Workplace Change Research Articles

Remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic

The start of the COVID-19 virus epidemic is having an impact on radical changes in the labor market. The difficult economic situation is a challenge for employers, candidates and recruiters. In recent months, the recruitment market has seen a decline in the work forces, redundancy, and a reduction in salaries. As a result of this situation, some workplaces have used the remote work model. The possibility of remote work can be a good solution for many employees, but in some cases, it can be a significant inconvenience, especially for employees who have underage children and perform their work duties at home. Aim of the article is present positive and negative aspects of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research presented in the article was aimed at assessing changes in working conditions and starting remote work. The positive effects of changes in workplaces include saving time, adjusting work to personal needs, and work-life balance. The disadvantages of taking up remote work include lack of direct contact with co-workers, blurring the boundaries between private and professional life, maintaining a constant presence at work, lack of social ties and isolation were identified as the most significant obstacles to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the negative aspects of working remotely, the respondents more often declared their willingness to work remotely also after the end of the pandemic.

Can Telehealth Advance Professional Equity for Women in Medicine?

Higher rates of burnout among female physicians as compared with male physicians remain a troubling phenomenon. Achieving gender equity in academic advancement is a critical component of addressing this gap. During the timeframe of childbearing and rearing, enhanced control and flexibility are desired workplace changes and offered by telehealth work modalities. This viewpoint explores the role of telehealth and the remote work environment in optimizing control and flexibility, which can increase participation in academic advancement opportunities and improve female physician burnout. Widespread promotion of remote clinical practice and participation in scholarly activities beyond the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic may be a component of the long-term solution to female physician burnout.

Structural Racism, Managerialism, and the Future of the Human Services: Rewriting the Rules

Over the past several decades, the introduction of the business model, managerialism, into the human services has led to dramatic changes in conditions of work and service delivery. This metric-driven approach increased the emphasis on measured performance outcomes and undercut the mission-driven nature of human services organizations. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests against racial injustice exposed routinely ignored structural racism long embedded in our social institutions. This reckoning led social workers to re-examine professional practices, organizational structures, and public policies through a critical, antiracist lens. Applying a racial justice lens to their study of the impact of managerialism in the human services workplace, authors identified troubling evidence of systemic racism in leadership hierarchies, worker control/surveillance on the job, quality of the physical work environment, exposure to workplace violence, exclusion by microinequities, and agency commitment to social justice. Worker resistance, ethical dilemmas, and well-being also varied by race. To become an antiracist profession, social work must seek long-term change in the human services workplace. The following analysis of the combined negative impact of managerialism and structural racism on human services organizations names the problem and presses us to rewrite the rules so we become a racial justice profession.

Employee satisfaction and stock returns during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on how employees and employers operate. Employees, directly affected by workplace changes, may provide information regarding future efficiencies. As a result, crowdsourced employee satisfaction (ES) reviews mentioning the COVID-19 Pandemic may contain useful information regarding the future profitability of these firms. We utilize crowdsourced COVID-19 Pandemic specific ES obtained from Glassdoor.com to determine the impact on abnormal stock returns for public firms from March–December 2020. We find evidence that higher COVID-19 ES is related to higher abnormal stock returns. While non-COVID ES is found not to be related to abnormal stock returns.

RELIVING - Rethinking the interior architecture during and after Pandemic situation

Architects are currently facing the understanding of the transformation of the work practices of people, teams and organizations in response to COVID-19 pandemic. Europe is still in the gloom of this pandemic and it can be seen changes in the office-domestic workplaces. These places have been mutating during the last year, they have been transformed according the new requirements. Individuals have adapted their homes and companies are already thinking the office space according the new reality. This study aims to determine how the interior space could adapt in order to provide comfort and well-being in contemplation of the contemporary and near future situation. The principal objective of this project was to create a tiny piece of space which contributes to create our “existence maximum” in a small space. To test the hypotheses that with the creation of a piece of furniture it can help us in the transformation of the domestic and office interior space is the key to make sure that people feel safe and work comfortably. Contemporary source material was used to examine the evolution of the pandemic and how it affects the individuals’ psychological behavior during this time. The findings provide a solid evidence base for the future will be a hybrid reality, where knowledge employees will continuously be working from home most of the time. It is evidently clear from the findings that as modernist architecture could be understood as a consequence of the result of some diseases of that period. Nowadays, architects have the responsibility to think how the interior architecture could be improved in order to make the people feel safe, comfortable and well connected where individuals could learn to live together confronting of our own homes and our own workspaces. The result is the design of an ergonomic workstation which contemplates the users’ requirements for working, providing adaptation to different working positions, mobility within the space and transformation according to individual needs. In addition, it has been considered the sustainability of the materials and the easy assembly with the possibility of the addition of accessories.

