Workplace wellness programs can cut chronic illness costs

January 6, 2014
Science Daily/RAND Corporation
Workplace wellness programs have the potential to reduce health risks and cut health care spending, but employers and policymakers should not take for granted that the lifestyle management components of the programs can reduce costs or lead to savings overall.

Examining a large employee wellness program offered by PepsiCo, researchers found that efforts to help employees manage chronic illnesses saved $3.78 in health care costs for every $1 invested in the effort.

However, the program's lifestyle management components that encourage healthy living did not deliver returns that were higher than the costs. The results are published in the January edition of the journal Health Affairs.

"The PepsiCo program provides a substantial return for the investment made in helping employees manage chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease," said Dr. Soeren Mattke, the study's senior author and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "But the lifestyle management component of the program -- while delivering benefits -- did not provide more savings than it cost to offer."

RAND researchers say that with any prevention effort, it is often easier to achieve cost savings in people with higher baseline spending, as found among those who participated in the PepsiCo disease management program. Interestingly, the disease management participants who also joined the lifestyle management program experienced significantly higher savings, which suggests that proper targeting can improve the financial performance of lifestyle management programs.

"While workplace wellness programs have the potential to reduce health risks and cut health care spending, employers and policymakers should not take for granted that the lifestyle management components of the programs can reduce costs or lead to savings overall," Mattke said.

Workplace health and wellness programs are becoming an increasingly common workplace benefit in the United States. The federal Affordable Care Act has several provisions designed to promote such efforts as a way to lower health care costs.

A recent RAND study conducted for the U.S. Department of Labor found that about half of U.S. employers with at least 50 workers and more than 90 percent of those with more than 50,000 workers offered a wellness program during 2012.

The current RAND study provides an assessment of over seven years of PepsiCo's Healthy Living wellness program. The program includes numerous components, including health risk assessments, on-site wellness events, lifestyle management, disease management, complex care management and a nurse advice phone line. The study evaluated the experiences of more than 67,000 workers who were eligible for the disease management or lifestyle management programs.

Researchers found that the disease management program reduced costs among participants by $136 per member per month, or $1,632 annually, driven by a 29 percent drop in hospital admissions. Among people who participated in both the disease management and lifestyle management programs, the savings were $160 per month with a 66 percent drop in hospital admissions.

People who participated in the lifestyle management program reported a small reduction in absenteeism, but there was no significant effect on health care costs.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140106190145.htm

Want a Better Work-Life Balance? Exercise

January 9, 2014
Science Daily/Dick Jones Communications
Researchers have found that exercise plays a role in how individuals feel they can manage their work-life balance.

"Individuals who exercised regularly were more confident they could handle the interaction of their work and home life and were less likely to be stressed at work," said Russell Clayton, assistant professor of management at Saint Leo University and lead author on the paper.

Conflict between work and home can be categorized in two ways. Work interference with family describes typical job-based pressures that can lead to interference (either time or psychologically) of family time. Family interference with work is when personal issues find a way into the workday and compete with "work time." Researchers wanted to find if exercise helped both.

Previous studies have shown that exercise helps to reduce stress. A previous study examined Tai Chi exercise programs over 12 weeks. Another study looked at high-intensity aerobic exercise. Both showed reductions of self-reported stress. What researchers didn't know is if the reduction of stress actually helped empower individuals to feel they had better work-life balance.

"The idea sounds counterintuitive. How is it that adding something else to our work day helps to alleviate stress and empower us to deal with work-family issues? We think exercise is a way to psychologically detach from work -- you're not there physically and you're not thinking about it either -- and, furthermore, it can help us feel good about ourselves."

Researchers examined responses of 476 working adults to survey questions. Respondents were asked on a four-point scale (1 never -- 4 always) questions about exercise behavior. For example, "I exercise more than three days a week." Respondents were then asked a number of questions on a 7-point scale (strongly disagree -- strongly agree) about their confidence in handling work-family conflicts.
"Our findings suggest that employers can help employees with work-life balance by encouraging them to exercise."

These findings are forthcoming in Human Resource Management. Researchers were from Saint Leo University, Saint Louis University, University of Houston -- Victoria and Illinois State University.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140109101742.htm

Correctional officer stress studied: Conflicts between work, family life common

February 20, 2014
Science Daily/Sam Houston State University
Conflicts between work and family life were the most significant issues that affect work stress and job satisfaction among correctional officers, a new study has found. As a result of the study, pointers have been published by the authors to help correctional officers reduce stress, from maintaining a healthy eating and exercise regime, to reducing drug and alcohol intake and getting enough sleep.

In a study of 441 correctional officers from adult prisons in the South, the most significant work-home issues experienced by correctional officers were demands and tensions from work that impact their home life; an incompatibility between the officer's role at work and at home; and family circumstances that place strain on work experiences.

In addition to work-home conflicts, the perceived dangerousness of the job and family support also weighed heavily on job stress, while supervisor support had a significant impact on job satisfaction.

"Criminal justice careers, particularly those in the field of corrections, consist of unique daily challenges," said Dr. Gaylene Armstrong, co-author of the study. "The demands on correctional employees are numerous, including monitoring a challenging population in a confined space, shift work, and an ongoing potential for danger. All of these aspects contribute to the challenges of successfully balancing demands between work and family life."

The study recommended training supervisory staff to maintain an open, yet professionally driven, line of communication with employees about family matters and work demands.

