Lippold MA, Davis KD, McHale SM, Buxton OM, Almeida DM.
Daily Stressor Reactivity During Adolescence: The Buffering Role of Parental Warmth. Health Psychology [Internet]. 2016.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Objective: This study examined youth stressor reactivity in the form of links between daily stressors and adolescents’ negative affect, physical health symptoms, and cortisol patterns. We also tested whether youth gender and parental warmth moderated these linkages. Method: Participants were the children of employees in the information technology division of a large company (N = 132, mean age = 13.39 years, 55% female). Youth completed daily diary telephone interviews on 8 consecutive evenings and provided saliva samples at 4 time points over 4 days to assess daily stressors and youth physiological and affective functioning. Parental warmth was assessed during in-home interviews. Multilevel modeling was used to account for interdependencies in the data. Results: Youth who experienced more daily stressors, on average, reported more negative affect and physical health symptoms, on average. Furthermore, on days youth reported more stressors than usual (compared to their own across-day average), they also exhibited more physical health symptoms, reduced evening cortisol decline (e.g., flatter slopes), higher bedtime cortisol, and more negative affect. Girls had stronger within-person linkages between daily stressors and daily negative affect than boys. Parental warmth moderated these within-person linkages: Youth who experienced more parental warmth had lower negative affect and steeper cortisol decline than usual on less stressful days. However, youth who experienced less parental warmth had higher negative affect and their cortisol levels declined less, even on days with lower-than-usual stress. Conclusions: Daily stressors are associated with youth’s affective and physiological functioning, but parental warmth can support youth’s stress recovery. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Hurtado DA, Okechukwu CA, Buxton OM, Hammer LB, Hanson GC, Moen P, Klein LC, Berkman LF.
Effects on cigarette consumption of a work–family supportive organisational intervention: 6-month results from the work, family and health network study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health [Internet]. 2016.
Publisher's VersionAbstractBackground Observational studies have linked work–family issues with cigarette consumption. This study examined the 6-month effects on cigarette consumption of a work–family supportive organisational intervention among nursing home workers.Methods Group randomised controlled trial where 30 nursing homes across New England states were randomly assigned to either usual practice or to a 4-month intervention aimed at reducing work–family conflict via increased schedule control and family supportive supervisory behaviours (FSSB). Cigarette consumption was based on self-reported number of cigarettes per week, measured at the individual level.Results A total of 1524 direct-care workers were enrolled in the trial. Cigarette consumption was prevalent in 30% of the sample, consuming an average of 77 cigarettes/week. Smokers at intervention sites reduced cigarette consumption by 7.12 cigarettes, while no reduction was observed among smokers at usual practice sites (b=−7.12, 95% CI −13.83 to −0.40, p<0.05) (d=−0.15). The majority of smokers were US-born White nursing assistants, and among this subgroup, the reduction in cigarette consumption was stronger (b=−12.77, 95% CI −22.31 to −3.22, p<0.05) (d=−0.27). Although the intervention prevented a decline in FSSB (d=0.08), effects on cigarette consumption were not mediated by FSSB.Conclusions Cigarette consumption was reduced among smokers at organisations where a work–family supportive intervention was implemented. This effect, however, was not explained by specific targets of the intervention, but other psychosocial pathways related to the work–family interface.Trial registration number NCT02050204; results.
Moen P, Kojola E, Kelly EL, Karakaya Y.
Men and Women Expecting to Work Longer: Do Changing Work Conditions Matter?. Work, Aging and Retirement [Internet]. 2016.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThis study investigates the effects of an organizational flexibility/support initiative on Boomers’ expectations of working longer. Most research on retirement planning is based on studies of earlier cohorts and may not capture the unique experiences of Boomers. We draw on U.S. data from the Work Family and Health Network’s randomized control study of an organizational redesign (called STAR) that offers employees greater control over when and where they work and greater supervisor support for their personal lives to investigate its relationship to the subsequent retirement expectations of 287 Boomer professionals and managers aged 50–64 in an information technology (IT) division of a large Fortune 500 corporation. We use multinomial logistic regression to assess whether being randomized to the STAR treatment is associated with Boomers expecting a later age of retiring and of exiting the workforce, as well as their subjective assessments of the probability of their working for pay at ages 65 and 67. We find that STAR predicts Boomers’ expectations of retiring later, but not expectations of age of exiting the workforce or of a postretirement encore job. Women respondents, working in the same IT jobs as men and with long tenure, nevertheless expect to retire earlier than their male colleagues. We draw on in-depth qualitative interviews to contextualize our results and promote understanding of how changes in the work environment might shape Boomers’ expectations of retirement. Findings suggest that initiatives like STAR promoting greater control and support could help organizations retain their older professional (in this case, IT) workforces.
