Text in Afrikaans / 'n Opname is onder geregistreerde verpleegkundiges in diens van plaaslike besture onderneem met die doel om 'n perspektief op die gehalte van hul werkslewe te verkry, faktore te identifiseer wat hulle motiveer om 'n loopbaan in plaaslike besture te kies en die faktore te identifiseer wat werkstevredenheid positief /negatief be"lnvloed. Ontleding van die data het aangedui dat negatiewe faktore in die werkslewe soos onder andere die gebrek aan deelname in besluitneming en beperkte loopbaangeleenthede werksontevredenheid tot gevolg kan he. Positiewe faktore soos die geleentheid om gereelde diensure te werk en die status wat geregistreerde verpleegkundiges in die gemeenskap geniet, bevorder werkstevredenheid. Dit is hoofsaaklik hul belangstelling in primere gesondheidsorg en die geleentheid om gereelde diensure te werk wat geregistreerde verpleegkundiges motiveer om 'n loopbaan in plaaslike besture te kies. Aanbevelings om die kwaliteit van die werkslewe van geregistreerde verpleegkundiges te verbeter en werkstevredenheid te bevorder, is geformuleer. / A survey was undertaken among registered nurses in the service of local authorities to obtain a perspective on the quality of their worklife, to identify factors that influence registered nurses in local authorities and to identify those factors that influence the quality of the worklife and job satisfaction positively /negatively. Analysis of the data indicated that negative factors in the worklife such as limited participation in decision-making and limited career opportunities could lead to dissatisfaction in the work situation. Positive factors such as the ability to work regular hours and the status of registered nurses in the community promote job satisfaction. It is mainly their interest in primary health care and the opportunity to work regular hours of duty, that motivate registered nurses to choose a career in local authorities. Recommendations to improve the quality of the worklife of registered nurses and to promote job satisfaction were formulated. / Nursing Science / M.A. (Verpleegkunde)

This thesis presents an empirical investigation to address the psychosocial work environment as an established social determinant of health. The focus was narrowed to a single occupation, teachers, due to high reported stress levels in national surveys and other consequential policy challenges. The focus of intervention was narrowed to tackling the causes of stress after a scoping literature review found that most effort in this area has been directed towards individual-level interventions and programmes. A systematic review was conducted to assess the evidence-base, which demonstrated availability of limited and low-quality evidence for the evaluation of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing. It was found that organisational interventions lead to improvements in teacher wellbeing and retention rates, although most of the trials in this review were affected by methodological shortcomings. Because of the paucity of such intervention studies, and the heterogeneous nature of the interventions in the four included studies in this review, implications for practice were found to be very limited. Further well-designed research in the development and testing of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing was recommended as a result, while outlining the requirements for a rigorous study in this area. An intervention development endeavour was subsequently undertaken, which pointed to participatory approaches. An intervention entitled Change Laboratory was identified due to its relatively robust theoretical and methodological basis. An exploratory pilot trial of the participatory organisational change intervention was conducted in four secondary schools in the UK, with 2 schools as intervention and 2 schools as control. Qualitative findings, process evaluation, and quantitative findings of the study are subsequently presented. The analysis focuses on the actions that teachers and managers collaboratively designed in the intervention schools, in order to address organisational and systemic factors generating stress. The common theme in the output of both Change Laboratory cases was their focus on the object of decision-making, and leading to an expansive learning in terms of a reconceptualization of decision-making within their respective organisations. The central contradiction was found to be between the macro perspective and priorities and agendas of the senior leadership that shape policies and processes, and the micro perspective of those having to enact and comply with the decisions made by senior leaders. The intervention outputs can be seen as mediators synthesized from this contradiction. Following the intervention impact longitudinally demonstrated a developing and evolving reconceptualization of pedagogy, which is more central to teachers' object of activity and their professional identity. The analysis demonstrates that professional identity may be a crucial dimension of wellbeing at work in tandem with work-related stress theories. The findings suggest that the Change Laboratory group initially embarked on a re-conceptualisation of decision-making, and utilised the new systems and way of working as a means to address teaching and learning which is more central to their professional identity and their object of activity. The quantitative findings suggests an indication of beneficial effects of the intervention at end-of-intervention point, also considering the limitations. The process evaluation focuses on delineating the different facets of the intervention and assuring intervention integrity, assessing feasibility and acceptability, and generating insights for scaling-up of the intervention. An implementation framework developed in this study was found to be of value in the endeavour to adopt, adapt, and develop process-oriented structural interventions.

