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
Gerrit J.M. Treuren and Erich C. Fein
Work intensity causes employee stress. This paper demonstrates that off-the-job embeddedness (OffJE), a potential source of social support resources, buffers the negative effect…
Abstract
Purpose
Work intensity causes employee stress. This paper demonstrates that off-the-job embeddedness (OffJE), a potential source of social support resources, buffers the negative effect of work intensity on employee stress.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by conservation of resources (COR) and job embeddedness theory (JET), this paper reports on the moderated regression analysis of the survey responses of 385 adult employees from a variety of industries in Queensland, Australia, using a student-recruited sampling strategy.
Findings
Higher levels of work intensity were found to be associated with higher levels of employee stress. However, this effect was weaker for employees who had higher OffJE. In this sample, work intensity has no relationship with stress for employees who report OffJE beyond the 70th percentile.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates the positive role of outside workplace relationships embodied in OffJE on workplace employee experience, justifies employer work-life balance initiatives and community involvement, demonstrates the potential positive return for employer involvement in helping employees manage the experience of work intensity and contributes to the social support, COR and job embeddedness literature studies.