Okechukwu CA, Kelly EL, Bacic J, DePasquale N, Hurtado DA, Kossek EE, Sembajwe G.
Supporting employees' work-family needs improves health care quality: Longitudinal evidence from long-term care. Social Science & Medicine [Internet]. 2016;157 :111 - 119.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Abstract We analyzed qualitative and quantitative data from U.S.-based employees in 30 long-term care facilities. Analysis of semi-structured interviews from 154 managers informed quantitative analyses. Quantitative data include 1214 employees' scoring of their supervisors and their organizations on family supportiveness (individual scores and aggregated to facility level), and three outcomes: (1), care quality indicators assessed at facility level (n = 30) and collected monthly for six months after employees' data collection; (2), employees' dichotomous survey response on having additional off-site jobs; and (3), proportion of employees with additional jobs at each facility. Thematic analyses revealed that managers operate within the constraints of an industry that simultaneously: (a) employs low-wage employees with multiple work-family challenges, and (b) has firmly institutionalized goals of prioritizing quality of care and minimizing labor costs. Managers universally described providing work-family support and prioritizing care quality as antithetical to each other. Concerns surfaced that family-supportiveness encouraged employees to work additional jobs off-site, compromising care quality. Multivariable linear regression analysis of facility-level data revealed that higher family-supportive supervision was associated with significant decreases in residents' incidence of all pressure ulcers (−2.62%) and other injuries (−9.79%). Higher family-supportive organizational climate was associated with significant decreases in all falls (−17.94%) and falls with injuries (−7.57%). Managers' concerns about additional jobs were not entirely unwarranted: multivariable logistic regression of employee-level data revealed that among employees with children, having family-supportive supervision was associated with significantly higher likelihood of additional off-site jobs (RR 1.46, 95%CI 1.08–1.99), but family-supportive organizational climate was associated with lower likelihood (RR 0.76, 95%CI 0.59–0.99). However, proportion of workers with additional off-site jobs did not significantly predict care quality at facility levels. Although managers perceived providing work-family support and ensuring high care quality as conflicting goals, results suggest that family-supportiveness is associated with better care quality.
Kossek EE, Piszczek MM, McAlpine KL, Hammer LB, Burke L.
Filling the Holes Work Schedulers As Job Crafters of Employment Practice in Long-Term Health Care. ILR Review [Internet]. 2016;Online.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Although work schedulers serve an organizational role influencing decisions about balancing conflicting stakeholder interests over schedules and staffing, scheduling has primarily been described as an objective activity or individual job characteristic. The authors use the lens of job crafting to examine how schedulers in 26 health care facilities enact their roles as they “fill holes” to schedule workers. Qualitative analysis of interview data suggests that schedulers expand their formal scope and influence to meet their interpretations of how to manage stakeholders (employers, workers, and patients). The authors analyze variations in the extent of job crafting (cognitive, physical, relational) to broaden role repertoires. They find evidence that some schedulers engage in rule-bound interpretation to avoid role expansion. They also identify four types of schedulers: enforcers, patient-focused schedulers, employee-focused schedulers, and balancers. The article adds to the job-crafting literature by showing that job crafting is conducted not only to create meaningful work but also to manage conflicting demands and to mediate among the competing labor interests of workers, clients, and employers.
Lippold MA, Davis KD, McHale SM, Almeida DM.
Daily parental knowledge of youth activities is linked to youth physical symptoms and HPA functioning. Journal of Family Psychology [Internet]. 2016;30 (2) :245-253.
Publisher's VersionAbstractConsiderable evidence documents linkages between parental knowledge of youth activities and youth risky behavior. We extended this research to determine whether parental knowledge was associated with youth physical health, including reports of physical symptoms (e.g., headaches, stomachaches) and a biomarker of hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis functioning (i.e., salivary cortisol levels). Participants were children of employees in the Information Technology division of a Fortune 500 company (N = 132, mean age youth = 13.39 years, 55% female) who participated in a daily diary study. Data were collected via telephone calls on 8 consecutive evenings. On 4 study days, cortisol samples were collected at 4 time points (waking, 30 min after waking, before dinner, bedtime). Multilevel models revealed that, at the between-person level, youth whose parents had higher average knowledge about their activities, exhibited lower bedtime cortisol levels. Furthermore, at the within-person level, on days when parents displayed more knowledge than usual (relative to their own 8-day average), youth had lower before-dinner cortisol than usual. Linkages between average parental knowledge and physical health symptoms were moderated by youth age: Younger but not older adolescents whose parents were more knowledgeable had fewer physical health symptoms, on average. A next step is to identify the processes that underlie these associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Lawson KM, Davis KD, McHale SM, Almeida DM, Kelly EL, King RB.