"It is critical for supervisors to take notice of the emotional and cognitive state of their subordinates to ensure a high level of job performance and professionalism," Dr. Armstrong said. "Not only are desperate or unhappy employees likely to exhibit emotional distress via job burnout, the odds of compromised decision making is also at stake."

To assist in the effort, CMIT developed a brochure for correctional officers to recognize the signs of stress and to find ways to address those issues. Stress can manifest itself in several ways, including memory problems, anxiety, racing thoughts, moodiness or irritability, agitation, depression, physical aches and pains, changes in sleep patterns or appetite, isolation, or increased use of drugs or alcohol.

The pamphlet offered several ways to reduce stress, including:

•    Exercise regularly and maintain proper nutrition

•    Use meditation and other relaxation techniques as part of your daily schedule
•    Reach out to co-workers, friends and family

•    Avoid drugs and alcohol; the reliefs from such self-medication are only temporary

•    Make a point to do something enjoyable every day

•    Be sure to get enough sleep

•    Use the confidential Employee Assistance Program
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140220112511.htm

Warning: Your open-plan office can make you ill

February 25, 2014
Science Daily/Taylor & Francis
Don’t blame other commuters if you catch a cold this winter: blame the people who designed your office. According to a study, workplace layout has a surprising effect on rates of sick leave. After crunching the numbers, the researchers found a 'significant excess risk' of short sick-leave spells in three types of open-plan office, especially among women. The study also revealed a higher prevalence of both short sick-leave spells and a higher number of sick days among men in flex-offices: open-plan layouts with no individual workstations, but some meeting rooms.

Four Stockholm University scientists examined data from nearly 2000 employees working in seven different types of office. Key to their research was the number of short and long-term illnesses the employees had, as well as their total days off sick each year.

After crunching the numbers, the team found a 'significant excess risk' of short sick-leave spells in three types of open-plan office, especially among women. The study also revealed a higher prevalence of both short sick-leave spells and a higher number of sick days among men in flex-offices: open-plan layouts with no individual workstations, but some meeting rooms.

Long suspected by the employees who use them, evidence from this and other studies confirms that in general, 'traditional open-plan offices are less good for employee health'. Why this should be so is not entirely clear, but environmental stresses (including being exposed to 'irrelevant sound', the lack of 'visual privacy' and a reduced ability to control one's own personal space), as well as the risk of infection, the types of jobs done in open-plan offices and group dynamics might all play a part. As the authors note, group dynamics have been shown to have a preventative effect on sick leave in small offices, and can even lead to 'presenteeism': employees coming to work when they're actually ill.

This fascinating study is an important initial investigation into the long-term effects of the modern office environment on employees. It prepares the ground for longer future studies more focused on the office environment itself -- with all its complex physical, psychosocial and organisational factors. Expanding this line of research is important because, in the words of its authors, "with such knowledge of the office environment's influence on different dimensions of employee health, important gains can be achieved in the long run." For their sake, and the progress of their upcoming research, let's hope that the Stockholm team isn't working in an open-plan office.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140225101141.htm

Business: Creativity and innovation need to talk more

April 8, 2014
Science Daily/Rice University
Creativity and innovation are not sufficiently integrated in either the business world or academic research, according to a new study. Scientists reviewed the rapidly growing body of research into creativity and innovation in the workplace, with particular attention to the period from 2002 to 2013.

The findings are the result of the authors' review of the rapidly growing body of research into creativity and innovation in the workplace, with particular attention to the period from 2002 to 2013.

"There are many of us who study employee creativity and many of us who study innovation and idea implementation, but we don't talk to each other; we're siloed," said Jing Zhou, the Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "The review's goal is to integrate both." Zhou co-authored the paper with Neil Anderson, a professor of human resource management at Brunel, and Kristina Potocnik, a lecturer in human resource management at Edinburgh. The paper will be published in the Journal of Management's annual review issue.

The authors said creativity and innovation are complex, multilevel phenomena that pan out over time and require skillful leadership to maximize the benefits of new ways of working. However, Zhou said, the vast majority of companies operating today are "not doing a good job in translating creative ideas so they have an impact on the firm's performance. Management needs to pay attention to capture employee creativity and implement the creative ideas."

Zhou said companies focus too specifically on current goals and don't take the risks creativity requires. She said two companies that have found a way to incentivize, encourage and institutionalize employee creativity are 3M and Google, which allow employees time to explore creative ideas.

"We need to better train managers to see an idea and run with it," Zhang said. "If you wait for the idea to be ready to be implemented, it might be too late. Managers need to capture promising ideas and then translate them into products, processes and improved customer service."

The study proposes 60 specific research questions for future studies as well as 11 themes that warrant greater attention from researchers. They include the roles of customers, the Internet and social media, organizational culture and climate in creativity and innovation, and leadership style in the creativity-innovation cycle.

The authors said addressing these questions and themes would generate a "quantum leap" forward in understanding the complex phenomena comprising workplace creativity and innovation. "Researchers active in this diverse field need to embrace these challenges," the authors concluded. "Without innovation, few organizations can hope to survive and prosper; we believe that precisely the same holds true for research into creativity and innovation research in the future."

This Journal of Management article comes on the heels of a 2013 article titled "Core Knowledge Employee Creativity and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Riskiness Orientation, Firm Size and Realized Absorptive Capacity" by Zhou and co-authors in the journal Personnel Psychology. That first-of-its-kind study found that employee creativity did not directly lead to company performance and that only when firms made an effort was creativity channeled into performance.

