Impact of Psychosocial Safety Climate, Workload and Organizational Social Support on Job Related Affective Wellbeing and Job Satisfaction of Employees Presented By Supervisor: Maheen Khan Dr. Anees-ul - Haque
Psychological health at work is a serious occupational health and safety issue. Organizational factors has a powerful influence on the health of the person at work. A driving force is to improve productivity, and profitability- and therefore psychological health of employees is important. We need resilient organizations for resilient people-psychosocial safety climate is a key. The increased need to protect worker psychological wellbeing has arisen due to the recognition of the potential negative outcomes of psychosocial risk at work (Dollard and McTernan , 2011)
Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) refers to shared perceptions regarding policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety (Dollard & Bakker, 2010). Psychosocial safety climate consists of four domains; S enior M anagement S upport and Commitment M anagement P riority O rganizational C ommunication O rganizational Participation (Dollard and Bakker, 2010).
Job Demands-Resources theory considers psychosocial work conditions, particularly job demands (e.g. workload, emotional demands, bullying) as significant predictors of employee health. ( Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004 ) Moreover, psychosocial risk factors found to correlate with employee health outcomes include workload, emotional demands, role conflict, bullying and harassment, feedback, opportunities for development, sense of community, autonomy, leadership, co-worker support, and organizational commitment. ( Demerouti , Nachreiner , Bakker, & Schaufeli , 2001; Karasek & Theorell, 1990). In a major review, the World Health Organization found that the influence of psychosocial risk at work is of increasing concern globally. ( Leka & Jain, 2010) .
Psychosocial S afety C limate Theory “ In high PSC contexts managers will be cognizant of risk factors and will help to shape jobs where demands are manageable, and resources adequate. Therefore if PSC is assessed, levels of demands and resources can be predicted .” (Dollard and Bakker, 2010 )
( Law, Dollard, Tuckey , & Dormann , 2011 )
Workload In a very general sense, workload simply represents the sheer volume of work required of an employee. However, workload can be measured in terms of number of hours worked, level of production, or even the mental demands of the work being performed. ( Spector & Jex , 1998)
Organizational Social S upport Lin, Simeone , Ensel , and Kuo (1979) identify social support with social networks or social environments. They define social support as support accessible to an individual through social ties with other individuals, groups, and the larger community. Supervisor support and coworker support have frequently been measured as sources of social support at work. (Israel, House, Schurman , Heaney, & Mero , 1989)
Job Related Affective Wellbeing The concept of wellbeing has been defined as positive psychological functioning and experience. ( Ryff , 1995; Ryan & Deci , 2001 ) Affective wellbeing ( Warr 1990b) refers to feelings about either life in general ( i.e .‘ context -free’), or affect in relation to a specific domain (i.e. ‘job-related’ and ‘ facet specific ’). In relation to affective wellbeing, the term ‘job’ refers to the specific tasks undertaken by individuals in a particular setting, whereas work refers to jobs in general. ( Warr,Cook & Wall, 1979).
Job Satisfaction Spector (1997), defines job satisfaction quite simply as the extent to which people like or dislike their jobs. Reviews of the literature show that job satisfaction is closely related to working conditions ( Luthans , 1995), and several studies indicate that job satisfaction is negatively associated with different workplace stressors. (Cooper, Watts & Kelly, 1987; Kirk-Brown & Wallace, 2004; Sullivan & Bhagat , 1992).
There is significant evidence that psychosocial risks can lead to physical and mental disease. (Cheng, Kawachi , Coakley , Schwartz, & Colditz , 2000; Cooper & Cartwright, 1994) PSC was an important organizational resource, which influenced demands and resources . If employers do not pay attention to employee’s concerns, or ignore psychological well-being at work, the effects would be detrimental. ( Dollard & Bakker, 2010). Many scientific research findings suggest that psychosocial factors play an important role in the development of mental health problems. ( Chang et al., 2006; Chen, Wong, & Yu, 2009; Nomura, Nakao , Sato, Ishikawa, & Yano, 2007 ).
