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Aim: To present benchmarks for working conditions in healthcare industries as an initial effort into international surveillance.Background: The healthcare industry is fundamental to sustaining the health of Australians, yet it is under immense pressure. Budgets are limited, demands are increasing as are workplace injuries and all of these factors compromise patient care. Urgent attention is needed to reduce strains on workers and costs in healthcare, however, little work has been done to benchmark psychosocial factors in healthcare working conditions in the Asia-Pacific. Intercultural comparisons are important to provide an evidence base for public policy. Design: A cross-sectional design was used (like other studies of prevalence), including a mixed-methods approach with qualitative interviews to better contextualize the results. Methods: Data on psychosocial factors and other work variables were collected from healthcare workers in three hospitals in Australia (N = 1,258) and Malaysia (N = 1,125). 2015 benchmarks were calculated for each variable and comparison was conducted via independent samples t tests. Healthcare samples were also compared with benchmarks for non-healthcare general working populations from the irrespective countries: Australia (N = 973) and Malaysia (N = 225). Findings: Our study benchmarks healthcare working conditions in Australia and Malaysia against the general working population, identifying trends that indicate the industry is in need of intervention strategies and job redesign initiatives that better support psychological health and safety. Conclusion: We move toward a better understanding of the precursors of psychosocial safety climate in a broader context, including similarities and differences between Australia and Malaysia in national culture, government occupational health and safety policies and top-level management practices. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

This chapter outlines psychosocial safety climate as an extension of current work stress frameworks, and expounds its predictive and ameliorating or moderating roles, its multilevel characteristics, and role in interventions to improve workplace psychological health. The evidence-base for psychosocial safety climate theory is examined. An important aspect of the psychosocial safety climate construct is that it fits to and extends current models of workplace stress. Most existing models of workplace stress begin with job design and explain how psychosocial work conditions affect psychological health. Psychosocial safety climate theory suggests that interventions to improve workplace conditions and psychological health should be tailored to the level of the organization with a socially coordinated approach including management commitment and priority, organizational communication, participation and involvement. Additional multilevel, longitudinal research using triangulated evidence, and interventions to evaluate the efficacy of psychosocial safety specific leadership training will assist in promoting the development of healthy workplaces

Objective: To examine the impact of globalization on employee psychological health and job satisfaction via job characteristics (i.e., job demands and job resources) in an emerging economy, that of Malaysia. As external factors are regarded as influences on the working environment, we hypothesized that global forces (increased pressure and competition) would have an impact on burnout and job satisfaction via increased demands (role conflict, emotional demands) and reduced resources (supervisor support, coworkers support). Methods: Data were collected using a population based survey among 308 employees in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. Participants were approached at home during the weekend or on days off from work. Only one participant was selected per household. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. Nearly 54% of respondents agreed that they need to work harder, 25% agreed that their job was not secure and 24% thought they had lost power and control on the job due to global trade competition. Results: Consistent with our predictions, demands mediated the globalization to burnout relationship, and resources mediated the globalization to job satisfaction relationship. Conclusions: Together, these results support the idea that external factors influence work conditions and in turn employee health and job satisfaction. We conclude that the jobs demands resources framework is applicable in an Eastern setting and that globalization is a key antecedent of working environments. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Negative workplace behaviour, such as workplace bullying, is emerging as an important work-related psychosocial hazard with the potential to contribute to employee ill health. We examined the risk of two major health issues (poor mental and cardiovascular health) associated with current and past exposure to negative behaviour in the workplace. Data from 251 police officers, who completed an anonymous mail survey at two time-points spaced 12 months apart, support the potential role of exposure to negative workplace behaviour in the development of physical disease and psychological illness. Specifically, we saw significant effects associated with past exposure to such behaviour on indicators of poor cardiovascular health, and a significant effect of current exposure on the indicator of mental health problems. Our findings reinforce the need to continue to study links between employee health and both negative workplace behaviour and more severe cases of bullying, particularly the mechanisms involved to strengthen theory in this area, and to protect against employee ill health (specifically cardiovascular outcomes and psychological problems) by preventing negative behaviour at work. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We constructed a model of workplace psychosocial safety climate (PSC) to explain the origins of job demands and resources, worker psychological health, and employee engagement. PSC refers to policies, practices, and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety. Using the job demands-resources framework, we hypothesized that PSC as an upstream organizational resource influenced largely by senior management, would precede the work context (i.e., job demands and resources) and would in turn predict psychological health and work engagement via mediation and moderation pathways. We operationalized PSC at the school level and tested meso-mediational models using two-level (longitudinal) hierarchical linear modelling in a sample of Australian education workers (N = 209-288). Data were repeated measures separated by 12 months, nested within 18 schools. PSC predicted change in individual psychological health problems (psychological distress, emotional exhaustion) through its relationship with individual job demands (work pressure and emotional demands). PSC moderated the relationship between emotional demands and emotional exhaustion. PSC predicted change in employee engagement, through its relationship with skill discretion. The results show that the PSC construct is a key upstream component of work stress theory and a logical intervention site for work stress intervention. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

We propose and test a comprehensive theory designed to explain seemingly contradictory relations between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and work-family conflict (WFC) reported in the literature. Using job demands-resources theory, effort-recovery theory, and personal resources theory we hypothesized that job demands would spillover to emotional exhaustion as mediated by WFC (causality model), and alternatively that job demands would also spillover to WFC as mediated by emotional exhaustion (reverse causal model). Further, we also hypothesized using loss spiral theory that a more comprehensive model representing reciprocal and cross-linked effects (causal and reverse causal simultaneously) would best fit the data. The hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal study of 257 Australian (Victorian) frontline police officers at two time points approximately 12 months apart. We used structural equation modelling and found in support of the simultaneous reciprocal effects hypothesis, that the more comprehensive model fitted the data better than either the causality or the reverse causal model. Future research should more comprehensively model the important relationships between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and WFC to reflect their complex interplay. Interventions to reduce work demands arising from work pressure and emotional demands are indicated to prevent conflict at home and emotional exhaustion in police officers. Refereed/Peer-reviewed