Dataset Information

Swedish managers' experience of yearly staff development dialogues, aiming for employee development, performance, and well-being.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Societal development and a competitive corporate climate have resulted in increased emphasis on performance management (PM) but also sustainability and health challenges in working life. Opportunities for employee well-being, development and performance are thus highly relevant for organisations and society. PM includes a manager-employee dialogue process and is identified as a complex challenge when combined with employee development and well-being. Managers have a key role in PM, and research in collaboration with practitioners in specific contexts is needed. An exploratory study, focusing on managers' experience of dialogues between managers and employees in practice, was therefore conducted in collaboration with an inter-municipal corporation company in southern Sweden.

Methods

A qualitative study with an inductive design, supported by semi-structured focus group interviews, was chosen based on the exploratory character of the study. Thirty-five managers were approached in the company and 15, of varying age and managerial experience, agreed to participate. Staff Development Dialogues (SDD) were used in the company PM model to facilitate employee development, performance, and well-being. Data was analysed using conventional qualitative content analysis to obtain new insights without using pre-set classifications.

Results

The analysis resulted in three categories of SDD experiences: SDD in a business context; Managers in relation to SDD; and Employees in relation to SDD. The findings revealed varying SDD experiences as well as approaches, and analytical themes were considered in relation to the organisational context and the specific SDD content and process. The study showed the importance of SDD adaptation and a well-being perspective in the dialogues was related to relational aspects and the manager-employee approach to SDDs.

Discussion

The findings confirm the complexity and challenges of PM including development and well-being. Adaptation to specific departments as well as employees is important, and using the same PM strategy throughout an organisation can be questioned. The identified link between a relational approach and a well-being perspective indicates a missed opportunity for systematic workplace health promotion. Strengthening the well-being perspective can, thus, improve the quality of an SDD model, which in turn can facilitate the creation of sustainable workplaces and better fulfilment of employers' health-related obligations for systematic work environment management.

SUBMITTER: Bringsen A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9327207 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:Background: Environmental volunteering can increase well-being, but environmental volunteer well-being has rarely been compared to participant well-being associated with other types of volunteering or nature-based activities. This paper aims to use a multidimensional approach to well-being to explore the immediately experienced and later remembered well-being of environmental volunteers and to compare this to the increased well-being of participants in other types of nature-based activities and volunteering. Furthermore, it aims to compare volunteer managers' perceptions of their volunteers' well-being with the self-reported well-being of the volunteers. Methods: Onsite surveys were conducted of practical conservation and biodiversity monitoring volunteers, as well as their control groups (walkers and fieldwork students, respectively), to measure general well-being before their nature-based activity and activity-related well-being immediately after their activity. Online surveys of current, former and potential volunteers and volunteer managers measured remembered volunteering-related well-being and managers' perceptions of their volunteers' well-being. Data were analysed based on Seligman's multidimensional PERMA ('positive emotion', 'engagement', 'positive relationship', 'meaning', 'achievement') model of well-being. Factor analysis recovered three of the five PERMA elements, 'engagement', 'relationship' and 'meaning', as well as 'negative emotion' and 'health' as factors. Results: Environmental volunteering significantly improved positive elements and significantly decreased negative elements of participants' immediate well-being, and it did so more than walking or student fieldwork. Even remembering their volunteering up to six months later, volunteers rated their volunteering-related well-being higher than volunteers rated their well-being generally in life. However, volunteering was not found to have an effect on overall mean well-being generally in life. Volunteer managers did not perceive the significant increase in well-being that volunteers reported. Conclusions: This study showed how environmental volunteering immediately improved participants' well-being, even more than other nature-based activities. It highlights the benefit of regarding well-being as a multidimensional construct to more systematically understand, support and enhance volunteer well-being.

