Working conditions of medical workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021 in Novosibirsk

Introduction. The high risk of infection of healthcare workers dictates the need to study their working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to research the working conditions of medical workers during the COVID–19 pandemic in multidisciplinary medical and preventive organizations. Materials and methods. Analysis of working conditions of medical workers of medical and preventive organizations. The study design is a closed population (four medical institutions were randomly selected), a target group (doctors and nurses). The authors analyzed the staffing table and 16 reports on a special assessment of working conditions at 1,251 workplaces (1,845 medical workers, of which 787 doctors, 1,058 nurses). Statistical analysis included: standard methods of descriptive statistics, determination of relationships by logistic regression (odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (OR CI)). p<0.05 was taken as the critical level of significance. Results. The largest number of ill medical workers provided assistance to patients without signs of COVID-19 both in hospitals (86.06% of doctors, 85.85% of nurses) and in outpatient polyclinic treatment and prevention organizations (90.31% of doctors, 92.05% of nurses). The probability of getting sick COVID-19 was maximum in an infectious diseases hospital (compared with emergency departments OR 2.049;95% OR CI 1.194–4.608 and diagnostic and treatment units of medical institutions OR 3,057;95% OR CI 1,876–4,98). The workplaces of medical workers who have undergone COVID-19 in infectious diseases hospitals and specialized teams are classified as harmful class 1–3 degrees, and workers are classified as high occupational risk groups according to SARS-CoV-2. The probability of getting sick with COVID-19 is significantly higher when in contact with pathogens of infectious diseases (class of working conditions 3.3 compared to 3.1 or 3.2). Conclusion. The workplaces of medical workers who have undergone COVID-19 in infectious diseases hospitals and specialized brigades are classified as harmful class of the first to third degree, and workers are classified as high occupational risk groups for COVID–19. Ethics. Scientists have conducted the study in compliance with the Ethical principles set out in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 with amendments of 1983 and obtaining the informed consent of patients. © 2023, Izmerov Research Institute of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved.

Content and process approach to the job demands-resources model of emotional labour: A conceptual model

IMPACTThis article's conceptual model provides a holistic lens for exploring the work environment of emotional labour (EL). Research has demonstrated high levels of burnout and mental health issues among EL workers. The negative outcomes associated with EL work are even more pronounced in the present Covid-19 landscape. By understanding EL workers' cognitive processes, organizations stand a better chance of promoting work engagement, well-being, and effective organizational functioning. Practically, organizations may have to provide training and support to line managers to enable them to evolve within the same mindset as EL workers. Senior managers also have to exhibit visible support to workplace initiatives to allow for consistent implementation of job resources.

Women's Participation in Firms' Management and Their Impact on Financial Performance: Pre-COVID-19 and COVID-19 Period Evidence

At a time when gender equality is a key priority of all international organizations, this paper can be considered a remarkable contribution to the role of women executives in firms' performance. More specifically, this study focuses on the effect of women holding positions of responsibility on firms' performance worldwide. For the purposes of our research, we applied cross-sectional and panel data analysis for all sectors at an international level from 2019, the year preceding the breakout of the pandemic crisis, to 2021, while the indicators used to measure the participation of women in executive positions are classified as ESG indices. The empirical analysis findings end up showing that the participation of women in executive positions positively affects firms' performance over time, while there is no material change observed before and during the COVID-19 pandemic period. More specifically, when the percent of women processing job positions of responsibility increases by 10%, then the index of profitability will increase from 1.4% to 1.8%, regardless of the measurement of female participation in executive positions used. The results of this study constitute a remarkable contribution to the promotion of the creative economy, the progress of societies, and sustainable development. The research's outcome can be primarily used by policymakers drawing up policies for achieving gender equality in the labor market and workplaces and by shareholders and firms' managers in order to trust females in executive positions in favor of their firms' financial performance. The current study is unique in that it focuses on the period before and during the COVID-19 period, as a period of high volatility in economic activity worldwide, while the sample includes firms from large and mid-cap companies belonging to developed and emerging markets. The above approach will contribute to providing more credible information related to the role of women executives in firms' performance.

