scholarly journals Participant Engagement in and Perspectives on a Web-Based Mindfulness Intervention for 9-1-1 Telecommunicators: Multimethod Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darragh C Kerr ◽  
India J Ornelas ◽  
Michelle M Lilly ◽  
Rebecca Calhoun ◽  
Hendrika Meischke
Keyword(s):  
Call Center ◽  
Mindfulness Practice ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Perceived Benefits ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Participant Engagement ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Individual Participant ◽  
Participant Characteristics

BACKGROUND Demanding working conditions and secondary exposure to trauma may contribute to a high burden of stress among 9-1-1 telecommunicators, decreasing their ability to work effectively and efficiently. Web-based mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can be effective in reducing stress in similar populations. However, low engagement may limit the effectiveness of the intervention. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess participant engagement in a Web-based MBI designed for 9-1-1 telecommunicators. Specifically, we sought to describe the following: (1) participant characteristics associated with intervention engagement, (2) participant perspectives on engaging with the intervention, and (3) perceived challenges and facilitators to engaging. METHODS We used qualitative and quantitative data from participant surveys (n=149) that were collected to assess the efficacy of the intervention. We conducted descriptive and bivariate analyses to identify associations between demographic, psychosocial, and workplace characteristics and engagement. We conducted a thematic analysis of qualitative survey responses to describe participant experiences with the MBI. RESULTS We found that no individual participant characteristics were associated with the level of engagement (low vs high number of lessons completed). Participant engagement did vary by the call center (P<.001). We identified the following overarching qualitative themes: (1) the participants perceived benefits of mindfulness practice, (2) the participants perceived challenges to engage with mindfulness and the intervention, and (3) intervention components that facilitated engagement. The participants expressed positive beliefs in the perceived benefits of practicing mindfulness, including increased self-efficacy in coping with stressors and increased empathy with callers. The most commonly cited barriers were work-related, particularly not having time to participate in the intervention at work. Facilitators included shorter meditation practices and the availability of multiple formats and types of intervention content. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study suggest that efforts to improve intervention engagement should focus on organizational-level factors rather than individual participant characteristics. Future research should explore the effect of mindfulness practice on the efficiency and effectiveness of 9-1-1 telecommunicators at work. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02961621; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02961621

The place of civilians in policing

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Alderden ◽  
Wesley G. Skogan
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Employee Morale ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
Related Stress ◽  
Civilian Employees

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlates of job satisfaction among civilian employees of law enforcement agencies, to assess how features of the policing workplace influence employee morale. Design/methodology/approach – The data for this study were drawn from surveys conducted as part of the National Police Research Platform. In total, 472 civilians from 19 police agencies completed the survey. Findings – The findings indicate that contentment with pay and benefits, lower levels of work-related stress, equality in the workplace, and feelings of acceptance were associated with civilian employee satisfaction. Research limitations/implications – The analyses presented here focusses on factors more unique to policing and did not include all of factors correlated with job satisfaction in past literature. Future research should address this as well as control for the effect of organizational-level factors. Practical implications – The research identifies key factors in each of those categories that inhibit the effective incorporation of civilians into the workforce. It indicates that reaping the full advantages of civilianization is complex and requires attention to fundamental aspects of police organizations. How administrators deal with this reality will impact the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations in important ways. Originality/value – To date, much of what has been written about the place of civilians in policing consists of descriptions of their numeric representation and discussions of the presumed advantages of hiring them in larger numbers. Less is known about how well civilians have been integrated into the policing workforce.

scholarly journals Using Web-Based Pin-Drop Maps to Capture Activity Spaces Among Young Adults Who Use Drugs in Rural Areas: Cross-Sectional Survey (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Luke Fenimore Cooper ◽  
Natalie D Crawford ◽  
Regine Haardöerfer ◽  
Nadya Prood ◽  
Carla Jones-Harrell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Euclidean Distance ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Street Address ◽  
Participant Characteristics

