Workplace Size Research Articles

The impact of regulatory enforcement and consultation visits on workers' compensation claims incidence rates and costs, 1999–2008

Studies of regulatory effectiveness have shown mixed evidence of impact of inspections on injury rates. We examine changes in workers compensation claims rates and costs for Washington employers having either an inspection, with or without citation, or a voluntary consultation activity. We merge 10 years of enforcement and consultation activity with workers compensation records at the individual workplace level for stable firms with a single business location and at least 10 full-time employees. The change in claims incidence rates (CIRs) was estimated, controlling for workplace claims rate history, size, and industry. Separate analyses were performed for non-musculoskeletal and musculoskeletal (MSD) CIRs, claims costs and for enforcement activities with citation and without citation. Enforcement activities are associated with a significant reduction in CIRs and costs. Similar results may also be attributable to consultations. Inspections were associated with a 4% decline in time-loss claims rates relative to uninspected workplaces. The effect strengthens when MSD claims are excluded. Citations for non-compliance are associated with a 20% decline in non-MSD CIRs relative to uninspected workplaces. There is also some evidence for a reduction in MSD claims rates beginning in the second year following inspection. Enforcement and consultation activity is associated with substantial decreases in claims costs. Enforcement activities make a significant contribution to reducing CIRs and costs. Similar results following consultations may also exist. Inspections with citations are more effective than those without. Claims rates for non-MSD injuries, related to hazards covered by specific standards, are more affected in the year following the visit, while those for MSDs take longer to begin falling.

Socio-demographic and work setting correlates of poor mental health in a population sample of working Victorians: application in evidence-based intervention priority setting

Interventions to promote mental health in the workplace are rapidly gaining acceptability as a means to prevent, screen, treat and effectively manage the growing disease burden of depression and anxiety among working people. The objective of this study was to identify socio-demographic and work setting correlates of poor mental health to consider alongside other evidence in priority setting for workplace mental health promotion (MHP). Multiple logistic regression was used to model the probability of poor mental health (SF-12) in relation to socio-demographic (gender, age, education, marital status and occupational skill level) and employment factors (workplace size and type, industrial sector, employment arrangement and working hours) in a population-based cross-sectional survey of 1051 working Victorians. As a result, poor mental health was (21% prevalence overall) higher in working females than in males and decreased with increasing age. Only one employment factor was significant in demographically adju...

Health, work, and personal-related predictors of time to return to work among employees with mental health problems

Purpose: To identify health-, personal- and work-related factors predictive of return to work (RTW) in employees sick-listed due to common mental health problems, such as, stress, depression, burnout, and anxiety. Methods: We distributed a baseline questionnaire to employees applying for sickness absence benefits at a large Danish welfare Department (n = 721). A total of 298 employees returned the questionnaire containing information on possible predictors of RTW. We followed up all baseline responders for a maximum of one year in a national registry of social transfer payments, including sickness absence benefits. Results: At baseline, about 9% of respondents had quit their job, 10% were dismissed and the remaining 82% were still working for the same employer. The mean time to RTW, measured from the first day of absence, was 25 weeks (median = 21) and at the end of follow-up (52 weeks) 85% had returned to work. In the fitted Cox model we found that fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for depression predicted a longer time to RTW (HR: 0.61, CI: 0.45–0.84), whereas a better self-rated health predicted a shorter time to RTW (HR: 1.18, CI: 1.03–1.34). Employees working in the municipal (HR: 0.62, CI: 0.41–0.94) and private sector (HR: 0.65, CI: 0.44–0.96) returned to work slower compared to employees working in the governmental sector. Gender, education, cohabitation, size of workplace, low-back and upper-neck pain and employment at baseline did not predict RTW. Conclusion: Our results indicate that time to RTW is determined by both health- and work-related factors.Implications for RehabilitationCommon mental health problems are one of the leading causes for sickness absence and work disabilityReturn to work after sickness absence is not solely determined by improvements in health but is also affect by individual and work related factorsThis study showed that self-rated health, occupational sector and depression are predictors of time to return to work in employees with mental health problems

Membership Has its Privileges? Contracting and Access to Jobs That Accommodate Work-Life Needs

Using job-spell data based on an original survey of Information Technology (IT) degree graduates from five U.S. universities, the authors investigate the link between contracting and a set of job characteristics (accommodating flexible work hours, total work hours, and working from home) associated with work-life needs. Compared with regular employees in similar jobs, workers in both independent- and agency-contracting jobs report more often working at home and working fewer hours per week. Further, agency contracting (but not independent contracting) is associated with lower odds of being able to set one's own work hours. Important differences also emerge in workplaces of varying sizes. For each job characteristic, as workplace size increases, independent contracting jobs deteriorate relative to regular employment jobs. As a consequence, in large workplaces, independent contracting jobs appear to be less accommodating of work-life needs than regular employment jobs.