Immigrant Legal Status among Essential Frontline Workers in the United States during the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: IMR

Emerging evidence suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic has extracted a substantial toll on immigrant communities in the United States, due in part to increased potential risk of exposure for immigrants to COVID-19 in the workplace. In this article, we use federal guidance on which industries in the United States were designated essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, information about the ability to work remotely, and data from the 2019 American Community Survey to estimate the distribution of essential frontline workers by nativity and immigrant legal status. Central to our analysis is a proxy measure of working in the primary or secondary sector of the segmented labor market. Our results indicate that a larger proportion of foreign-born workers are essential frontline workers compared to native-born workers and that 70 percent of unauthorized immigrant workers are essential frontline workers. Disparities in essential frontline worker status are most pronounced for unauthorized immigrant workers and native-born workers in the secondary sector of the labor market. These results suggest that larger proportions of foreign-born workers, and especially unauthorized immigrant workers, face greater risk of potential exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace than native-born workers. Social determinants of health such as lack of access to health insurance and living in overcrowded housing indicate that unauthorized immigrant essential frontline workers may be more vulnerable to poor health outcomes related to COVID-19 than other groups of essential frontline workers. These findings help to provide a plausible explanation for why COVID-19 mortality rates for immigrants are higher than mortality rates for native-born residents.

Mandated media innovation impacts on knowledge dissemination in workplace training

This conceptual paper examines voluntary versus mandatory cloud-based training, generating recommendations to harmonise the complementarity of face-to-face and online media in future careers. Technological change was already accelerating when the COVID-19 pandemic response turbocharged transformations of knowledge dissemination in training, thus impacting learning and competency development for the future. The methodology applies comprehensive, structured literature review following PRISMA guidelines with development of a novel conceptual framework illuminating facets of knowledge dissemination. Exploring the context of workplace training and the future of careers with aid of NVivo it was found that altered social cues in cloud training are generating changes in learner attention span, engagement, and peer-to-peer interaction, potentially increasing contract cheating. It is hence recommended that stakeholders demarcate theoretical and practical learning outcomes to develop hybrid cloud media and face-to-face knowledge dissemination to accentuate professional accreditation requirements, engagement and etiquette in virtual spaces, and improve understanding of work-home balance.

Future of the Facilities Management profession

The focus of facility managers used to be mostly about buildings and services. In this new post-Covid world, facility managers play an important role related to people and services. As organizations make significant transitions to hybrid and remote work, facilities management can ensure by its behalf that employees have productive and fulfilling relationships with their co-workers, their organizations, and their workplaces. The purpose of this paper is to identify short-, medium- and long-term professional challenges to facilities management profession caused by an increase in multilocational work. The short-term challenges may be temporary by nature, and they are based on the explorations of multilocational work. The medium-term challenges are based on a more permanent and stable situation. Long-term challenges are more fundamental by nature reflecting the constant transformation of people, processes, and buildings. The qualitative data were gathered from focus group discussions with Facilities Management professionals from five different continents. The data were organized in three different analyses. The short-term, medium-term, and long-term challenges were identified. The findings indicate that the role of a facility manager is becoming more prominent, and the facility manager should perceive this crisis as an opportunity to step up and support the organisation in its strategic policy. Facilities managers should position themselves as the liaison between the physical and the digital worlds so that they are valuable stakeholders in this emerging virtual space. The results of this study contribute to the development of facilities management training and professional development and shed light on future research needs for the profession.

Planning and the Post-Pandemic City

The Covid-19 pandemic has left society dazed and confused. Self-evidently momentous, its multifaceted impacts upon the functioning and experience of city living have been swift and deep. This has precipitated a range of laudable research in planning, which, among other foci, has sought to examine how the disruption is amplifying inequities (Cole et al., Citation2020), improving urban environmental quality (Sharifi & Khavarian-Garmsir, Citation2020) and generating enhanced demand for public space (Sepe, Citation2021;Ugolini et al., Citation2020). The pandemic has also heightened interest in re-engaging planning with its roots in public health (Lennon, Citation2020;Scott, Citation2020). Here, an emerging strand of research is exploring how to better proof our cities from the ill-effects of future contagions (Bereitschaft & Scheller, Citation2020;Martínez & Short, Citation2021). Yet, there is another dimension to the pandemic that may have impacts which shake the very foundations of how we think cities could and should evolve. This results from the current great experiment in spatial reorganisation that stretches well beyond the requirement of social distancing. Specifically, never before in a time of peace have so many peoples' lives been so comprehensively decoupled from their places of work for such an extensive period of time. Indeed, while the effects of social distancing are immediately apparent in how we have found new ways to negotiate spaces, it is perhaps remote working that will have the longest impact on our cities. This was alluded to but not elaborated on in a recent superb editorial by Jill Grant in this journal (Grant, Citation2020). Hence, I propose in this short comment piece to extend this line of speculation.For centuries cities have pulled people into their orbit in search of employment, education and new experiences. Conventionally conceived as places of opportunity, cities are seen to thrive where a critical threshold of population and capital spawn dynamic and diverse economies and cultures, in which residents flourish in choice and convenience. Yet despite such lofty descriptions, for most cities it is employment that is the magnet and motor of urban land use that heavily influences where people live, shop and recreate. These two cardinal poles of home and work have long dictated how people flow around and use urban spaces: from school runs to restaurants;from retail to recreation. It is this spatial relationship embedded in the daily patterns of life that helps create and carry communities. But if people are no longer limited by their place or time of work, will it follow that they will choose to lumber themselves with the outsized mortgages, additional expenses and stresses of urban living?

