Work-life Experiences Research Articles

A contextual work-life experiences model to understand nurse commitment and turnover.

The aim of this study was to present a discussion and model depicting most effecting work-life experience contextual factors that influence commitment and turnover intentions for nurses in Sri Lanka. Increasing demand for nurses has made the retention of experienced, qualified nursing staff a priority for healthcare organizations and highlights the need to capture contextual work-life experiences that influence nurses' turnover decisions. Discussion paper. This discussion paper and model is based on our experiences and knowledge of Sri Lanka and represents an integration of classic turnover research and commitment theory and others published between 1958 - 2017, contextualized to reflect the reality faced by Sri Lanka nurses. The model presents a high-level view of intrinsic, extrinsic, personal and professional antecedents to nurse turnover where relevance can be used by researchers, policy makers, clinicians and educators to establish focused and limited scope models and examine comprehensive contexts. This model emphasizes the role that work-life experiences play to fortify (or weaken) nurses' motivation to remain committed to their organization, profession, family, and country. Understanding of contextual work-life influences on nurses' intent to stay should lead to evidence-based strategies that result in a higher number of nurses wanting to remain in the nursing profession and work in the health sector in Sri Lanka.

Well-Being, More Than a Dream: Women Constructing Metaphors of Strength.

Research on gender inequalities in well-being, attribute lower levels of wellness in women to the burden of multiple role demands, particularly during midlife. Using mostly quantitative measures of subjective well-being (SWB), such studies tend to narrow the concept of well-being and overlook the value of in-depth, context-specific inquiry. Work-life balance is also a consistent causative narrative in studies on women's well-being. Yet, such a narrative frequently emphasizes individual agency in a seemingly unattainable quest, implying an anomaly on how women then actually manage to sustain their well-being. The present study therefore explored the work-life experiences of women in their midlife. The aim was to reach a deeper understanding of the psycho-social dynamics at play in sustaining a psychologically-well self. Meta-theoretically the study built on non-traditional and gendered career models that augment female employees' unique career needs. From a socioanalytic stance, this study investigated secondary data gathered from focus groups, which were based on the socioanalytic method of social dream drawing. The data originated from four sessions of social dream drawings, in which the researcher as participant-observer, investigated work-life experiences of seven women. The gathered information was managed through Atlas.ti and processed through phenomenological hermeneutic analysis. The findings contribute to the discourse on women and well-being and give insight into the application of a unique socioanalytic methodology to research in this field from a gendered perspective. Results were analyzed by developing metaphors from the data. These metaphors reflect women's well-being as they present three unique career needs, namely challenge, balance, and authenticity, during their midlife career stage. Findings show how women's projective identification with outdated gender role norms may perpetuate a gendered notion of work-life balance, which consistently challenges their well-being. Projective identifications are evident in introjected feelings of self-doubt, self-stereotyping, and in the tension between female employees' personal and social identities. The study ultimately points to well-being as a dynamic phenomenon, which women sustain by engaging both positive and negative experiences and through identity tasks such as self-awareness, self-authorisation, self-regard, and authentic self-expression. These findings highlight the importance of creating self-reflective space in organizations to facilitate women's psychological well-being.

A Phenomenological Study on the Experience of Work and Family Life of Part-time Working Women at the Public Sectors

A Phenomenological Study on the Experience of Work and Family Life of Part-time Working Women at the Public Sectors

Sharing Experiences and Stressors at Work and at Home: A Model of Work-Linked Couples

Work-linked couples are couples who are connected in some way by their work. We focus on understanding work-life experiences of one type of work-linked couple – dual-military couples, or those couples in which both spouses are enlisted or commissioned by the military. Our goal was to develop a model that not only explains and predicts dual-military couples’ experiences, but also extends beyond this specific group and provides a conceptual model for work-linked couples in all occupational settings. Data from 82 soldiers whose spouses were also in the military were collected during 19 focus groups. We conducted an inductive analysis on transcripts of the focus groups to guide the discovery of themes. Second, a deductive process was used to apply components of the dual-military model to themes that emerged during inductive coding. We identified a set of 11 specific themes, organized into the two main areas of Time and Planning and Boundary Separation and Integration. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Map Changes and Theme Evolution in Work Hours: A Co-Word Analysis.