"Firms all say they want their employees to be creative," Zhou said. "The assumption is that once the employees demonstrate creativity, firms can translate it to firm-level performance. Our study proved otherwise." The study suggested managers need to cultivate, recognize and channel their employees' creativity into actual firm performance.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140408112218.htm

Creative activities outside work can improve job performance

April 16, 2014
Science Daily/San Francisco State University
Employees who pursue creative activities outside of work may find that these activities boost their performance on the job, according to a new study by an organizational psychologist. Creative pursuits away from work seem to have a direct effect on factors such as creative problem solving and helping others while on the job.

Creative pursuits away from work seem to have a direct effect on factors such as creative problem solving and helping others while on the job, said Eschleman, an assistant professor of psychology.

The study examined whether creative activity might have an indirect impact on employees' performance by providing them with a way to recover from the demands of their job, by restoring them through relaxation, increasing their sense of control, or challenging them to lean to new skills that can be transferable to one's job.

But the findings reported in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology suggest that creative activity seems to also improve job performance outside of its effect on these traditional types of recovery.

"It can be rare in research to find that what we do in our personal time is related to our behaviors in the workplace, and not just how we feel," Eschleman said.

The employees in the study were free to define creative activities however they wished. In previous studies, Eschleman noted, people say they spend creative time doing everything from writing short stories to playing video games.

Despite this diversity, "they usually describe it as lush, as a deep experience that provides a lot of things for them," he said. "But they also talk about this idea of self-expression and an opportunity to really discover something about themselves, and that isn't always captured with the current recovery experience models."

The study included data on 341 employees from a major national survey who answered questions about their creative activities, recovery experiences like taking charge of their downtime schedules, and their own ratings of how creative they had been on the job and how they had supported their organization and coworkers.

It also included a second group of 92 active duty U.S. Air Force captains, who were surveyed on similar items about creative activity and recovery but were evaluated on their job performances by coworkers and subordinates.

Many studies of recovery have focused on employees working in notably stressful jobs in healthcare and the military, said Eschleman, who worked as a civilian researcher with the Air Force before coming to SF State. But he cautioned that the need for recovery is something that all employees may face at different times, during quarterly deadlines or organizational changes, for instance.

Eschleman said that employers can encourage their employees to engage in more creative activities outside work, but the encouragement has to strike the right tone.

"One of the main concerns is that you don't want to have someone feel like their organization is controlling them, especially when it comes to creative activities," he said, "because intrinsic motivation is part of that unique experience that comes with creative activity."

Instead, employees can encourage their employees to bring their creative activities into work, whether through a department cake baking contest or a program like the one used by Zappos, Inc., where employees bring in personal artwork to decorate their offices. Eschleman also suggested that companies could provide discounts to local art studios and other outlets for creative work.

"A lot of organizations carve time out where they talk about physical heath and exercise and eating habits, but they can also include in that a discussion of mental health and the importance of recovery and creative activity," he said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140416225322.htm

Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting

April 24, 2014
Science Daily/American Psychological Association (APA)
When the task at hand requires some imagination, taking a walk may lead to more creative thinking than sitting, according to research. "Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking," said one author. "With this study, we finally may be taking a step or two toward discovering why."

To see if walking was the source of creative inspiration rather than being outdoors, another experiment with 40 participants compared responses of students walking outside or inside on a treadmill with the responses of students being pushed in a wheelchair outside and sitting inside. Again, the students who walked, whether indoors or outside, came up with more creative responses than those either sitting inside or being pushed in a wheelchair outdoors. "While being outdoors has many cognitive benefits, walking appears to have a very specific benefit of improving creativity," said Oppezzo.

More research will be necessary to explain how walking improves creativity, the authors said. They speculated that future studies would likely determine a complex pathway that extends from the physical act of walking to physiological changes to the cognitive control of imagination. "Incorporating physical activity into our lives is not only beneficial for our hearts but our brains as well. This research suggests an easy and productive way to weave it into certain work activities," Oppezzo said.

While previous research has shown that regular aerobic exercise may protect cognitive abilities, these researchers examined whether simply walking could temporarily improve some types of thinking, such as free-flowing thought compared to focused concentration. "Asking someone to take a 30-minute run to improve creativity at work would be an unpopular prescription for many people," Schwartz said. "We wanted to see if a simple walk might lead to more free-flowing thoughts and more creativity."

Of the students tested for creativity while walking, 100 percent came up with more creative ideas in one experiment, while 95 percent, 88 percent and 81 percent of the walker groups in the other experiments had more creative responses compared with when they were sitting. If a response was unique among all responses from the group, it was considered novel. Researchers also gauged a participant's total number of responses and whether a response was feasible and appropriate to the constraints of the task. For example, "Putting lighter fluid in soup is novel, but it is not very appropriate," Oppezzo said.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140424101556.htm

Non-diet approach to weight management more effective in worksite wellness programs

July 7, 2014
Science Daily/University of Missouri-Columbia
Researchers have found that 'Eat for Life,' a new wellness approach that focuses on mindfulness and intuitive eating as a lifestyle, is more effective than traditional weight-loss programs in improving individuals' views of their bodies and decreasing problematic eating behaviors

Problematic eating behaviors and dissatisfaction with one's body are familiar struggles among women. To combat those behaviors, which have led to higher healthcare premiums and medical trends, employers have offered worksite wellness programs to employees and their families. However, the vast majority of wellness programs limit their approach to promoting diets, which may result in participants regaining the majority of their weight once the programs end. 