Workplace Financial Education and Change in Financial Knowledge: A Quasi-Experimental Approach

This exploratory study employed quasi-experimental research methods to investigate the relationship between adult participation in a comprehensive workplace financial education program and changes in financial knowledge levels. Results revealed a positive association between participation in the education program and changes in financial knowledge levels, even when controlling for demographic and socioeconomic differences between the participant and non-participant groups. However, results did not support an association between perfect attendance in the program and changes in financial knowledge. Evidence from this study provides meaningful insight into the association between adult financial education and financial knowledge and offers guidance for the future development of effective comprehensive workplace financial education programs.

Personal Digital Health Assistants

The Aim: To determine gender differences in the dynamic of job stress indicators in an open population of 25-64 years over a long-term period - 29 years in Russia / Siberia (Novosibirsk). Methods: Within the framework of the screening in 1988-89 under the WHO MONICA-psychosocial (MOPSY) program (n=1676, 49.5% males, mean age 44.1±0.4 years), in 2003-2005 under the international project HAPIEE (n=1650, 34.9% males, mean age 54.25±0.2 years), in 2013-2016 (n=975, 43.8% males, mean age 34.5±0,4 years) and 2016-2017 (n=663, 41.3% males, mean age 51.95±0.32 years) within the framework of the budgetary theme No. AAAA-A17-117112850280-2, random representative samples of men and women in one of districts in Novosibirsk were examined. Job stress indicators were assessed using the Karasek’s scale adopted by MONICA-MOPSY. Results: About 40% of male and female population in 1988 reported a change in occupation in the previous 12 years. The highest proportion of such persons was observed in the younger age groups and significant gender differences were also found there. By 2016-17, the proportion of those who changed their specialty decreased but gender differences were not determined. In 2016-17, the proportion of men and women who enjoy their job increased slightly compared to 1988, but the gender difference was insignificant. Responsibility at work increased up to 58.2% and 54.5%, respectively in dynamics among young men and women. In 2016-17, the perception of responsibility at the workplace returned to the semblance of 1988 without gender differences. Regarding changes in the workplace, in 1988, the most frequent were "change of salary" and "change of workplace" for both sexes. Men more often than women indicated conflicts with their superiors and subordinates. In 2013, the change of workplace was reported more often than changes in salary (especially in the youngest group of 25-34 years old) but in 2017 these answers correlated with each other, amounting to 11-12%. No gender differences were observed. In 2013-16, share of men and women who reduced their workload increased to 20%. This proportion decreased in 2016-17. And the trend towards an increase in workload at the workplace moved at a faster pace, especially among middle-aged and older men. The proportion of women who cannot relax and rest after usual working day in the period from 1988 to 2013-16 was stable at 38-39%; but by 2016-2017 it decreased by a third. The proportion of such men has been growing over 29 years and began to exceed women by 10% in 2016-17. Conclusions: Both genders began to perform additional work tasks more often and to assess their responsibility at work as high over 29 years of observations. There is a trend towards eliminating of sex differences.