(1) Background: Work hours are the basic carrier impacting employees’ work–life experience and organizational performance, and employees have greater anxiety in relation to work hours as new technology requires an increasingly faster work rhythm. However, scientific research on this topic lags far behind the practice, calling to attention the need for research on work hours from the perspective of historical evolution; (2) Methods: The Bibliometric method is used to analyze the 6364 articles and their contained 77 high-frequency keywords related to work hours from the Web of Science published between 1901 and 2017. Additionally, an individual–organization–society integrative perspective was adopted to describe the map changes and theme evolution of work hours; (3) Results and conclusions: The hot spots of research at the organizational level changed significantly around 1990, with the theme of “long work hours” becoming the core issue in recent years. Studies on the individual level have gradually moved from physiological aspects to the issues of burnout and psychological distress. Research topics related to the social level are somewhat loose, and mainly focused on work–life conflict areas. In addition, the cluster analysis based on the high-frequency keywords classifies six research types according to their research themes. Based on these findings, future trends are proposed to provide theoretical and practical reference for future studies.

Career paths and mobility in the Swedish hospitality sector

ABSTRACTHow career paths are interpreted and conceptualised by hospitality workers and industry representatives remains underexplored in current literature. In this paper, we highlight and discuss sector-specific and contextual factors that influence the possibility of establishing a career within the Swedish hospitality sector. The paper uses interviews with hotel managers, who describe and discuss motivations and choices made throughout their own careers and interviews with young (former) seasonal hospitality workers who describe and reflect on their future plans and work-life experience. Additional data are derived through observations at national seminars and meetings for representatives from the Swedish tourism and hospitality industry, where issues of competence and careers were discussed. The findings indicate that the shaping of career paths within the hospitality sector is influenced by two normative and discursively produced ‘truths’ about career paths in the hospitality sector: the importance of internal knowledge transfer and the importance of high mobility. These narratives impose expectations on individuals to be mobile, to change jobs frequently and to work their way from the bottom-up within the industry, and are based on a presumption of a diversified and dense local hospitality labour market. However, since the conditions are different due to contextual, geographical features of labour market size and structure, attractiveness of places, etc., these expectations are difficult to fulfil in places other than in larger urban areas. These normative assumptions of what a successful hospitality career is also have consequences for the development of the hospitality sector as external influences of competence from other sectors and higher education are not seen as valuable, which makes the sector self-contained and not open to external, potentially innovative knowledge.

What Is Your Faction? Multidimensional Evidence for the Divergent Series As the Basis for a New Model of Personality and Work Life

Introduction: The successful “Divergent” sci-fi trilogy by writer Veronica Roth portrays a dystopian and post-apocalyptic society where the population is divided into five groups called “Factions,” each with a specific social role and associated to a specific set of psychological traits. Though fictional, such typology is compelling and may provide a significant contribution to personality studies.Objectives: To investigate the accuracy of the classification of psychological and sociocultural traits into five Factions as described in Divergent and their potential practical usefulness for understanding work life choices and experiences in organizations.Method: A total of 217 Brazilian adult men and women of various ages, socioeconomic status and ethnicities were submitted to measures of several psychological and sociocultural variables, as well as of how strongly they supposedly manifest each Faction. The resulting dataset was studied using Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) and Facet Theory.Results: The Factions were shown not only to be associated to psychological variables in ways consistent with the descriptions from Divergent, but also to be related to specific aspects of one’s work life in organizations.Conclusion: The five Factions conceived by Roth appear to constitute an original set of constructs that are psychologically valid and, at the same time, of practical use in predicting work life choices and experiences. This justifies engaging in future empirical and theoretical work toward a new scientific model of potential practical value.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS ON WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Today's work-life dynamics have changed tremendously since the 1950s. Increased participation of women in the paid workforce has highly contributed to this prominent change; and since then, work-life balance (WLB) has become an important issue for both employees and organizations. Given that construction is one of the most demanding industries, investigating work-life experiences of employees has been a focal point of researchers. However, there is not much literature on how younger generations, also known as “millennials”, perceive WLB before they get to start working in the industry. The purpose of this study is to investigate construction management students' perceptions on WLB. Additionally, the study will investigate the differences in students’ perceptions and future expectations considering their gender and enrollment years (levels). For this purpose, an online survey instrument was sent to 694 construction management students who were pursuing their undergraduate and graduate degrees at Colorado State University in 2015; and 61 responses were collected. Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal Wallis tests were conducted to identify whether there are statistically significant differences in students’ cognizance of WLB issues. Based on the results of the statistical tests, a statistically significant difference was found between the female and male students’ perception of early burnout in the construction industry. The results did not provide enough evidence to identify statistically significant differences between groups of students in different enrollment years.