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that "Eat for Life," a new wellness approach that focuses on mindfulness and intuitive eating as a lifestyle, is more effective than traditional weight-loss programs in improving individuals' views of their bodies and decreasing problematic eating behaviors.

"Intuitive eating and mindfulness are two relatively new intervention approaches that have been effective in supporting healthy eating and body image," Rossy said. "Eat for Life encourages individuals to become more engaged with their internal body signals and not the numbers on the scales."

Rossy found that women who participated in Eat for Life reported higher levels of body appreciation and intuitive eating and lower levels of problematic eating behaviors such as binging, purging and fasting, as compared to women who did not participate in the program. Eat for Life participants' weights ranged from normal to morbidly obese, and some women displayed eating disorder behaviors. At the end of the program, participants in the Eat for Life program were significantly more likely not to exhibit disordered eating. Mindfulness was a major factor in all of the positive outcomes, Rossy said.

"Eat for Life is not just for individuals with eating disorders," said Rossy. "This type of intervention program is for a variety of individuals who want to have more knowledge on how to be healthy and how to appreciate their bodies' value."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140707134331.htm

Daylight is best medicine for nurses

August 4, 2014
Science Daily/Cornell University
For the health and happiness of nurses – and for the best care of hospital patients – new research suggests exposure to natural light may be the best medicine. Letting natural light into the nurses’ workstations offered improved alertness and mood restoration effects, as measured by the study. “The increase in positive sociability, as measured by the occurrence of frequent laughter, was … significant,” noted authors.

Letting natural light into the nurses’ workstations offered improved alertness and mood restoration effects. “The increase in positive sociability, as measured by the occurrence of frequent laughter, was … significant,” noted Zadeh in the paper.

Nurses work long shifts, during non-standardized hours. They work on demanding and sensitive tasks and their alertness is connected to both staff and patient safety. Past evidence indicates natural light and views have restorative effects on people both physiologically and psychologically. Maximizing access to natural daylight and providing quality lighting design in nursing areas may be an opportunity to improve safety though environmental design and enable staff to manage sleepiness, work in a better mood and stay alert, according to Zadeh.

“Nurses save lives and deal with complications every day. It can be a very intense and stressful work environment, which is why humor and a good mood are integral to the nursing profession,” Zadeh said. “As a nurse, it’s an art to keep your smile – which helps ensure an excellent connection to patients. A smart and affordable way to bring positive mood – and laughter – into the workplace, is designing the right workspace for it.”

Access to natural daylight, and a nice view to outside, should be provided for clinical workspace design, said Zadeh. In situations where natural light is not possible, she suggests optimizing electric lighting in terms of spectrum, intensity and variability to support circadian rhythms and work performance.

“The physical environment in which the caregivers work on critical tasks should be designed to support a high-performing and healthy clinical staff,” she said “ improving the physiological and psychological wellbeing of healthcare staff, by designing the right workspace, can directly benefit the organization’s outcomes”.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140804122857.htm

Work-related stress a risk factor for type 2 diabetes

August 8, 2014
Science Daily/Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - German Research Centre for Environmental Health
Workplace stress can have a range of adverse effects on health with an increased risk of cardio-vascular diseases in the first line. However, to date, convincing evidence for a strong association between work stress and incident Type 2 diabetes mellitus is missing. Researchers have now discovered that individuals who are under a high level of pressure at work face an about 45 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who are subjected to less stress at their workplace.
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/08/140808110720-large.jpg

Risk of diabetes about 45 percent higher

As the team of scientists headed by Dr. Cornelia Huth and Prof. Karl-Heinz Ladwig has now discovered that individuals who are under a high level of pressure at work and at the same time perceive little control over the activities they perform face an about 45 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who are subjected to less stress at their workplace.

The scientists from the Institute of Epidemiology II (EPI II) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU) in collaboration with Prof. Johannes Kruse from the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg examined data prospectively collected from more than 5,300 employed individuals aged between 29 and 66 who took part in the population-based MONICA/KORA cohort study. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants had diabetes, while in the post-observation period, which covered an average of 13 years, almost 300 of them were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The increase in risk in work-related stress was identified independently of classic risk factors such as obesity, age or gender.
Holistic prevention is important -- also at the workplace

"According to our data, roughly one in five people in employment is affected by high levels of mental stress at work. By that, scientists do not mean 'normal job stress' but rather the situation in which the individuals concerned rate the demands made upon them as very high, and at the same time they have little scope for maneuver or for decision making. We covered both these aspects in great detail in our surveys," explains Prof. Ladwig, who led the study. "In view of the huge health implications of stress-related disorders, preventive measures to prevent common diseases such as diabetes should therefore also begin at this point," he added.

Environmental and lifestyle factors play a key role in the development of widespread diseases in Germany such as diabetes mellitus. The aim of the Helmholtz Zentrum München, a partner of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), is to develop new approaches to the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the most common diseases.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140808110720.htm

Shift workers: Evidence for sleep-inducing and alertness drugs is weak

August 12, 2014
Science Daily/Wiley
Shift workers are taking drugs to help them stay awake or get to sleep despite weak evidence for their benefit, according to a new review. The authors of the review found only small numbers of trials testing over-the-counter and prescription drugs used by shift workers, and the results suggest that for some people they might do more harm than good.