Corporate flexibility in a time of crisis

We use the COVID shock to study the direct and interactive effects of several forms of corporate flexibility on short- and long-term real business plans. We find that i) workplace flexibility, namely the ability for employees to work remotely, plays a central role in determining firms' employment plans during the health crisis;ii) investment flexibility allows firms to increase or decrease capital spending based on their business prospects in the crisis, with effects shaped by workplace flexibility;and iii) financial flexibility contributes to stronger employment and investment, in particular when fixed costs are high. While the role of workplace flexibility is new to the COVID crisis, CFOs expect lasting effects for years to come: high workplace flexibility firms foresee continuation of remote work, stronger employment recovery, and shifting away from traditional capital investment, whereas low workplace flexibility firms rely more on automation to replace labor.

The Sabbath Observer, the Idiosyncratist, and the Religious Organization: How the EEOC Imagines Religion at Work

Charged with enforcing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission plays an overlooked but profoundly important role in shaping American religious life. While scholars of religion, law, and American culture have devoted a great deal of energy to analyzing the ways that federal courts define religion for the purposes of protecting it, they have paid less attention to the role of administrative agencies, like the EEOC. In this article, I argue that the private workplace offers a critical site for understanding how the state regulates and manages American religious life. I look to the EEOC's regulatory guidelines and compliance manuals as important sources for understanding the shifting relationship between religion, law, and work in the United States. I identify three modes of religiosity—or three types of religious actors—existing in tension in the EEOC archive, each bearing a distinct genealogy: the Sabbath Observer, the Idiosyncratist, and the Organization. While gesturing to very different notions of what religion is, the figures of the Idiosyncratist and the Organization both assume that demands of religion and work can be neatly reconciled. They presume that religion can be seamlessly integrated into the workplace without disrupting the functioning of capitalism. However, for those concerned about economic inequality, corporate power, and neoliberal working conditions, I suggest that it may be useful to revisit the EEOC's Sabbath Observer, who insists on the right to collective forms of life and value outside of work and the market.

Exploring the Chemistry of Datafication Control - Pathways for a Trust-Enabling Use of Smart Workplace Technology

Organizations experiment with how smart technology can be used to manage employees since before COVID-19 and the possibilities seem almost limitless. However, the question of how this can be achieved without impairing the so-needed trust inside organizations is yet to answer. Hence, in this study, we employ a crisp-set QCA to investigate what trust-enabling datafication control configurations look like. Drawing on unique survey data from Switzerland, we show that datafication control can go hand in hand with trust if organizations make efforts for employee-centricity. Further, we can reveal four distinct ways of how organizations can implement employee-centricity to mitigate possible trust-impairing signals that stem from augmented data-gathering and analysis capabilities. Our results contribute to the still heated debate on the duality of control and trust. They also help leaders to navigate through the unmanageable multitude of possible and even trust-toxic combinations. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Digital Workplaces and Information Security Behavior of Business Employees: An Empirical Study of Saudi Arabia

In the post pandemic era, the telecommuting of business employees has widely become acceptable in organizations, which demands extensive dependence on digital technologies. In addition, this poses additional security threats for business employees as well as organizations. In order to better respond to security threats, business employees must have a higher level of awareness of the potential threats that are relevant to digital infrastructure used within the workplace. In this paper, we present a quantitative study conducted in line with the theory of planned behavior to gain insight into employee behavior toward information security within different business sectors in Saudi Arabia. The key factors chosen for our model were password management, infrastructure security management, email management, organizational security policy, organizational support and training, and the perception of the level of security. We have applied structured equation modelling to identify most of the relevant factors based on the respondents' feedback. The results based on the business employee behavior showed that they respondents did not perceive all of the constructs of our model as relevant security factors, which can potentially result in security lapses. This indicates that more security-related measures should be put in place and that business employees should be updated periodically about potential security threats. To this effect, we divided the studied security measures into those which should be implemented at organizational and individual levels. The results will potentially help business managers to design appropriate security trainings, guidelines, and policies for their employees to ensure more information security awareness and protect their technological infrastructure, especially within home office environments.

