Workers' wellbeing tops BPS agenda

Work stress, job characteristics and wellbeing were at the top of the agenda at a recent conference of the British Psychological Society.

Employee wellbeing, workplace stress and sickness absence were covered in detail at this year's annual conference of the British Psychological Society's (BPS) occupational psychology division. The link between workers' health and performance, and the role of line managers in implementing stress management, were two of the themes running through the papers presented.

While workplace health and stress management initiatives are often crafted by health and safety and human resources (HR) professionals, their implementation usually falls to busy line managers. The way managers behave has an impact on the stress levels in their teams, according to researchers from Goldsmiths College¹ . The role of managers in performing this vital stress prevention work has not been well studied, prompting the authors to develop a competency framework to identify the skills, abilities and behaviours that managers need to tackle stress in co-workers. The researchers drew up a list of competencies and behaviours that managers need to display to manage stress, and linked these with the HSE's management standards stressors. The authors believe that this competency approach to stress management provides HR and line managers with a clear framework for assessing and developing managers' skills, abilities and behaviours in a way that will contribute to the effective management of stress at work. The competency approach to stress management aligns with existing people management practices, allowing stress management - which is typically positioned in health and safety - to be integrated into general management. It also translates the HSE management standards on work stress "into meaningful, everyday language", the authors suggest.

Workers in five occupational groups - police personnel, firefighters, school teachers, train personnel and librarians - are more likely to report high levels of stress if they have poor job satisfaction, greater levels of unofficial absence, psychological disturbance and work-family stress. This was one of the findings of research into the relationships between self-reported work stress and absence, health and job satisfaction presented to the BPS conference by consultants from the SHL Group² . However, within these five occupational groups, the research found that workers in the library service reported greater levels of stress than those in the police or fire service, suggesting that this could be due to a "personality co-variant" that results in certain personality types seeking jobs that are unlikely to induce high levels of stress. In other words, anxious people are more likely to choose to become librarians than firefighters.

Permanent work is not universally better for employee wellbeing than non-permanent work, according to the results of research into the food manufacturing, retail and education sectors conducted by academics at King's College University³ . Indeed, the temporary workers in the study reported higher levels of wellbeing than their permanent colleagues - contrary to a great deal of current thinking. The authors suggest that employees' wellbeing is more influenced by being on a contract type of their choosing, rather than the type of contract per se, and the study found that the health consequences of not being on one's preferred type of contract are more severe for permanent workers than temporary ones. The authors suggest that policies aimed at protecting non-permanent workers should take account of the conclusion that many atypical employees find their work a positive experience.

The link between work stress and productivity was examined in a paper from Cary Cooper and colleagues at the Universities of Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester⁴ . The research they presented used the ASSET stress risk assessment tool developed by Robertson Cooper to collect self-reports on stress from 16,001 employees in 15 different organisations. It concluded that psychological wellbeing is the strongest predictor of productivity, followed by the organisation's commitment to the employee, but not the employee's commitment to the organisation. This latter finding is "surprising", the authors suggested; however, they do propose that organisational commitment will influence employee commitment, producing an indirect relationship between workers' commitment and productivity. The study also found that none of the accepted work stressors, with the exception of resources and communications, has a direct influence on productivity rates. Resources have a direct impact on productivity because workers are unable to perform effectively without the tools to do the job, rather than as a result of a stressor-stress pathway, the researchers suggest, implying that individual work stressors have only an indirect effect on productivity through their impact on mental wellbeing.

A diary study involving 26 employees in five public and private sector organisations formed the basis of a study that examined the complex relationship between job characteristics, stress and symptom reporting carried out by researchers at the University of Nottingham⁵ . The employees completing diaries over the eight-day period of the study reported that higher levels of job demand and lower levels of control were associated with higher stress. However, although stress was clearly predicted by job demands, control and the interaction between the two factors, stress symptom reporting was only predicted by job control. This suggests that, while job characteristics like demand and control affect stress levels, only low job control produces the associated increased symptom reporting. In terms of practical implications, this could suggest that efforts to redesign jobs should focus on job control as the key to reducing stress and symptom reporting at work. Stress interventions targeted at the individual, for example, providing them with coping mechanisms to address work and home stress, might also be required.

The role of "mental toughness" in influencing employees' reactions to bullying behaviour in the workplace, and the resulting impact of this behaviour on health, was examined in a paper by academics at the University of Hull⁶ . The study found that workers with lower mental toughness experienced more negative workplace behaviours and had higher levels of psychological distress than those with higher mental toughness. This group also used less effective coping strategies than those with more mental toughness, suggesting that training to boost employees' toughness could help workers deal more effectively with workplace bullying. However, the authors pointed out that mental toughness training will not lead to a fall in bullying incidents, or totally stop the distress caused by this behaviour, and that organisations still need to consider other organisational strategies, including dealing with the perpetrator.

The potential impact on workplace safety of workers' psychological ill health, and the medication they take to control symptoms, was considered in a paper from the Keil Centre⁷ . The centre's review of research in the case of the two most common forms of psychological ill health - depression and anxiety - has found enough evidence to show that mental ill health can impact performance and safety directly and that some common symptoms of these conditions, such as fatigue, may have an indirect impact on corporate safety. Fatigue has long been recognised as having a negative impact on job behaviour, particularly tasks that involve decision-making, vigilance, judgment, perception and short-term memory - all vital for safe operating.

References

1. Stress management competencies: integrating stress management into people management, Pryce JB, Donaldson-Feilder EJ, Heinz M and Spice H, Goldsmiths College.

2. An investigation into the role of perceived work stress upon absenteeism, job satisfaction, psychological health and family, across five disparate occupational groups, Saddiq S and Burke S, SHL Group plc.

3. Non-permanent working and well-being in UK: an examination of links and explanations, Clinton ME, Budjanovcanin A and Guest DE, King's College University.

4. Stress and productivity: an examination using ASSET, Johnson SJ, Robertson S, Donald IJ, Taylor PJ, Cooper CL, Cartwright S, Universities of Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester.

5. Job characteristics, stress and health - a daily diary study, Ward JK and Ferguson E, University of Nottingham.

6. Workplace bullying: the role of mental toughness, Coyne IJ, Clough PJ, Alexander T and Clemment G, University of Hull.

7. The impact of psychological ill health on safety and performance: the organisation's role, Amati C and Sciafe R, Keil Centre Ltd.