Enabling successful change in a high-demand working environment: a case study in a health care organization.

PURPOSE: The anticipation of organizational change and the transition process often creates uncertainty for employees and can lead to stress and anxiety. It is therefore essential for all organizations, especially those that operate in high-demand working environments, to support the well-being of staff throughout the change process. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Research on how employees respond to the organizational change of relocating to a new work space is limited. To fill this gap in the research, we present a case study examining the well-being of clinical and health care employees before and after a disruptive change: relocation in workplace facilities. In addition, factors that enabled successful change in this high-stress, high-demand working environment were investigated. Interviews were conducted with 20 participants before the relocation and 11 participants after relocation. Following an inductive approach, data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify key themes. FINDINGS: Our findings suggest that a supportive team, inclusive leadership and a psychologically safe environment, may buffer negative employee well-being outcomes during disruptive organizational change. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This research contributes to the literature on successful organizational change in health care by highlighting the resources which support well-being throughout the change process and enabling the successful transition to a new facility.

A Meta-Analysis of Job Insecurity and Employee Performance: Testing Temporal Aspects, Rating Source, Welfare Regime, and Union Density as Moderators.

Previous research has shown that job insecurity is linked to a range of performance outcomes, but the number of studies exploring this relationship is still limited and the results are somewhat mixed. The first aim of this study was to meta-analytically investigate how job insecurity is related to task performance, contextual performance, counterproductive work behavior, creativity, and safety compliance. The second aim was to test two method-related factors (cross-sectional vs. longitudinal associations and self- vs. supervisor-ratings of performance) and two macro-level indicators of social protection (social welfare regime and union density) as moderators of these associations. The results show that job insecurity was generally associated with impaired employee performance. These findings were generally similar both cross-sectionally and longitudinally and irrespective of rater. Overall, the associations between job insecurity and negative performance outcomes were weaker in welfare regimes characterized by strong social protection, whereas the results concerning union density produced mixed results. A majority of the findings confirmed the negative associations between job insecurity and types of employee performance, but future research is needed to elaborate on the effects of temporal aspects, differences between ratings sources, and further indicators of social protection in different cultural settings in the context of job insecurity.

Job insecurity as a predictor of physiological indicators of health in healthy working women: an extension of previous research.

Job insecurity has been linked to different negative outcomes, such as negative work attitudes and health problems, with most studies including self-reported outcomes. Extending earlier research, the present study includes both self-reported and physiological indicators of health and sets out to investigate whether higher levels of job insecurity are related to higher levels of allostatic load, higher levels of morning cortisol, more physician-diagnosed symptoms of ill-health and poorer self-rated health. The study also investigated whether self-rated health mediated the relation between job insecurity and physiological outcomes. This was cross-sectionally studied in a cohort of Swedish women who participated in a large-scale longitudinal study focusing on life span development and adaptation. The results showed that job insecurity was related to self-rated health and morning cortisol, and, contrary to expectations, that job insecurity was unrelated to allostatic load and physician ratings, both directly and indirectly. The results indicate that, in healthy working women, job insecurity may be less detrimental to long-term physiological health than originally hypothesized.