Search results

The purpose of this paper is to review national experiences and policy initiatives within worksite eating in four Nordic countries, in order to compare the experiences and identify important lessons and needs for future research, experiments and governmental regulation.

The paper is based on national reviews of analyses of worksite eating and initiatives regarding policy, research and experiments in relation to worksite eating. The national experiences are compared.

The paper shows awareness in all four countries about the role of the worksite in the shaping of dietary habits of the employees and some experiments with healthier worksite eating schemes. Blue‐collar employees, employees with working hours outside normal working hours and employees with shifting worksites are likely to be offered less organised and less healthy food schemes. Worksites' experiments with healthier worksite eating schemes based on employee participation can change worksite eating substantially, including at blue‐collar worksites. However, the generalising of findings to other worksites not participating in the experiments seems limited. There is need for more research in the embedding of experiments.

The paper has value as the first cross‐national review covering four of the Nordic countries in the area of worksite eating and attempts to create healthier worksite eating. By combining research findings and policy initiatives from four countries, the paper gives access to a big pool of knowledge, which can inspire future research and policy initiatives, including future experiments and future governmental regulation.

The purpose of this study is to consider the potential use of social marketing to enhance safety compliance in a biomedical research laboratory.

This project used focus group discussions (n = 32) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) to gather information on occupational health and safety professionals’ perceptions of safety culture, knowledge of barriers and facilitators of safety at the worksite and insights on how to effectively communicate safety information to employees through a campaign effort.

Results outlined the barriers (e.g. structural obstacles, lack of awareness of policies, perception of occupational safety and health professionals as safety police) and facilitators (e.g. rapport building, partnering with formal leadership and demonstrating the value of services) of safety and safety communication.

Results from this work add to theoretical and practical knowledge regarding how risk may be effectively addressed by using social marketing and health behavior theories to promote voluntary adherence to existing rules and recommendations.

Realist evaluation seeks to answer the question of “what works for whom in which circumstances?” through developing and testing middle range theories (MRTs). MRTs are programme theories that outline how certain mechanisms of an intervention work in a specific context to bring about certain outcomes. In this paper, the authors tested an initial MRT about the mechanism of participation. The authors used evidence from a participatory organisational intervention in five worksites of a large multi-national organisation in the US food service industry.

Qualitative data from 89 process tracking documents and 24 post-intervention, semi-structured interviews with intervention stakeholders were analysed using template analysis.

The operationalised mechanism was partial worksite managers’ engagement with the research team. Six contextual factors (e.g. high workload) impaired participation, and one contextual factor (i.e. existing participatory practices) facilitated participation. Worksite managers’ participation resulted in limited improvement in their awareness of how working conditions can impact on their employees’ safety, health, and well-being. Based on these findings, the authors modified the initial MRT into an empirical MRT.

This paper contributes to the understanding of “what works for whom in which circumstances” regarding participation in organisational interventions.

Technology proliferation is on a movement to outpace an 18^th-century computing industry paradigm known as “Moore’s law.” This law establishes the rate of technological advancements. The premise of this edict is evident in our coupled workplace with the integration of an emerging technology known as Ambient Intelligence (Aml).

The modernization of the traditional office is designed to be collaborative and environment-friendly. Modernization is primarily due to ambient intelligence. “Opportunities for process and business improvements will derive from a “real-world Web” of smart objects and ambient intelligence, and from consumer-oriented trends such as Web business platforms, aesthetic design, and mobile robots as they move into the business world” (Fenn and Smith, 2005, para. 1). It is safe to reason that ambient intelligence is on a trendy trajectory in many business-oriented workplaces, worksites and workspaces. The business culture is inconspicuously changing before our eyes. Architects and designers are seamlessly incorporating this trend into their respective end-to-end processes of constructing new or retrofitting existing office spaces.

Its unnoticeably embedded adoption is in conference rooms, doorways, elevators, escalators, lighting, meeting rooms, phone displays, and walkways. As ambient technology naturally collides with the functional way an office professional interactively operates through a usual workday, its adaptation becomes seemingly smart and swift. The interesting facet of this technology is that one would not know it unless it was pointed out.

Although there are equipment and devices that offer a singular approach of being convenient and hands-free, there exist common misconceptions and unassuming annoyances that are in place as inherent issues. Once the work environment impedes productivity or natural flow of movement, we realize something is different. These differences align to the surrounding tangible and intangible cues. The information presented in this chapter will disclose the underlying issues at a practical level.

Closing the treatment gap in depression is vital to prevent people from losing their jobs. Delivering group-based interventions at work could reach more employees than delivering 1:1 interventions in a clinical setting. This study aims to redesign a Treatment Programme to make it more acceptable and accessible for employees with depression.

A mixed-methods exploratory sequential design with a high level of stakeholder consultation was used to redesign an interdisciplinary Work-focussed Relational Group CBT Treatment Programme for moderate-severe depression. Qualitative data from focus groups and quantitative data from a small feasibility study were integrated to develop the new Training (and Staff Support) Programme (TSSP), which was fully specified and manualised in line with the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) for future delivery.

