Job Redesign Interventions Research Articles

Reducing Injuries, Malingering, and Workers’ Compensation Costs by Implementing Overt Integrity Testing

Workers’ compensation costs are a substantial expense for employers. Given mixed results of training and job redesign interventions designed to reduce accidents leading to claims, organizations may wish to reduce these costs by screening job applicants with integrity tests. Building on theories of workplace safety and malingering (i.e., faking or exaggerating injuries for personal gain), we argue that overt integrity tests predict workers’ compensation claims through both workplace injuries and malingering. Analyses of archival data from three organizations (study 1) found screening job applicants reduced workers’ compensation claim rates and related costs, demonstrating a return on investment of 734% in one sample and 866% in another. In a three-wave survey of working adults (study 2), integrity test scores related directly to malingering, and indirectly to workplace injuries through motivation to work safely and compliance with safety rules. Analyses of three common dimensions of overt integrity tests (substance abuse, aggression, and theft) found theft scores directly related to malingering, and indirectly related to injuries through lower safety compliance. Substance abuse scores were related to higher rates of injury through lower safety motivation and compliance. Aggression scores were not related to malingering or injuries. We conclude that screening job applicants with overt integrity tests can be a cost-effective way to reduce unnecessary workplace injuries, malingering, and the related workers’ compensation claims.

Individual job redesign: Job crafting interventions in healthcare

In two quasi-experimental studies – Study 1 among medical specialists (N=119) and Study 2 among nurses (N=58) – we tested the impact of a general and a specific job crafting intervention on health care professionals' well-being and (objective and subjective) job performance. Both groups of participants received training and then set personal job crafting goals for a period of three weeks. The results of a series of repeated measures analyses showed that both interventions were successful. Participation in the job crafting intervention groups were associated with increases in job crafting behaviors, well-being (i.e., work engagement, health, and reduced exhaustion), and job performance (i.e., adaptive, task, and contextual performance) for the medical specialists and nurses relative to the control groups. Though we did not find a significant intervention effect for objective performance, we conclude that job crafting is a promising job redesign intervention strategy that individual employees can use to improve their well-being and job performance.

Work organization in hospital wards and nurses’ emotional exhaustion: A multi-method study of observation-based assessment and nurses’ self-reports

BackgroundWard organization is a major determinant for nurses’ well-being on the job. The majority of previous research on this relationship is based on single source methods, which have been criticized as skewed estimations mainly due to subjectivity of the ratings and due to common source bias. ObjectivesTo investigate the association of ward organization characteristics and nurses’ exhaustion by combining observation-based assessments with nurses’ self-reports. Design and participantsCross-sectional study on 25 wards of four hospitals and 245 nurses. SettingOur multi-method approach to evaluate hospital ward organization consisted of on-site observations with a standardized assessment tool and of questionnaires to evaluate nurses’ self-reports and exhaustion. MethodsAfter establishing the reliability of our measures, we applied multi-level regression analyses to determine associations between determinant and outcome variables. ResultsWe found substantial convergence in ward organization between the observation-based assessments and nurses’ self-reports, which supports the validity of our external assessments. Furthermore, two observation-based characteristics, namely participation and patient-focused care, were significantly associated with lower emotional exhaustion among the nurses. ConclusionsOur results suggest that observation-based assessments are a valid and feasible way to assess ward organization in hospitals. Nurses’ self-reported as well as observation-based ratings on ward organization were associated with nurses’ emotional exhaustion. This is of interest mainly for identifying alternative measures in evaluating nurses’ work environments, to inform health promotion activities and to evaluate job redesign intervention.

An experience sampling study of expressing affect, daily affective well‐being, relationship quality, and perceived performance

Few studies have directly examined the processes through which workers use job resources, such as job control and social support, to regulate affect. We focused on affective expression, which is a specific form of affect regulation. We investigated the extent to which workers used both job control and social support to express affect. Thirty‐nine call centre workers provided data up to four times a day over five consecutive working days (number of observations = 272). Executing job control to allow workers to express affect was related to using social support to express affect. Workers' understanding of their personal goals mediated relationships between using social support to express affect and four outcomes (negative affect, positive affect, perceived performance, and quality of workplace relationships). Perceived empathy mediated relationships between using social support to express affect and three outcomes (negative affect, positive affect, and quality of workplace relationships). The findings indicated that (1) one job resource can be used to facilitate using another job resource for affect regulation and (2) different job resources may play different roles in conferring benefits from affective expression.Practitioner points Jobs cannot be treated as static entities with fixed characteristics. Rather workers will use resources embedded in job design for specific purposes. Job redesign interventions intended to enhance affective well‐being need to take account of the social and cognitive processes that mediate the relationship between work and affective well‐being. Job redesign interventions need to integrate information about dynamic processes in which use of one job resource can enable use of another job resource.

Affective well‐being and within‐day beliefs about job demands' influence on work performance: An experience sampling study

Affective well‐being is influenced by individuals' momentary beliefs concerning events' impact on goals. We examined within‐day beliefs concerning problem‐solving demands' adverse impact on an important work goal (work performance). Participants (N = 68) provided data up to four times per day for one working week. Hourly beliefs about problem‐solving demands' adverse impact on performance were associated with end‐of‐hour anxious affect and inversely associated with end‐of‐hour motivated pleasant affect.Practitioner Points Jobs cannot be treated as static entities with fixed characteristics that are interpreted in the same way by all people all of the time. In addition to environmental factors, job redesign interventions to enhance psychological well‐being need to integrate information about dynamic, cognitive processes internal to the person and within‐day temporal processes.