It is well known that Nordic countries are among the world’s happiest countries. Because of the high welfare, social equality, more freedom and so on. But there are also many people living outside the Nordic countries, and there is a big question about why people in such a comfortable country would want to work, because the state provides good welfare to the poor even if they do not work. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to understand what motivates people work in Nordic countries and what affects their work efficiency, how work and life can achieve a balance. Whether a person is willing to work or not depends on his/her attitude and thoughts, which comes not only from the social environment but also from the organizational environment. When people are in a fair and free society, their attitudes about work are more from organization. The organizational environment is influenced by the organizational culture. Therefore, there is no doubt that organizational culture influences employees’ work attitudes. A good organizational culture stimulates employees to work harder, thus improving their work efficiency. A bad organizational culture reduces work efficiency by making people more negative about their work. In real life, people’s lives revolve not only around work, but also other aspects that require investment of energy and time. For example, how to run a good life, how to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This takes into account a person’s role at different times and places. Concentrate on finishing work at work and take care of your family and yourself in life. Therefore, only by harmonizing work and life balance can we improve work efficiency and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, this thesis adopts the case analysis method to investigate an personal assistance organization. Through the investigation of this organization, we learned about employees’ views on organizational culture, the influence of organizational culture on their work efficiency and their choice of both work and life. After that, qualitative analysis was used to further analyze the research results, so as to find out the influence of organizational culture on work efficiency and how to balance work and life, so as to have a healthy lifestyle. In what follows I will review the previous literature and relevant theory, in order to understand the current status of organizational culture and work efficiency and lifestyle. After that I will present the results can conduct interviews to find out the impact of organizational culture on work efficiency and lifestyle.

O presente estudo acessou a extensão em que o Questionário de Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho (QVT), adaptado para Servidores de Instituições Federais de Ensino (IFES) brasileiras (QQVT-IFES) reflete o modelo conceitual de QVT de Walton (1973). A adaptação desta medida para servidores de IFES, considerou como referência o questionário proposto e validado por Timossi et al. (2009), (QQVT). O QQVT sofreu três alterações e com base no modelo de Walton, que estabelece oito critérios para avaliar QVT, originou o QQVT-IFES. Foram avaliadas as características psicométricas do QQVT-IFES e acessadas as validades de conteúdo e aparente da medida. Numa primeira fase, adaptando a proposta de Hernadez-Nieto (2002) para o cálculo do coeficiente de validade de conteúdo (CVC) foram escolhidos 55 juízes dentre os 168 servidores da área de QVT da IFES, após o cálculo do tamanho da amostra indicar um mínimo de 43. Os juízes responderam, em duas etapas, quantitativa e qualitativa, um questionário de julgamento (QJ/QQVT-IFES) das questões propostas no QQVT-IFES. O QJ/QQVT-IFES apresentou alta confiabilidade. Nas escalas de clareza da linguagem e pertinência prática, apontaram numa escala tipo likert de 1 a 5, o quanto o item da escala era claro e pertinente. Puderam em espaço próprio, comentar sobre cada item, em forma de texto e sugeriram melhorias, inclusão de itens, criticaram termos e formas. A validação de conteúdo mostrou um desempenho satisfatório do QJ/QQVT-IFES, com CVCt=0,80 para a escala de clareza e