In most developed countries, at least 10% of the workforce is involved in some form of shift work. European statistics suggest that as many as three quarters of the population have 'non-standard' working hours. Disturbances to normal sleeping and waking patterns increase the risk of accidents and affect shift workers' health. It is therefore important to avoid shift work where possible and improve shift work schedules to help shift workers achieve more normal sleeping and waking patterns. In jobs where shift work cannot be avoided, such as health care, the police force or the military, drugs can potentially offer short-term benefits.

The review included 15 trials involving a total of 718 people. In nine trials, the over-the- counter hormone drug melatonin helped shift workers sleep for around 24 minutes longer during the night or day, compared to placebos. However, it did not help them get to sleep any quicker. Data from only one trial of the hypnotic drug zoplicone was available. The drug was no more effective than placebos for helping shift workers sleep during the day.

The remaining trials focused on caffeine and two drugs, modafinil and armodafinil, that are prescribed for sleepiness during night shifts. In one trial, caffeine reduced sleepiness during night shifts, when workers also napped before shifts. Modafinil and armodafinil, used by shift workers in one and two trials respectively, increased alertness and reduced sleepiness. However, they also caused headaches, nausea and a rise in blood pressure in a substantial number of people. Due to the limited benefits and frequent side effects, neither of these drugs is approved for shift workers in Europe.

"For lots of people who do shift work, it would be really useful if they could take a pill that would help them go to sleep or stay awake at the right time," said lead author of the review, Juha Liira, who is based at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki, Finland. "But from what we have seen in our review, there isn't good evidence that these drugs can be considered for more than temporary use and some may have quite serious side effects."
Most of the data reported in the review was from small, low quality trials. In addition, trials tended to be carried out in specific settings, such as health care or oil rigs, so their results may be less relevant for workers in other types of roles.

"It's curious that there's such a clear gap in the research," said Liira. "It may well be that studying the effects of these drugs or others drugs in properly designed trials would be seen as unethical because workers should not need drugs to get along with their work. So the studies just haven't been done or if they have, our review has not been able to identify relevant data."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140812235745.htm

Abusive leadership infects entire team

August 20, 2014
Science Daily/Michigan State University
Supervisors who are abusive to individual employees can actually throw the entire work team into conflict, hurting productivity, finds new research led by a business scholar. Supervisors who belittle and ridicule workers not only negatively affect those workers' attitudes and behaviors, but also cause team members to act in a similar hostile manner toward one another, research indicates.

The study, conducted in China and the United States, suggests the toxic effect of nonphysical abuse by a supervisor is much broader than believed. Published online in the Journal of Applied Psychology, it's one of the first studies to examine the effect of bad bosses in employee teams. Teams are increasingly popular in the business world.

Lead investigator Crystal Farh said supervisors who belittle and ridicule workers not only negatively affect those workers' attitudes and behaviors, but also cause team members to act in a similar hostile manner toward one another.

"That's the most disturbing finding," Farh said, "because it's not just about individual victims now, it's about creating a context where everybody suffers, regardless of whether you were individually abused or not."

Farh, assistant professor of management in MSU's Broad College of Business, said the findings could likely be explained by social learning theory, in which people learn and then model behavior based on observing others, in this case the boss. Previous research has shown that workers emulate supervisors' positive behaviors, she said, so it only makes sense they would follow negative behaviors as well.

For the study, Farh and Zhijun Chen from the University of Western Australia studied 51 teams of employees from 10 firms in China. Average team size was about six workers and the teams performed a variety of functions including customer service, technical support and research and development.

The study looked at nonphysical abuse such as verbal mistreatment and demeaning emails. Employees who directly experienced such abuse felt devalued and contributed less to the team. At the same time, the entire team "descended into conflicts," Farh said, which also reduced worker contributions.

"Teams characterized by relationship conflict," Farh said, "are hostile toward other members, mistreat them, speak to them rudely and experience negative emotions toward them."

The study was replicated in a controlled laboratory setting in the United States, with nearly 300 people participating.

The findings have implications for companies faced with rehabilitating a team of employees following abusive supervision. In the past, companies may have simply targeted abused employees with efforts to restore their self-esteem. While that's still important, Farh said, efforts should also be made to fix the team's interpersonal relationships by re-establishing trust and harmony.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140820091703.htm

Humble leaders get more commitment

August 26, 2014
Science Daily/BI Norwegian Business School
Those leaders who are more critical of their own leadership style than their employees are, have greatest success, according to new research. The research study shows that leaders with a good self-insight, who are humble and act as credible role models, are rewarded with committed and service-minded employees.

The research study shows that leaders with a good self-insight, who are humble and act as credible role models, are rewarded with committed and service-minded employees.
This is the conclusion in a study conducted among 1500 leaders and their employees.
The leaders were asked to assess their own leadership style, while their employees were asked to assess the same style. The eye of the beholder is in fact important for a leader's ability to create job commitment and a good service climate.

The organisation researchers compared the employees' assessments and the leader's assessments of his or her leadership style, and found that the responses were by no means identical -- rather the opposite.
The employees decide

Leaders can think whatever they like about their own leadership style. The study shows that leaders' assessments of themselves have little direct impact on the employees' commitment to work.

"It is only when we compare the employees' and the leader's assessments of the same leadership style that we see how leadership affects commitment and service climate," says organisation researcher Karoline Hofslett Kopperud, who conducted the study with Professor Øyvind Martinsen and Associate Professor Sut I. Wong Humborstad at BI Norwegian Business School.
    
This is what researchers call transformational leadership.

