Occupational safety in homecare organizations: the design and implementation of a train-the-trainer program.

Homecare workers face significant occupational risks, necessitating effective safety training programs. This paper presents a comprehensive Train-the-Trainer (TTT) program developed to enhance occupational safety in homecare organizations. Through an analysis of 229 reported safety events, the frequency and type of incidents, such as injuries during handling, road crashes, slips, trips, and falls, were identified and primarily attributed to human errors and violations. Based on the results, a TTT program was designed and implemented. The TTT successfully engaged Health, Safety, and Environment managers, fostering collaborative activities, knowledge sharing, and resource discussions. The program modules address critical areas, including distractions and inattentions, fatigue, time pressure, frustration and aggressiveness, and safety behaviors. This innovative approach provides valuable insights for organizations seeking to improve homecare workers' safety. The findings add to the broader comprehension of occupational safety in the homecare sector, proposing a pragmatic framework for future interventions.

Organizational citizenship behaviour as a protective factor against the occurrence of adverse nursing-sensitive outcomes: A multilevel investigation.

AIMS: This study aimed to investigate the association between organizational citizenship behaviour enacted by nurses and the occurrence of adverse nursing-sensitive patient outcomes. BACKGROUND: Managing psychosocial factors (i.e., aspects concerning the work environment) is key to ensure patient safety, to prevent exacerbation of case complexity and to cope with critical shortages in human and financial resources. METHODS: Self-report measures of nurses' organizational citizenship behaviour were combined with objective data on the incidence of adverse nursing-sensitive outcomes (i.e., pressure ulcers and restraint use) collected through patients' medical records. Participants were 11,345 patients and 1346 nurses across 52 teams working in 14 Italian hospitals. Data were analysed using multilevel binary logistic regression models. RESULTS: A negative relationship between nurses' organizational citizenship behaviour and restraint use was identified, with an odds ratio of 0.11. Thus, for a one-unit higher organizational citizenship behaviour score, the odds of using restraints shrink to about one eighth of the previous level. CONCLUSIONS: Intervention strategies to foster the implementation of organizational citizenship behaviour among nurses may inhibit the occurrence of critical outcomes affecting patients' health and well-being (i.e., using restraint devices). IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: In health care organizations, shaping a psychosocial environment encouraging organizational citizenship behaviour can mitigate the occurrence of adverse nursing-sensitive outcomes such as restraint use on patients.

How workers' emotional dissonance explains the association between customers' relations, burnout and health in an Italian supermarket chain.

INTRODUCTION: Dealing with customers has increasingly became a risk factor that organisations should be aware of. Having to deal with difficult customers, pupils, patients it has been found to be the second most frequent reported risk factor in the recent 2019 ESENER survey (61%, up from 58%), just after repetitive hand or arm movements. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study is to explore the relationship between negative relations with customers and its association with employees' burnout and general health. METHODS: Data were collected using an anonymous, self-report questionnaire employed in an Italian company working in the large-scale retail sector. The sample was composed of 610 employees (70% women) working in 28 supermarkets. RESULTS: Results showed that negative customer relations were associated to higher levels of emotional dissonance (b = .25; p = .000), which in turn was associated with higher levels of burnout (b = .72; p = .017) and consequently to higher levels of poor general health (b = .03; p = .000). CONCLUSION: This study contributed to the current understanding of how negative relationship with clients could trigger a health impairment process which could lead to higher levels of burnout and poorer general health in employees. Findings suggest that organizations whose employees' work activities are characterized by a daily contact with customers should implement interventions such as training activities in order to enhance the employees' skills in dealing with custumers, for example on how to manage emotions at work.

Work addiction and presenteeism: The buffering role of managerial support.

The current study examined the mediating effect of presenteeism and moderating effect of managerial support in the relation between workaholism and work-family conflict. A sample of 1065 white-collar employees from an Italian company filled in an online survey and hypotheses were tested using a bootstrapping procedure. Results showed that presenteeism mediated the association between workaholism and work-family conflict. Moreover, the mediating effect of presenteeism was moderated by managerial support: for employees reporting lower levels of support workaholism was stronger related to presenteeism than for those experiencing higher support. Presenteeism, in turn, was related to greater levels of work-family conflict. The present study sheds light into the protective role played by managerial support in preventing workaholic employees from forcing themselves to attend work also when feeling sick. Accordingly, early intervention aimed at buffering the negative association between workaholism and work-family conflict should focus on training managers to develop supportive leadership skills.