‘I didn't know what I was doing, until I went there': a case study exploring the range of student STEM internship experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a transition to flexible remote and hybrid work arrangements. This shift presents a challenge to colleges and universities as they prepare the next generation of STEM professionals in the knowledge economy. This case study of student experiential learning during the time of critical change from the Spring of 2020 through Spring of 2022 focused on how students, typically aged 20–23, contended with their professional development amidst changing patterns in workplace community, culture, and activities. We expected that students would struggle to achieve a greater understanding of situated workplace community practices;however, the data problematised these general assumptions. The findings highlight the variation in student experiences around these themes and are discussed in the context of scaffolding of student internships in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive domains.

Covıd-19 Pandemisinde Hizmete Devam Eden Kargo Sektörü Çalışanlarında Íşçi Sağlığı ve Íş Güvenliği (ÍSÍG) Algısı ve Tutumları

Ínternet alışverişine olan eğilim COVID-19 salgını ile ivme kazanmış ve bu durum kargo sektörü çalışanlarının çalışma koşullarını etkilemiştir. Çalışma şartlarındaki değişikliklerin ve çalışanların pandemi sürecine ilişkin algı ve tutumlarının belirlenebilmesine yönelik yapılan bu çalışma kapsamında sendika üyesi 469 kargo çalışanı ile çevrimiçi anket gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırma soruları kapsamında kurulan hipotezler, istatistiki yöntemlerle test edilmiştir. Anket sonuçları, pandemi döneminde kargo sektöründe çalışanların çalışma sürelerinde (%64) ve hizmet verdiği insan sayısında (%83) artış olduğunu göstermiştir. Íş yerlerinde temizlik, maske ve mesafe önlemlerinin büyük oranda uygulandığı ancak mesai saatlerinin düzenlenmesi, çalışan sayısının asgari seviyede tutulması vb. tedbirlere başvurulmadığı belirlenmiştir. Ankete katılanların %70'i pandemi döneminde ÍSÍG eğitimi almıştır. KKD kullanımı cinsiyet, yaş grupları, eğitim durumu, iş yerindeki görev ve ÍSÍG eğitim durumuna göre farklılık göstermemektedir. ÍSÍG eğitiminin en önemli katkıları;çalışma arkadaşları ile sosyal mesafe uygulamaya özen gösterme, maskenin hijyen kurallarına uygun kullanımı ve maske türleri arasındaki farkları öğrenme konularındadır. ÍSÍG eğitimi alanlar, pandemi döneminin ÍSÍG açısından daha başarılı yürütüldüğünü düşünmektedir. Sonuç olarak kargo çalışanları iş yükü, çalışma stresi, sağlık riskleri vb. birçok açıdan pandemiden olumsuz anlamda etkilendiklerini ancak alınan ÍSÍG önlemleri ve genel tedbirler ile bu risklerin bertaraf edildiğini düşündükleri tespit edilmiştir.Alternate :The trend towards online shopping is gaining momentum with the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the working conditions of cargo sector employees. This research was conducted by applying an online questionnaire to 469 union-member cargo sector employees to determine the changes in working conditions and their perceptions and attitudes towards the pandemic. The hypotheses established within the scope of the research questions were tested with the Chi-Square test. The survey results showed an increase in the working hours of the cargo sector employees (64%) and the number of people they served (83%). It has been determined that while hygiene, mask usage, and social distance measures were generally applied in workplaces, measures such as regulating working hours and keeping the number of employees at a minimum level still needed to be implemented. 70% of the respondents received OHS training during the pandemic. Gender, age groups, education level, job description in the workplace, and OHS education level do not make any difference in using PPE. It has been determined that the most important contributions of OHS training are practicing social distancing with colleagues, using the mask by hygiene rules, and learning the differences between masks. There is a higher rate of thought that the pandemic is carried out successfully in terms of OHS in those who receive OHS training. As a result, cargo sector employees stated that the pandemic adversely affected their workload, work stress, and health risks. However, they also thought these risks were eliminated with OHS measures.

