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This study investigates the relationship between the work conditions in higher education work settings, the academic staff's strategies for handling excessive workload and impact on well-being and work-life balance. The results show that there is a risk that staff in academic work places will start using compensatory coping strategies to deal with excessive demands and that this might seriously impair their health. The compensatory strategy cluster emerged as a "risk group" among the three identified strategy clusters, having a lower work-life balance and suffering from stress-related symptoms more often than the other two strategy clusters. The results also show that high educational level, management position and wide discretion as regards regulation of work in time and space (when and where to work) are factors that might contribute to a lower work-life balance. In practice, the results can contribute to create more sustainable work environments by detecting risk behaviours and risk factors.

Summary: This study sets out to investigate the potential differences between social workers using voice- or silence strategies in their experience of organisational resources, attitudes and health, and whether social workers moving between strategies (voice or silence) over time have a different experience of the same outcomes than those who stay with the same strategy group. The participating social workers (n = 1356) responded to two web-based questionnaires over a one-year period. Findings: The results show that voice strategies are related to the experience of more positive organisational resources, more positive attitudes (greater job satisfaction and organisational commitment, but lower intention to exit) and more positive health (greater recovery, but less emotional exhaustion and stress symptoms) than those using silence strategies. The results also show that moving from silence to voice is related to the experience of increased organisational resources, more positive attitudes and more positive health at T2, while those moving from voice to silence reported the opposite. Applications: The longitudinal approach applied in this study adds empirical evidence of the relationship between voice/silence and work-related attitudes, as well as health and well-being. The close relationship between organisational resources, employee voice behaviour and related individual outcomes regarding attitudes and health imply that Human Resources (HR) management has a lot to gain by developing and securing a voice-friendly and considerate climate in their organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive staff turnover within the statutory social services is a serious problem in Sweden and in other European countries. This study examines which work conditions predict social workers' willingness to stay in their organisation. A web-based questionnaire was used to gather data. The participating social workers responded to two questionnaires over a one-year period. To identify the social workers who wanted to stay and also remained in the organisation, the group 'Stayers' (n  = 1,368) consisted of social workers who reported low intentions to quit at T1. The group 'Leavers' (n  = 1,182) were social workers who had actually resigned at T2. The data were analysed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. The multivariate analysis shows that the work conditions that predicted staying in the organisation were low degrees of conflicting demands and quantitative demands, high degrees of openness and human resource orientation in the organisation and a high degree of perceived service quality. The results are discussed in relation to public management and managerial responsibility to create sustainable work conditions that facilitate the provision of good social services for citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigated the working conditions associated with the accumulation of stress and lack of recovery and how recovery is related to health. The study group was employed in pre-school, home care and social work (n = 193). Recovery was assumed to be an explanatory variable for the relations between work and health. The response rate on a survey was 79 per cent. Cluster analysis identified three groups: the ‘Recovered’ (36 per cent of the total group) and ‘Not Recovered’ (25 per cent) and the ‘In-between’ (39 per cent). The Not Recovered displayed the whole chain of risk factors, involving difficult working conditions to which they responded with increased compensatory strategies. Despite this group having significantly greater reports of ill health, work absenteeism was not greater, which is likely related to their substituting sickness absence with sickness presence. As many as 43 per cent of the social workers were found to belong to the Not Recovered group. Multiple regression analyses controlling for background variables revealed that the Not Recovered group had a significantly higher relative risk for poor self-rated health than those in the Recovered group. Even sharper increases in relative risk existed for the other five symptoms that were analysed. Practical implications and new research questions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the different coping patterns and implications for health and quality in human service work. The study also aims to manage the imbalance between work demands and resources and investigates their impact on outcomes in the health of employee and quality of service. It notes on the three strategy profiles identified by a cluster analysis including voice and support seeking, self-supporting and compensatory and quality reducing.