Effects of Workplace Intervention on Affective Well-Being in Employees’ Children. Developmental Psychology [Internet]. 2016.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Using a group-randomized field experimental design, this study tested whether a workplace intervention—designed to reduce work–family conflict—buffered against potential age-related decreases in the affective well-being of employees’ children. Daily diary data were collected from 9- to 17-year-old children of parents working in an information technology division of a U.S. Fortune 500 company prior to and 12 months after the implementation of the Support-Transform-Achieve-Results (STAR) workplace intervention. Youth (62 with parents in the STAR group, 41 in the usual-practice group) participated in 8 consecutive nightly phone calls, during which they reported on their daily stressors and affect. Well-being was indexed by positive and negative affect and affective reactivity to daily stressful events. The randomized workplace intervention increased youth positive affect and buffered youth from age-related increases in negative affect and affective reactivity to daily stressors. Future research should test specific conditions of parents’ work that may penetrate family life and affect youth well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
Moen P, Kelly EL, Lee S-R, Almeida DM, Kossek EE, Buxton OM.
Does a Flexibility/Support Organizational Initiative Improve High-Tech Employees’ Well-Being? Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network. American Sociological Review [Internet]. 2016;81 (1) :134-164.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
This study tests a central theoretical assumption of stress process and job strain models, namely that increases in employees’ control and support at work should promote well-being. To do so, we use a group-randomized field trial with longitudinal data from 867 information technology (IT) workers to investigate the well-being effects of STAR, an organizational intervention designed to promote greater employee control over work time and greater supervisor support for workers’ personal lives. We also offer a unique analysis of an unexpected field effect—a company merger—among workers surveyed earlier versus later in the study period, before or after the merger announcement. We find few STAR effects for the latter group, but over 12 months, STAR reduced burnout, perceived stress, and psychological distress, and increased job satisfaction, for the early survey group. STAR effects are partially mediated by increases in schedule control and declines in family-to-work conflict and burnout (an outcome and mediator) by six months. Moderating effects show that STAR benefits women in reducing psychological distress and perceived stress, and increases non-supervisory employees’ job satisfaction. This study demonstrates, with a rigorous design, that organizational-level initiatives can promote employee well-being.
Okechukwu CA, Bacic J, Velasquez E, Hammer LB.
Marginal structural modelling of associations of occupational injuries with voluntary and involuntary job loss among nursing home workers. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine [Internet]. 2016.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Objectives Qualitative studies have highlighted the possibility of job loss following occupational injuries for some workers, but prospective investigations are scant. We used a sample of nursing home workers from the Work, Family and Health Network to prospectively investigate association between occupational injuries and job loss.
Methods We merged data on 1331 workers assessed 4 times over an 18-month period with administrative data that include job loss from employers and publicly available data on their workplaces. Workers self-reported occupational injuries in surveys. Multivariable logistic regression models estimated risk ratios for the impact of occupational injuries on overall job loss, whereas multinomial models were used to estimate OR of voluntary and involuntary job loss. Use of marginal structural models allowed for adjustments of multilevel lists of confounders that may be time varying and/or on the causal pathway.
Results By 12 months, 30.3% of workers experienced occupational injury, whereas 24.2% experienced job loss by 18 months. Comparing workers who reported occupational injuries to those reporting no injuries, risk ratio of overall job loss within the subsequent 6 months was 1.31 (95% CI 0.93 to 1.86). Comparing the same groups, injured workers had higher odds of experiencing involuntary job loss (OR 2.19; 95% CI 1.27 to 3.77). Also, compared with uninjured workers, those injured more than once had higher odds of voluntary job loss (OR 1.95; 95% CI 1.03 to 3.67), while those injured once had higher odds of involuntary job loss (OR 2.19; 95% CI 1.18 to 4.05).
Conclusions Despite regulatory protections, occupational injuries were associated with increased risk of voluntary and involuntary job loss for nursing home workers.