2011
O'Neill JW, Davis KD.
Work stress and well-being in the hotel industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 2011;30 (2) :385-390.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Employee stress is a significant issue in the hospitality industry, and it is costly for employers and employees alike. Although addressing and reducing stress is both a noble goal and is capable of resulting in expense reductions for employers, the nature and quantity of hospitality employee stress is not fully understood. The first aim of this study was to identify common work stressors in a sample of 164 managerial and hourly workers employed at 65 different hotels who were each interviewed for eight consecutive days. The two most common stressors were interpersonal tensions at work and overloads (e.g., technology not functioning). The second aim was to determine whether there were differences in the types and frequency of work stressors by job type (i.e., managers versus non-managers), gender, and marital status. Hotel managers reported significantly more stressors than hourly employees. There were no significant differences by gender or marital status. The third aim was to investigate whether the various stressors were linked to hotel employee health and work outcomes. More employee and coworker stressors were linked to more negative physical health symptoms. Also, interpersonal tensions at work were linked to lower job satisfaction and greater turnover intentions.
O'Neill JW.
Face Time in the Hotel Industry: An Exploration of What it is and Why it Happens. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. 2011;36 (4) :478-494.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Many hotel companies, and the hotel industry in general, have been cited as having a culture of face time, that is, a culture inducing its managers to spend considerable amounts of nonproductive time at work. This subject exploratory study seeks to provide greater understanding regarding this apparently common practice but understudied academic topic. This empirical study analyzes how and to what extent the culture of the hotel industry, and of specific lodging companies, relate to levels of face time. It also analyzes how differences in hotel location and size and differences in manager age and tenure affect the extent to which hotel managers report putting in nonproductive face time at work. © 2012 International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education.
Almeida DM, Davis KD.
Workplace flexibility and daily stress processes in hotel employees and their children. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 2011;638 :123-140.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThis research aims to understand the consequences of inadequate workplace flexibility through the lens of daily stress processes. Using a sample of hourly paid hotel employees with children ages 10 to 18 who participated in a daily diary study, the authors compared workers with low and high flexibility on stressor exposure, reactivity, and transmission. The findings showed a consistent pattern of hourly workers with low flexibility having greater exposure to work stressors in general and to workplace arguments in particular. Workers with low flexibility were also more emotionally and physically reactive to work stressors. There was some evidence of stressor transmission to children when parents had low flexibility. Increasing workplace flexibility could serve as a protective factor in exposure and reactivity to stressors experienced in daily life.
Moen P, Kelly EL, Hill R.
Does Enhancing Work-Time Control and Flexibility Reduce Turnover? A Naturally Occurring Experiment. Soc Probl. 2011;58 (1) :69-98.
AbstractWe investigate the turnover effects of an organizational innovation (ROWE-Results Only Work Environment) aimed at moving away from standard time practices to focus on results rather than time spent at work. To model rates of turnover, we draw on survey data from a sample of employees at a corporate headquarters (N = 775) and institutional records of turnover over eight months following the ROWE implementation. We find the odds of turnover are indeed lower for employees participating in the ROWE initiative, which offers employees greater work-time control and flexibility, and that this is the case regardless of employees' gender, age, or family life stage. ROWE also moderates the turnover effects of organizational tenure and negative home-to-work spillover, physical symptoms, and job insecurity, with those in ROWE who report these situations generally less likely to leave the organization. Additionally, ROWE reduces turnover intentions among those remaining with the corporation. This research moves the "opting-out" argument from one of private troubles to an issue of greater employee work-time control and flexibility by showing that an organizational policy initiative can reduce turnover.
Ertel KA, Berkman LF, Buxton OM.
Socioeconomic status, occupational characteristics, and sleep duration in African/Caribbean immigrants and US White health care workers. Sleep. 2011;34 (4) :509-18.
AbstractSTUDY OBJECTIVES: o advance our understanding of the interplay of socioeconomic factors, occupational exposures, and race/ethnicity as they relate to sleep duration. We hypothesize that non Hispanic African/Caribbean immigrant employees in long term health care have shorter sleep duration than non Hispanic white employees, and that low education, low income, and occupational exposures including night work and job strain account for some of the African/Caribbean immigrant-white difference in sleep duration.