The impact of perceived effort-reward imbalance on workplace bullying: also a matter of organizational identification.

Work environments characterized by inadequate work conditions have been widely recognized as being particularly prone to the occurrence and exacerbation of bullying behavior. Accordingly, this longitudinal study aimed to explore whether the impact of effort-reward imbalance (ERI) on workplace bullying was mediated by a lower perception of organizational justice, and whether the association between ERI and perceptions of justice was moderated by organizational identification. In the current study, a sample of N = 195 Spanish employees from different occupational sectors filled in an online questionnaire at two different times with a time lag of 8 months. In line with the hypothesized moderated mediation model, results showed that organizational justice mediated the impact of ERI on workplace bullying. Moreover, the effect of perceived ERI on organizational justice was stronger for employees with low organizational identification. Overall, this study can contribute to better understanding how and when ERI boosts the risk of workplace bullying. Accordingly, early intervention designed to buffer the negative effects of ERI should focus on increasing individual levels of organizational identification.

How job demands affect absenteeism? The mediating role of work-family conflict and exhaustion.

PURPOSE: To investigate how psychosocial factors (such as job demands and work-family conflict) produce absenteeism in the workplace, using the health impairment process of the job demands-resources model. According to this model, job demands lead to burnout (often measured with the emotional exhaustion component), which in turn could lead to outcomes (such as absenteeism). Work-family conflict (WFC) was also studied, because of contradictory results collected in the existing literature on absenteeism in the workplace, regarding the role of WFC in causing absenteeism. METHODS: Data were collected on 245 workers using both subjective (questionnaire on psychological risk factors and work-related health) and objective data (sickness leave frequency records). To test the hypothesis that job demands and WFC contribute to absenteeism in the workplace, a subsequent mediation analysis was used, which analysed both (a) the subsequent mediation of WFC and emotional exhaustion and (b) the separate roles played by the mediators proposed (WFC and emotional exhaustion). RESULTS: Job demands affect absenteeism through the subsequent mediation of WFC and emotional exhaustion. In addition, emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between job demands and absenteeism, while WFC does not. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, subsequent mediation highlights the role of emotional exhaustion in causing absenteeism; in fact, when emotional exhaustion is included in the analysis, job demands are associated with higher levels of absenteeism. The results of this study suggest that without the concurrent contribution of emotional exhaustion, WFC does not influence absenteeism in the workplace. Our findings are useful for organizations that aim to reduce absenteeism.

Effort-reward imbalance and organisational injustice among aged nurses: a moderated mediation model.

AIM: To test the effort-reward imbalance model among older nurses, expanding it to include the moderation of overcommitment and age in the stress-health complaints relationship, mediated by organisational injustice. BACKGROUND: The theoretical framework included the effort-reward imbalance, the uncertainty management and the socio-emotional selectivity models. METHOD: Employing a two-wave design, the participants were 255 nurses aged 45 years and over, recruited from four large hospitals in Spain (Madrid and Basque Country). RESULTS: The direct effect of imbalance on health complaints was supported: it was significant when overcommitment was low but not when it was high. Organisational injustice mediated the influence of effort-reward imbalance on health complaints. The conditional effect of the mediation of organisational injustice was significant in three of the overcommitment/age conditions but it weakened, becoming non-significant, when the level of overcommitment was low and age was high. CONCLUSIONS: The study tested the model in nursing populations and expanded it to the settings of occupational health and safety at work. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: The results of this study highlight the importance of effort-reward imbalance and organisational justice for creating healthy work environments.

First validation of the technical and administrative staff quality of life at work tool (TASQ@work) in academia.

