Symposium: Overview of the Healthy Work Design and Well-Being program and illustrative case studies

We present an overview of the domain of the Healthy Work Design and Well-being (HWD) program, one of the seven cross-sectors within the research portfolio organized and supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to advance research in worker safety and health and its transfer to practice. HWD focuses on protecting and advancing the safety, health, and well-being of workers by improving the design of work, management practices, and the physical and psychosocial work environment. HWD’s holistic perspective focuses on how work affects overall safety, health and well-being, including physical, psychological, social, and economic aspects. We describe how elements of healthy work design affect work-related proximal (e.g., fatigue, stress), safety, health, economic, and other well-being outcomes. Then, we present a summary of the three levels of determinants of well-being: market and societal; organization and job; and worker.

HWD outcomes are presented at four levels of analysis, including the worker-level, family-level, organizational-level, and societal-level because it is critical to examine the different effects of work design for the groups on each level of analysis. Market and societal factors affect how employers recruit and manage workers, and thus worker-well-being. Organization and job level determinants of worker well-being include the mission and values of the organization; ownership structure and priorities; organizational culture; the scale and type of investment in workers; subcontracting; contractual agreements with workers; job design; supervision; and hours of work and work schedules. Worker-level determinants include physical and physiologic, psychological, emotional, cognitive, financial, behavioral, social, and experiential determinants. Interactions occur among the different level determinants.

Three case studies illustrate high priority areas of focus for HWD: stress in teachers, work-life conflict and mental well-being outcomes for workers, and non-standard work arrangements.

Poor teacher well-being is associated with turnover, burnout, and health issues. This case study uses nationally representative data on work organization variables, job stressors, and health and safety outcomes to examine what work organization and job design variables are most strongly associated with stress and health outcomes in U.S. teachers.

Conflict between work and life outside of work is prevalent despite numerous avenues organizations can pursue to lessen this burden. This case study reviews the prevalence of work-life conflict and discusses how that struggle relates to mental well-being. Following a public health perspective and the Total Worker Health model, we examine how comprehensive organizational supports can ameliorate the association between work-life conflict and well-being to promote worker health, safety, and well-being for all workers.

While there is no consistent definition for non-standard work arrangements, they involve temporariness, instability, irregularity, and lack of legal protections and social and financial benefits for workers. This may affect worker safety, health, and wellbeing. This case study presents up-to-date prevalence and outcomes data from the U.S. using a matrix that includes work arrangement elements (job security, work schedule, compensation type, pay level and security, benefits, and having single versus dual or multiple employers) and categories (being employed or self-employed with or without own businesses).

CHAIR
Regina Pana-Cryan
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC, USA
DISCUSSANT
Tapas Ray
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH, USA

IN THIS SYMPOSIUM

Work organization variables associated with stress in U.S. teachers
Naomi Swanson
NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Examining support for workers to reduce consequence of work-family conflict
Jeannie Nigam, Naomi Swanson
NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Prevalence, trends, and effects of non-standard work arrangement dimensions: Focus on work schedules
Regina Pana-Cryan, Abay Asfaw, Tim Bushnell
NIOSH, Washington, DC, USA.
NIOSH, Cincinnati, OH, USA