CVCt=0,86 para a escala de pertinência, com valor de corte de 0,70. O erro Pei encontrado com 55 juízes foi de 1,9 x 10 -96, valor considerado = 0. O processo de validação aparente gerou 319 comentários dos juízes/avaliadores aos 34 itens do QQVT-IFES. A segunda fase do estudo consistiu em nova adaptação, desta vez do QQVT-IFES, gerando o QQVT-IFES/2. A validação de conteúdo do QQVT-IFES/2 com 36 itens, seguiu o mesmo método do QQVT-IFES, desta vez com 5 juízes, conforme a proposta metodológica original de Hernandez-Nieto (2002). Verificou-se melhoria no desempenho quanto ao CVCc de 76,4% dos itens correlatos ao QQVT-IFES, mesmo com erro Pei significativamente maior (0,00032). O QQVT-IFES/2 obteve CVCt de clareza de 0,92 e pertinência igual a 0,95, maiores que os do QQVT-IFES. Uma terceira versão foi gerada, resultado dos melhores itens dos dois questionários, o QQVT-IFES/3. O processo de validação de conteúdo encontra nas escalas de clareza e pertinência caminho objetivo para futuros processos de validação, aos quais o questionário deverá ser exposto, a exemplo das validades de construto e preditiva. / This study accessed the extent to which the Quality Of Life at Work Questionnaire (QLWQ), adapted for civil servants working at Brazilian federal universities (QLWQ-IFES), reflects the conceptual Walton’s model of QLW (1973). Adaptation of the QLWQ-IFES involved assessment of content and face validity carried out by 55 participants, Brazilian federal university civil workers working as judges. Content validity coefficient (CVC) was calculated based on judges’ evaluation of two criteria of the questionnaire: items’ clarity and practical relevance. Face validity was assessed by examination of participants’ comments on the QLWQ-IFES adapted version generated from the results of the content validity. The questionnaire showed evidence of content validity, as indicated by item clarity index of 0.80 and practical relevance of 0.86. The face validation process produced 319 comments from judges, generating the final version of the questionnaire (the 36-item QQVT-IFES/2). Submitted to five judges’ evaluation, the questionnaire’s final version showed better evidence of content validity: 0.92 and 0.95 for the clarity and for the practical relevance of the items. Considering the importance of the construct focused by this questionnaire for health promotion at work setting, further studies on construct and predictive validities of Quality Of Life at Work Questionnaire remains.

O objetivo da presente pesquisa é avaliar a percepção dos profissionais de educação em relação aos níveis de satisfação e de insatisfação quanto à Qualidade de Vida no Ambiente de Trabalho QVT. A proposta consiste em identificar fatores que contribuem para a Qualidade de Vida no Ambiente de Trabalho QVT, em uma categoria de trabalhadores supostamente não beneficiada, em aspectos que se referem ao tema sob investigação. Trata-se de profissionais da área de educação, com atuação em escola técnica de saúde, da rede pública de ensino do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Esses funcionários empregam toda a sua força de trabalho atuante, de forma permanente e continuada, na unidade escolar pesquisada, conforme preconizado pelo Sindicato dos Profissionais de Educação do Rio de Janeiro. A expressão Qualidade de Vida e, especificamente, Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho, é um constructo que expressa, na atualidade, variadas concepções. Nesse sentido, a literatura aponta modismos comerciais, exploração por parte do capital, e até as mais arrojadas e críticas concepções que se destinam à busca do bem-estar do trabalhador em seu lugar de labor diário. Com intuito de se mensurar as variáveis da pesquisa proposta, foi utilizado o Questionário de Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho, uma escala atitudinal adaptada, tipo Likert, complementada por um questionário sócio-demográfico. A escala é constituída de 45 asserções de seis pontos, baseadas nos pressupostos de Walton (1975), com oito fatores ou dimensões, a saber: remuneração, condições de trabalho, uso e desenvolvimento de capacidades, oportunidades