Focus groups identified a need for improved acceptability and accessibility of the tertiary preventative Work-focussed Relational Group CBT Treatment Programme. This programme was, therefore, simplified for delivery by peer facilitators at the worksite as an intervention for all employees rather than an indicated/targeted intervention for only those with symptoms/risk of depression. The TSSP comprised a compulsory trauma-informed educational/experiential workshop over four days plus optional open-ended, peer-led base groups set up and run by volunteer peer facilitators.

The focus groups comprised a convenience sample who knew the researchers as a colleague or therapist, so there is a risk of selection or relationship bias. They were not involved in the data analysis which undermines the element of co-production and increases the risk of analytic or confirmation bias.

Delivering the new intervention in a group format will require peer facilitators to acquire skills in co-facilitation using a structured-directive leadership style and an awareness of the potential side effects of group-based interventions.

The worksite TSSP provides a democratic learning space and empowers employees to stay at work by self-managing their symptoms and by challenging the interpersonal dynamics and organisational structures that might precipitate and perpetuate depression.

This intervention is fully specified and manualised with an explicit programme theory, unlike most universal worksite-based CBT programmes.

The purpose of this article is to determine safety culture indicators that can improve the health and safety performance of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) contractors in Ghana.

A three-round Delphi method was used. The first round consisted of 31 experts out of which 18 of them rated their agreements with a set of 87 potential safety culture indicators using a 10-point Likert scale of importance (1 = important and 10 = very important) and the 16 experts who completed the final round were given the opportunity to suggest other indicators. The 87 indicators were categorised into 14 core health and safety elements. Indicators that attained a group median value of 5–10 for 50% or more expert ratings were accepted.

At the end of the third round, a consensus was reached on the indicators when they attracted median scores of 5–10 for at least 50% or more of the health and safety experts rated the indicators between 5 and 10. Out of a total of 87 indicators at the start of the Delphi process, the consensus was reached on 70 that were retained.

The health and safety experts were not given the opportunity to add new indicators to the structured questionnaire until the third round.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to have a consensus by health and safety experts on leading indicator metrics of positive culture of construction safety in Ghana for improved SME construction company’s health and safety performance in Ghana. If these indicators are adopted and used effectively in Ghana, they would ensure positive culture of construction safety and subsequently help to protect construction workers.

The paper's aim is, in a framework of intellectual capital (IC), to study the interactions of a worksite fitness program (WFP) policy with a multidisciplinary approach in an IT‐company of 220 employees.

In a five years follow‐up setting, the associations of physical activity and the company's worksite fitness policy (WFP) effects on different elements of IC were studied. Qualitative methods were applied in constructing indicators and a scorecard type IC measure.

In a cross‐sectional and follow‐up setting, several findings with respect to IC were observed regarding physical activity in general and activity in WFP in particular. The findings were relatively strong regarding health‐ and wellness‐related indicators as part of human capital, where also relational capital indicators such as project feedback, revealed positive associations. Overall, WFP was seen to be an integrated part of structural capital.

This case study was carried out in Finland, where the traditions of WFP are relatively long. This will, to some extent, restrict the implications of the results in countries or business cultures where WFP is not general.

The results emphasize first the need for company specific IC measures, and second the importance of humane, soft management procedures (like WFP) in developing a company's IC.

The paper is the first to examine the relations of IC and WFP and will thus provide new insights in developing a company specific IC.

The central purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that managers of several IT companies, during the dot‐com bubble, used the myths that were readily available in the wider American culture of the time to motivate and manipulate their employees. These managers motivated their employees to put in long hours at the worksite, to be continually on‐call, to intensify their work pace, and to self police their co‐programming teams. The methods used were qualitative social research including interviews, observations, self‐reported organizational charts and time diaries. This is a single case study conducted during a specific period of time. The implications discussed in this paper may provide insight to the managers of IT personnel who seek to motivate their employees to greater efficiency. This paper adds to a discussion on the role of myth in managing IT personnel.

This paper aims to report on a study that used the practice theory lens to understand how Chinese ethnic culture influences restaurant workers' learning through engagement in everyday work practices.

A multiple case study approach was used. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews and site observations. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify how workers learnt the sayings, doings and relatings in their workplaces.

The findings show that the ethnic culture of the participants influences and enriches their learning in practice settings such as small Chinese restaurants.

The understandings presented here need to be verified through more research in different regions and nations. In addition, cross-cultural studies on other ethnic restaurants may contribute to deeper understandings of the influences of ethnic culture on practice-based learning.

The research contributes to understanding the influence of ethnic culture on practice-based learning.

The understandings gained from the findings of this study form a useful basis for curriculum development and instructional design of training programmes for practice-based as well as work-integrated-learning components of vocational curriculum. Furthermore, awareness of the strengths of the ethnic culture is of interest to owner/managers of small Chinese restaurants to afford supportive learning environments for workers.