When employees feel a leader conducts this type of leadership, it has a positive effect on the perceived service climate in the organisation. It is particularly true when the leader is humble and has a lower opinion of his leadership than his employees have.

"The extent of agreement between the leader and the employees concerning his/her leadership style can both enhance and negate the positive effects of leadership," says Hofslett Kopperud.

.
The extent of agreement between a leader's assessment of herself and the employees' assessment of the same leadership is an expression of the leader's self-insight. Leaders with a strong self-insight demonstrate a good understanding of their own needs, emotions, abilities and behaviour. On top of that, they are proactive in the face of challenges.

The researchers recommend that leadership development programmes should also contribute to greater correlation between a leader's own assessment of leadership and the employees' assessment. This can be achieved by including training in self-reflection and role clarification with one's nearest staff in the development programme.

"It will give the leader a better understanding of how his or her behaviour is perceived and interpreted by the employees," says Hofslett Kopperud.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140826085720.htm

Online mindfulness intervention reduces fatigue, negative work-related worry

September 9, 2014
Science Daily/British Psychological Society (BPS)
Brief online mindfulness interventions requiring only two hours of training and practice per week are effective at reducing fatigue and negative work-related rumination and at improving sleep quality, a study concludes. 

Persistent work-related rumination, in particular where individuals experience negative emotional thoughts (affective rumination), has previously been shown to be related to increased levels of stress and work-related fatigue.

Stress and its associated physical response are known to have negative health effects in the long run. Business concerns over employee welfare and the impact of time off work highlight the importance of finding ways to help employees reduce the pressure and impact work-related worry may be having.

The intervention had a significant positive effect on levels of affective rumination, sleep quality and fatigue for participants in the intervention group in comparison to the control group. 

The researchers said: "Research has shown that there are significant numbers of people who are suffering from work-related fatigue and rumination. We ourselves have found evidence of the causal relationship between how people worry about work and their ability to recover and switch off effectively at the end of the day.

"Mindfulness helps people to develop awareness of their thoughts and emotions in a positive way helping them make more effective choices and gain over their responses to different situations.

"Online mindfulness interventions may provide a cost effective way for organisations to improve the health of their employees whilst help reduce the long-term negative health consequences of work stress."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140909191959.htm

Walking or cycling to work improves wellbeing

September 14, 2014
Science Daily/University of East Anglia
Walking or cycling to work is better for people's mental health than driving to work, according to new research by health economists. A report reveals that people who stopped driving and started walking or cycling to work benefited from improved wellbeing. In particular, active commuters felt better able to concentrate and were less under strain than if they traveled by car.

These benefits come on top of the physical health benefits of walking and cycling that are already widely documented.

Experts also found that travelling on public transport is better for people's psychological wellbeing than driving.

Lead researcher Adam Martin, from UEA's Norwich Medical School, said: "One surprising finding was that commuters reported feeling better when travelling by public transport, compared to driving. You might think that things like disruption to services or crowds of commuters might have been a cause of considerable stress. But as buses or trains also give people time to relax, read, socialise, and there is usually an associated walk to the bus stop or railway station, it appears to cheer people up."

The research team studied 18 years of data on almost 18,000 18-65-year-old commuters in Britain. The data allowed them to look at multiple aspects of psychological health including feelings of worthlessness, unhappiness, sleepless nights, and being unable to face problems. The researchers also accounted for numerous factors known to affect wellbeing, including income, having children, moving house or job, and relationship changes.

The study also shows commute time to be important.

Adam Martin said: "Our study shows that the longer people spend commuting in cars, the worse their psychological wellbeing. And correspondingly, people feel better when they have a longer walk to work."

Data from the 2011 Census (England and Wales) shows that 67.1 per cent of commuters use cars or vans as their usual main commute mode compared to 17.8 per cent who use public transport, 10.9 per cent who walk and just 3.1 per cent who cycle.

"This research shows that if new projects such as London's proposed segregated cycleways, or public transport schemes such as Crossrail, were to encourage commuters to walk or cycle more regularly, then there could be noticeable mental health benefits."

The new report contradicts a UK Office of National Statistics study 'Commuting and Personal Wellbeing, 2014', published in February, which found people who walked to work had lower life satisfaction than those who drove to work, while many cyclists were less happy and more anxious than other commuters. Crucially, this new research looks at commuters who had changed travel mode from one year to the next, rather than comparing commuters who were using different travel modes at a single point in time.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140914211056.htm

Burnout caused by more than just job stress

September 16, 2014
Science Daily/Université de Montréal
Impossible deadlines, demanding bosses, abusive colleagues, unpaid overtime: all factors that can lead to a burnout. But when it comes to mental health in the workplace, the influence of home life must also be considered to get the full picture.

That's about to change thanks to new research from Concordia University and the University of Montreal, which proves that having an understanding partner is just as important as having a supportive boss.

The study, published in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, surveys 1,954 employees from 63 different organizations and shows that a multitude of issues contribute to mental health problems in the workforce.

The research team polled participants to measure factors like parental status, household income, social network, gender, age, physical health and levels of self-esteem. They studied these elements alongside stressors typically seen in the workplace, such as emotional exhaustion, poor use of skills, high psychological demands, job insecurity and lack of authority.

Turns out mental health in the workplace doesn't exist in a vacuum: it's deeply affected by the rest of a person's day-to-day life. And vice versa.

The study shows that fewer mental health problems are experienced by those living with a partner, in households with young children, higher household incomes, less work-family conflicts, and greater access to the support of a social network outside the workplace.