Conceptual Framework PSC Organizational Social Support Workload Job Satisfaction JAW
Rationale of the Study Industrial incidents that result in industrial death and injury arise from a poor safety climate. (Neal & Griffith, 2006 ). It has been strongly suggest that PSC is a logical upstream target for injury prevention as it is an antecedent for demands and resources as well as health and productivity outcomes. (Dollard et al, 2012)
To study psychosocial safety climate is also important because it will provide evidence that not only physical but psychological health of employees is also important for their proper functioning. It will also provide evidence to support strategies for prevention and intervention specifically in our local context. Moreover, with respect to sample of the present study, non managerial employees have not been studied with this perspective. On the other hand when we look at the safety policies and practices of Pakistan then we realized that in Pakistan there is almost no policies and practices for psychological safety of employees.
METHOD
Objectives To investigate the impact of psychosocial safety climate (PSC), workload and organizational social support on, psychological wellbeing and job satisfaction of employees. The relationship between variables with respect to different demographics (age, job experience, working hours, education, permanent or casual).
Hypotheses A positive correlation exists between psychosocial safety climate and Job Related Affective wellbeing of employees. Psychosocial safety climate positively correlates with job satisfaction. Organizational social support positively correlates with job related affective wellbeing of employees. Organizational social support negatively correlates with workload. Job Satisfaction positively correlates with job related affective wellbeing.
Workload mediates the relationship between PSC and job related affective wellbeing of employees . Workload mediates the relationship between PSC and job satisfaction of employees. Organizational social support at work mediates the relationship between PSC and job related affective wellbeing . Organizational social support at work mediates the relationship between PSC and job satisfaction.
Operational Definitions 1. Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) PSC refers to policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety (Dollard & Bakker, 2010). Scores obtained on PSC-12 questionnaire will be the index of PSC. High score on PSC will indicate the better perception about psychosocial safety climate of organization. (Dollard & Bakker, 2010)
2. Workload Workload can be defined as sheer volume of work required of an employee (Spector & Jex , 1998). In this study score obtained on quantitative workload inventory will be the index of workload. High score will indicate the higher workload. 3. Organizational social support Social support in an organization can be defined as the interaction between newcomers and insiders, and it serves as the basic source through which early socialization take place ( Reichers , 1987). In present study, score obtained on organizational social support scale ( Caplan , Cobb, French, Harrison & Pinneau , 1975) will be the index of social support. (1975).
4. Job Related Affective Wellbeing(JAW) Positive and negative emotions comprised to form job related affective wellbeing. Scores obtained on Urdu version of job related affective wellbeing scale ( Abbasi & Kamal, 2015) will be the index of job related affective wellbeing. Higher score will indicate higher job related affective well being and vice versa. 5. Job satisfaction Locke (1976) gives a comprehensive definition of job satisfaction as “ a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience”. In this study the scores obtained on Urdu version of job satisfaction scale adapted by Khan (2008) will be the index of job satisfaction.
INSTRUMENTS
Questionnaire Authors No. of subscales Items α Response Categories Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC-12) Hall, Dollard, and Coward, 2010 4 subscales MCS, MP, OC, OP 12 .94 5- point likert scale (range 1- 5) Quantitative Workload Inventory (QWI) Spector and Jex , 1998 5 .79 5- point likert scale (range 1-5) Social support scale French, Caplan , and Harrison, 1982. Two subscales Supervisor support Coworker’s support Administration support 12 .94 5- point likert scale. 1= sometimes and 5 = always. Job Related Affective Well Being Scale Van Katwyk et al., (2000), Urdu version, Abbasi and Kamal ( 2015) Two Subscales Positive and Negative Emotions. 20 .83 6 point likert scale. Job Satisfaction Scale Hackman and Oldham (1976), Urdu version, Khan (2008) 5 .62 5- point likert scale.
Research Design Present study is a quantitative cross-sectional design survey research. It was conducted in two phases: Phase I . This phase involved adaptation of the two scales, Quantitative Workload Inventory (QWI) and Psychosocial Safety Climate Scale (PSC) into Urdu and Pilot study to ensure the psychometric properties of translated scales. Phase II . This was Main Study and involved hypotheses testing.
PILOT STUDY Sample. For Pilot study, sample consisted of 50 non managerial employees of manufacturing department of textile industries from Rawalpindi and Faisalabad. The inclusion criterion was minimum experience of 3 months in textile industry as a worker.
