The purpose of this research was to investigate if selected cultural and national aspects had an effect on employee engagement drivers. Another aim was to find out if applying global engagement tools in different cultures would provide an accurate engagement report. Finally, a new tool was proposed and examined in this study by companies operating in the Middle and Near East regions. Employee engagement has been of growing concern to business leaders as well as occupational psychologists, since it was claimed to relate to organisational productivity and long term success. Despite this growing concern and various consultancy solutions provided, few academic researches tackled cross cultural employee engagement aspects. In this research, both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies were used. The qualitative research data consisted of two in-depth interviews with employees working in the Middle and Near East regions. The quantitative research data was gathered with the aid of two questionnaires. One hundred and eighty nine responses were received out of two hundred and seventeen questionnaires sent. The response rate was eighty seven per cent. This research produced a number of key findings: (a) Cultural, national and organisational factors affect engagement drivers. (b) Engagement drivers change over time, at least in priority. (c) Measuring engagement through a globally designed fixed tool is not likely to produce accurate results that management can use to plan for actions. The main conclusion drawn from this research was that current approaches to measuring employee engagement are taking engagement drivers as common for granted, and this concept should be revised. The author recommends that leaders should investigate and run an analysis of engagement drivers before any engagement survey is undertaken. A new tool has been presented by the research and was tested by a number of organisations. This tool takes into account building engagement questionnaires based on key drivers analysed from specific work cultures.

The purpose of this study was to understand the social workers experience of the work situation and how it affects them, in the light of the refugee stream. Eight social workers in the social child protection services participated in the study, which was designed as a qualitative study. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews to understand social workers perception of their working situation and how they were affected by it in the light of the refugee stream. The study revealed that there have been several changes in the work situation due to the refugee stream in 2015, where the changes also are the factors that social workers feel that they were affected by. The results show that social workers' ideal picture of the work situation differs from the work situation they experience right now. The working climate changed for the worse when the errand amount increased, which affected the client work and led to feelings of inadequacy. The social workers used different protection strategies to deal with the deteriorating working situation, but also had the help of various personal factors. The study results also shows that the increased demands led to reduced feelings of control and that the social workers felt supported in varying degrees and forms. Increased overtime, stress and worsening well-being, led to the impact on privacy and increased sick-leaves. The deteriorating working situation led to lower quality of work, more temporary solutions and reduced legal certainty. Lack of time meant that new employees received an inferior introduction, which affected staff turnover.

<p>The psychosocial work environment in human service organizations is in many respects rewarding from the aspect of human interaction. However, it has also been described in several research reports as demanding and stressful both physically and mentally, resulting in a negative impact on employee health and a high degree of sickness absence. From a public health perspective it is important to focus on determinants of health in occupational groups that are characterized by caring and human relations. This thesis aims at identifying determinants of individual and organizational health in human service professions from a multifactorial perspective.</p><p>Based on both cross-sectional and longitudinal data, four studies of various aspects of psychosocial work exposures are carried out. Study I, an explorative and qualitative study, examines determinants of the psychosocial work environment in the Church of Sweden. Study II consists of a retrospective, randomized study assessing effects of goal clarity work on organizational well-being in the Church. Study III examines exposures resulting in stress-related sick leave among elderly care employees. Study IV is a longitudinal study that assesses effects of organizational change on health and sickness absence among elderly care employees. </p><p>The results show some positive experiences, despite overall demanding work conditions within both of the studied professions. In the Church (Paper I), experiences of freedom and influence at work and the Christian values tend be factors with modifying effect on health. Four patterns are identified for negative health impact; these include unclear organization, a sense of being different, stressful work and destructive communication style. Effects of goal clarity work (Paper II) indicate an overall positive impact on organizational well-being. In elderly care (Paper III), the results suggest, in general, a positive work climate and high effectiveness. Work related exhaustion was significantly higher among employees with stress related sickness absence. Factors of risk for being absent due to stress are approximately three times higher among employees dissatisfied with both their work and their social situations. Finally, measuring effects of organizational change (Paper IV), the results reveal evidence of unchanged self-rated health (SRH), work satisfaction and work exhaustion after reorganization. However, sickness absence increased across time and there is an indication of impaired levels of the anabolic hormone DHEA-S among those individuals affected by the reorganization. </p><p>The results point to a challenge for further research on the interplay between perceived stressors, resources available, biological stress markers and health in order to find adequate measures for improvements in psychosocial work environment in human service professions.</p>

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 S75 / Master of Science / Psychological Sciences

“A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MA by coursework and Research Report in the field of Organisational Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 26 May 2017” / The aim of the study was to investigate associations of employee psychological well-being, job satisfaction, psychological well-being and organisational commitment among public service employees in Botswana. The study was cross-sectional in nature. A total of 138 participants were recruited but only the responses of 129 participants were used in the final analysis after excluding the responses of 9 participants due to missing data. Of the 129 participants, there were 73 female participants and 55 male participants. The participants were recruited from Gaborone, Botswana and they voluntarily participated in the study. The instruments that were used to collect data were the General Health Questionnaire 12 (GHQ-12), the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale, and the Organisational Commitment Scale. Data were analysed using Pearson‟s Product-Moment correlation, simple regression and chi-square test of association. The results of the study showed that significant relationships were between psychological well-being and job satisfaction, and between job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Additionally, psychological well-being significantly predicted job satisfaction but not organisational commitment. Directions for future studies could focus on investigating the intricate relationships between the variables to assess their impact on employee and organisational performance, and to guide the utilisation of wellness programmes in the workplace. / MT2018

