Abstract
Work-related mental health issues, accounting for high worker absenteeism in the world’s developed economies, are increasing, with the main cause being workplace conditions. The health services sector is especially experiencing great problems with this, because of challenging psychosocial working conditions. The aim of this study was to explore employees’ experiences of development work with a focus on the work environment within a hospital department with an outspoken special development assignment. The special assignment was decided by the highest management at the hospital and concerned work environment, caring processes, and ways of organizing the work. Eleven employees completed two individually semi-structured interviews, approximately 7 and 13 months after the start of the special assignment at the department. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results reveal that both internal and external aspects influence the development work and highlight the importance of viewing the local development work in relation to how the rest of the organization functions. Important factors and conditions for a supportive and change-friendly work culture are discussed, as well as the need to plan for integration and change to create conditions for successful implementation of the results from organizational development and change initiatives.
Highlights
People’s work environment has long been known as an important factor for health.Work-related mental illness is increasing in the world’s developed economies, which accounts for an increasing share of sick leave [1]
The employees described a common development identity as a supporting factor in the development work. Many employees contrasted this with the resistance they experienced from development initiatives in previous workplaces
The development focus has not escaped anyone, and employees express a clear incentive to want to contribute to creating a better and more sustainable work environment for healthcare professionals. Some justify their choice of workplace by the fact that they enjoy development work, while others applied to the department due to their dissatisfaction with the current conditions at the hospital
Summary
People’s work environment has long been known as an important factor for health.Work-related mental illness is increasing in the world’s developed economies, which accounts for an increasing share of sick leave [1]. People’s work environment has long been known as an important factor for health. Correlations between work in stressful psychosocial work environments and health problems have been shown for stress-related illnesses [3], fatigue [4,5], depression [6], general mental illness [7], sleep problems [8], cardiovascular disease [9], high blood pressure [10], stroke [11], musculoskeletal problems [12], and sick leave [13]. Previous research has shown both risk and health factors in a workplace psychosocial work environment [2,15,16,17,18,19]. One reason for the implementation difficulties is that work environment
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