DESIGN: Cross sectional
SETTING: Four extended care facilities in Massachusetts, United States
PARTICIPANTS: 340 employees in extended care facilities
MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Sleep duration was assessed with wrist actigraphy for a mean of 6.3 days. In multivariable regression modeling controlling for gender and age, African/Caribbean immigrants slept 64.4 fewer minutes (95% CI: -81.0, -47.9) per night than white participants; additional control for education and income reduced the racial gap to 50.9 minutes (-69.2, -32.5); additional control for the occupational factors of hours worked per week and working the night shift reduced the racial gap to 37.7 minutes (-57.8, -17.6).
CONCLUSIONS: his study provides support for the hypothesis that socioeconomic and occupational characteristics explain some of the African/ Caribbean immigrant-white difference in sleep duration in the United States, especially among health care workers.
Kossek EE, Michel JS.
Flexible work schedules. In: Handbook of industrial-organizational psychology. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association ; 2011. pp. 535–572.
Hammer LB, Kossek EE, Anger KW, Bodner T, Zimmerman KL.
Clarifying work-family intervention processes: the roles of work-family conflict and family-supportive supervisor behaviors. J Appl Psychol. 2011;96 (1) :134-50.
AbstractDrawing on a conceptual model integrating research on training, work–family interventions, and social support, we conducted a quasi-experimental field study to assess the impact of a supervisor training and self-monitoring intervention designed to increase supervisors' use of family-supportive supervisor behaviors. Pre- and postintervention surveys were completed, 9 months apart, by 239 employees at 6 intervention (N = 117) and 6 control (N = 122) grocery store sites. Thirty-nine supervisors in the 6 intervention sites received the training consisting of 1 hr of self-paced computer-based training, 1 hr of face-to-face group training, followed by instructions for behavioral self-monitoring (recording the frequency of supportive behaviors) to facilitate on-the-job transfer. Results demonstrated a disordinal interaction for the effect of training and family-to-work conflict on employee job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and physical health. In particular, for these outcomes, positive training effects were observed for employees with high family-to-work conflict, whereas negative training effects were observed for employees with low family-to-work conflict. These moderation effects were mediated by the interactive effect of training and family-to-work conflict on employee perceptions of family-supportive supervisor behaviors. Implications of our findings for future work–family intervention development and evaluation are discussed.
Kossek EE, Pichler S, Bodner T, Hammer LB.
WORKPLACE SOCIAL SUPPORT AND WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT: A META-ANALYSIS CLARIFYING THE INFLUENCE OF GENERAL AND WORK-FAMILY-SPECIFIC SUPERVISOR AND ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT. Pers Psychol. 2011;64 (2) :289-313.
AbstractThis article uses meta-analysis to develop a model integrating research on relationships between employee perceptions of general and work-family-specific supervisor and organizational support and work-family conflict. Drawing on 115 samples from 85 studies comprising 72,507 employees, we compared the relative influence of 4 types of workplace social support to work-family conflict: perceived organizational support (POS); supervisor support; perceived organizational work-family support, also known as family-supportive organizational perceptions (FSOP); and supervisor work-family support. Results show work-family-specific constructs of supervisor support and organization support are more strongly related to work-family conflict than general supervisor support and organization support, respectively. We then test a mediation model assessing the effects of all measures at once and show positive perceptions of general and work-family-specific supervisor indirectly relate to work-family conflict via organizational work-family support. These results demonstrate that work-family-specific support plays a central role in individuals' work-family conflict experiences.
O'Donnell EM, Ertel KA, Berkman LF.
Depressive symptoms in extended-care employees: children, social support, and work-family conditions. Issues Ment Health Nurs. 2011;32 (12) :752-65.
AbstractTo examine the relation between having a child aged 18 years and under in the home and employee depressive symptoms, we analyzed cross-sectional data from four extended care facilities in Boston, MA (n = 376 employees). Results show that having a child is associated with slightly higher depressive symptoms. The strength of this relationship in our models is attenuated with the inclusion of social support at home (β = 1.08 and β = 0.85, with and without support, respectively) and may differ by gender. We recommend that future research examine the role of parenting and social support in predicting employee mental health.
Moen P, Kelly EL, Tranby E, Huang Q.
Changing work, changing health: can real work-time flexibility promote health behaviors and well-being?. J Health Soc Behav. 2011;52 (4) :404-29.
