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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Wan-Yu Yeh and Yawen Cheng. Institute of Health Policy and Management, National Taiwan University, Room 617 , No.17 , Hsu-Chow Rd., Taipei, Taiwan, 886-2-23070741, wanyu@ntu.edu.tw

There has been an increase in the use of variable pay systems among Taiwanese organization to reduce management costs. Although pay systems influence employees' attitudes to and behaviors in work, however, the health impacts on employees are usually neglected. Our purpose is to investigate the distribution of types of pay systems and examine the relationships between pay systems and employees' burnout-related problems stratified by gender and social position. Our data were from a national survey conducted in 2004, in which consisted of 15288 paid employees. Information on demographics, work conditions, wage systems, employment grade, burnout scores, and a variety of health complaints were obtained by a self-administered questionnaire. Pay systems were classified into three types: fixed salary, performance-contingent pay, and piece-rate/ time-based pay. Our results showed that beyond one-third of our study populations were in variable pay systems. Among the three pay types, workers with performance-contingent pay had longest working hours and the highest levels of work demands, job control, burnout score, and also a highest prevalence of health complaints. The patterns of association among wage systems and burnout scores differed by gender and employment grade. For men, significant and positive relationship between flexible wage and burnout were founded in median and low employment grades; but for women, the relationship was only apparent in median grade employees. In conclusion, the results of this exploratory study suggest that variable systems were common in Taiwan and were associated with increased risks of burnout problems in some working people, especially for non-manual workers.

Learning Objectives:

• The idea that the performance-contingent pay systems have been effective in motivating employees to higher levels of performance has been the subject of theory in the field of human resource management. However, little attention has been paid to the effect of performance-based wage on employees’ health. It may be valuable to find out the characteristics and the differences in health of employees in different pay systems in a large and representative sample for offer suggestions for improvements in labor regulation.

Keywords: Occupational Health, Labor

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation