Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-14T11:48:35.964Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Measuring Dimensions of a Healthy Workplace Climate: A User-Friendly Assessment Tool

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2016

Gabrielle McHugh
Gabrielle McHugh*
Affiliation:
University of Northern British Columbia, Canada
*
Address for correspondence: Dr Gabrielle McHugh, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, V2N. E-mail: gabrielle.mchugh@alumni.unbc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the concept of healthy workplaces has historical roots in the extant literature, it remains an elusive concept to define and apply in the workplace. Nonetheless, the literature does suggest that it is a challenging and continuously improving process of supporting, protecting and promoting the health of the employee. The aim of this study was to devise a user-friendly, climate-specific assessment tool to evaluate employees’ perceptions and knowledge of the practices and procedures in the workplace that prioritise the development of a healthy, supportive workplace. After extensive literature review and early stage pilot-testing of several independent sites within an organisation, a 31-item Likert-type scale — The Workplace Scale (WPS) — was brought forward to test its psychometric properties using an independent international sample that was gathered using email distribution. These initial distribution contacts were two of the author's professional colleagues and thereafter the scale was cascaded electronically to respondents in several countries. The factor analysis conducted on the data obtained from 108 respondents yielded a solid five factor solution that was consistent with earlier test administrations and revealed interpretable and distinct factors that strongly loaded on pertinent dimensions relevant to a healthy workplace. The tangible product is a user-friendly tool to baseline the development of a healthy, supportive workplace, while providing employees with an efficient upward communication mechanism to enable management to monitor progress. Devising the WPS was undertaken as part of wider study that subsequently compared the WPS against measures of climate, leadership and culture and is reported elsewhere.

Keywords

healthy workplacesworkplace climateemployee perceptionsscale developmentcontinuous improvement processdisability management
Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Disability Management , Volume 11 , 2016 , e1
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akabas, S.H., & Gates, L. B. (1990). Organizational commitment: A key to successful implementation of disability management. American Rehabilitation, 16 (3), 9–14.Google Scholar
Amick, B., Habeck, R.V., Hunt, A., Fossel, A.H., Chapin, R.B., Keller, H., & Katz, J.N. (2000). Measuring the impact of organizational behaviors on work disability prevention and management. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 10 (1), 21–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argyris, C. (1957). The individual and organization: Some problems of mutual adjustment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2, 1–24.Google Scholar
Bennis, W. (1989). Why leaders can't lead. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Brouwer, S., Amick, B., Lee, H., Franche, RL., Hogg-Johnson, S. (2015). The predictive validity of the return-to-work self-efficacy scale for return-to-work outcomes in claimants with musculoskeletal disorders. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation. doi: 10.1007/s10926-015-9580-7 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Byrne, B.M. (2010). Structural Equation Modeling with AMOS: Basic concepts, applications and programming (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carr, J.Z., Schmidt, A.M., Ford, J.K., & DeShon, R.P. (2003). Climate perceptions matter: A meta-analytic path analysis relating molar climate, cognitive and affective states, and individual level work outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88 (4), 605–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christian, M.S., Bradley, J.C., Wallace, J.C., & Burke, M.J. (2009). Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 5, 1103–1127. doi: 10.1037/a0016172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, C.L. (1998). Theories of organizational stress. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, C.L., & Cartwright, S. (1994). Healthy mind, healthy organization: A proactive approach to stress management. Human Relations, 47 (4), 455–471.Google Scholar
Costello, A.B. & Osborne, J.W. (2005). Best practices in exploratory factor analysis: Four recommendations for getting the most from your analysis. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 10 (7), 1–9.Google Scholar
Daft, R. (2015). Organization theory and design (12th ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson South Western.Google Scholar
Detert, J., & Burris, E.R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of Management Journal, 50 (4), 869–884. doi: 10.5465/AMJ.2007.26279183 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durand, M.J., & Loisel, P. (2001). Therapeutic return to work: Rehabilitation in the workplace. Work, 17, 57–63.Google ScholarPubMed
Field, A.P. (2004). Discovering statistics using SPSS: Designing questionnaires (2nd ed.). London, England: SAGE.Google Scholar
Fitz-enz, J. (2000). The ROI of human capital: Measuring the economic value of employee performance. New York, NY: AMACOM.Google Scholar
Frese, M. & Keith, N. (2015). Action errors, error management, and learning in organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 661–687. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015205 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friesen, M., Yassi, A., & Cooper, J. (2001). Return-to-work: The importance of human interactions and organizational structures. Work, 17 (1), 11–22.Google Scholar
Gliem, J.A, & Gliem, R.R. (2003). Calculating, interpreting, and reporting Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient for Likert-type scales. Proceedings of the Midwest Research to Practice Conference in Adult, Continuing and Community Education, 82–88.Google Scholar
Goetzel, R.Z., Ozminkowski, R.J. (2008). The health and cost benefits of work site health-promotion programs. Annual Review of Public Health, 29, 303–323. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090930 Google Scholar
Grawitch, M.J., Gottschalk, M., & Munz, D.C. (2006). The path to a healthy workplace: A critical review linking healthy workplace practices, employee well-being, and organizational improvements. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research: 58 (3), 129–147. doi: 10.1037/1065-9293.58.3.129 Google Scholar
Hammer, T.H., Saksvik, P.Ø., Nytrø, K., Torvatn, H., & Bayazit, M. (2004). Expanding the psychosocial work environment: Workplace norms and work-family conflict as correlates of stress and health. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9 (1), 83–97.Google Scholar
Harder, H.G., McHugh, G., Wagner, S., & Harder, K. (2006). Disability Management strategies: A preliminary investigation of perceptions, policies and return-to-work outcomes. International Journal of Disability Management Research, 1 (1), 1–9.Google Scholar
Health and Safety Authority. (2008). Workplace health and well-being strategy: Report of Expert Group. Dublin, Eire: Author.Google Scholar
Herzberg, F. (1987). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review, 65 (5), 109–120.Google Scholar
Jaffe, D.T. (1995). The healthy company: Research paradigms for personal and organizational health. In Sauter, S.L. & Murphy, L.R. (Eds.), Organizational risk factors for job stress (pp. 13–40). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Karasek, R.A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285–308.Google Scholar
Karasek, R.A., & Theorell, T. (1990). Healthy work: Stress, productivity and the reconstruction of working life. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Kelloway, K.E., & Barling, J. (2010). Leadership development as an intervention in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 24 (3), 260–279.Google Scholar
Kelloway, K.E., & Day, A. (2005a). Building healthy workplaces: What we know so far. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 37 (4), 223–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelloway, K.E., & Day, A. (2005b). Building healthy workplaces: Where we need to be. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 37 (4), 309–312.Google Scholar
Kenny, D.A., & McCoach, D.B. (2003). Effect of the number of variables on measures of fit in structural equation modeling. Structural Equation Modeling, 10 (3), 333–351.Google Scholar
Krause, N., Dasinger, L. K. & Neuhauser, F. (1998). Modified work and return to work: A review of the literature. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 8 (2), 113–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavrakas, P.J. (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, L., (1990). Occupational stress: Spice of life or kiss of death. American Psychologist, 45 (10), 1142–1145.Google Scholar
Lowe, G.S. (2004). Healthy Workplace Strategies: Creating change and achieving results. Ottawa, Canada: Workplace Health Strategies Bureau, Health Canada.Google Scholar
MacCallum, R.C., Widaman, K.F., Zhang, S., & Hong, S. (1999). Sample size in factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 4, 84–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, C., & Fossey, E. (2015). Workplace accommodations for people with mental illness: A scoping review. Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, 25 (1), 197–206.Google Scholar
Neal, A., & Griffin, M.A. (2006). A study of the lagged relationships among safety climate, safety motivation, safety behavior, and accidents at the individual and group levels. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (4), 946–953.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Neal, A., Griffin, M.A., & Hart, P.M. (2000). The impact of organizational climate on safety climate and individual behavior. Safety Science, 34 (1–3), 99–109.Google Scholar