Fear of missing out? Linking workplace changes and presenteeism

AbstractWhy do employees continue to work during illness? So‐called presenteeism behaviour is a topic of great managerial and societal importance as it is connected to a series of negative individual and organisational outcomes. A growing body of research points to the importance of workplace factors in shaping employee stress and uncertainty and, ultimately, presenteeism behaviour. Curiously though, the impact of workplace changes on presenteeism behaviour has not been examined, even though the potential stress‐inducing effects of such change are well‐recognised. Building on a data set from the Australian Public Service, we examine how workplace changes are related to presenteeism behaviour. Our findings show that workplace changes generally provoke presenteeism behaviour. Specifically, cutback‐related changes appear to cause presenteeism. This finding is relevant in times when many organisations are confronted with major budget cuts.Brief summaryThis article explores the link between working during illness, or presenteeism behaviour, and workplace changes. Presenteeism behaviour is a topic of great managerial and societal importance as it is connected to a series of negative individual and organisational outcomes. A growing body of research points to the importance of workplace factors in shaping employee stress and uncertainty and, ultimately, presenteeism behaviour. Curiously though, the impact of workplace changes on presenteeism behaviour has not been examined, even though the potential stress‐inducing effects of such change are well‐recognised. Building on a data set from the Australian Public Service, we examine how workplace changes are related to presenteeism behaviour. Our findings show that workplace changes generally provoke presenteeism behaviour. Specifically, cutback‐related changes appear to cause presenteeism. This finding is relevant in times when many organisations are confronted with major budget cuts. Employees who experience workplace changes are more likely to go to work sick. Decreased staffing (cutback‐related change) is the main driver of presenteeism behaviour. Presenteeism is higher among employees working harder and longer hours – that is performing overtime, likely for the purpose of meeting high job demands. Fairness of pay reduces the likelihood of presenteeism. The findings suggest that although change itself is unavoidable and even necessary for organisations adapting to external demands, the potentially negative effects of change may be mitigated by appropriate change management and structures.

How can emotional intelligence (EI) and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) help leaders with the ability to deal with the impact of COVID-19?

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has borne witness to unprecedented change in business, the likes of which has not been seen since the beginning of the internet revolution. This situation has placed leaders in a unique and challenging scenario, which sees them repositioning their companies and workforce in ways that were impossible to foresee, resulting in unprecedented changes to normal workplace responsibilities. This paper posits that the practical implications of using emotional intelligence (EI) and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can help leaders act in ways that are more empathetic and intentional in managing the emotional impacts caused by workplace stress, distress, isolation and other factors caused by the pandemic, both professionally and personally. In using the tools offered by EI and NLP, leaders can better understand ‘self’ and ‘other’, in the context, not only of the current pandemic crisis but in other more general contexts associated with workplace changes, and the stress associated with those changes.

"Covid Just Amplified the Cracks of the System": Working as a Frontline Health Worker during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified existing workplace stresses and created new challenges for people working on the healthcare frontline, including rapid workplace changes and increasing uncertainty at work, along with fear of contracting the virus. The purpose of this study is to examine the workplace challenges described by Australian frontline health workers during the pandemic. Drawing on a national online anonymous survey of 9518 healthcare workers, we analysed free-text responses to the question: “What did you find to be the main challenges that you faced during the pandemic?” A qualitative content analysis was undertaken. We identified five key themes relating to participant experiences of workplace challenges. These were: Work-life imbalance; Following orders or caring for patients; Unpredictability, disruption, and inconsistency at work; The right to be safe at work; and (Un)preparedness in the workplace. We argue that working during the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated existing occupational health and safety issues that have serious implications for job satisfaction, health workforce retention, and ultimately, patient care.

An organizational analysis of how managers must understand the mental health impact of teleworking during COVID-19 on employees

PurposeThe unimagined workplace disturbance caused by the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has made many organizations virtual or telework driven workplaces, often without the infrastructure and systems in place to support employees facing these sudden workplace changes (Burrell, 2020). Many stressors accompanied this transition, to include lack of childcare, home-school responsibilities and layoffs and business closings. These stressors have perpetuated concerns for the job and financial security for all workers (Fox, 2020), leading some employees to struggle with the work-life balance out of concern for being laid off due to perceived low productivity (Fox, 2020). This study aims to explore those manifestations.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research case study explores the impact COVID-19 induced telework has on their job satisfaction, mental well-being and aspects of organizational commitment to fill a gap in the literature concerning emerging workplace dynamics due to COVID-19 for small real estate businesses in the USA.FindingsThe results of this qualitative research case study provide knowledge and information about the need for small businesses to be resourceful and resilient in the way that they support and engage remote workers. This qualitative research case study explores the impact COVID-19-induced telework has on their job satisfaction, mental well-being and aspects of organizational commitment for small real estate businesses. The analysis of current work-life structures through a qualitative lens provides trends among workers to gain a greater perspective of the current accelerators and barriers to worker success in a COVID-19 teleworking environment.Originality/valueThis qualitative research case study explores the impact COVID-19 induced telework has on their job satisfaction, mental well-being and aspects of organizational commitment to fill a gap in the literature concerning emerging workplace dynamics due to COVID-19 for small real estate businesses. The value of this research is that majority of the participants were African-Americans, which represents a participant group that is highly under researched.

How well equipped are national surveys to capture new approaches to training?

ABSTRACT Recent employer and employee surveys in the UK highlight a decline in training participation, a reduction in training expenditure per employee and an increase in online training/e-learning. The Covid-19 pandemic adds impetus to considering training trends given the importance of skills for economic recovery. Many workers are adapting to work and learning increasingly moving online. The Covid-19 crisis accentuates the need for employees to upskill and reskill and participate in new ways of learning. But how well equipped are surveys to capture these new trends? This paper reviews the focus of employer and employee training surveys in the UK alongside findings from selected in-depth employer interviews on training trends. It identifies greater focus on formal than informal training in current surveys, and a narrow interpretation of informal training. It identifies a gap in understanding the different types, duration and value of some informal workplace learning, while recent workplace changes mean the distinction between on- and off-the-job training is becoming less useful than previously. To capture new approaches to learning, surveys need to focus more on who is responsible for workplace training, communities of practice and perceived benefits of training.

Employability themes for economic recovery

As part of the University of Greenwich SHIFT 2021 conference on teaching and learning, I led a discussion workshop called ‘Employability themes for economic recovery’ in which delegates considered economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, the inevitable changes in working practices and, consequently, the changes’ influence upon student employability skills development. In this article, I reflect both on the current context of significant workplace change across the globe and how we as educators should respond if we are to skill students for this new working world.

Integrating Technology to Increase Graduate Employability Skills: A Blockchain Case Study in Property Law Teaching

The discourse of graduate employability skills includes emphasis on digital capabilities. Digital capabilities encompass an understanding of the new and emerging technologies that are driving significant change in business, government and society and by implication, the critical and creative thinking skills to integrate these contexts with the law. By contrast, the accredited law curriculum remains focussed on doctrine thus frequently relegating consideration of law and technology to discrete (elective) subjects. Further, the default method of teaching and learning doctrine remains a case method approach using hypothetical problems. Such an approach to curriculum is, at best, neutral about the relevance of new technologies and the skills required to analyse them in a legal context with consequences for contemporary and likely future employer expectations for law graduates to be prepared for practice. This article first establishes the imperative to incorporate digital contexts into the core law curriculum as a means of providing students with foundational skills for a changing workplace. Secondly, it presents the case for an enhanced approach to teaching legal problem solving. Beyond the backward-looking hypothetical fact scenario, it suggests that a future focused analytical mindset is integral to the lawyer’s suite of thinking tools. Finally, it provides a case study of a critical—and doctrinal—analysis of a recent proposal to fractionalise lots in a Torrens system in tandem with a blockchain. The case study illustrates the application of an enhanced problem-solving approach. It shows how the broader context of new technologies might be integrated into property law teaching through prospective problem-solving.

Bullying and Harassment as a Consequence of Workplace Change in the Australian Civil Service: Investigating the Mediating Role of Satisfaction With Change Management

Public sector organizations frequently restructure due to shifting management trends, crises, and political developments. Earlier research indicates that the sometimes-drastic reforms implemented in government strongly affect employees, causing psychosocial effects such as frustration, stress, and negative work environments. This may in turn increase the likelihood of severe phenomena such as workplace bullying and harassment. It remains unclear, however, how public organizations can introduce changes while preventing side-effects such as bullying and harassment. The goal of this article is twofold. First, we test whether evidence on the relationship between workplace change and bullying and harassment holds when using a large, public sector-wide sample. Second, we investigate whether satisfaction with change management plays a mediating role. Using cross-sectional and strata-based panel data analyses on Australian data, results indicate a positive relationship between workplace change and workplace bullying and harassment, but also suggest that satisfaction with change management mitigates this effect.

South African specific complexities in aligning graduate attributes to employability

South African higher education (HE) cannot be compared to any other country’s HE systems due to the unique political landscape and structural narrative that it has undergone. Subsequent to the reorganisation of HEIs in 2004, a number of complexities arose. These included accessibility to education across race and the alignment of the South African HEIs to global pedagogic benchmarks. With the changing political landscape, transformations within higher education, socio economic inequities and changes in the workplace, researchers failed to cognize the impact of these factors on graduate employability. Changing graduate attributes to align with a decolonised curriculum and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) workspaces were transiently underway when COVID-19 set a new narrative for the future of employability. This paper seeks to identify the impact of workplace changes and its direct influence on successful graduate employment and integration into the HE curriculum. The work environment has cursorily moved from 4IR to an advanced stage of the 4IR, where there is a full emphasis on digitisation, non-localised workspaces and is an ostensible playground for digital natives (Generation Z). This paper provides a systematic review of literature in the South African HE contexts that pertains to graduate attributes for employability within the workplace. The adoption of malleable secondary data will allow for an understanding of the relationship between changing workplace environments and expectations from graduates. This correlation is directly linked to graduate attributes which students need to comply with from year one. The paper will provide context to changes which are required for the future success of graduates, and whether graduate attributes are adequate preparation for employability. A clinical model is recommended with an intervention to manage the risk factors of decolonisation of curriculum, the 4IR and multi-generational workplace and responses to COVID-19.

A Socio-Technical Perspective on the Application of Green Ergonomics to Open-Plan Offices: A Review of the Literature and Recommendations for Future Research

Open-plan office (OPO) layouts emerged to allow organizations to adapt to changing workplace demands. We explore the potential for OPOs to provide such adaptive capacity to respond to two contemporary issues for organizations: the chronic challenge of environmental sustainability, and the acute challenges emerging from the great COVID-19 homeworking experiment. We apply a socio-technical systems perspective and green ergonomics principles to investigate the relationship between an OPO environment and the occupants working within it. In doing so, we consider relevant technical and human factors, such as green technology and employee green behavior. We also consider how a green OPO might provide non-carbon benefits such as improving occupant well-being and supporting the emergence of a green organizational culture. Our investigation highlights several avenues through which an OPO designed with green ergonomic principles could benefit occupants, the organizations they work for, and the natural environment of which they are a part and on which they depend. We find reason to suspect that green OPOs could play an important role in sustainable development; and offer a research agenda to help determine whether it is true that OPOs can, indeed, exemplify how “going green” may be good for business.

A conservation of resources approach to inter-role career transitions

Increased globalization and rapid technological advances have greatly affected how careers are enacted. Many of today's workers are transitioning across the boundaries of occupations, organizations, and countries more frequently than previous generations of workers. Despite these great changes in the contemporary workplace, relatively little recent academic consideration has been devoted to the career transition (CT) construct or the commonalities in the decision-making process used by individuals to determine whether to make a CT. Given the many significant changes that have affected careers over the last several decades, the purpose of this paper is to offer a contemporary typology of CTs, a theory-driven model of the voluntary inter-role CT decision-making process, and propositions for future research. The proposed typology and model should also help people make better decisions about CTs.

Research on Human Resource Management System Based on Internet of Things Technology

At present, with the arrival of the information age, the era of big data and artificial intelligence gradually set foot on the stage of history. With the development of the Internet of Things and the arrival of the era of big data, enterprises have been equipped with the ability to master and process large amounts of data. In the context of big data environment, by analyzing the relationship between big data and the six modules of human resource management, and combining with the workplace changes in the epidemic era in the future, some guidance is given to telecommuting.

Self-reported changes in work situation \u2013 a cross-sectional study of patients 7\u2009years after treatment for stress-related exhaustion

BackgroundExhaustion disorder (ED) is a common cause of sick leave in Sweden, and patients often have long-lasting symptoms and reduced work capacity. The aim of this study was to explore whether patients with ED had made any changes in their work situation from the period of treatment and up to 7 years later.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, patients diagnosed with ED at a specialist outpatient clinic were followed up after 7 years (n = 217). They received questionnaires at baseline covering sex, age, marital status, level of education, and symptoms of burnout, depression, and anxiety measured with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Questionnaire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. After 7 years, they were sent a follow-up questionnaire asking about their work situation and work-related stressors both before they fell sick and at the 7-year follow-up. There were three questions on work situation (change of workplace, change of work tasks, and change of working hours), and 155 patients responded to all three.ResultsAfter 7 years, the majority of the patients (63%; n = 98/155) reported that they had made some kind of change at work. Women were more likely than men to report decreased working hours (p = 0.001), and work-related stressors such as conflicts at work, reorganization, deficient leadership, and general discontent with the work situation were significantly more common at baseline in the group who had made changes at work. Patients who made no changes at work experienced more work-related stress due to quantitative demands in the 7-year follow-up.ConclusionThe majority of the patients with ED made some kind of change in their work situation, and gender differences were found for changes of work tasks and working hours. Work-related stressors might be decisive for making changes at work.