Project description:BackgroundOne important aspect of subjective judgments about one's well-being (i.e., subjective well-being: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) is that cultural features, such as, nationality seem to shape cognitive judgments about the "the ideal life." In this comparative study we examined differences in subjective well-being and psychological well-being between Italian and Swedish adolescents and tested if the relationship between the three constructs of subjective well-being (i.e., satisfaction with life, positive affect, and negative affect) and psychological well-being was moderated by the adolescents' nationality.MethodItalian (n = 255) and Swedish (n = 277) adolescents answered to the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule, and Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being. Differences between samples were tested using a Multiple Analysis of Variance. We also conducted a multiple group analysis (Italy and Sweden) using Structural Equation Modelling to investigate the relationship between all three subjective well-being constructs and psychological well-being.ResultsItalian adolescents scored significantly higher in satisfaction with life than Swedish adolescents. Additionally, across countries, girls scored significantly higher in negative affect than boys. In both countries, all three constructs of subjective well-being were significantly associated to adolescents' psychological well-being. Nevertheless, while the effect of the relationship between affect and psychological well-being was almost the same across countries, life satisfaction was more strongly related to psychological well-being among Swedish adolescents.ConclusionsThe present study shows that there are larger variations between these two cultures in the cognitive construct of subjective well-being than in the affective construct. Accordingly, associations between the cognitive component, not the affective component, of subjective well-being and psychological well-being differ between countries as well.

Project description:Incivilities are pervasive among workers in healthcare institutions. Previously identified effects include deterioration of employee physical and mental health, absenteeism, burnout, and turnover, as well as reduced patient safety and quality of care. This study documented factors related to organizational civility at an academic health sciences center (AHSC) as the basis for future intervention work. We used a cross-sectional research design to conduct an online survey at four of five campuses of an AHSC. Using the Organizational Civility Scale (OCS), we assessed differences across gender, race (White and non-White) and job type (faculty or staff) in the eleven subscales (frequency of incivility, perceptions of organizational climate, existence of civility resources, importance of civility resources, feelings about current employment, employee satisfaction, sources of stress, coping strategies, overall levels of stress/coping ability, and overall civility rating). Significant gender differences were found in six of the eleven subscales: perception of organizational climate (p < .001), existence of civility resources (p = .001), importance of civility resources (p < .001), frequency of incivilities (p < .001), employee satisfaction (p = .002), and overall civility rating (p = .007). Significant differences between respondents by self-identified race were found only in one subscale: existence of civility resources (p = .048). Significant differences were found between faculty and staff in four subscales: perception of organizational climate (p = .001), importance of civility resources (p = .02), employee satisfaction (p = .01), and overall levels of stress (p = .03). Results suggest that gender and employment type differences exist in the perception of organizational climate at the academic health center, while significant racial differences only occurred in reference to reported existence of civility resources. Attention to these differences should be incorporated into the development of programs to address the problem.

Project description:Background: Studies investigating the relationship between religiosity/spirituality and mental health have suggested both positive and negative associations, highlighting the importance of multifaceted assessment of these rather broad constructs. The present study aims at contributing to this field of research by providing a validated Swedish version of the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB-S) and further examining how this instrument relates to Big Five personality factors, Sense of Coherence (SOC), and religiosity. Methods: Data were collected from a total of 1,011 Swedish students (747 females; age range 18-40) via completion of an online survey, including a new Swedish Version of the MI-RSWB-S, the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-13), and the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS-5). Results: Results revealed adequate estimates of internal consistency and substantial evidence for the postulated six-dimensional structure. However, confirmatory factor analysis yielded poor fit indices, resulting in the development and validation of a revised measure of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (RSWB), comprising the subscales General Religiosity and Connectedness. Most of the MI-RSWB-S dimensions were positively correlated with the personality domains Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness and negatively related to Neuroticism. SOC was positively linked to Hope Immanent, Forgiveness, Hope Transcendent, and Experiences of Sense of Meaning, whereas CRS exhibited positive correlations with all MI-RSWB-S subscales except Hope Transcendent. Conclusion: The findings of the current study support the validity and reliability of the Swedish adoption of the MI-RSWB and confirm previously reported associations with the Big Five personality traits, SOC, and CRS. More in general, our results underline the putative substantial link between RSWB dimensions and mental health. Further research especially in clinical surroundings as well as by employing more representative samples is now warranted.