Healthy Working Lives in Healthy Businesses: New OSH Strategy for Small Enterprises?

Abstract In light of a large proportion of older workers leaving the German labour market in the near future, policy makers aim to extend working lives to ensure sustainability of the social security system. In this context, safe and healthy working conditions are considered a precondition for encouraging employment participation. To understand better the role of the work environment in pre-retirement years, we draw upon an established model of five job quality profiles for the German ageing workforce. We explored seven-year profile development and linked selected manual and non-manual job quality trajectories to the motivation to work (MTW) using data from the 2011, 2014 and 2018 assessments of the lidA cohort study (valid N = 2,863). We found that older workers shifted to physically less-demanding profiles. Individual profile stability was prevalent among one-third of the workers. In 2018, there was a higher MTW when job quality remained favourable or improved early, while later improvements were associated with lower MTW. Early deterioration of job quality was associated with lower MTW levels among workers with non-manual trajectories only. The results highlight the dynamic job quality situation of the older German workforce and the importance of adopting a person-centred perspective when investigating working conditions and its effects. They further underline the need to consider quality of work when designing and implementing strategies to extend working lives.

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Development of a Questionnaire for Measuring Employees’ Perception of Selection, Optimisation and Compensation at the Leadership, Group and Individual Levels

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph18126475 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (12) ◽

pp. 6475

Author(s):

Annette Meng ◽

Iben L. Karlsen ◽

Vilhelm Borg ◽

Thomas Clausen

Keyword(s):

Validity And Reliability ◽

Cross Sectional Survey ◽

Internal Reliability ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽

Targeted Interventions ◽

Working Lives ◽

Healthy Working ◽

Dairy Workers ◽

Leadership Group

This study is the first to develop a questionnaire to measure employees’ perceptions of the use of the action strategies selection, optimisation, and compensation (SOC) beyond the individual level, which has so far been lacking in research and practice. The study thus contributes an important tool for research into the role of SOC strategies at the leadership, group, and individual levels for long and healthy working lives. It may also be used by practitioners as a tool to provide input when developing targeted interventions to support long and healthy working lives. The development of the questionnaire was based on SOC theory, qualitative and cognitive interviews, and existing SOC questionnaires. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were tested on data from a cross-sectional survey with responses from 785 nurses and 244 dairy workers. Results from confirmatory factor analyses supported the theoretically expected nine-factor structure of the questionnaire in both study populations (nurses and dairy workers). Furthermore, the results largely supported the criterion validity and internal reliability of the scales in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, further validation across additional occupational groups is needed.

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