THE LIFE COURSE DETERMINANTS OF VULNERABILITY IN LATE CAREERS

Late career is often seen as a more vulnerable life-stage in the labour market, in which workers may experience a deterioration in job quality. Using a life course perspective and longitudinal data, this article analyses the vulnerability associated with late career by focusing on four occupational dimensions: working-time, career continuity, retirement timing and income change. The research is carried out using data from Switzerland, a country where the age profile of the labour force is an increasing issue. The paper also adopts a cumulative disadvantage perspective to examine the impact of previous work and family life experiences on work life vulnerability at older age. Our data come from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARELIFE). The paper uses cluster analysis, sequence analysis and ordered logistic regression. Results show that women with previous family responsibilities resulting in long-term unemployment or caring, often with health complications, are more likely to be vulnerable to deterioration in job quality in late career. This suggests that experiences in the last period of the working life may be just as gendered as earlier periods.

¿Hay equilibrio? Experiencias de vida laboral y manejo de emociones de médicos mexicanos en la frontera México-Estados Unidos

El propósito de este estudio es analizar las experiencias de vida laboral y manejo emocional de los médicos mientras ejercen en los EE. UU.-México. Tienen diferentes experiencias y hay un cambio constante de médicos que intentan manejar el trabajo y la vida personal; deben aprender a lidiar con las emociones que se derivan de su profesión y las presiones adicionales de ejercer la medicina con precaución debido a la guerra contra las drogas en curso en Nuevo Laredo, México. Además, los médicos en la frontera atienden a pacientes tanto de México como de los EE. UU. Hay presiones y tensiones significativas involucradas en la práctica de la medicina, y esto es aún más relevante cuando se trabaja en la región fronteriza. Es por esto que este estudio es relevante e importante. A través de la metodología cualitativa, adquirí las experiencias de médicos mexicanos en la frontera Laredo-Nuevo Laredo. A través de un análisis temático de entrevistas en profundidad, los médicos describieron las dificultades que encontraron al lidiar con las emociones en el trabajo, lo que dio un significado más profundo a sus declaraciones. Los secuestros, atracos y extorsiones imponen limitaciones significativas en la vida laboral de los médicos...

Work stress, -Burnout and Organizational Politics: Perceptions and Experience of Senior Managers in the South African Government Sector

This study attempts to understand the causes and levels of work stress and burnout in a quantitative context. A mix method was adopted in which issues of organizational politics was also explored by using a qualitative approach. The sample was derived from a department of the South African Public Service and three quantitative questionnaires, namely the ‘Work Life Experience Questionnaire’, ‘Maslach’s Burnout Questionnaire’ and a ‘Biographical Questionnaire’, were the measuring tools for this study. The sample constituted of 341 senior officials whose positions ranged from Assistant Director to the Director General and 231 questionnaires were completed. The qualitative aspect used semi structured questionnaires as well as individual interviews. A cross-sectional approach was adopted. The results indicated that stress levels are significant high within and outside the work environment. One of the outstanding conjectures of this study is to investigate the relationship between stress and burnout in the post-apartheid era. The study also reveals that organizational politics plays a big role in influencing stress levels which leads to burnout. The aim of the study is to make national government departments aware of the relationship between job stress and burnout as well as the role that organizational politics played amongst senior government officials, post 1994 apartheid era.

The Exciting Promise of Human Resource Management (HRM)

Assume the revised methodological structure defined here as OPD theory is adopted for social science. Assume the improved methodology is applied to build a general theory of psychology, a general theory of organizations derived from the general theory of psychology, and a general theory of society derived from both. Assume those theories accepted or assume some theory available of comparable intellectual standard accepted that replaces OPD theory.Then and only then, HRM becomes the most significant division in any organization guiding roll out of strategy, enabling people a more fulfilling work life experience, while occupying a crucial place in development of the national economy, hence interest to politicians, finally, laying the foundation of a fairer and economically more just society, hence of interest to all people in the society.

