Healthy Work

In Episode 30, we discuss a paper by Shin & Hur (2021) on the impact of being forced to stick to a script when dealing with customers, and how job crafting can help offset these negative outcomes. If you can't give workers flexibility in how they respond to customers, give them flexibility in other areas of their jobs.

In Episode 29, we discuss a paper by Leger, Lee, Chandler, & Almeida (2021) that discusses the impact of an organizational intervention designed to increase and support worker flexibility on how employees react to stressors. Employees whose organizations went through the intervention had more flexibility, and were less reactive to workplace stressors, particularly when in comes to stressors that are less interpersonal.

In Episode 28, we discuss a paper by Watkins, Krishnan, & Barnes (2021) that discusses the impact of lack of sleep on cyber incivility (things like sending rude emails). People who get less sleep are more likely to engage in incivility, especially if they're already low in agreeableness. This is likely because they were less able to regulate themselves, and ended up engaging in cyber incivility.

In Episode 27, we discuss a paper by Miner, Costa, He, & Wooderson (2021) that discusses the impact of incivility from coworkers of the same or different political group on your physical symptoms. There are A LOT of findings in this paper, but we mostly focus on the takeaway that being in the political minority at work makes you more susceptible to incivility from others.

We wanted to raise your awareness of this week's celebration of Smarter Workplace Awareness Month. Kenneth De Meuse and Erin Bowen wrote a piece on agile and adaptable work cultures and Stacey Boyle talks about virtual learning on Bias Check-In an I-O an Careers podcast.

In Episode 26, we discuss a paper by Kundro, Burke, Grandey & Sayre (2021) that examines what leads to customers sexually harassing workers. The study finds that needing to provide service with a smile and dependence on tips increase the customer's power, which predicts sexual harassment.

We just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that September is Smarter Workplace Awareness Month. All month long, SIOP will be releasing content about how to improve the workplace, including improving worker health. This includes releasing member-created content from the champions of the 2021 Top 10 Workplace Trends (pssst... your Healthy Work hosts are the champions for the Employee Health, Well-Being, Wellness and Safety trend). Keep your eyes on SIOP.org for more updates.

In Episode 25, we discuss a paper by Somaraju, Griffin, Olenick, Chang, & Kozlowski (2021) that explores really interesting feedback loops between types of conflict and psychological distress, particularly in a sample of people in a habitat meant to resemble a mission on Mars. Ultimately, conflict can breed more conflict, and relationship conflict and stress can feedback into one another, and all of this is more likely if you have a high workload.

In Episode 24, we discuss a paper by Andel, Arvan, & Shen (2021) that explores how consuming news about COVID-19 can make you more anxious and less engaged at work, but that work may serve as a reprieve from this anxiety if you are called to it because it gives you a sense of purpose. On the other hand, if you're called to work because you want to help people, you may be worse off when consuming COVID-19 news. Regardless, stop doom scrolling.

In Episode 23, we discuss a paper by Schilbach, Baethge, & Rigotti (2021) that explores the effects of challenge-type stressors versus hindrance-type stressors on novel stress reactivity. They found that being exposed to a moderate amount of challenges at work helped people react best to new stressors, compared to too few or too many challenges. There was no effect of hindrances.