Indirect Effects of Control over Work Activities on Worker's Well-Being: A Study of Frequent Work Travelers

Background and Objective(s) Work travel has increased in the 2000s, involving one-third of full time workers. Research on work-related travel has examined health-related and workplace associations (Greenhaus et al., 2001). Work travel can affect workers' satisfaction, stress, and feelings about their jobs (Gustafson, 2006; Westman & Etzion, 2008). This study addresses the links that are missing from the literature between the conditions and perceptions of work and the well-being of workers whose jobs require them to travel. Methods Data are from the Work-Related Travel: Effects on Health and Family project. Ninety-five frequent work travelers (20+ nights away per year) provided information on control over work activities and established measures of work overload, effort recovery after work, job satisfaction, depression, and anxiety. Results A Structural Equation Model was run using AMOS. The model had a good fit (CFI = .96 and RMSEA=.09). The results indicated that control over work activities had an indirect effect on the work travelers' psychological well-being through the perception of work. Conclusion(s) When individuals face demands of work travel, their perceptions of work (such as overload) are important to understand in an examination of their well-being. Workplace interventions to modify the control over work activities, an element of the structure of their work day, can be beneficial to workers to the extent that the workers' perceptions of work improve. As work travel continues to rise, control over work activities is crucial to their ability to find satisfaction in their jobs and to maintain well-being.