The Role of Wellness Climate in Small Business Health Promotion and Employee Wellbeing.

Wellness involves physical, emotional, behavioral, social, and spiritual dimensions. A climate for wellness exists at both the psychological and organizational levels, consisting of individual and shared perceptions of policies, structures, and managerial behavior that support or promote employee wellbeing. This study explored the associations between psychological and organizational wellness climate and the effectiveness of a team health promotion training on employees' perceived physical and mental wellbeing and substance use. Employees from 45 small businesses completed self-report measures of wellness climate, wellbeing, positive unwinding behavior, work-family conflict, job stress, drug use, and alcohol use, assessed before, and one and six months after, attending either of two types of onsite health promotion training. Team Awareness training targeted improvements in the social climate at work. Healthy Choices training targeted individual health behavior. A control group did not receive training until after the study. Businesses were randomly assigned to conditions and data were analyzed using multi-level modeling. Models that included wellness climate as a mediator fit the data significantly better than models without climate as a mediator. Team Awareness participants showed greater improvements in wellness climate and wellbeing compared to the control group. Healthy Choices participants showed no changes in climate and no mediation effects of climate. Health promotion efforts may be enhanced by including wellness climate as a target in program design at multiple levels.

A Brief Measure of Organizational Wellness Climate: Initial Validation and Focus on Small Businesses and Substance Misuse.

OBJECTIVE: Organizations with fewer than 100 employees comprise most businesses in the United States. Since small businesses lack comparable resources, they may benefit from a simple valid tool for broadly assessing positive wellness climate, especially because climate contributes to employee wellbeing. METHODS: Using an ethnically and occupationally diverse sample of 45 businesses (n = 1512), the current study developed and tested a brief self-report measure of organizational wellness climate. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis shows that a 9-item measure has good model fit (RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.91), inter-item consistency of 0.74, and mean Rwg(j) of 0.87. The new measure is significantly positively correlated with physical health and wellbeing, and negatively correlated with substance use behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that a 9-item measure has good reliability, construct, and criterion validity. Implications for practical use of the measure are discussed.

Team Resilience Training in the Workplace: E-Learning Adaptation, Measurement Model, and Two Pilot Studies.

BACKGROUND: The majority of resilience interventions focus on the individual. Workplace resilience is a growing field of research. Given the ever-increasing interconnectedness in businesses, teamwork is a guarantee. There is also growing recognition that resilience functions at the team level. OBJECTIVE: The objective of our work was to address three shortcomings in the study of workplace resilience interventions: lack of interventions focusing on group-level or team resilience, the need for brief interventions, and the need for more theoretical precision in intervention studies. METHODS: The authors took an established evidence-based program (Team Resilience) and modified it based on these needs. A working model for brief intervention evaluation distinguishes outcomes that are proximal (perceptions that the program improved resilience) and distal (dispositional resilience). A total of 7 hypotheses tested the model and program efficacy. RESULTS: Two samples (n=118 and n=181) of engineering firms received the Web-based training and provided immediate reactions in a posttest-only design. The second sample also included a control condition (n=201). The findings support the model and program efficacy. For example, workplace resilience was greater in the intervention group than in the control group. Other findings suggest social dissemination effects, equal outcomes for employees at different stress levels, and greater benefit for females. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary research provides evidence for the capabilities of e-learning modules to effectively promote workplace resilience and a working model of team resilience.

A cluster randomized trial of alcohol prevention in small businesses: a cascade model of help seeking and risk reduction.

PURPOSE: The current study adapted two workplace substance abuse prevention programs and tested a conceptual model of workplace training effects on help seeking and alcohol consumption. DESIGN: Questionnaires were collected 1 month before, 1 month after, and 6 months within a cluster randomized field experiment. SETTING: Texas small businesses in construction, transportation, and service industries. SUBJECTS: A total of 1510 employees from 45 businesses were randomly assigned to receive no training or one of the interventions. INTERVENTION: The interventions were 4-hour on-the-job classroom trainings that encouraged healthy lifestyles and seeking professional help (e.g., from the Employee Assistance Program [EAP]). The Team Awareness Program focused on peer referral and team building. The Choices in Health Promotion Program delivered various health topics based on a needs assessment. MEASURES: Questionnaires measured help-seeking attitudes and behavior, frequency of drinking alcohol, and job-related incidents. ANALYSIS: Mixed-model repeated-measures analyses of covariance were computed. RESULTS: Relative to the control group, training was associated with significantly greater reductions in drinking frequency, willingness to seek help, and seeking help from the EAP. After including help-seeking attitudes as a covariate, the correlation between training and help seeking becomes nonsignificant. Help-seeking behavior was not correlated with drinking frequency. CONCLUSION: Training improved help-seeking attitudes and behaviors and decreased alcohol risks. The reductions in drinking alcohol were directly correlated with training and independent from help seeking.

Exploring and reducing stress in young restaurant workers: results of a randomized field trial.