Introduction: Based on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the present study aimed to validate "The Technical and Administrative Staff Quality of Life At Work" (TASQ@work), a new tool to assess the quality of life at work in academia focused on technical and administrative staff. Methods: This tool was developed by the QoL@Work research team, a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The TASQ@work was elaborated in different steps. The first phase was aimed at the identification of the dimensions of the tool. The second phase was aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the tool. The validation process involved confirmatory analysis and measurement invariance of the various constructs selected. The analyses were performed in a convenience sample of two Italian universities in different regions (one in the Northwest and the second in Central Italy). Results: The sample was composed of 1820 Administrative Staff, comprising 69.4% from University 1 (N = 1,263) and 30.6% from University 2 (N = 557). The TASQ@work presented satisfactory psychometric properties (normality of the items, reliability and content, construct and nomological validity) and measurement invariance across gender, seniority, and Athenaeum. Discussion: The results indicate that the tool can be considered a reliable and valid instrument to assess job demands, job resources, and outcomes in the working life of technical and administrative academic staff. In this perspective, the present study represents the first contribution to the debate on the psychosocial risks in academic contexts by presenting a new tool, the TASQ@work, aimed at contextualizing the JD-R model to understand the role played by psychosocial aspects in affecting the well-being of the academic employees.

Getting vaccinated or not getting vaccinated? Different reasons for getting vaccinated against seasonal or pandemic influenza.

BACKGROUND: A large number of studies have investigated the motivation behind health care workers (HCWs) taking the influenza vaccine. But with the appearance of pandemic influenza, it became important to better analyse the reasons why workers get vaccinated against seasonal and/or pandemic influenza. METHODS: Three main categories of reasons were identified with an Exploratory Factor Analysis. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to verify the existence of differences between three categories of choices (taking of seasonal and pandemic vaccine, only the seasonal vaccine or none). In addition, a multinomial logistic regression analysis was performed to analyse the association between stated intentions and update of seasonal and pandemic vaccine. Questionnaires were returned from 168 HCWs (67.3% women). RESULTS: The results showed that age and being well-informed about vaccination topics are the most important variables in determining the choice to take the vaccine. CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight the importance of enhancing education programs to improve awareness among HCWs concerning the benefits of taking the influenza vaccination, with particular attention paid to younger workers.

How Emotional Contagion among Teachers Affects the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Team Cohesion.

Teachers and educators are experiencing turmoil under the drastic changes in educational practices caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to research, transformational leaders effectively facilitate organizational change by fostering teachers' sense of belonging and boosting social identity in their team members, which can result in better team well-being via higher team cohesion. Recently, research has increasingly explored the role of emotional contagion and its relationship with leadership. Accordingly, the current study aims to delve deeper into the role of emotional contagion in linking transformational leadership to cohesion among teachers in the school setting. To this purpose, 581 teachers from northern Italy filled out a self-report questionnaire (72.1% female, Mage = 47.06, and SDage = 11.42). A moderated mediation model was tested to assess the mediating role of organizational identification in the relationship between transformational leadership and team cohesion and how emotional contagion may moderate this association. The obtained results provided support to the hypothesized model. Overall, the present study corroborates the critical role of school principals' behavior in fostering greater organizational identification among teachers, which is associated with better team cohesion. This study constitutes an early attempt to gain more insight into the role of emotional variables in explaining the influence of leadership behavior.

The importance of training transfer of non-technical skills safety training of construction workers.

Safety training of migrant workers in construction has focused on technical skills with limited attention to non-technical skills, which support safety training transfer to the worksite, both immediately after training and in the long term. Using realist evaluation as our theoretical framework, this study explores the transfer of two key non-technical skills to construction sites: communication and decision-making. Trained workers completed questionnaires post-training and after six months. A moderated mediation model found an indirect link through training transfer between communication and decision-making skills immediately post-training and six months later. The results also revealed that high levels of safety self-efficacy moderated the relationship between communication, but not decision-making, safety skills post-training and the extent to which trained workers reported transferring these skills. The study has important practical implications, showing the significance of training transfer of non-technical skills, such as communication and decision-making, to the worksite.

Work Engagement: A meta-Analysis Using the Job Demands-Resources Model.