AbstractThis article investigates a change in the structuring of work time, using a natural experiment to test whether participation in a corporate initiative (Results Only Work Environment; ROWE) predicts corresponding changes in health-related outcomes. Drawing on job strain and stress process models, we theorize greater schedule control and reduced work-family conflict as key mechanisms linking this initiative with health outcomes. Longitudinal survey data from 659 employees at a corporate headquarters shows that ROWE predicts changes in health-related behaviors, including almost an extra hour of sleep on work nights. Increasing employees' schedule control and reducing their work-family conflict are key mechanisms linking the ROWE innovation with changes in employees' health behaviors; they also predict changes in well-being measures, providing indirect links between ROWE and well-being. This study demonstrates that organizational changes in the structuring of time can promote employee wellness, particularly in terms of prevention behaviors.
Kelly EL, Moen P, Tranby E.
Changing Workplaces to Reduce Work-Family Conflict: Schedule Control in a White-Collar Organization. Am Sociol Rev. 2011;76 (2) :265-290.
AbstractWork-family conflicts are common and consequential for employees, their families, and work organizations. Can workplaces be changed to reduce work-family conflict? Previous research has not been able to assess whether workplace policies or initiatives succeed in reducing work-family conflict or increasing work-family fit. Using longitudinal data collected from 608 employees of a white-collar organization before and after a workplace initiative was implemented, we investigate whether the initiative affects work-family conflict and fit, whether schedule control mediates these effects, and whether work demands, including long hours, moderate the initiative's effects on work-family outcomes. Analyses clearly demonstrate that the workplace initiative positively affects the work-family interface, primarily by increasing employees' schedule control. This study points to the importance of schedule control for our understanding of job quality and for management policies and practices.
2010
Hammer LB, Zimmerman KL.
Quality of Work Life. In: Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Vol. 3. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Handbook in Psychology ; 2010. pp. 399-431.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThis chapter, with its focus on quality of work life, briefly reviews the history of work–family research (note that this term from here on is used generically to represent both workers with traditional and nontraditional families, as well as representing work–nonwork aspects of our lives more broadly), including work and leisure, demographic and workplace changes, and public policy developments in the United States. We discuss the research on work–family conflict and work–family enrichment, including antecedents, outcomes, and crossover effects extending to the family. This leads to a more recent discussion of work, family, and the community, followed by issues of work engagement and recovery stemming from work by our European colleagues. Implications of our current state of knowledge about work–life and quality of work–life issues for practicing managers and employing organizations are discussed throughout along with suggestions for future research in the field, including a call for more research on low-wage workers, health, cross-cultural issues, and efforts to push public policy in the direction of more support for workers and their families. We end the chapter with a proposed integrative systems model of the work–family interface that considers socioeconomic, legal, political, community, organizational, and family contextual factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved)
Kossek EE, Lewis S, Hammer LB.
Work—life initiatives and organizational change: Overcoming mixed messages to move from the margin to the mainstream. Human Relations. 2010;63 (1) :3-19.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
This article examines perspectives on employer work—life initiatives as potential organizational change phenomena. Work—life initiatives address two main organizational challenges: structural (flexible job design, human resource policies) and cultural (supportive supervisors, climate) factors. While work—life initiatives serve a purpose in highlighting the need for organizational adaptation to changing relationships between work, family, and personal life, we argue they usually are marginalized rather than mainstreamed into organizational systems. We note mixed consequences of work—life initiatives for individuals and organizations. While they may enable employees to manage work and caregiving, they can increase work intensification and perpetuate stereotypes of ideal workers. In order to advance the field, organizations and scholars need to frame both structural and cultural work—life changes as part of the core employment systems to enhance organizational effectiveness and not just as strategies to support disadvantaged, non-ideal workers. We conclude with an overview of the articles in this special issue.
Kelly EL, Ammons SK, Chermack K, Moen P.
GENDERED CHALLENGE, GENDERED RESPONSE: Confronting the Ideal Worker Norm in a White-Collar Organization. Gend Soc. 2010;24 (3) :281-303.
AbstractThis article integrates research on gendered organizations and the work-family interface to investigate an innovative workplace initiative, the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), implemented in the corporate headquarters of Best Buy, Inc. While flexible work policies common in other organizations "accommodate" individuals, this initiative attempts a broader and deeper critique of the organizational culture. We address two research questions: How does this initiative attempt to change the masculinized ideal worker norm? And what do women's and men's responses reveal about the persistent ways that gender structures work and family life? Data demonstrate the ideal worker norm is pervasive and powerful, even as employees begin critically examining expectations regarding work time that have historically privileged men. Employees' responses to ROWE are also gendered. Women (especially mothers) are more enthusiastic, while men are more cautious. Ambivalence about and resistance to change is expressed in different ways depending on gender and occupational status.