PURPOSE: Young adult restaurant workers face the dual stressors of work adjustment and managing personal responsibilities. We assessed a new psychosocial/health promotion training designed to reduce these stressors in the context of restaurant work. DESIGN . A cluster-randomized trial of a training program, with surveys administered approximately 2 weeks before training and both 6 and 12 months after training. SETTING: A national restaurant chain. SUBJECTS: A total of 947 restaurant workers in 28 restaurants. MEASURES: Personal stress, exposure to problem coworkers, and personal and job characteristics. INTERVENTION: Team Resilience (TR) is an interactive program for stress management, teamwork, and work-life balance. TR focuses on "five Cs" of resilience: compassion, commitment, centering, community, and confidence. ANALYSIS . Mixed-model (multilevel) analysis of covariances. RESULTS: Compared with workers in control stores, workers in TR-trained stores showed significant reductions over time in exposure to problem coworkers (F[2, 80.60]  =  4.48; p  =  .01) and in personal stress (F[2, 75.28]  =  6.12; p  =  .003). CONCLUSION: The TR program may help young workers who face the challenges of emerging adulthood and work-life balance.

A web-based approach to address cardiovascular risks in managers: results of a randomized trial.

OBJECTIVES: To examine whether a Web-based health and leadership development program--designed specifically for managers--was associated with changes in self-reported and biometric indicators of cardiovascular disease within the context of a randomized control trial. METHODS: A total of 145 managers from 8 organizations participated in a 6-month Internet-based program or a control condition. They completed pre- and posttest assessments that included both self-reported attitudes (on diet, exercise, and mental health) and biometric measures (eg, body weight, waist circumference). RESULTS: The intervention was associated with improvements in dietary attitudes, dietary self-efficacy, and exercise, and reductions in distress symptoms. Women in the program reduced their waist circumference significantly more than controls. CONCLUSIONS: The program showed promise for reducing cardiovascular disease risk factors. Similar results across diverse organizations suggest the program may be useful across industry types.

Reducing heavy alcohol consumption in young restaurant workers.

OBJECTIVE: Restaurant employees often have high rates of heavy drinking and problems with alcohol. This study evaluates reductions in drinking and associated problems at work, in connection with a new program for prevention and early intervention. The program, called Team Resilience, is designed for young restaurant workers. METHOD: A cluster-randomized trial design was used, with 28 stores from a national casual-dining restaurant chain and 235 of their employees (54% male, 46% female). Fourteen stores received the Team Resilience training workshop, consisting of three 2-hour sessions held on 3 consecutive days. Sessions included group discussion, role-play and practice activities, and a learning game. RESULTS: Workers in trained stores reported significantly greater decreases in recurring heavy drinking (i.e., having five or more drinks on the same occasion, on 5 or more days in the past month) and work-related problems with alcohol than workers in control stores. In the intervention group, the odds of recurring heavy drinking declined by about one half and the number of work-related problem areas declined by one third following training. In addition, drinking behaviors and problems were tied to age and were most common among employees in their middle 20s. CONCLUSIONS: Findings support Team Resilience as an effective intervention for reducing drinking and associated problems among young restaurant workers, a population with substantial needs.

Prevention interventions of alcohol problems in the workplace.

The workplace offers advantages as a setting for interventions that result in primary prevention of alcohol abuse. Such programs have the potential to reach broad audiences and populations that would otherwise not receive prevention programs and, thereby, benefit both the employee and employer. Researchers have implemented and evaluated a variety of workplace alcohol problem prevention efforts in recent years, including programs focused on health promotion, social health promotion, brief interventions, and changing the work environment. Although some studies reported significant reductions in alcohol use outcomes, additional research with a stronger and integrated methodological approach is needed. The field of workplace alcohol prevention also might benefit from a guiding framework, such as the one proposed in this article.

Team resilience for young restaurant workers: research-to-practice adaptation and assessment.

This paper describes a method for taking a known prevention intervention and modifying it to suit young restaurant workers. Such workers are at high risk for alcohol and other drug (AOD) abuse according to national surveys. While evidence-based programs for AOD prevention exist, they have not been delivered to restaurants. Accordingly, an adaptation methodology was developed by integrating curricula from a previous evidence-based program with research on resilience and input from stakeholders, such as young restaurant workers, their managers, trainers, and subject matter experts. A new curriculum (Team Resilience) maintained fidelity to the original program while incorporating stakeholder insights. At the end of each of three training sessions, participants (n = 124) rated their awareness of AOD risks, help-seeking orientation, and personal resilience. Ratings tended to increase across sessions, showing participants perceived benefits from Team Resilience. Discussion highlights the need for research-to-practice protocols in occupational health psychology.