de crescimento profissional, integração social na organização, direitos na instituição, equilíbrio no trabalho e vida, e relevância do trabalho. As fases desta pesquisa compreenderam a revisão da literatura, detalhamento do método, execução das etapas operacionais de aplicação dos instrumentos de medida e análise dos dados da pesquisa. Quanto aos procedimentos gerais, foram mantidos contatos formais e informais com a instituição educacional pesquisada, sendo o projeto submetido e aprovado pela Comissão de Ética da UERJ. Foram formuladas hipóteses focadas na percepção dos profissionais de educação, sobre níveis de satisfação e de insatisfação da Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho. Os resultados apontaram o nível geral de satisfação de toda a força de trabalho em 61,94%, sendo que dos 8 (oito) fatores pesquisados, o de maior nível de insatisfação foi a remuneração, com 79,45%, enquanto o de maior satisfação refere-se à relevância de seu trabalho, com 84,25%. Esses resultados poderão servir de indicadores para eventuais ações em políticas públicas na área de gestão de pessoas, como também nas proposições de mudanças inovadoras no contexto sócio-técnico, assim como para a instalação de programas de mapeamento e de desenvolvimento de competências, com o objetivo de melhoria da Qualidade de Vida no Trabalho desses funcionários da rede pública de ensino / The objective of this research is to evaluate the perceptions of professionals in the education department in relation to their levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction on Quality of Life in the Workplace - QVT. The proposal is to identify factors that contribute to the Quality of Life in the Workplace - QVT in a category where workers supposedly do not benefit from, in ways that relate to the subject under investigation. These professionals work in education, in technical schools of health, of the public school system of Rio de Janeiro. These officials employ all their active work force through permanent and continuous forms, in the educational system researched, as recommended by the Union of Professional Education of Rio de Janeiro. The term quality of life, specifically, Quality of Working Life, is a construct that expresses, in actuality, many conceptions. In this sense, the study shows commercial modes of exploitation by capital, and even the most daring and critical concepts that are intended to seek the welfare of the worker's place in daily labor. With the aim of measuring the variables of the proposed research, we used the Quality of Working Life, a scale adapted by Likert, complemented by a socio-demographic questionnaire. The scale consists of 45 statements of six points, based on the assumptions of Walton (1975), with eight factors or dimensions, namely: remuneration, working conditions, use and capacity development of opportunities for professional growth, social integration in the organization rights with the institution, balance in work and life, and relevance of the work. Through research, we composed a review of these phases detailing the method, implementation of operational steps through the application of instruments for measuring and analyzing researched data. The general procedures maintained formal and informal contacts with the institutions surveyed, as the project being submitted and approved by the ethics committee of UERJ. A formulated hypothesis focused on the perceptions of education on levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction on the Quality of Working Life. The results showed the level of overall satisfaction of the entire workforce at 61.94% and the 8 (eight) factors surveyed, which had the highest level of dissatisfaction was payment, with 79.45% , while greater satisfaction concerned the relevance of their work, with 84.25%.These results may serve as indicators for possible actions in public policy in the area of personnel management, as well as in the proposal for innovative changes in the socio-technical context, as well as installing programs to develop skills that aim in improving the Quality of Working Life of for these public schools workers.