Transformational leadership influences on organisational justice and employee commitment in a customer service organisation

Orientation: Organisations are facing several challenges pertaining to effective leadership, fairness and loyalty of employees. The moderating influence of transformational leadership (TL) on the relationship between justice and employee commitment is still largely unknown and needs to be explored further, especially within the customer service industry. Research purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between organisational justice and employee commitment and to examine the moderating effect of TL on the relationship between organisational justice and employee commitment in a customer service organisation. Motivation for the study: The research setting of this study is a customer service organisation. This organisation calls for a role model leadership approach, such as TL, to create a just, fair workplace and ultimately increase the level of employee commitment. Research approach/design and method: A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was used to collect the data from a sample of 111 permanently employed staff in a South African customer service organisation. Main findings: The findings indicate that TL had a significant positive relationship with organisational justice and employee commitment. Furthermore, the results indicate that TL moderated the relationship between organisational justice and employee commitment. Practical/managerial implications: The findings showed that TL could be vital as an effective leadership approach that can enhance justice perceptions and psychological attachment in the workplace. Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the theoretical debate on TL, workplace fairness and psychological attachment by providing empirical support on the effect of TL on the relationship between justice and commitment perceptions.

Universal basic income: An idea whose time has come or just another mechanism to grease the wheels of capitalism?

Universal basic income (UBI) is a system where everyone in a community is given a regular fixed amount of money from government intended to meet basic needs and free from any conditionality. Such a system is cheap and easy to administer as there is no means testing or checks on conditionality. There are a growing number of trials across the world and increasing support for such a scheme in the UK. A decade of austerity policies in the UK followed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the views of some that UBI would not only address the issue of poverty and low-paid work but would serve as a response to growing automation in the workplace. It might also increase the bargaining power of workers who would be less worried about losing their job if they had the cushion of UBI.

People management in fluid workspaces: Transplanting corporate values and ethical culture

The impact of the COVID-19 (corona virus disease) pandemic across the global workforce has been nothing short of dramatic. Many organisations globally have had to adjust to massive shifts associated with the pandemic. Typically, most employees would work in proximity with themselves and their business leaders in an open plan office, most business issues will be quickly solved in a board room with big rotational chairs, a screen and huge table, feedback will be presented to employees over coffee, lunch or in the bosses office, employee engagement activities will be held in the open office or in a fun site or location, lunch hour will be filled with men and women in suits and ties looking for the best spot or spaces to take a breather. Very quickly, all these realities have been replaced with most teams working remotely or leveraging some sort of hybrid working system. Words like zoom and teams (a video conferencing app) meetings, has fast become workplace lingo, terms like social distancing, mental health, virtual teams, virtual meetings, new normal have been introduced to the work environment. This 'new normal' requires a huge dose of adaptation, flexibility and intentionality for organisations to survive, hence this chapter intends to make sense as well as attempt to address the implication of this work changes on the employer, employee, company culture, values and so on. As well as provide insights for possible solutions. © 2023 Kemi Ogunyemi and Adaora I. Onaga. All rights reserved.

Pandemi, krisehåndtering og arbejdsliv

Da Mette Frederiksen lukkede ned for det danske samfund i midten af marts måned 2020 – som respons på den globale coronapandemi – var det en historisk uset grad af intervention på det danske arbejdsmarked, der medførte en næsten øjeblikkelig nedlukning for mange danske arbejdspladser både i det private og det offentlige. Det var på mange måder en usædvanlig beslutning, som fik store konsekvenser på stort set alle samfundsområder. Siden anden Verdenskrig, har der ikke været gennemført så pludselige og omfattende ændringer af arbejdsvilkår og arbejdets organisering med konsekvenser for de sociale relationer på arbejdspladser og for forholdene på arbejdsmarkedet mere generelt, som det skete under coronapandemien. I starten steg arbejdsløsheden voldsomt, og man indførte en række hjælpepakker til både virksomheder og lønmodtagere, som blev hjemsendt, f.eks. den såkaldte lønkompensation som skulle holde hånden under de ansatte i særligt udsatte brancher. Denne tilgang var ikke unik for Danmark. Alternate abstract:When Mette Frederiksen shut down Danish society in mid-March 2020 – in response to the global corona pandemic – it was a historically unprecedented degree of intervention in the Danish labor market, which led to an almost immediate shutdown of many Danish workplaces both in the private and the public sector. It was in many ways an unusual decision, which had major consequences in virtually all areas of society. Since the Second World War, there have not been such sudden and comprehensive changes to working conditions and the organization of work with consequences for social relations at workplaces and for conditions on the labor market more generally, as happened during the corona pandemic. At the start, unemployment rose sharply, and a number of aid packages were introduced for both companies and wage earners, who were sent home, e.g. the so-called wage compensation, which was supposed to hold the hand of the employees in particularly vulnerable industries. This approach was not unique to Denmark.

