Search results
1 – 10 of over 44000Eunhwa Yang, Yujin Kim and Sungil Hong
This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a survey targeting workers in the USA recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 1,651 responses were collected and 648 responses were used for the analysis.
Findings
The perceived work-life balance improved during the pandemic compared to before, while the balance of physical boundaries between the workplace and home decreased. Workplace flexibility, environmental conditions of home offices and organizational supports are positively associated with productivity, satisfaction with working from home and work-life balance during the pandemic.
Research limitations/implications
While the strict traditional view of “showing” up in the office from Monday through Friday is likely on the decline, the hybrid workplace with flexibility can be introduced as some activities are not significantly affected by the work location, either at home-based or corporate offices. The results of this study also highlight the importance of organizations to support productivity and satisfaction in the corporate office as well as home. With the industry collaboration, future research of relatively large sample sizes and study sites, investigating workers’ needs and adapted patterns of use in home-based and corporate offices, will help corporate real estate managers make decisions and provide some level of standardization of spatial efficiency and configurations of corporate offices as well as essential supports for home offices.
Originality/value
The pandemic-enforced working-from-home practices awaken the interdependence between corporate and home environments, how works are done and consequently, the role of the physical workplace. This study built a more in-depth understanding of how workers who were able to continue working from home during COVID-19 changed or not changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
Details
Keywords
Valerie J. Morganson, Debra A. Major, Kurt L. Oborn, Jennifer M. Verive and Michelle P. Heelan
The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in work‐life balance (WLB) support, job satisfaction, and inclusion as a function of work location.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine differences in work‐life balance (WLB) support, job satisfaction, and inclusion as a function of work location.
Design/methodology/approach
Web‐based survey data were provided by 578 employees working at one of four locations (main office, client location, satellite office, and home). Multiple regression analyses were used to identify differences in WLB support, job satisfaction, and inclusion across employees working at the four locations.
Findings
Results showed that main office and home‐based workers had similar high levels of WLB support and job satisfaction. Main office workers reported higher levels of WLB support than satellite and client‐based workers. Additionally, main office workers reported the highest levels of workplace inclusion.
Research limitations/ implications
Data were originally gathered for practical purposes by the organization. The research design does not allow for manipulation or random assignment, therefore extraneous variables may have impacted the observed relationships.
Practical implications
Allowing employees flexibility in choosing their work locations is related to positive outcomes. The authors suggest several practices for the effective implementation of alternative work arrangements.
Originality/value
This paper is among the first to examine the outcomes of telework across locations. It uses a large single organization and a quasi‐experimental design, enhancing the validity of the findings.
Details
Keywords
Nicole Shepherd, Tom Meehan and Seiji Humphries
The concept of recovery is well accepted internationally as a guiding vision for mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges faced by in-home…
Abstract
Purpose
The concept of recovery is well accepted internationally as a guiding vision for mental health services. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges faced by in-home psychiatric support workers in implementing this vision in their work with clients with severe psychiatric disability.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings reported here are based on interviews with 27 support workers and ten managers of organisations providing support services. These were collected as part of evaluations of two supported housing programmes carried out between 2010 and 2011.
Findings
Challenges faced by support workers coalesced around two areas: first, balancing the need to provide care with the need to promote autonomy and second, developing an effective working relationship while working mainly within a clients’ home.
Practical implications
These challenges for support workers highlight tensions within the recovery vision that are not easily resolved. To ensure high quality, recovery-oriented care services are provided, support workers need access to training courses that focus on challenging areas of this work and should be provided with regular professional supervision.
Originality/value
Existing literature on support workers has generally focused on the nature of the role and support worker interactions with other health workers. In this paper, the authors highlight difficulties faced by support workers in implementing the vision of recovery in their work. The paper provides important information for policy makers and managers who are designing service delivery systems that aim to promote recovery.
Details
Keywords
Mª Ángeles Minguela-Recover, Consuelo López-Fernández, José Antonio López-Sánchez and Juan Manuel Picardo-García
This study aims to analyze the well-being experience of home care workers regardless of the service management model. It also aims to analyze their emotional experiences of their…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the well-being experience of home care workers regardless of the service management model. It also aims to analyze their emotional experiences of their activity and working conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study, using a mixed qualitative and quantitative analysis, allows a combined analysis for a better understanding of the well-being experience of home care workers.
Findings
Home care workers experience intrinsic job satisfaction and demonstrate this with positive emotions regardless of their work situation.