Although the construct of work engagement has been extensively explored, a systematic meta-analysis based on a consistent categorization of engagement antecedents, outcomes, and well-being correlates is still lacking. The results of prior research reporting 533 correlations from 113 independent samples (k = 94, n = 119,420) were coded using a meta-analytic approach. The effect size for development resources (r = .45) and personal resources (r = .48) was higher than for social resources (r = .36) and for job resources (r = .37). Among the outcomes and well-being correlates explored, the effect size was highest for job satisfaction (r = .60) and commitment (r = .63). Furthermore, moderation analysis showed that (a) concerning the occupational role, work engagement finds a low association with turnover intention among civil servants, volunteer workers, and educators; (b) collectivist cultural environments reported a greater association of feedback with engagement than individualistic environments; (c) the relationship between personal resources and engagement was stronger among workers with university degrees than workers with high school diplomas. Furthermore, the absorption dimension showed a lower effect with all variables under investigation than vigor and dedication.

Development and Initial Validation of the Safety Training Engagement Scale (STE-S).

Safety training promotes safety at work, in particular through the use of engaging methods. This study introduces a newly developed measure of individual engagement in safety training, and aims to analyze the psychometric proprieties of the scale. The safety training engagement scale (STE) consists of five items pertaining to the trainee's dedication and absorption in a safety training session. Two studies are carried out to analyze the validity of the scale. The first study focuses on the construct (internal) validity, to examine the scale's internal consistency and dimensional structure. The second study seeks to provide further evidence for construct validity by testing the external validity of the scale. The sample consists of 913 (study 1) and 133 (study 2) participants in safety training programs in the field of the chemical industry who were invited to fill the STE scale after attending a safety training course. The results provide support to affirm the validity and reliability of the scale. The discussion describes the implication and the limitations of using the STE scale in practical safety training programs, and outlines recommendations for research to improve the scale's robustness.

Integrating Human Barriers in Human Reliability Analysis: A New Model for the Energy Sector.

Human reliability analysis (HRA) is a major concern for organizations. While various tools, methods, and instruments have been developed by the scientific community to assess human error probability, few of them actually consider human factors impact in their analysis. The active role that workers have in shaping their own performance should be taken into account in order to understand the causal factors that may lead to errors while performing a task and identifying which human factors may prevent errors from occurring. In line with this purpose, the aim of this study is to present a new methodology for the assessment of human reliability. The proposed model relies on well-known HRA methodologies (such as SPAR-H and HEART) and integrates them in a unified framework in which human factors assume the role of safety barriers against human error. A test case of the new method was carried out in a logistics hub of an energy company. Our results indicate that human factors play a significant role in preventing workers from making errors while performing tasks by reducing human error probability. The limits and implications of the study are discussed.

Italian Validation of the 12-Item Version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12).

The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) has shown satisfactory validity evidence in several countries, with the 23-item version of the instrument reporting adequate psychometric properties also in the Italian context. This paper is aimed to present results from the Italian validation of the 12-item version of the BAT. Based on a sample of 2277 workers, our results supported the factorial validity of a higher-order model represented by 4 first-order factors corresponding to the core dimensions of burnout, namely exhaustion, mental distance, and emotional and cognitive impairment. The measure invariance of the BAT-12 between data collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was supported. However, ANCOVA results suggest a higher score on the second-order burnout factor on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with earlier data. In line with the JD-R model, the BAT-12 total score reported a positive association with job demands (i.e., workload, time pressure, and role conflict) and a negative association with job resources (i.e., job autonomy, coworkers' support) and personal resources (i.e., optimism, social self-efficacy, and task self-efficacy). Additionally, the BAT-12 showed a negative association with work engagement components (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) and positive job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, affective commitment). All in all, our results identify the Italian version of the BAT-12 as a brief and reliable tool for measuring burnout among workers.

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context.

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool.

Job Insecurity and Job Performance: A Serial Mediated Relationship and the Buffering Effect of Organizational Justice.

