theory.

RESULTS

Empirical findings suggest that gendered norms limit possibilities for self-care for female nurses and nursing aides. Feeling uncared for by society and LTC organizations, paid care workers describe how they take care of each other. These relational health strategies require a feeling of sameness, limiting space for diversity and disability within care teams. Care workers seen as 'cultural other', or those who experienced (chronic) health issues, financial struggles or informal caregiving, risked being excluded from relational care within care teams, which negatively impacted their health.

CONCLUSIONS

Care workers' relational health strategies are a gendered and care ethical response to the lack of societal and political care for LTC, but can become mechanisms of exclusion within care teams. This can be understood as a sign of exhaustion, shaped by adverse working conditions and leading to moral stress. The lack of societal appreciation needs to be addressed by occupational health physicians and LTC organizations, to counter mechanisms of exclusion among paid care workers.

I'm only joking!(?) the role of disparaging humor in the communicative constitution of inclusion/exclusion in organizations

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to investigate the communicative constitution of organizational inclusion and/or exclusion through humorous acts at the expense of members of minorities and/or historically disadvantaged groups.

Design/methodology/approach

Semistructured interviews with 84 employees in Austria and Germany dealing with their experiences regarding diversity and inclusion (D&I) at work were conducted and analyzed in two steps. First, a thematic text analysis was performed to structure the content and identify relevant themes and anecdotes for further analysis. Second, a ventriloquial analysis sought to identify the physically absent yet present voices in these anecdotes.

Findings

The interviews revealed that jokes and quips mostly target colleagues of observable foreign origin. The analysis further identified three themes that show that disparaging humor can simultaneously reinforce inclusion/exclusion across hierarchies and create boundaries within teams – but in different ways. The findings also indicate that above all prejudices “participate” in such events and that in most cases the collective is invoked to increase the joke's “authority”.

Originality/value

This research is the first one that investigates humor in the context of D&I through a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) lens, which facilitates studying the constitutive character of humorous communication in terms of inclusion and exclusion. Moreover, this is one of the first empirical humor studies to draw on established theory-driven concepts of inclusion-exclusion in its analysis.

Integrative Resource Model of Workplace Inclusion for Reduced Inequality: Conservation of Resources Perspective

This study provides much-needed empirical study of workplace inclusion of underresourced employees of low socioeconomic status. Based upon a conservation of resources perspective, we have examined the centrality of resources as a key inclusion process for well-being outcomes for employees with insufficient resources. In the context of misuse of institutional power over operative workers within highly segmented and hierarchical work settings, this study validates the importance of economic inclusion for fostering workers' well-being via fair employment practices. This study also offers new knowledge of the integrative resource model of workplace inclusion research by validating workers' personal resources of learning orientation as an internal condition for strengthening the positive effect of economic inclusion on well-being.