Contact Centre agents operate in closely monitored and highly controlled environments and their work consists of solving service requests or assisting customers with information on products or services. Consequently their work involves a great deal of emotional labour and stress. It is not surprising then, that the working environment of the Contact Centre is reported to have a negative impact on the levels of Quality of Worklife of Contact Centre agents, and that in the Contact Centre context, it is likely that low levels of Quality of Worklife exist. It is argued that it is important for organisations to be particularly aware of the Quality of Worklife perceptions of their employees should they want to address Quality of Worklife levels and benefit from the positive consequences of higher levels of the construct. Numerous variables are reported to play either an antecedent, moderating, mediating, or consequential role in relation to the Quality of Worklife construct. A systems model of Quality of Worklife is developed, which illustrates the inter-relationships of these variables and how they affect and are affected by the Quality of Worklife construct. It is argued that leadership is an important antecedent to Quality of Worklife, and this is the antecedent of interest in this study. It is proposed that it is not just any leadership that will contribute to an improved Quality of Worklife, particularly within a challenging context such as the Contact Centre environment. Rather, it is suggested that certain qualities of leaders will have a greater influence on Quality of Worklife. For example, leaders who focus on relationships and are caring - characteristics associated with servant leaders - are deemed more suitable for the Contact Centre context. The research also proposes that there are close associations between Servant Leadership and Trust, which in turn has the potential to affect Quality of Worklife positively. It is argued, therefore, that Trust mediates the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife in the customer service frontline context. While there is a broad base of literature available on servant leadership that focuses on the senior or executive level of leadership, Van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011) have argued that it is also relevant at the middle level of management and have validated an eight dimensional measure of servant leadership that is suitable for this management level. The Van Laar, Edwards and Easton (2007) Quality of Worklife model is also argued to be an appropriate model and measure of the Quality of Worklife construct, due to the robustness of the instrument design and the appropriateness of its underlying theory to the context of this research. Research has shown that leadership can have a significant relationship with Quality of Worklife. Moreover, a review of the literature on servant leadership reveals that trust, satisfaction, general well-being, and commitment to their jobs increases when employees are exposed to leadership behaviours associated with servant leadership. There is however, no evidence in the literature of any investigation of the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife, or of research investigating the partial mediating effects of Trust between these two constructs. Research was conducted to test this relationship. A survey questionnaire was administered amongst a sample of 555 Contact Centre agents, who were employed in eight different organisations. Confirmatory factor analysis procedures were conducted in STATA (V15.0), to test and validate the factor structure of Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife models. The research also produced a Servant Leadership, Trust and Quality of Worklife structural equation model that supported the hypotheses of the relationships between the constructs. Mediation analysis confirmed Trust’s role as a mediator between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife. The structural equation model confirmed that synergies between Servant Leadership, Trust and Quality of Worklife exist, and that Trust partially mediates the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife. It is therefore argued that an increase in Servant Leadership behaviour by the manager or supervisor of frontline staff has a positive association with increases of Trust, as well as positive associations with Quality of Worklife experienced by employees in the frontline context. Moreover, it is also posited that the relationship between Servant Leadership and Quality of Worklife is partially mediated by Trust of the supervisor. The implications of these results are discussed, and recommendations made for management practice and further research.

Managementkonsultbranschen kännetecknas av högt tempo, långa arbetsdagar och prestationsdrivna individer. Trots det har balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv blivit en viktig fråga. Genom att intervjua anställda på tre managementkonsultföretag har studien undersökt hur företagen arbetar med work-life balance samt vad som påverkar konsulternas möjlighet att nyttja arbetsgivarens insatser. Studien bekräftar att företags insatser för work-life balance påverkas av institutionella normer. Resultatet visar att managementkonsulters möjlighet att nyttja dessa insatser påverkas av förutsättningar i den professionella miljön; kulturellt stöd i form av ledarskap och stöd från kollegor, projektens karaktär genom förväntningar från kunder samt graden av autonomi och senioritet. Studien bidrar även med insikten att individen har det största ansvaret för sin work-life balance. Utöver det konstateras att work-life balance är en subjektiv upplevelse, vilket innebär att det inte nödvändigtvis krävs en jämvikt mellan arbete och privatliv för att nå tillfredsställelse. Sammanfattningsvis verkar det finnas en konflikt mellan institutionella och professionella normer som gör det svårt att lyckas med insatser för work-life balance. Studiens resultat kan därför vara relevant för professionella tjänsteföretag och andra organisationer verksamma i branscher som utmärks av hög arbetsbelastning.