Patterson, M.G., West, M.A., Shackleton, V.J., Dawson, J.F., Lawthom, R., Maitlis, S., . . . Wallace, A.M. (2005). Validating the organizational climate measure: links to managerial practices, productivity and innovation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 379–408. doi: 10.1002/job.312 Google Scholar
Poortinga, Y.H. (1989). Equivalence of cross-cultural data: An overview of issues. International Journal of Psychology, 24, 737–756.Google ScholarPubMed
Secker, J., & Membrey, H. (2003). Promoting mental health through employment and developing healthy workplaces: The potential of natural supports at work. Health Education Research, 18 (2), 207–215. doi: 10.1093/her/18.2.207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Secker, J., & Membrey, H., Grove, B., & Seebohm, P. (2003). The how and why of workplace adjustments: contextualizing the evidence. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 27 (1): 3–9. doi: 10.2975/27.2003.3.9.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, R.J., Robin, S.S., & Robin, H.S. (1992, July/August/September). Reaction to disability through organization policy: Early return to work policy. Journal of Rehabilitation, 18–24.Google Scholar
Shrey, D.E. (1996). Disability management in industry: The new paradigm in injured worker rehabilitation. Disability and Rehabilitation: 18 (8), 408–414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shrey, D.E. (1998). Effective worksite based disability management programs. In King, P. (Ed.), Sourcebook of occupational rehabilitation (pp. 389–409). New York, NY: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Siegrist, J. (1996). Adverse health effects of high-effort/low-reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 27–41.Google Scholar
Schneider, B. (1990). The climate for service: An application of the climate construct. In Schneider, B. (Ed.), Organizational climate and culture (pp. 383–412). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Schneider, B. (2000). The psychological life of organizations. In Ashkanasy, N.M., Wilderon, C.P.M., & Peterson, M.F. (Eds.), Handbook of organizational culture and climate (pp. xvii–xxi). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Spector, P.E. (1992). Summated rating scale construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Google Scholar
Tabachnick, B.G., & Fidell, L.S. (2001). Using Multivariate Statistics (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar
Thomas, G.F., Zolin, R., & Hartman, J.L. (2009). The central role of communication in developing trust and its effect on employee involvement. International Journal of Business Communication, 46 (3), 287–310. doi: 10.1177/0021943609333522 Google Scholar
Tourish, D., & Hargie, O. (2004). Key issues in organizational communication. London, England: Routledge.Google Scholar
Trist, E.L., & Bamforth, K.W. (1951). Some social and psychological consequences of the Longwall method of coal-getting. Human Relations, 4, 3–38.Google Scholar
Westmorland, M.G., & Williams, R. (2002). Employers and policy makers can make a difference to the employment of persons with disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 24 (15), 802–809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Health Organization. (2006). Declaration on workers’ health. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/occupational_health/Declarwh.pdf Google Scholar
World Health Organization (2010), Healthy workplaces: A model for action. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/44307/1/9789241599313_eng.pdf?ua=1 Google Scholar
Zohar, D. (1980). Safety climate in industrial organizations: Theoretical and applied implications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 96–102.Google Scholar
Zohar, D. (2002). Modifying supervisory practices to improve subunit safety: A leadership-based intervention model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 587–596.Google Scholar
Zohar, D. (2003). Safety climate: Conceptual and measurement issues. In Quick, J.C. & Tetrick, L.E. (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (pp. 123–142). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Zohar, D. (2010). Thirty years of safety climate research: Reflections and future directions. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 42, 1517–1522. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2009.12.019 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2004). Climate as a social-cognitive construction of supervisory safety practices: Scripts as proxy of behaviour patterns. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 332–333. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.90.4.616 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zohar, D., & Luria, G. (2005). A multilevel model of safety climate: Cross-level relationships between organization and group-level climates. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (4), 616–628. doi: 10.1037/0021-9010.90.4.616 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed