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The effects of lean on employees have been debated ever since the concept was introduced. The purpose of this paper is to review the scientific literature on the effects of lean on the working environment and employee health and well‐being.

Relevant databases were searched for studies of lean and the working environment. In total, 11 studies with quantitative effects of lean are included in this review. The methodology and results are analysed to extract information about lean and the effects on working environment.

There is strong evidence for the negative impact of lean on both the working environment and employee health and well‐being in cases of manual work with low complexity. However, since examples of positive effects were also found in the literature, it is important to move from a simple cause‐and‐effect model to a more comprehensive model that understands lean as an open and ambiguous concept, which can have both positive and negative effects depending on the actual lean practice used on the shop floor.

The evidence remains limited with regard to the effect of lean on the working environment outside of manufacturing industry. The literature reflects, only to a limited extent, on the significance of implementation strategy and production context.

Organizations working with lean should make efforts to avoid an impaired working environment for manual employees. Involvement of employees in lean's practical application is one possible way of developing a healthy working environment.

This is the first paper to make use of the existing research evidence to examine the complex and ambiguous relations between lean and the working environment.

The purpose of this paper is to present the importance of a healthy working environment and approaches to establish a healthy working environment of older employees and their impact on work engagement of older employees. The working environment that is not suitable and adapted for older employees presents a big challenge for Slovenian and other companies in which the work force is getting older. Hence, this paper develops a model of a healthy working environment for older employees, in which they could feel well because of its positive affect on their health.

The research method in this paper was the descriptive-correlative type. After a systematic review of literature, which relates to this topic, the authors used the compilation method. In addition to descriptive statistics, factor analysis and regression analysis were used in this paper.

Considering the demographic changes and active ageing in the workplace, age diversity of employees has to become a part of the general strategy of a company to ensure equality and diversity. Adequate working conditions, which should exist in every company, contribute to the improvement of healthy working environment for older employees and their work-engagement. This paper presents that approaches to establish a healthy working environment of older employees have a positive impact on work-engagement of older employees.

The stated findings will help companies to better understand and manage their older employees and the importance of establishing a healthy working environment for older employees with which the work-engagement of older employees can be improved. Socially responsible behavior benefits all in this way, too.

This paper is based on forming a research model for creating a healthy working environment for older employees as a part of social responsibility. The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of establishment of a healthy working environment for older employees on the work engagement of older employees in Slovenia.

A postal National Survey of the workforce in Ireland (N = 1057) found that six per cent of respondents claimed to have been bullied frequently, with a further 17 per cent bullied occasionally, over the previous 12 months. Of those who had been bullied, 67 per cent described the style of leadership in their organizations as autocratic, 15 per cent as laissez-faire, and 18 per cent as democratic. Whilst 72 per cent of non-bullied respondents reported that their working environment was friendly, only 47 per cent of bullied respondents reported that their working environment was friendly. Furthermore, 39 per cent of bullied respondents claimed to work in a hostile environment. There were significant differences between bullied and non-bullied respondents with regard to working conditions, with the exception of the level of challenge, and significant differences in all aspects of the perceived working climate, with the exception of a variable atmosphere.

Medical errors in obstetric departments are commonly reported and may involve both mother and neonate. The complexity of obstetric care, the interactions between various disciplines, and the inherent limitations of human performance make it critically important for these departments to provide patient-safe and friendly working environments that are open to learning and participative safety. Obstetric care involves stressful work, and health care professionals are prone to develop burnout, this being associated with unsafe practices and lower probability for reporting safety concerns. This study aims to test the mediating role of burnout in the relationship of patient-safe and friendly working environment with unsafe performance. The full population of professionals working in an obstetrics department in Malta was invited to participate in a cross-sectional study, with 73.6% (n = 184) of its members responding. The research tool was adapted from the Sexton et al.’s Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – Labor and Delivery version and surveyed participants on their working environment, burnout, and perceived unsafe performance. Analysis was done using Structural Equation Modeling. Results supported the relationship between the lack of a perceived patient-safe and friendly working environment and unsafe performance that is mediated by burnout. Creating a working environment that ensures patient safety practices, that allows communication, and is open to learning may protect employees from burnout. In so doing, they are more likely to perceive that they are practicing safely. This study contributes to patient safety literature by relating working environment, burnout, and perceived unsafe practice with the intention of raising awareness of health managers’ roles in ensuring optimal clinical working environment for health care employees.

The purpose of this paper is to study how contact centre employees rationalize the perceived problems of an open plan contact centre environment.

The paper applies a framework of four different orientations towards the working environment: the object orientation, system orientation, people orientation and territory orientation. Interviews in three contact centre environments with 28 interviewees were carried out, in order to test whether the framework could be used to analyse the ways the contact centre employees rationalize their working environment. The data were analysed with a qualitative content analysis.

It was possible to find four ways to rationalize the working environment from the speech of the contact centre employees: object‐oriented, system‐oriented, people‐oriented and territory‐oriented rationalization. Persons with the same dominant way of rationalization had internally coherent ways of constructing the reality of their workplace and a common way to justify the existing spatial solutions.

This research is limited to the insights of 28 contact centre workers. Their experiences of their working environment were studied without an attempt to objectively assess whether the problems they named were real or not. The results are not generalizable in the traditional statistical sense.

The research on workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context is limited. Contact centre work is demanding but the physical working environment can be used to minimize the negative consequences of these demands. Thus, it is important to raise understanding of the workplace‐related issues in a contact centre context.