Statement on national worklife priorities

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) WorkLife Initiative (WLI) [http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/worklife] seeks to promote workplace programs, policies, and practices that result in healthier, more productive employees through a focus simultaneously on disease prevention, health promotion, and accommodations to age, family, and life stage. The Initiative incorporates the Institute's foundational commitment to workplaces free of recognized hazards into broader consideration of the factors that affect worker health and wellbeing. Workplace hazards, such as physical demands, chemical exposures, and work organization, often interact with non-work factors such as family demands and health behaviors to increase health and safety risks. New workplace interventions being tested by the first three NIOSH WLI Centers of WorkLife Excellence are exploring innovative models for employee health programs to reduce the human, social, and economic costs of compromised health and quality of life. Many parties in industry, labor, and government share the goals of improving employee health while controlling health care costs. NIOSH convened a workshop in 2008 with representatives of the three Centers of Excellence to develop a comprehensive, long-range strategy for advancing the WorkLife Initiative. The recommendations below fall into three areas: practice, research, and policy. Responding to these recommendations would permit the WorkLife Center system to establish a new infrastructure for workplace prevention programs by compiling and disseminating the innovative practices being developed and tested at the Centers, and elsewhere. The WLI would also extend the customary scope of NIOSH by engaging with multiple NIH Institutes that are already generating research-to-practice programs involving the working-age population, in areas such as chronic disease prevention and management. Research to Practice (r2p) is a concept focused on the translation of research findings, technologies, and information into evidence-based prevention practices and products that are adopted in the workplace or other "real-world" settings. NIOSH's goal is to overcome the translational issues that now prevent state-of-the-art occupational health, health promotion, and chronic disease research findings from benefiting working age populations immediately, regardless of workplace size, work sector, or region of the country.

Private sector employment growth, 1998-2004: a panel analysis of British workplaces

Using nationally representative panel data for British private sector workplaces this paper points to the importance of distinguishing between workplace and firm size when analysing employment growth, and finds that the factors associated with growth differ markedly between single independent establishments and those belonging to multi-site firms. Results also differ according to whether one adjusts for sample selection arising from workplace survival, and according to whether one distinguishes between growth per se and internal, organic employment growth. We find evidence at the plant level that is consistent with creative job destruction.

Linking HR formality with employee job quality: The role of firm and workplace size

AbstractThe process of managing a small firm differs from managing a large firm, because small firms face distinct forms of risk and organize their human resources differently, often informally (Kotey & Slade, 2005; Storey, 2002). This paper introduces and tests a new variable, self‐reported job quality (SRJQ), as a key link in the causal chain between HR practices and outcomes. In comparing small firms with large ones, we present three key findings: (1) employee reports of job quality are highest in small firms and decrease as firm size increases; (2) in workplaces owned by large firms, job quality is highest in the smallest workplaces; and (3) workers in small workplaces owned by large firms report lower job quality than workers in comparable sized workplaces owned by small firms. Our findings are partially explained by how formally HR practices are implemented. We show that formality increases with firm size and workplace size. Importantly, evidence suggests that employing an HR professional (a key indicator of HR formality) lowers SRJQ in single‐site SMEs. Implications for small business owners, HR professionals in large and small firms, and policy makers are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Influence of Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Voluntary Turnover Rates in the Canadian Non Governmental Sector

The authors tested the influence of thirteen human resource management practices on voluntary turnover rates the following year while controlling for workplace size, the presence of a separate human resources management unit, union density, industry, and region. Analysis of data from 4,160 workplaces representative of Canadian industries found that employer-provided training is associated with higher turnover, whereas internal labor markets and formal dispute resolution procedures are associated with lower turnover. The findings are consistent with predictions that some human resource management practices reduce workers' desire to leave and that training may actually make their leaving easier.

THE EFFECT OF NEW TRENDS OF THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT ON WORKPLACE RISK AND ITS MODELLING

The acceleration of global competition has brought very important changes in the working environment. Some of these changes, such as increasing part-time, temporary or self- employment (either virtual or true), intensification of labour productivity, etc. have a significant impact on workplace risk. This impact is multilateral and complex, since the changes affect a number of different features and factors of workplace and its risks. This paper aims to identify and sort these changes in three categories (changes in production patterns and tools, changes in size of workplace and changes in employment patterns) and to explore their impact in workplace through their impact in riskaffecting factors (greater complexity in the workplace, greater potential for risky behaviour and more drivers of unconscious undesired behaviour). The main conclusion is that the approach to risk modelling has to change taking individual-level factors and individual economic motives more explicitly into account.