Table 1 Sample Characteristics for Pilot Study (N=50) Demographics f % Demographics f % Gender Male 20 40 Family system Nuclear 12 24 Female 30 60 Joint 38 76 Education Primary 04 8 Job Title Tailor 40 80 Middle 10 20 Helper 05 10 Matric 21 42 Lab worker 02 4 Inter 11 22 Line mover 01 2 Masters 02 4 Graphic designer 02 4 Marital Status Married 18 36 Job Type Regular 35 70 Unmarried 32 64 Contractual 15 30 Shift duty Morning 46 92 Evening 04 8
Correlation, Croanbach Alpha Coefficients, Mean, and Standard Deviation of Urdu Version of all the Scales of the Study (N=50) Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. PSC 44.50 10.40 (.91) .84*** .85*** .84*** .93*** -.36** .52*** .29* .31* 2. MCS 11.82 2.62 (.70) .69*** .56*** .72*** -.28* .55*** .14 .24* 3. MP 11.08 2.84 (.64) .58*** .71*** -.39** .28* .39** .41** 4. OC 10.82 3.09 (.76) .75*** -.22 .48** .18 .09 5. OP 10.78 3.41 (.84) -.35** .48*** .29* .33* 6. QW 15.34 4.89 (.78) -.12 -.28* -.24* 7. SS 67.92 15.13 (.92) .21 .14 8. JAW 76.64 11.78 (.83) .41** 9. JS 19.06 4.24 (.68) * p <. 05 ,** p <. 01, ***p <. 001
Main Study Sample Sample consisted of 250 individuals, including the sample of pilot study, selected through purposive sampling technique from Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Chiniot and Karachi. The inclusion criterion was minimum experience of 3 months in textile industry as a worker.
Sample Characteristics for Main Study (N= 250) Demographics f % Demographics f % Gender Male 176 70.4 Family system Nuclear 90 36 Female 74 29.6 Joint 160 64 Education Primary 24 9.6 Job Title Tailor 81 32.4 Middle 37 14.8 Helper 14 5.6 Matric 70 28 Lab worker 2 0.8 Inter 80 32 Line mover 1 0.4 Masters Missing 06 01 2.4 0.4 Graphic designer Any other Missing 6 119 27 2.4 47.6 10.8 Marital Status Married 136 54 Job Type Regular 139 55.6 Unmarried 114 45.6 Contractual Missing 90 21 36 8.4 Shift duty Morning 186 74.4 Evening Night Missing 44 16 4 17.6 6.4 1.6
Mean , Standard D eviation and t-values for Male and Female Employees (N = 250 ) Male (n=176) Female (n=74) 95%CI Variables M SD M SD t(250) p LL UL Cohen'd PSC 33.17 11.52 38.39 13.26 3.12 .002 -8.51 -1.92 .42 SS 51.47 16.00 57.15 18.11 2.46 .021 -10.21 -1.12 .33 QW 15.41 5.10 14.59 4.02 1.23 .221 -.49 2.13 .18 JS 16.22 3.57 17.01 3.85 1.55 .121 -1.79 .21 .21 JAW 64.73 11.30 69.43 14.30 2.77 .006 -8.05 -1.35 .36
Mean , Standard D eviation and t-values for Employees with Regular and Contractual Job Type (N = 250) Regular (n=139) Contractual (n=90) 95%CI Variables M SD M SD t(229) p LL UL Cohen'd PSC 38.19 11.24 31.89 12.65 3.84 .000 3.07 9.55 .53 SS 58.32 14.41 48.69 18.52 4.18 .000 5.07 14.17 .58 QW 17.05 4.69 13.05 4.01 6.64 .000 2.81 5.17 . 92 JS 16.32 3.71 16.98 3.76 1.32 .186 -1.66 0.32 .18 JAW 67.32 12.50 65.82 12.32 0.89 .371 -1.81 4.81 .12
Conclusion Psychosocial Safety Climate has Significant P ositive Correlation With Job related Affective Wellbeing and Job Satisfaction. Social Support and Workload mediate the relationship between PSC , JAW and JS. Job Satisfaction is also playing a mediating role.
Implications of the Study Importance of PSC G uidelines for psychological safety of employees in Pakistan H igh exchange relationship between supervisors and employees so that the Psychologically secure employees may trust that they will never be left alone in threat. G uideline to industrialist for planning interventions F uture researchers in broadening their domain of research in Pakistan.
Limitations Focus was only on Non. Managerial sample. Only textile industries was focused Comparative studies on larger sample by taking different industries specifically chemical industries.