Of course, factors within the workplace are still important. Fewer mental health problems were reported when employees are supported at work, when expectations of job recognition are met, and when people feel secure in their jobs. A higher level of skill use is also associated with lower levels of depression, pointing to the importance of designing tasks that motivate and challenge workers.

"This is a call to action," says senior author Steve Harvey, professor of management and dean of Concordia's John Molson School of Business. "Researchers need to expand their perspective, so that they get a full picture of the complexity of factors that determine individuals' mental health."

For lead author Alain Marchand, professor at the University of Montreal's School of Industrial Relations, it's all about adopting a holistic view. "To maintain a truly healthy workforce, we need to look outside the office or home in simple terms to combat mental health issues in the workplace."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140916092703.htm

Nurse survey shows longer working hours impact on quality of care

September 22, 2014
Science Daily/University of Southampton
Results of a survey of more than 30,000 nurses across Europe show that nurses who work longer shifts and more overtime are more likely to rate the standard of care delivered on their ward as poor, give a negative rating of their hospitals safety and omit necessary patient care.

Led by researchers at the University of Southampton and the National Nursing Research Unit (NNRU) at King's College London, the RN4CAST survey of nurses in over 450 hospitals across 12 European countries, was part of an international research programme looking at links between nursing workforce issues and patient outcomes.

Results showed that nearly a third of nurses in England are working shifts of more than 12 hours, something which is becoming more common in English hospitals. Hospitals are adopting long shifts to reduce the number of handovers between nurses and to save costs. Some nurses seem to prefer them because they work fewer days in a week.

Nurses working these long shifts were 30 per cent more likely to report poor quality of care compared to nurses working traditional eight hour shifts. They were also 41 per cent more likely to report failing or poor standards of safety and reported leaving more necessary nursing care undone than nurses working shifts lasting eight hours. Nurses working overtime in their last shift were also likely to report lower standards of care, safety and care left undone.

Professor Peter Griffiths, Chair of Health Services Research at the University of Southampton who led the study, comments: "These findings raise questions for healthcare organisations, especially in the current economic climate, where employers in many countries including England are aiming to use the existing workforce more efficiently, either to reduce expenditure or because of nursing shortages. Moving from three shorter shifts per day to two longer ones has been claimed to save up to 14 percent of salary costs. But at what cost to the patient? This strategy needs to be looked at in much more detail. If nurses perform less effectively and less safely, what's the point?"

"This is compelling evidence that policy makers in England need to take note of," Professor Griffiths adds. "Although eight hour shifts are still common, a lot of nurses are working these longer shifts, but this study shows that this could be counterproductive. Additionally, the increased flexibility associated with working overtime may not deliver the desired goals for employers."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140922110426.htm

Supervisors' abuse, regardless of intent, can make employees behave poorly

October 8, 2014
Science Daily/San Francisco State University
Employees who are verbally abused by supervisors -- even if it is intended as motivational -- are still more likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviors, a new study finds. Motivational abuse (such as when a coach berates players or a sergeant humiliates cadets) is seen as a violation and can affect an entire company if it leads to lost work time or theft, according to the study.

The fallout from this abuse is not limited to the supervisor and employee and can in fact affect an entire company if it leads to lost work time or theft, Eschleman warned. "We didn't just focus on how these workers felt or whether they started to dislike their jobs more. We looked at consequences that actually affect the bottom line of an organization," he said.

The study included work data from 268 full-time employees selected from an online survey of more than 80,000 people. The employees held a variety of jobs and had an average of nine years at their positions. In the first wave of the survey, workers were asked how often their supervisors "put them down" or ridiculed them. The researchers also asked the employees whether they thought the abuse happened because the supervisors were trying to harm them or hurt their feelings, or because the supervisors meant the abuse as motivational or a way to "light a fire" under people.

A month later, Eschleman and his colleagues asked the employees whether they had participated in any counterproductive behaviors at work, like making fun of a supervisor or slacking off on the job. The researchers were somewhat surprised that even motivational abuse caused the same behavioral backlash in employees. Workers may see any kind of abuse as "a violation of how they expect to be treated," Eschleman said.

So-called tough love can be common in professions such as the military and medicine, where abuse by supervisors might be seen as part of the work culture. "If you have an organization where the culture accepts that type of behavior," Eschleman suggested, "you're probably not going to feel as violated when it occurs."

Yet the overall results of the study suggest that abuse will not lead to a more productive workplace. "I think there are a lot of supervisors who believe that this could be an effective way to lead," Eschleman said, "but I don't necessarily think that's the case for a lot of people. In general, a lot of people are going to respond negatively."

The researchers found that employees aim these counterproductive behaviors both at the supervisors and at the organization as a whole. "Supervisors are often the face of a company, and so their behavior really kind of implies the company's values," Eschleman explained. "So it's not just that they would target the person who's treating them poorly or abusively, but that they're going to target the organization that's allowing that to happen."

Although abused employees were more likely to engage in such behaviors, Eschleman said it is not clear why the workers act out. "We used to think it must be retaliation, but I think more recently researchers and organizations have begun to recognize that it is not always done with ill intent," he added. "It could be more of a release or venting, and I think it is a form of coping sometimes."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141008083704.htm

Managers can boost creativity by 'empowering leadership' and earning employees' trust

October 8, 2014
Science Daily/Rice University
Managers can promote creativity in employees by 'empowering leadership' and earning employees' trust, according to a new study.