Basic occupational health services

Basic occupational health services

Global measure of satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions versus measures of specific aspects of psychosocial work conditions in explaining sickness absence

BackgroundAttempts to identify particular aspects of psychosocial work conditions as predictors of sickness absence remain inconclusive. A global measure has previously been suggested to be an efficient way to measure psychosocial work conditions in questionnaires. This paper investigates whether satisfaction with specific aspects of psychosocial work conditions explains sickness absence beyond its association with a global measure of psychosocial work conditions.MethodsThe participants were 13,437 employees from 698 public service workplaces in Aarhus County, Denmark. 33 items from a questionnaire fell in groupings around six aspects of psychosocial work conditions: skill discretion, professionalism, management, decision authority, workload and cooperation. A global measure rating satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions on a scale from 0 to 10 was also included in the questionnaire. Individual ratings were aggregated to workplace scores. Analysis of variance and multiple linear regression was used to compare the average number of days of yearly sickness absence with different levels of satisfaction with six aspects of psychosocial work conditions. The covariates included were gender, age, occupation, size of workplace, contact to hospital, civil status and children below 13 living at home.ResultsDissatisfaction with each of the six aspects of psychosocial work conditions was associated with an increase in sickness absence. When all aspects were simultaneously included in the model, only skill discretion and professionalism were negatively associated with sickness absence. When a global measure of satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions was also included in the model none of the specific aspects showed a statistically significant association with sickness absence.ConclusionLow global satisfaction with psychosocial work conditions is associated with increased levels of sickness absence. Including specific aspects of psychosocial work conditions in the model does not provide further information regarding the nature of this association.

Prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders in Brazilian hairdressers

There are occupational risks inherent to the activities of professional hairdressers, which are not frequently studied, and therefore not considered in the formulation of health policies for this group. To verify the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMDs) in hairdressers through symptom reports, to characterize the most frequently affected anatomical parts and to identify and analyse risk factors of WRMDs in hairdressing. A cross-sectional epidemiological study of 220 hairdressers from beauty parlours in São Paulo (Brazil) was carried out. Each hairdresser completed a self-administered questionnaire which included information on socio-demographic characteristics, working conditions and health-related musculoskeletal system complaints. Ergonomic analyses were also performed in six parlours. The prevalence of WRMDs was 71%. Risk factors were associated with psychosocial factors and factors related to discomfort and work fatigue such as lack of acknowledgement of work and uncomfortable posture at work [odds ratio (OR) = 3.54; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.51-8.30], not feeling comfortable with body/neck/shoulders while working (OR = 2.78; 95% CI 1.40-5.54) and having >15 years of professional activity (OR = 3.04; 95% CI 1.17-7.91). Occupational risk factors associated with the development of WRMDs in hairdressers are related to biomechanical, organizational and psychosocial work factors. The high prevalence of WRMDs found highlights the importance of disseminating recommendations for prevention of symptoms with regards to the provision of suitable furniture, equipment and work tools, environmental conditions, size of workplace, work organization and psychosocial work factors.

The urbanization and suburbanization of the service economy: producer services and specialization in stockholm

.This article highlights cities and urban regions as the focal point of the growth and geography of post‐industrial and postmodern service activities. Based on an empirical study of Sweden's capital city region, it illustrates the presence of multiple patterns as far as the structure and geography of urban economic development are concerned. Using statistical data for all employees in Stockholm and its surrounding region in 1993 and 2002, the service sector workforce is analysed by industry (finance, producer services, IT services, media and amenities) and categorized according to levels of education, employment status (self‐employed or employed) and workplace size. As prior research would lead us to expect, the results show the importance of Stockholm for the development of post‐industrial and postmodern service activities in Sweden. For the investigated sectors, 54 per cent of the employees in Sweden are employed in the Stockholm region, compared with 20 per cent for all sectors. It also shows the importance of these sectors for the economic development of Stockholm. The employment growth in these sectors between 1993 and 2002 amounted to 50 per cent of the total employment growth in the Stockholm region over this period. Finally, and most importantly, the study identifies a variety of development paths, differentiated by sector, and by central, semi‐peripheral and peripheral locations within the region.

The Determinants of Employee-Involvement Schemes: Private Sector Australian Evidence

Using data from the 1995 wave of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this article estimates the determinants of four types of group employee-involvement (EI) schemes: autonomous groups, quality circles, joint consultative committees and task forces. The results indicate that EI is associated with employees having longer expected tenure and higher labour force attachment. The authors argue that this is sensible as EI will be more successful in settings of interdependent production, settings in which such employees are at a premium. The results also show that complementary HRM practices, such as formal training and incentive pay, are associated with an increased likelihood of EI. Unionization, size of workplace and the extent of competition are also confirmed as determinants.

The sound of silence: which employers choose no employee voice and why?

Whether employees have ‘voice’ at work is determined, in large part, by employers’ decisions as to whether to adopt a ‘voice’ regime. In Britain during the 1980s and 1990s, the employer’s decision was largely unconstrained by the law. Under these conditions, we argue that whether an employer adopts a voice regime turns on employers’ perceptions of the net benefits of worker voice to the firm. This is confirmed in empirical analyses that point to independent associations between ‘no voice’ and workplace size, organizational complexity, industrial sector and workforce composition. We show that the size and composition of the ‘no voice’ sector has remained constant over the past two decades.

Catching a Wave: The Adoption of Voice and High-Commitment Workplace Practices in Britain, 1984-1998

In this paper we treat workplace voice and systems of high-commitment human resource management (HCHRM) as technological innovations in order to account for the uneven diffusion patterns observed across establishments. Using British data, the paper finds that variables highlighted in the technological diffusion literature are significant predictors of voice and HRM adoption decisions. Workplace size, size of multi-establishment network, ownership type, set-up date and network affects all play a significant role in high-commitment HRM adoption. We also find that union presence, per se, is not an inhibitor to the adoption of high commitment HRM practices.

Discipline, Dismissals and Complaints to Employment Tribunals

Using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we investigate the rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals, and the incidence of unfair dismissal complaints to employment tribunals in the UK. Workplace rates of disciplinary sanctions and dismissals vary with age, gender, ethnic and occupational work‐force composition and workplace size, and, notably, are lower where trade union density is higher. Workplace practices reflecting a high‐commitment management style have limited impact on all three of our dependent variables, while the existence of formal discipline and dismissal procedures exerts no influence on whether any unfair dismissal claims are brought at the workplace.

Seafood processing in South Africa: a study of working practices, occupational health services and allergic health problems in the industry.

The work practices, occupational health services and allergic health problems among workplaces which process seafood in Western Cape province of South Africa were examined. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 68 workplaces that were sent a self-administered postal survey questionnaire. Workplaces reporting a high prevalence of work-related symptoms associated with seafood exposure were also inspected. Forty-one (60%) workplaces responded to the questionnaire. The workforce consisted mainly of women (62%) and 31% were seasonal workers. Common seafoods processed were bony fish (76%) and rock lobster (34%). Major work processes involved freezing (71%), cutting (63%) and degutting (58%). Only 45% of workplaces provided an on-site occupational health service and 58% of workplaces conducted medical surveillance. Positive trends were observed between workplace size and activities such as occupational health service provision (P = 0.002), medical surveillance programmes (P = 0.055) and reporting work-related symptoms (P = 0.016). None of the workplaces had industrial hygiene surveillance programmes to evaluate the effects of exposure to seafood. Common work-related symptoms included skin rashes (78%), asthma (7%) and other non-specific allergies (15%). The annual prevalence of work-related skin symptoms reported per workplace was substantially higher for skin (0-100%) than for asthmatic (0-5%) symptoms. The relatively low prevalence of employer-reported asthmatic symptoms, when compared to epidemiological studies using direct investigator assessment of individual health status, suggests likely under-detection. This can be attributed to under-provision and under-development of occupational health surveillance programmes in workplaces with less than 200 workers. This is compounded further by the lack of specific statutory guidelines for the evaluation and control of bio-aerosols in South African workplaces.

Identifying the Family, Job, and Workplace Characteristics of Employees Who Use Work‐Family Benefits*

A contextual effects perspective is used to identify family, job, and workplace characteristics associated with the use of work‐family benefits by 527 employees in 83 businesses. Parents of dependent children are no more likely than other employees to use benefits but particular family problems predict female employee use of paid leave and mental health benefits. Workplace size, sector, and culture are better predictors of employee use than are employee job characteristics.

Workplace Characteristics and Their Effects on Wages: Australian Evidence

Using data, from the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, which match individual employees to the firms and workplaces at which they are employed, this paper examines the relative importance of both individual and workplace characteristics for wages. Results from the estimation of ‘effects’ models indicate that workplace‐specific effects are important, explaining 39 per cent of the variation in individual log hourly wages. Estimation of a model including both individual‐level and workplace‐level variables (and using a random effects approach) identified workplace size, foreign ownership, the significance of export markets, the gender composition of the workforce, workplace union organisation, the incidence of shift work, and location as the most important workplace‐level influences on wages.