Health and wellness in commercial buildings: Systematic review of sustainable building rating systems and alignment with contemporary research

The debate concerning the link between human resource management (HRM) and employee level as well as organizational outcomes has reached an interesting crossroads. While studies continue to demonst...

HRM and Employee Engagement Link: Mediating Role of Employee Well-being:

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational safety climate and organizational health performance outcomes (i.e. absenteeism, presenteeism, health care utilization) mediated by individual worker health. The authors used three pathways to examine this relationship: a physical pathway starting with physical safety climate and mediated by musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), a psychosocial pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by emotional exhaustion, and a combined pathway starting with psychosocial safety climate and mediated by both MSDs and emotional exhaustion.




Design/methodology/approach




Three mediational multilevel analyses were conducted using a sample of 8,761 employees working in 177 health care organizations.




Findings




Although the findings did not support the hypothesized physical pathway, they showed that the psychosocial pathway worked satisfactorily for two of the three health performance outcomes (absenteeism and presenteeism). The combined physical and psychosocial pathway explained differences in the third outcome: health care utilization.




Originality/value




This is one of the few studies to include both physical and psychosocial pathways that lead to employee health and organizational performance. The results underscore the importance of paying attention to psychological health and safety in the health care workplace. Not only for the psychological health of employees, but also to improve their physical health and subsequent organizational health performance.

Safety climate, worker health and organizational health performance: Testing a physical, psychosocial and combined pathway

Both the concept of well-being and the work of early childhood educators are complex. To date, research concerning educators’ well-being has lacked a comprehensive conceptualisation that reflects t...

Towards a Holistic Conceptualisation of Early Childhood Educators' Work-Related Well-Being.

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to address a missing link between top management and employees when it comes to understanding how to successfully implement and embed workplace health promotion (WHP) as a strategy within organizations: the role of the middle managers.




Design/methodology/approach




A conceptual framework based on review of theory is applied within an empirical multi-case study that is part of a health intervention research project on increased physical activity among office workers. The study involves six Danish organizations.




Findings




Middle managers play a key role in successful implementation of WHP, but feel uncertain about their role, especially when it comes to engaging with their employees. Uncertainty about their role appears to make middle managers reluctant to take action on WHP and leave further action to top management instead.




Research limitations/implications




Limitations included the middle managers’ low attendance at the half-day seminar on strategic health (50 percent attendance), the fact that they were all office workers and they were all from Denmark.




Practical implications




Middle managers ask for more knowledge and skills if they are to work with WHP in daily business.




Social implications




Implementing and embedding WHP as a health strategy raises ethical issues of interfering with employees’ health, is seen as the employee’s personal responsibility.




Originality/value




This study adds to knowledge of the difficulties of implementing and embedding WHP activities in the workplace and suggests an explicit and detailed research design.

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Implementing workplace health promotion: role of middle managers

Purpose – Factors for successful workplace health promotion (WHP) are well described in the literature, but often sourced from evaluations of wellness programmes. Less well understood are the features of an organisation that contribute to employee health which are not part of a health promotion programme. The purpose of this paper is to inform policy on best practice principles and provide real life examples of health promotion in regional Victorian workplaces. Design/methodology/approach – Individual case studies were conducted on three organisations, each with a health and wellbeing programme in place. In total, 42 employers and employees participated in a face to face interview. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and the qualitative data were thematically coded. Findings – Employers and senior management had a greater focus on occupational health and safety than employees, who felt that mental/emotional health and happiness were the areas most benefited by a health promoting workplace. An organisatio...

Karen Marshall

Papers

What really improves employee health and wellbeing