Psychosocial correlates of the perceived stigma of problem drinking in the workplace.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a questionnaire assessment of the perceived stigma of problem drinking that was designed for use in workplace substance abuse prevention research. Municipal employees from a mid-sized city (n = 315) and a large-sized city (n = 535) completed questionnaire measures of perceived coworker stigmatization of problem drinking, drinking levels, substance-use policy attitudes, workgroup stress and interdependence, alcohol-tolerance norms, and demographic variables. Inter-item correlation coefficients showed that the measure of the stigma of problem drinking had good internal consistency reliability (.76) in both samples. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that higher education, abstinence from alcohol, stress, and perceived temperance norms were all uniquely correlated with perceived stigma. Women and men perceived the same level of stigma from coworkers. Editors' Strategic Implications: This brief, validated measure provides organizations with a way to assess the level of stigma attached to alcohol abuse in their workplace culture, thereby enabling the organization to target and promote effective strategies to decrease the stigma attached to seeking help with the goal of reducing alcohol abuse.

Team awareness, problem drinking, and drinking climate: workplace social health promotion in a policy context.

PURPOSE: (1) To determine the effectiveness of classroom health promotion/prevention training designed to improve work climate and alcohol outcomes; (2) to assess whether such training contributes to improvements in problem drinking beyond standard workplace alcohol policies. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey assessed employee problem drinking across three time periods. This was followed by a prevention intervention study; work groups were randomly assigned to an 8-hour training course in workplace social health promotion (Team Awareness), a 4-hour informational training course, or a control group. Surveys were administered 2 to 4 weeks before and after training and 6 months after posttest. SETTING AND SUBJECTS: Employees were surveyed from work departments in a large municipality of 3000 workers at three points in time (year, sample, and response rates are shown): (1) 1992, n = 1081, 95%; (2) 1995, n = 856, 97%; and (3) 1999, n = 587, 73%. Employees in the 1999 survey were recruited from safety-sensitive departments and were randomly assigned to receive the psychosocial (n = 201), informational (n = 192), or control (n = 194) condition. INTERVENTION: The psychosocial program (Team Awareness) provided skills training in peer referral, team building, and stress management. Informational training used a didactic review of policy, employee assistance, and drug testing. MEASURES: Self-reports measured alcohol use (frequency, drunkenness, hangovers, and problems) and work drinking climate (enabling, responsiveness, drinking norms, stigma, and drink with co-workers). RESULTS: Employees receiving Team Awareness reduced problem drinking from 20% to 11% and working with or missing work because of a hangover from 16% to 6%. Information-trained workers also reduced problem drinking from 18% to 10%. These rates of change contrast with changes in problem drinking seen from 1992 (24%) to 1999 (17%). Team Awareness improvements differed significantly from control subjects, which showed no change at 13%. Employees receiving Team Awareness also showed significant improvements in drinking climate. For example, scores on the measure of coworker enabling decreased from pretest (mean = 2.19) to posttest (mean = 2.05) and follow up (mean = 1.94). Posttest measures of drinking climate also predicted alcohol outcomes at 6 months. CONCLUSION: Employers should consider the use of prevention programming as an enhancement to standard drug-free workplace efforts. Team Awareness training targets work group social health, aligns with employee assistance efforts, and contributes to reductions in problem drinking.

Job risk and employee substance use: the influence of personal background and work environment factors.

Previous studies have noted that employees who work in jobs with physical risk report more substance use than employees working in nonrisky jobs. This study examined the extent to which this relationship could be explained by personal background, specifically general deviance or psychosocial functioning, or work characteristics, including job stressors, organizational bonding, or work group drinking climate. Results from two worksites (ns = 943, 923) indicated that the relationship of job risk and alcohol problems could be fully explained by personal characteristics, particularly deviant behavior styles. Interaction effects were also found. Employees with more deviance indicators were particularly susceptible to recent drug use and problem drinking when they worked in drinking climates or exposed to co-worker drinking. These results suggest the joint influence of personal and job factors and support prevention programs that target the workplace social environment.

Supervisor tolerance-responsiveness to substance abuse and workplace prevention training: use of a cognitive mapping tool.

Supervisor tolerance-responsiveness, referring to the attitudes and behaviors associated with either ignoring or taking proactive steps with troubled employees, was investigated in two studies. The studies were conducted to help examine, understand and improve supervisor responsiveness to employee substance abuse. Study 1 examined supervisor response to and tolerance of coworker substance use and ways of interfacing with the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) in two workplaces (n = 244 and 107). These surveys suggested that engaging supervisors in a dialogue about tolerance might improve their willingness to use the EAP. Study 2 was a randomized control field experiment that assessed a team-oriented training. This training adopted a cognitive mapping technique to help improve supervisor responsiveness. Supervisors receiving this training (n = 29) were more likely to improve on several dimensions of responsiveness (e.g. likely to contact the EAP) than were supervisors who received a more didactic, informational training (n = 23) or a no-training control group (n = 17). Trained supervisors also showed increases in their own help-seeking behavior. Procedures and maps from the mapping activity (two-stage conversational mapping) are described. Overall, results indicate that while supervisor tolerance of coworker substance use inhibits EAP utilization, it may be possible to address this tolerance using team-oriented prevention training in the work-site.