269225 Job characteristics and employees' physiological and psychological fitness for work duties

Monday, October 29, 2012

Brian Gifford, PhD , Integrated Benefits Institute, San Francisco, CA
Background: Job control and work-life balance are frequently linked to higher job satisfaction, which are in turn frequently cited as positive contributors to organizational performance. In this work we examine the implications of job characteristics for workers' physical and psychological fitness to perform their duties.

Method: We conduct a factor analysis of work climate and job characteristics questions included in the Quality of Work Life (QWL) module in the 2002, 2006, and 2010 General Social Survey (GSS). Our analysis identified six factors from which we developed scale measures of employee's job characteristics. We then predict ordinal measures of employed persons' days of poor physical and mental health, and days where poor physical or mental health limited usual activities as a function of work climate, job characteristics, and demographics.

Results: Preliminary results indicate that workers in jobs characterized by more adequate resources and balanced work-life demands had fewer days of poor physical and mental health and fewer days of health limitations. Workers who described caring feelings among management and co-workers also had fewer days of poor mental health. Workers who had more input in workplace decisions had more days of poor mental and physical health.

Conclusion: The preliminary findings suggest that employers seeking to improve workforce performance could benefit from attention to job design, resource allocation, and helping employees strike a balance between work and family demands.

Learning Areas:
Occupational health and safety
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
To examine implications of job characteristics for workers’ physical and psychological fitness to perform their duties. To discuss how employers might promote job fitness with attention to to job design, resource allocation, and helping employees strike a balance between work and family demands.

Keywords: Occupational Health, Workplace Stressors

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I was a post-doctoral fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Scholars in Health Policy Research Program at UCSF/UC Berkeley, and have worked in the field of workplace health for almost four years. Prior to entering the workforce health fields, I worked for three years authoring or co-authoring several studies with a focus on workforce recruitment, retention, and training.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 3057.0: Shift Work, Psychosocial Stressors, and Work Organization