Three Worlds of Professional and Managerial Staff in France

Changes in the work of professional and managerial staff (PMS, cadres) in France were studied in a research project based on 100 interviews, conducted in seven private and public companies. Through a discourse and correspondence analysis—of a corpus amounting to some 600,000 words—, this study concludes that this particular French employment group can be seen neither as a homogeneous entity, nor as a totally fragmented socio-professional category. Rather, reflecting on working life experiences, it describes three groups that correspond to a horizontal division of professional and managerial staff: the serene, the individualized and the resistant. “Serene” PMS perceive their professional lives as being free of major problems. Their career trajectories go up, leading to senior positions in the organization. Training opportunities are used and personal assessment by supervisors is seen as a favourable orientation. This world is stabilized by law or by collectively negotiated agreements and characterized by autonomy and concern for the common good, which are the basis of their beliefs. “Individualized” PMS consider themselves to be responsible for their own success and to be the architects of their careers. They put in countless hours of service, arriving early in the morning and going home late in the evening. They prioritize work over family and aim to be active in highly competitive markets. The individualized have everything they need to be “happy,” except that work leaves them very little time for their private lives. In addition, these employees fear threats to job security and to their careers. “Resistant” PMS’s working time is measured in hours and minutes. Unpaid overtime is refused. This strict regulation of working time is nevertheless accompanied by a considerable workload. Deadlines are difficult to respect. Manifestations of stress and responsibilities in personnel management lead the resisting employee to a negative view of work. The importance of sociability in and outside of work compensates for the loss of the traditional prestige of these PMS.

Relationships between superior support, work role stressors and work-life experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of superior support, in the presence of a range of work role stressors, on both conflict and enrichment aspects of work-life interface simultaneously. The paper frames the research narrative of superior support by contextualizing it within superior’s dichotomous and opposing roles of organizational performance driver and support provider. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data was collected from Malaysian work adults. Drawing on a sample of 1,051 cases, structural equation modeling technique is used to examine the effect of superior support, with the presence of work role stressors, on individuals’ work-life experience. Three alternate models are compared: superior support as moderator of stressors-strain relationship; both superior support and work stressors as direct antecedents of work-life experience; and superior support as indirect antecedent (mediated by work role stressors) of work-life experience. Findings – Findings evidence the favorable model of superior support as indirect antecedent (mediated by work role stressors) of work-life experience. In addition, superior support has significant impact on work role ambiguity and work-life enrichment, however, its effect on work role conflict, work role overload and work-life conflict is not significant. Findings of the study also demonstrate the distinct effect of work role stressors on work-life experience in terms of direction and strength of impact. Practical implications – While superior support promotes greater work-life enrichment, its effect on work-life conflict is limited. Therefore, instead of superior support, employers have to identify alternate resources to assist employees to deal with conflict and interference of work-life interface. Distinctiveness of various work role stressors and interaction between these work role stressors offer practical implications to employer that all stressors at workplace should not be treated as identical and common to each other. Distinct effort should be taken to address different forms of work role stressors so that work-life conflict (resource depletion) can be minimized while work-life enrichment (resource gaining) can be enhanced. Originality/value – The research investigates superior support in relation to work stressor and work-life experience by scrutinizing the role of supervisors from the vantage point of supervisors as performance drivers as well as support providers. This provides a balanced narrative as compared to previous research focussing solely on either the support perspective or the employee effort extraction perspective. In its execution, the research incorporates enrichment aspect of work-life experience, in addition to the conflict and negative effect. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory, the study teases out important implication for employers and researchers to show that superior support and work role stressors come together to shape individuals’ work-life experience by depleting resources (work-life conflict) and gaining resources (work-life enrichment) simultaneously, as well as drawing out the dilemma of supervisors as performance drivers and support providers at the same time.