Practical implications
Caring for the carer should be a business value. Measures oriented toward workers’ comfort generate greater happiness and commitment, which is automatically transferred to the quality of the care provided and reduces the psychosocial risks of their professional activity.
Social implications
Visualizing the social reality of an essential profession through research generates verifiable evidence that will help to improve the working conditions of home care workers in Spain.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this pioneering study in Spain introduces a greater understanding of how home care workers in Spain experience their work reality.
Details
Keywords
Emily Franzosa and Emma K. Tsui
Paid and unpaid care in the home are closely intertwined, but a lack of outside supervision and support often forces paid and unpaid caregivers to negotiate care tasks…
Abstract
Paid and unpaid care in the home are closely intertwined, but a lack of outside supervision and support often forces paid and unpaid caregivers to negotiate care tasks, responsibilities, and boundaries alone, leading to role conflict and role ambiguity. This analysis draws on two existing qualitative studies of home health aides (S1 n = 27, S2 n = 26) to better understand aides’ perceptions of their relationships with family caregivers by exploring (1) aides’ perceptions of their caretaking role; (2) aides’ perceptions of co-producing care with family members; and (3) factors affecting these perceptions. Data were analyzed through grounded theory and thematic analysis. We found that aides viewed themselves and their clients as the core care “team” and identified three relationship dynamics with family caregivers: independent, where aides and families provided care separately; competitive, where aides and families struggled over control of care tasks; and carative, where aides considered family part of the unit of care. The authors propose strategies, suggested by our participants, for employer agencies to better support paid and unpaid caregivers in negotiating boundaries and co-producing care in the home care setting.
Details
Keywords
Graeme Edward Payne and Greg Fisher
Following a recent government initiated change to a consumer-directed care model across the Australian community aged care sector, the purpose of this paper is to explore…
Abstract
Purpose
Following a recent government initiated change to a consumer-directed care model across the Australian community aged care sector, the purpose of this paper is to explore frontline home support workers’ perceptions of relational changes with clients in power and subordination within the triadic relationship between employer, employee and client.
Design/methodology/approach
Contextual interviews were held with managers (n=4), coordinators (n=10) and semi-structured face-to-face interviews with support workers (n=17) in three organizations. Interview transcripts were analyzed.
Findings
Some workers did not perceive a power change in their relationships with clients. Others perceived minimal change but were concerned about the incoming client generation (baby boomers) that were more aware of their rights. Others felt subordinated to the client, perceived a loss of control or that felt treated like an employee of the client. Consistent with the philosophy of consumer-directed care, senior staff encouraged clients to treat workers in this way.
Research limitations/implications
Further research is recommended on worker and client perceptions of relationships within the context of a consumer or client focused model.
Practical implications
A clear and realistic understanding of the locus of power within a triadic relationship by all actors is important for positive workplace outcomes.
Social implications
The increasing ageing population makes it essential that workers’ relationships with clients and with their organization are unambiguous.
Originality/value
This study makes a contribution to theories about change and power transfer in the implementation of consumer-directed care through the perceptions of support workers. Examination of power and subordination transfer through the perceptions of the actors of rather than through the prism of organizational policy deepens the understanding of frontline service work and relationships.
Details
Keywords
Kim Price-Glynn and Carter Rakovski
This chapter explores variation in direct care workers’ health risks within institutional and home-based settings, according to the demographic composition of workers and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter explores variation in direct care workers’ health risks within institutional and home-based settings, according to the demographic composition of workers and the gendered, raced, and citizenship-based expressions of their work roles.
Methodology/Approach
This quantitative intersectional study draws on two nationwide datasets from the US National Center for Long-term Care Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Nursing Assistant Study (NNAS), and National Home Health Aide Survey (NHHAS).
Findings
Workplace context was the strongest predictor of workers’ health risks and working conditions. Physical injuries affected more than half of facility-based workers annually compared to less than 10% of home-based workers. Facility-based workers are more likely to report insufficient time for tasks, lower job satisfaction, and less respect and appreciation from patients. Home-based workers may be more likely to experience emotional distress, be offered fewer benefits, but experience fewer injuries, due to the better relative health of their patients and having more time for client care. Women reported more injuries and more time pressure than men across racial and citizenship groups within the same work setting.