Thesis advisor: Barbara E. Wolfe / Patient quality outcomes in the United States (U.S.) healthcare system are largely stagnant or making minimal improvements, resulting in unnecessary morbidity, mortality, and costs (AHRQ, 2012 National Healthcare Quality Report). As the US implements the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordability Act, there is fiscal pressure to attain and sustain significant improvements to patient quality outcomes. This necessitates an understanding of how the processes and structures of care influence patient quality outcomes (Donabedian, 1966) in a complex care environment. To begin addressing this gap, this investigation examined the influence of unit-level authentic leadership (AL) and structural empowerment (SE) on staff nurse decisional involvement (DI) and patient quality outcomes on general care units in the acute-care hospital setting. This study used a cross-sectional survey design. Participants were staff nurses working on 105 general care units across eleven US hospitals. The surveys measured staff nurse perceptions of AL, SE, and DI at the care unit level. The patient quality outcomes of interest were falls with injury, hospital acquired pressure ulcers and patient satisfaction. Care unit level AL and SE had a significant influence on actual staff nurse DI (p = .002 and < .001, respectively) and the degree of dissonance between actual and preferred DI (p < .001). AL and SE had a significant inverse relationship with patient falls with injury (p = .017 and .028, respectively), yet a positive relationship with HAPU rates (p = .051 and .026, respectively). While AL did not have a significant relationship with any of the three patient satisfaction metrics, a significant positive relationship with SE was found (p = .002, .001, and .002, respectively). There was no support for a relationship between actual staff nurse DI and any of the patient quality outcomes. This study extends previous research in this area in that it is the first to examine actual patient quality outcomes at the care unit level. These findings provide support for the unique contributions to patient quality outcomes at the care unit level, indicating the need to develop AL among front-line nurse managers and SE in nurse work environments. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

Nurses comprise the majority of health care service providers and function as an integral part of the services rendered by the health care system in South Africa. There are however, frequent expressions of concern about their working conditions and circumstances. The health care system in South Africa faces difficulties in terms of resources and service provision, with nurses themselves sometimes being criticised for rendering less than adequate services (Khoza, Du Toit & Roos, 2010). Healthcare sector strikes have also been a feature of recent times, influenced by poor salaries, deterioration of academic facilities, poor working conditions in the public sector and the unfortunate conditions facing patients at public health facilities (Dhai, Etheredge, Voster & Veriava, 2011). The nursing care-relationship, however, requires qualities of empathy, compassion, ethical practice and commitment and these demands and contradictions may lead to burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma (Holdt, 2006). The study therefore explored the perceptions of nurses about their role, the quality of the health care services which they provide, their perceptions on nurse/patient relationships; and their perceptions of both problems and strengths or protective factors in their nursing role. Using a qualitative approach, the study included twenty nurses working in a large public hospital in Gauteng. Purposive sampling was used to select participants from various wards. Data was collected through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews, in order to enable participants to reflect on the meanings of their experiences and the perceptions they attach to these experiences. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze data. The main findings were that nurses perceive their occupational stress arising from shortage of staff and limited and inadequate equipment. This resulted in fatigue, and a high rate of absenteeism. Nurses in this hospital reported that they experience trauma due to the nature of their work with little visible and accessible formal debriefings, trauma counseling and Employee Wellness Programmes in place to assist them with stress management for traumatic experiences and other work related problems. Working conditions are perceived as unfavorable and unsafe, exposing them to health hazards, while simultaneously having to deal with frustrated patients and relatives.

The intent of this paper is to investigate social enterprise, and the Swedish work environment regulations as expressed in the Organizational and social work environment provisions of the Swedish Work Environment Authority (AFS 2015:4) within the context of mental health promotion. This investigation will generate hypotheses regarding how social enterprises and the individuals working in these environments utilize work in creating mental health promotional activities. The theoretical approach to be used in this paper is twofold: Attachment Theory and Meaning Making Theory. In order to deepen our understanding of work as a mental health promotional activity the phenomena of social enterprise and AFS, 2015:4 were subjected to a textual analysis in the form of a focus group interview and followed with a semi-structured interview. The research design was transformational, and the method was mixed combining literature review, text analysis, a focus group interview and several semi-structured interviews. The population interviewed was employees and management within social enterprises in Uppsala, Sweden. The conclusion reached was that the ability for a work environment to promote health was in correlation to the quality of social relationships and the ability to understand and experience the activity of work as meaningful and meaning making. Based upon this conclusion hypothesis were generated for further research.

Stress, press och personalbrist är ett aktuellt ämne idag inom sjukvården mer än någonsin, synnerligen vad gäller sjuksköterskor. Tidigare studier har påvisat att hög stressnivå, press samt dålig arbetsmiljö leder till att sjuksköterskor slutar på sin arbetsplats samt att vissa även blir utbrända medan andra väljer att byta yrke helt. Syftet med undersökningen var att studera anledningar till att sjuksköterskor väljer att lämna sina fasta tjänster och istället börjar arbeta via bemanningsföretag. Resultaten påvisade att hyrsjuksköterskor upplevde ett bättre välmående eftersom de hade högre löner samt var friare med valet av schema och arbetspass. Sjuksköterskorna kände sig även mindre belastade då de inte behövde utföra extra uppgifter eller tänka på arbetsplatsens resurser, utan skulle endast tänka på sitt arbete samt patienterna under passet. Trots att resultaten stärks av tidigare forskning vore ett större urval där könsfördelningen speglade verkligheten mer samt även en större variation mellan arbetslivserfarenheten bättre för generaliserbarheten.

Thesis. 1979. M.Arch.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.Arch.