Supervisory support in Slovenian and Dutch organizations: a contextualizing approach

This paper builds on the influential work of Suzan Lewis examining how employees’ work–life experiences are shaped by different layers of context. Our approach is therefore a comparative one using data from four organizational contexts in two countries, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Within each organization, we examine the role of different types of supervisory support (specific family support and general support) and the quality of the relationship between supervisor and subordinate (LMX) in work-to-family conflict, enrichment, and work–life balance satisfaction. Findings indicate that in a context with a high level of national policy support, some dimensions of family support are seen as part of general supervisory support. Moreover, the role of supervisory support and the leader–member exchange relationship differs between organizational contexts and the outcomes considered.

Starting Out: A time-lagged study of new graduate nurses’ transition to practice

BackgroundAs the nursing profession ages, new graduate nurses are an invaluable health human resource. ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing new graduate nurses’ successful transition to their full professional role in Canadian hospital settings and to determine predictors of job and career satisfaction and turnover intentions over a one-year time period in their early employment. DesignA national two-wave survey of new graduate nurses across Canada. ParticipantsA random sample of 3906 Registered Nurses with less than 3 years of experience currently working in direct patient care was obtained from the provincial registry databases across Canada. At Time 1, 1020 of 3743 eligible nurses returned completed questionnaires (usable response rate=27.3%). One year later, Time 1 respondents were mailed a follow-up survey; 406 returned a completed questionnaire (response rate=39.8%). MethodsSurveys containing standardized questionnaires were mailed to participants’ home address. Descriptive statistics, correlations, and hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted using SPSS software. ResultsOverall, new graduate nurses were positive about their experiences and committed to nursing. However, over half of new nurses in the first year of practice reported high levels of emotional exhaustion and many witnessed or experienced incivility (24–42%) at work. Findings from hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that situational and personal factors explained significant amounts of variance in new graduate nurses’ job and career satisfaction and turnover intentions. Cynicism was a significant predictor of all four outcomes one year later, while Psycap predicted job and career satisfaction and career turnover intentions. ConclusionsResults provide a look into the worklife experiences of Canadian new graduate nurses over a one-year time period and identify factors that influence their job-related outcomes. These findings show that working conditions for new graduate nurses are generally positive and stable over time, although workplace mistreatment is an issue to be addressed.

Community role salience: the development and testing of a new measure

ABSTRACTThere is growing recognition that community plays a role in an individual's work-life experience. While measures of work and family role salience have been developed and applied in the work-life literature, no measure of community role salience had been developed. This has served to limit our understanding of community role salience and how it influences work-life experience. The research aimed to address this gap by developing a new measure for community role salience and community role importance, with a view to understanding the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience. Surveys were administered to 59 participants from the construction sector. The new measure of role salience shows considerable promise as a reliable instrument. The structure and nature of work undertaken in the construction industry is different from that in many other industries, therefore the results may not be generalisable to other industries. However, it is considered that the instruments themselves can be applied in different contexts to explore the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience.

Organizational Readiness: A Vygotskian Analysis of Mediated Learning through Disney Animation

For most people, their first experience of work and organizational life is not on their first day within a job -their first shift within a factory or first morning in an office - but in play. That ...

The impact of surgical clinical placements on medical student's career preferences

One of the most important decisions that medical students will have to make is to choose a career specialty which will affect the rest of their lives. This decision is influenced by many factors related to gender, personality, desired work life balance, mentorship and experiences from clinical placements.Clinical placement is an arrangement in which a medical student is present in an environment that provides healthcare or related services to patients or the public. When that involves a surgical firm, students are actively involved in outpatient clinics, ward rounds, clinical examinations, history taking and operating theatre.

Good work? Scottish cultural workers’ narratives about working and living on islands

This paper sets out to ask how cultural workers on Scottish islands come to narrate their work and everyday life experiences. We ask this question in the context of two dominant doctrines that can influence whether or not these experiences are “good or bad.” The first doctrine describes attitudes toward creativity with reference to current discussions around cultural work and the idea of “creative.” The second doctrine highlights conceptions of islands as unique places with pastoral characteristics that need to be fostered and promoted. It is our contention that island cultural workers must continuously negotiate with these two frameworks in order to successfully achieve good work. If the negotiation is fraught with difficulties, the cultural worker will ultimately leave either this form of work or the island. For the purpose of this paper we focus on the narratives of two cultural workers located on two different Scottish islands to highlight the ways their particular narratives engage with the doctrines of creativity and islandness.