Research Limitations/Implications
There are limitations to the NHHAS and NNAS public-release data file data. We are unable to fully capture citizenship, some racial/ethnic categories, workers over age 65, supervisory workers, facilities with fewer than three residents, and facilities not certified with Medicare or Medicaid. The exclusion of these questions, workers, and contexts is a weakness of the present study.
Originality/Value of Paper
Analyses draw on data from the first nationally representative sample surveys of home health aides and nursing assistants in the United States. Direct care workers are an important population to capture through intersectional research since care work is done predominantly by multiracial women and immigrants. This research also underscores the importance of workplace contexts in shaping the labor performed and the workers’ experiences.
Details
Keywords
James Chowhan, Margaret Denton, Catherine Brookman, Sharon Davies, Firat K. Sayin and Isik Zeytinoglu
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of stress between work intensification and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) focusing on personal support workers (PSWs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of stress between work intensification and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) focusing on personal support workers (PSWs) in home and community care.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis sample of 922 comes from the 2015 survey of PSWs employed in Ontario, Canada. The endogenous variable is self-reported MSDs, and the exogenous variable is work intensification. Stress, measured as symptoms of stress, is the mediating variable. Other factors shown in the literature as associated with stress and/or MSDs are included as control variables. Structural equation model regression analyses are presented.
Findings
The results show that stress mediates the effect of work intensification on PSW’s MSDs. Other significant factors included being injured in the past year, facing hazards at work and preferring less hours – all had positive and significant substantive effects on MSDs.
Research limitations/implications
The survey is cross-sectional and not longitudinal or experimental in design, and it focuses on a single occupation in a single sector in Ontario, Canada and, as such, this can limit the generalizability of the results to other occupations and sectors.
Practical implications
For PSW employers including their human resource managers, supervisors, schedulers and policy-makers, the study recommends reducing work intensification to lower stress levels and MSDs.
Originality/value
The findings of this study contribute to the theory and knowledge by providing evidence on how work intensification can affect workers’ health and assist decision makers in taking actions to create healthy work environments.
Details
Keywords
This study, using a comprehensive job demand–resources (JD-R) model, aims to explore the pressures of workload, work–life interface and subsequent impacts on employee stress and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study, using a comprehensive job demand–resources (JD-R) model, aims to explore the pressures of workload, work–life interface and subsequent impacts on employee stress and job satisfaction, with implications for employee job performance, in the context of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional sample of employees at seven universities (n = 4,497) and structural equation path analysis regression models are used for the analyses.
Findings
The results show that a partial mediation JD-R model was supported, where job demands (such as workload and actual hours worked) and job resources (including expectations, support and job security) have relationships with work interference with personal life and personal life interference with work. These have subsequent negative path relationships with stress. Further, stress is negatively related to job satisfaction, and job satisfaction is positively related to employee job performance.
Practical implications
Potential policy implications include mitigation approaches to addressing some of the negative impacts on workers and to enhance the positive outcomes. Timely adjustments to job demands and resources can aid in sustaining balance for workers in an uncertain and fluid environmental context.
Originality/value
This study makes a contribution to knowledge by capturing sentiments on working arrangements, perceived changes and associated outcomes during a key period within the COVID-19 pandemic while being one of the rare studies to focus on a comprehensive JD-R model and a unique context of highly educated workers' transition to working from home.
Details
Keywords
Caroline Murphy and Thomas Turner
The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there…
Abstract
Purpose
The undervaluing of care work, whether conducted informally or formally, has long been subject to debate. While much discussion, and indeed reform has centred on childcare, there is a growing need, particularly in countries with ageing populations, to examine how long-term care (LTC) work is valued. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the way in which employment policies (female labour market participation, retirement age, and precarious work) and social policies (care entitlements and benefits/leave for carers) affect both informal carers and formal care workers in a liberal welfare state with a rapidly ageing population.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing the adult worker model the authors use the existing literature on ageing care and employment to examine the approach of a liberal welfare state to care work focusing on both supports for informal carers and job quality in the formal care sector.
Findings
The research suggests that employment policies advocating increased labour participation, delaying retirement and treating informal care as a form of welfare are at odds with LTC strategies which encourage informal care. Furthermore, the latter policy acts to devalue formal care roles in an economic sense and potentially discourages workers from entering the formal care sector.
Originality/value
To date research investigating the interplay between employment and LTC policies has focused on either informal or formal care workers. In combining both aspects, we view informal and formal care workers as complementary, interdependent agents in the care process. This underlines the need to develop social policy regarding care and employment which encompasses the needs of each group concurrently.
Details