The researchers investigated, for the first time, the complex effect of the interaction among empowering leadership, uncertainty avoidance and trust on creativity. They collected supervisors' ratings of employee creativity in two separate studies in China: one with employees of an energy-saving light bulb design and manufacturing company and the other with the employees of a nonferrous metals manufacturing company.

"Our results reveal an interesting phenomenon," said Jing Zhou, the Houston Endowment Professor of Management at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business. "Empowering leadership may be especially effective at promoting creativity for those who have high levels of both uncertainty avoidance and trust in their supervisors. In addition, we also found that creative self-efficacy (the degree to which the employees themselves believed they are capable of being creative) was a psychological mechanism that explained the three-way interaction's effect on creativity."

Zhou co-authored the paper with Xiaomeng Zhang, an associate professor of management at American University's Kogod School of Business. The paper was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Zhou said managers might empower leadership by giving an employee the autonomy and freedom to carry out his or her job in the way that the employee deems to be the best way to achieve the company's goals and objective, or by getting an employee involved in decision-making processes. This approach worked well with employees who avoid "high uncertainty." They need and value detailed and consistent rules, directives and expectations.

The authors define creativity as "the generation of novel and useful ideas concerning products, services and work methods." They measure creativity using a scale that tracks a manager's rating of an employee's behaviors at work and the extent to which the employee has exhibited certain behaviors -- for example, the employee "comes up with new and practical ideas to improve performance," "comes up with creative solutions to problems" or "suggests new ways of performing work tasks."

Zhou and Zhang define empowering leadership as the extent to which supervisors express confidence in their employees' abilities, emphasize the significance of their employees' work, involve their employees in decision-making and reduce or remove bureaucratic constraints on their employees. The authors focused on affect-based trust, which is trust that reflects genuine concern, care and emotional bonds between employees and their supervisors, based on the employees' perceptions of the supervisor's motives.

The authors said the results have timely implications for management practice.

"To effectively encourage employee creativity, managers need to be aware that their own leadership behavior plays a key role in eliciting creativity from employees with different characteristics," Zhou said. "Our results suggest that to set the stage for enhancing creativity in their employees, managers first need to establish whether they can demonstrate empowering leadership behavior."

The authors suggested that managers participate in a diagnostic survey; those who have yet to be able to demonstrate empowering leadership can then participate in training programs to authentically develop their empowering leadership behaviors.

Managers should also give their employees opportunities to develop affect-based trust in them, the authors said. Once these two conditions are met, the managers may identify employees with high levels of uncertainty avoidance and then empower them. For employees with low levels of uncertainty avoidance, developing affect-based trust should be a higher priority for managers than empowering leadership, the researchers said.

Zhou said this trust is critical. "If my supervisor demonstrates empowering leadership, but I don't feel it's genuine, I'm not going to take the risk to be creative," she said.

Creativity seldom happens overnight, and it often takes time for employees to generate new ideas that are also feasible and potentially add value to the organization, Zhou said. "As a psychological state, creative self-efficacy usually precedes the behavioral outcome that is creativity."

She said the results suggest that one way for managers to monitor whether their empowering leadership will ultimately enhance employee creativity is to keep track of their employees' creative self-efficacy. "If they observe increased creative self-efficacy in their employees, the managers should be reasonably confident that there is a good chance that actual creativity will follow," the authors concluded.
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141008121948.htm

Artificial light, biological clock disruptions, increase breast cancer risk

October 17, 2014
Science Daily/University of Georgia
The disruption of a person's circadian rhythm -- their 24-hour biological clock -- has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, according to new research. The culprit, in this study in particular, is artificial light. 'Exposure to artificial light leads to a significantly higher risk for developing breast cancer,' said one investigator.
http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/10/141017183719-large.jpg

"Exposure to artificial light leads to a significantly higher risk for developing breast cancer," said Chunla He, a biostatistics graduate student in the UGA College of Public Health. "To decrease the use of artificial light, people should avoid working at night and implement earlier bed times."

Her research, published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, examined key studies that included risk factors for developing breast cancer.
"A large body of related research about circadian rhythms and breast cancer exists," He said. "However, these studies are inconsistent and have a variety of limitations."

Under the mentorship of Sara Wagner Robb, assistant professor of epidemiology in the College of Public Health, He turned to previous studies to see what the research revealed.

In addition to other relevant exposures, He examined studies on breast cancer and flight attendants, who typically work both day and night shifts. The flight attendants represented a group of workers particularly susceptible to disrupted circadian rhythms, which are heavily influenced by light.

In her analysis, He found that employment as a flight attendant was related to an increased risk of breast cancer.

"People naturally secrete the hormone melatonin, which helps to regulate the circadian rhythm," He said. "When the sleep-wake cycle is disrupted by artificial light, melatonin secretion is adversely affected."

Robb recommends spreading this information to shift workers so they understand the harms in disrupting their circadian rhythms.

"Individuals engaging in this type of work should be aware of these risks and may make efforts to adjust their circadian rhythms," she said. "Although additional studies are certainly needed, scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the health risks associated with night workers and others exposed to circadian-disrupting behaviors."

Robb and He also advise that future research needs to examine social constraints -- which may foster disruption of circadian rhythms -- on shift workers. Additionally, shift workers should contact their primary care physicians for personalized treatment and options.

"This information tells us the harm in disrupting our natural cycle," He said. "With this new analysis, we must be cautious in our exposure to artificial light."
Science Daily/SOURCE :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141017183719.htm