The moderating role of resonant leadership and workplace spirituality on the relationship between psychological distress and organizational commitment

The ongoing pandemic has brought the world into a paralytical scenario except for the health care workers, which turned their ‘nights into nightmares'. The pervasiveness of stress, anxiety, and depression among the frontline healthcare fraternity is a significant concern for the stakeholders in the healthcare sector. The physical, mental, and emotional well-being of these COVID warriors are at stake due to the protracted period of exposure to the pandemic. This study explores the moderating roles of resonant leadership (RL) and workplace spirituality (WPS) on the constructs, psychological distress (PD), and organizational commitment (OC). Current research employs an exploratory research design. It used the purposive sampling technique and obtained data from various hospitals of four states in India, which experienced the biggest impact from COVID-19. Researchers analyzed the responses from 415 nurses and tested the hypothesis using structural equation modeling AMOS;moderating effects are tested using interaction term and slope test methods. Results show that psychological distress is inversely correlated to organizational commitment, but the impact of the moderating effect of resonant leadership and workplace spirituality decrease psychological distress and increase organizational commitment. The results suggest specific performance implications for HR theory and practice, especially within healthcare organizations.

Las trabajadoras domésticas latinoamericanas frente a la pandemia de Covid-19

La pandemia de Covid-19 planteó problemas sociales inéditos, como la pérdida de ingresos por incapacidad de acceder al lugar de trabajo. Las trabajadoras domésticas fueron uno de los grupos más afectados por los despidos y la reducción del tiempo de trabajo. Desde una perspectiva de regulación comparada, y sobre la base de un análisis de las normas instauradas durante los primeros nueve meses de la pandemia de Covid-19, este artículo busca comprender las respuestas institucionales para dar seguridad económica a las trabajadoras domésticas, focalizándose en la tensión entre extender las protecciones legales propias del trabajo asalariado o expandir las políticas sociales vigentes.Alternate abstract:The Covid-19 pandemic raised unprecedented social problems, such as the loss of income due to loss of access to the workplace. Domestic workers were one of the groups most affected by layoffs or working-time reductions. From a comparative regulation perspective and based on an analysis of the norms established during the first nine months of the pandemic, this article seeks to understand the institutional measures to provide economic security to paid domestic workers, focusing on the tension between extending the legal protections of employees or expanding current social policies.

Rebuilding the workplace to promote young workers' mental health

Purpose: Young adults have been particularly adversely affected by COVID-19-related disruptions, especially in relation to industries with an over-representation of young adults. This study, a report, aims to discuss the findings from survey data from young adults who reported poorer mental health comparative to older generations prior to the pandemic. Drawing on the international literature and the research findings, the authors propose recommendations for rebuilding the workplace post-pandemic to support young adult's mental health. Design/methodology/approach: Data from 1,999 respondents from 200 organisations in the UK were sought in relation to workplace well-being and mental health through a 15-item multiple choice online survey. Overall, 17% of the sample were senior management, 31% junior management, 37% in non-management roles and a further 15% stated "other". Exploratory quantitative analyses were undertaken to assess differences in responses to questions between age groups. Findings: Participants in the 16-25-year-old age group were more likely than any other age group to report that work adversely affected their mental health, that their mental health challenges influenced their performance at work, that they had witnessed colleagues' employment negatively influenced by mental health challenges and they felt more comfortable citing physical health challenges for absence than mental health difficulties. Originality/value: COVID-19-related disruptions meant a large-scale move to remote working for many people. As we return to physical workplaces, we have an exciting opportunity to reform and improve the status quo. The findings, in relation to the mental health of young adults, highlight key risk factors that need to be addressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)