The mediating role of job characteristics in job redesign interventions: A serendipitous quasi‐experiment

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to examine the mediating role played by five key job characteristics in the relationship between employee participation in a job redesign intervention and employee well‐being. In studies of job redesign interventions, it has been assumed that any effects of employee participation in job redesign on well‐being are a result of changes in job characteristics rather than participation in change per se. It is therefore important to statistically test for mediation in job redesign intervention studies to help establish that the change in job characteristics is the mechanism through which job redesign interventions work. However, this has rarely been tested directly, either because data to allow tests of mediation have not been collected (e.g. assessments of job characteristics) or because data have been collected but mediation has not been tested using accepted procedures. This makes it unclear whether changes in job characteristics explain the effects. Results from multilevel analyses of a longitudinal 9‐month long serendipitous quasi‐experimental participative job redesign intervention showed that changes in job control, participation, skill utilization and feedback, but not task obstacles, were sufficient to account for the relationship between the intervention and employee well‐being. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Role of Human Resource Practices in Reducing Occupational Stress and Strain

The current study examined the occupational stress-strain relationship among a sample of 109 white-collar employees in Singapore. Participants completed a survey that assessed the presence of 8 human resource practices (job training, communication, job redesign, promotional opportunities, employee involvement, family-friendly policies, pay systems, and individual-focused stress interventions [SMIs]), 2 major stressors (role overload and responsibility), 2 types of strain (vocational and interpersonal), and organizational commitment. Results indicate that human resource (HR) practices did not reduce the sources of stress (role overload and responsibility) within the workplace. However, there was a direct negative relationship between HR practices and interpersonal strain. In particular, family-friendly practices, job training, and SMIs reduced interpersonal strain. An examination of vocational strain showed that it was negatively associated with SMIs and job training. In addition, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between HR practices and vocational strain. It was concluded that HR practices may be effective as part of a symptom-directed approach to stress intervention and that further replication of these results in both Asian and Western samples is required.

Psychosocial job strain and productivity in human service workers: A test of the demand‐control‐support model

The aim of the study was to test the main and interactive effects of the key dimensions of the demand‐control‐support model in predicting levels of strain (specifically emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and job dissatisfaction) and feelings of productivity and competency (personal accomplishment) in a multi‐occupational sample of human service workers (N = 813). Controlling for demographics, negative affectivity (NA), and quadratic terms, structural equation analyses showed some support for the additive iso‐strain hypothesis: jobs combining high demands, low control and low support produced the lowest levels of satisfaction in workers. High demands and low supports only were associated with high depersonalization, and high emotional exhaustion. Support was also found for the additive active learning hypotheses: jobs combining high demands and high control produced the highest levels of personal accomplishment. The study supports job redesign interventions for improving worker well‐being and productivity.

Interdisciplinary examination of the costs and benefits of enlarged jobs: A job design quasi-experiment.

Costs and benefits of job enlargement were examined in an interdisciplinary framework (Campion, 1988,1989; Campion & Thayer, 1985). A quasi experiment was conducted with multiple comparison groups, dependent variables, and replications in a financial services organization. Enlargement involved combining jobs and adding ancillary duties to jobs. Dataonl 1 clerical jobs were collected from incumbents (n = 377), managers (n = 80), and analysts (n = 90). Enlarged jobs had better motivational design and worse mechanistic (i.e., engineering) design. They had the benefits of more employee satisfaction, less mental underload, greater chances of catching errors, and better customer service, but they also had the costs of higher training requirements, higher basic skills, and higher compensable factors. Biological (i.e., physical) aspects were unaffected. All potential costs of enlarged jobs were not always observed, suggesting that it may be possible to gain benefits through redesign without incurring every cost. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate one of the most popular job redesign interventions in the organizational behavior literature—job enlargement. This intervention is inspired by the psychology-based motivational models of job design (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Herzberg, 1966). These models focus on such job attributes as variety, autonomy, and task significance. Evaluations of these interventions are usually concerned only with beneficial outcomes of such models (e.g., job satisfaction).

The Impact of a Job Redesign Intervention on Salespersons' Observed Performance Behaviors

A field experimental design was used to analyze the effects of a job redesign intervention on a large department store's salespersons' functional and dysfunctional performance behaviors. Both the functional and dysfunctional directly observed performance behaviors of the experimental group moved in the desired directions during the redesign intervention. However, only the dysfunctional behaviors dropped significantly when statistical analysis was conducted. The performance behaviors of the control group remained relatively constant throughout the phases of the experiment. A subanalysis using a quasi-experiment indicated that the redesign also had a generally positive effect on salespersons' satisfaction.

Understanding Organizational Change: A Comparative Study of Multifaceted Interventions

This article reports the results of a 21/2-year action research project designed to investigate the differential impacts of sociotechnical system, job redesign and survey feedback interventions on a wide array of attitudinal and performance measures in comparable units of an organization. It was found that the attitudinal effects of the interventions were quite similar; however, only the sociotechnical system intervention resulted in major productivity improvements and cost savings. Implications for research and practice are discussed.