The study aimed to extend the current knowledge of the relationship between job insecurity and performance. In line with traditional stress theories, work-family and burnout were hypothesized as serial mediators of the negative link between job insecurity and job performance. Also, the current study hypothesized that the association between job insecurity and the mediators [i.e., Work-family conflict (WFC) and burnout] could be buffered by perceived organizational justice among employees. Therefore, we empirically tested a moderated serial mediation model. Participants were 370 employees of an Italian multiservice social cooperative. Data were collected using a self-report questionnaire in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The obtained results indicated that WFC and burnout mediated the association between job insecurity and job performance. Furthermore, perceived organizational justice buffered the relationship between job insecurity and WFC. Concerning job burnout, the association with job insecurity was moderated only among employees perceiving medium and high levels of organizational justice. The moderated serial mediation index provided support to the role of organizational justice in decreasing the association between job insecurity and job performance. This study delves deeper into the variables explaining the relationship between job insecurity and job performance by testing a serial process mechanism that involved WFC and burnout. Additionally, the obtained results provide suggestions to organizations and managers regarding the protective role of organizational justice to sustain employees' mental health and performance. Practical implications at the organizational and managerial level are provided, along with a focus on the actual impact of the pandemic.

The Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Gender between Job Satisfaction and Task Performance.

Job satisfaction (JS) is an indicator of individual psychosocial health. Consistent evidence showed that voluntary extra-role behavior in organizations, namely organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), can also contribute to individual psychological health. JS has been found to positively influence employees' OCB, and both JS and OCB have been found to predict employees' task performance (TP). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether employees' OCB mediates the relationship of JS with TP, taking into consideration gender as a potential moderator, and other sociodemographic and work-related characteristics as confounding variables. A total of 518 employees, 54.6% women, aged 19-66 years with a mean age of about 36 years, completed measures of JS, OCB, and TP. Results showed a partial mediation of OCB in the JS-TP relationship, which was invariant across gender. A potential practical implication of findings is that human resource managers and practitioners might ultimately benefit male and female employees' well-being as well as the organizations' productivity by developing targeted individual- and group-level trainings and interventions to enhance JS and OCB.

Hard Enough to Manage My Emotions: How Hardiness Moderates the Relationship Between Emotional Demands and Exhaustion.

The frequency of conflicts with patients' families is one of the main contributors to the amount of emotional demands that healthcare professionals must tackle to prevent the occurrence of burnout symptoms. On the other hand, research evidence suggests that hardiness could enable healthcare professionals to handle their responsibilities and problems effectively. Based on the health impairment process of the Job Demands-Resources model, the main goal of this study was to delve deeper into the relationship between conflict with patients' families, emotional demands, and exhaustion, as well as to test the buffering role of hardiness. Data were collected from a sample of N = 295 healthcare professionals working in a private hospital in Northern Italy. Most of them were women (78.6%) with a mean age of 40.62 years (SD = 9.50). The mediation of emotional demands within the association between conflict with families and emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of hardiness was tested using a bootstrapping approach. In the current sample, emotional demands mediated the association between conflict with families and exhaustion among healthcare professionals. Moreover, this relationship decreased among individuals with higher levels of hardiness. These findings contribute to the current understanding of the negative impact played by conflict with families on healthcare professionals' psychological well-being. Furthermore, they corroborated the role of hardiness as a personal resource that could prevent the occurrence of burnout symptoms. In addition to manage-and decrease-episodes of conflict with patients and their families, organizations in the healthcare sector should develop interventions aimed at fostering employees' hardiness and, consequently, tackle job demands ingrained in their profession (i.e., emotional demands).

Same Involvement, Different Reasons: How Personality Factors and Organizations Contribute to Heavy Work Investment.

The academic literature has drawn a clear distinction between a positive form (i.e., work engagement) and a negative form (i.e., workaholism) of heavy work investment (HWI). Nevertheless, the different weight of individual and situational factors contributing to their development was not thoroughly explored. This study aims to investigate the role of individual variables (i.e., obsessive-compulsive traits, achievement orientation, perfectionism, and conscientiousness) and situational factors (i.e., job demands and overwork climate) regarding engagement and workaholism simultaneously. Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 523 Italian employees. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that overwork climate and job demands were conversely related to engagement and workaholism, with job demand reporting the strongest association with workaholism. Furthermore, fear of failure was the only individual factor showing a significant and opposite relationship with workaholism and engagement. In contrast, perfectionism was positively associated with both forms of HWI. These results shed light on the potential effectiveness of intervention strategies focused on the employees and organizations in preventing workaholism and promoting engagement.