It is argued that the new generation called Millennials are being needy, disloyal and narcissistic, and need more attention than previous generations. This is an issue for organizations and managers considering that employed Millennials have higher turnover intention, thus will not stay for as long as prior generations which further contributes to large costs for the companies. Consequently, managers will have an advantage of understanding what is motivating Millennials in order to facilitate for the workforce to perform to the highest extent whilst being employed for the company. As a result, the purpose of this thesis was to examine if previous conducted studies regarding motivation and Millennials were applicable to employed Millennials in Sweden. Furthermore, we wanted to more specifically examine if job satisfaction, work-life balance, organizational commitment and feedback were of importance since those factors has been argued to be highly influential regarding what is motivating this new workforce. Motivation can further be divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, where the former can be described as the drive that comes from within whilst the latter describes that the drive is the result from external factors. Our research question was as a result: Do job satisfaction, work-life balance, organizational commitment, and feedback have an effect on intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation among Millennials working in Sweden? To answer the research question and fulfil the purpose of our thesis, we conducted a quantitative study by publishing a questionnaire online in order to reach Millennials working in Sweden since most previous studies conducted has been more focused on a qualitative nature within Anglo-Saxon countries. When analysing our results from the survey we could conclude that organizational commitment had a significant positive effect on both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, whilst work-life balance had a significant negative effect and unfavourable feedback had a significant positive effect on the sample ́s extrinsic motivation. To conclude, the theoretical contribution of this study has been to further provide knowledge regarding Millennials and more specifically employed Millennials in Sweden. Lastly, since we both are students enrolled in the Master’s program in Management, our focus has been on managerial considerations and has therefore contributed to results that can be of advantage to managers and organizations regarding how they can both motivate their new workforce in addition to obtain greater knowledge of understanding them and their needs.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att bidra med ökad förståelse och kunskap om balansen mellan arbetsliv och privatliv hos chefer inom Investment Banking i finansbranschen samt hur dessa två sfärer kan främjas av chefernas organisation. Uppsatsen har inspirerats av ett induktivt synsätt där semistrukturerade intervjuer legat till grund för datainsamlingen. I studien framkommer att cheferna upplever att work-life balance är subjektivt samt att de till stor del har balans mellan arbetsliv och privatliv trots långa arbetsdagar och periodvis hög arbetsbörda. Cheferna belyser flextid och teknologin som tillvägagångssätt vilka främjar deras work-life balance. Att arbeta i en organisation med stödjande kultur samt att erhålla stöd från kollegor poängteras också som viktiga faktorer för att uppnå work-life balance. Resultatet visar att chefernas organisation har inget tydligt arbete med detta men efterfrågar det. Arbetet med work-life balance bör påbörjas på ledningsnivå och organisationers erbjudande gällande work-life balance ska vara förankrat i arbetstagarnas individuella behov.

In line with the boundless working life, it has become increasingly difficult to create a balance between working life and personal life. The Swedish expression “life-puzzle” and how we are able to create enough time has become a central part of the public debate. This essay will focus on what it means for cohabiting couples with children to make the life-puzzle come together and what happens when it does not. The purpose of this study is to understand the couples conceptions of the life-puzzle with regard to equality, gender contracts, negotiations and strategies and how this can be understood through a gender perspective. Significant questions are how the couples mean they are dealing with the conflicts of getting the life-puzzle together and what negotiations and strategies appear in their statements and how they express gender. Previous research on aspects considering the life-puzzle has shown that it is primarily women with infants who take the greatest responsibility at home and usually perform double work. Most of the research done on work-life balance lacks the gender aspect we are interested in, why we include relevant gender studies. This study, based on qualitative interviews, illustrates family strategies and negotiations and shows that there are unspoken gender contracts based on gender roles in the allocation of responsibilities and tasks. The study also shows that the problem of the life-puzzle is complex and that many different aspects need to be weighed in in order to create a full understanding.