The purpose of this paper is to fill important gaps by using the attachment theory and examining the effects of supervisors’ early family environment on their behaviors toward subordinates and subordinates’ responses.

The authors used samples of 334 supervisor–subordinate pairs from a manufacturing company.

The study finds that supervisors’ harmonious family environment has a positive influence on subordinates’ responses (job satisfaction, work-to-family enrichment and task performance) through the effect of supervisors’ positive working model and caregiving behavior. On the contrast, supervisors’ conflicting family environment has a negative influence on subordinates’ responses through the effect of supervisors’ negative working model and aggressive behavior.

Existing studies mainly explore the influence of organizational environment on supervisors’ treatment of their subordinates. However, few have examined the relationship between supervisors’ early family environment and their treatment of their subordinates.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reveal the relationship between perceived bullying and the features of a favourable working environment; and second, to indicate bullying factors that especially worsen the working environment and working environment factors that contribute to the bullying experiences.

In Spring 2014, 864 staff members—including teachers, researchers, administrators, project workers and service staff—from nine Estonian universities answered an e-mail questionnaire.

It was revealed that “professional understating”, “unreasonable work-related demands” and “work-related malpractice” are forms of bullying that negatively affect the working atmosphere. “Appreciation”, “vertical trust”, “predictability” and “quality of leadership” are working environment factors that contribute to the experiences of bullying. Experiences of “professional understating” seem to reduce feelings related to all features of a favourable working atmosphere. A lack of “appreciation” appears to be a key environment feature that also plays a role in workplace bullying.

In Estonian universities, first, “professional understating” negatively affects the feelings of “appreciation”; in contrast, a lack of “appreciation” contributes to feelings of “professional understating”. Second, “unreasonable work-related demands” is a sign of a shortage of “vertical trust” and the opposite of “trust” between management and employees, which obviously decreases perceived “workload”. The present results can be applied in at least three contexts: cultural and institutional studies, leadership practices and personal work control.

The detailed examination showed that it is possible to reveal certain bullying factors that specifically affect certain environment factors and find out particular working environment features that contribute specifically to certain kinds of bullying.

Although the role of the internal competitive work environment is important, it remains understudied in a business-to-business (B2B) selling context. Grounded in job-demands resources theory, this study aims to investigate the relationships between internal competitive work environment, working smart, emotional exhaustion and sales performance.

Data were gathered from 147 salespeople working for a financial service firm. Sales performance ratings were reported by supervisors. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

This study finds dual effects of the internal competitive work environment on salesperson’s job outcomes. Although such an environment improves working smart behaviors, which increases sales performance, it also increases emotional exhaustion, which reduces sales performance.

This study extends job-demands resources theory by proposing internal competitive work environment as a challenge demand and extends the theory by proposing that a salesperson’s time management skills as a personal resource that may reduce such environment’s deleterious effects.

Sales managers should consider the complex nature of increasing competition within the organization and assess the ability of their workforce to effectively manage their time. Training programs that develop time management skills should also be promoted.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to consider the multifaceted effects of the internal competitive work environment in a B2B sales context. By focusing on the duality of the work environment, this study provides a greater understanding of the influences of organizational factors on sales performance.

The paper aims to explore the relationship between office occupier work activity and workplace provision. It tests the proposition that location-fixed office workers are not well-supported in the working environment as location-flexible office workers. The research also explores the perceptions of the workplace provision based upon the types of tasks completed at the desk-location, whether this was collaborative or focussed.

The research adopts a cross-sectional approach using an online questionnaire to collect data from several offices in the Middles East. The dataset consists of 405 responses. One-way analysis of variance was conducted to understand the relationship between location flexibility and perception of productivity. In addition, a series of t test were used to evaluate the relationship between work activities and office environment.

The results show that those workers who were location-fixed perceived the workplace provision to have a more negative impact on their productivity than those who had a greater level of location-flexibility, particularly with regards to noise levels and interruptions. In terms of types of activities, those that undertook more collaborative tasks valued the facilitation of creativity and interaction from the workplace provision.

The research has limitations as data collection was at one-point in time and therefore lacks the opportunity to undertake longitudinal analysis. However, the research gives greater insights into the alignment of office environments based on flexibility and work activity.

The paper identifies implications for the design and development of office environments by identifying the need for office occupier activity profiles. These profiles can underpin data-led design which should promote a tailored choice appropriate work setting that can maximise productivity.

This paper contributes to the research area of workplace alignment. It establishes that optimal workplace alignment requires a better understanding of office occupier needs based on location-flexibility and work activity.

Work environments are undergoing a transition and COVID-19 accelerated this change. Prior studies have associated various physical, digital and social work environment elements with occupational well-being. However, holistic approaches to the social work environment to compare the effects of the different elements have received less attention. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship of various social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being. The findings help organizations design their work environments and cultures for the post-COVID era.

The study builds on a quantitative survey with 1,057 respondents. The respondents were randomly selected, the answers were anonymous and the results were based on regression analysis.

The analysis indicated that working methods and practices, leadership and management practices, organizational communality and social interaction associate with hybrid worker well-being. Organizational values, reward systems and organizational structures yield no association with hybrid worker well-being.

The value of this paper is in that it investigates elements of the social work environment, presents a research model that examines the relationship of social work environment elements with hybrid worker well-being and provides new empirical data on their implications in a comparative manner.