BACKGROUND Epicenters of harmful drug use are expanding to US rural areas, with rural young adults bearing a disproportionate burden. A large body of work suggests that place characteristics (eg, spatial access to health services) shape vulnerability to drug-related harms among urban residents. Research on the role of place characteristics in shaping these harms among rural residents is nascent, as are methods of gathering place-based data. OBJECTIVE We (1) analyzed whether young rural adults who used drugs answered self-administered Web-based mapping items about locations where they engaged in risk behaviors and (2) determined the precision of mapped locations. METHODS Eligible individuals had to report recently using opioids to get high; be aged between 18 and 35 years; and live in the 5-county rural Appalachian Kentucky study area. We used targeted outreach and peer-referral methods to recruit participants. The survey asked participants to drop a pin in interactive maps to mark where they completed the survey, and where they had slept most; used drugs most; and had sex most in the past 6 months. Precision was assessed by (1) determining whether mapped locations were within 100 m of a structure and (2) calculating the Euclidean distance between the pin-drop home location and the street address where participants reported sleeping most often. Measures of central tendency and dispersion were calculated for all variables; distributions of missingness for mapping items and for the Euclidean distance variable were explored across participant characteristics. RESULTS Of the 151 participants, 88.7% (134/151) completed all mapping items, and ≥92.1% (&gt;139/151) dropped a pin at each of the 4 locations queried. Missingness did not vary across most participant characteristics, except that lower percentages of full-time workers and peer-recruited participants mapped some locations. Two-thirds of the pin-drop sex and drug use locations were less than 100 m from a structure, as were 92.1% (139/151) of pin-drop home locations. The median distance between the pin-drop and street-address home locations was 2.0 miles (25th percentile=0.8 miles; 75th percentile=5.5 miles); distances were shorter for high-school graduates, staff-recruited participants, and participants reporting no technical difficulties completing the survey. CONCLUSIONS Missingness for mapping items was low and unlikely to introduce bias, given that it varied across few participant characteristics. Precision results were mixed. In a rural study area of 1378 square miles, most pin-drop home addresses were near a structure; it is unsurprising that fewer drug and sex locations were near structures because most participants reported engaging in these activities outside at times. The error in pin-drop home locations, however, might be too large for some purposes. We offer several recommendations to strengthen future research, including gathering metadata on the extent to which participants zoom in on each map and recruiting participants via trusted staff.

Listening between the lines

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catriona Fraser ◽  
Barbara F. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Production Data ◽  
Testing Methods ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
Accented Speech ◽  
Frequency Of Contact ◽  
Individual Participant ◽  
Qualitative Methodologies

This paper investigates the effect of listener attitudes on the ability to understand a foreign (non-Australian) accent. The research focuses on individual listener characteristics, such as attitude and frequency of contact with accented speakers, rather than speech production. Data was collected through a web-based survey and analysis employed both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Correlation was found between a negative attitude toward other ethnicities and ability to correctly transcribe foreign-accented speech, with a stronger correlation between a negative attitude and comprehensibility. Qualitative analysis of participant comments highlighted discrepancies in attitude testing methods and indicated that an accent can inspire many assumptions, the most common being that foreign-accented speakers have a lower level of education than Australian-accented speakers. The results suggest that future research in this area should always try to account for individual participant characteristics.

scholarly journals Preparing Workplaces for Digital Transformation: An Integrative Review and Framework of Multi-Level Factors

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigid Trenerry ◽  
Samuel Chng ◽  
Yang Wang ◽  
Zainal Shah Suhaila ◽  
Sun Sun Lim ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Business Models ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
The Individual

The rapid advancement of new digital technologies, such as smart technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, robotics, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), is fundamentally changing the nature of work and increasing concerns about the future of jobs and organizations. To keep pace with rapid disruption, companies need to update and transform business models to remain competitive. Meanwhile, the growth of advanced technologies is changing the types of skills and competencies needed in the workplace and demanded a shift in mindset among individuals, teams and organizations. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization trends, while heightening the importance of employee resilience and well-being in adapting to widespread job and technological disruption. Although digital transformation is a new and urgent imperative, there is a long trajectory of rigorous research that can readily be applied to grasp these emerging trends. Recent studies and reviews of digital transformation have primarily focused on the business and strategic levels, with only modest integration of employee-related factors. Our review article seeks to fill these critical gaps by identifying and consolidating key factors important for an organization’s overarching digital transformation. We reviewed studies across multiple disciplines and integrated the findings into a multi-level framework. At the individual level, we propose five overarching factors related to effective digital transformation among employees: technology adoption; perceptions and attitudes toward technological change; skills and training; workplace resilience and adaptability, and work-related wellbeing. At the group-level, we identified three factors necessary for digital transformation: team communication and collaboration; workplace relationships and team identification, and team adaptability and resilience. Finally, at the organizational-level, we proposed three factors for digital transformation: leadership; human resources, and organizational culture/climate. Our review of the literature confirms that multi-level factors are important when planning for and embarking on digital transformation, thereby providing a framework for future research and practice.

scholarly journals Using Web-Based Pin-Drop Maps to Capture Activity Spaces Among Young Adults Who Use Drugs in Rural Areas: Cross-Sectional Survey

10.2196/13593 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. e13593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Luke Fenimore Cooper ◽  
Natalie D Crawford ◽  
Regine Haardörfer ◽  
Nadya Prood ◽  
Carla Jones-Harrell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Euclidean Distance ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Street Address ◽  
Participant Characteristics

Background Epicenters of harmful drug use are expanding to US rural areas, with rural young adults bearing a disproportionate burden. A large body of work suggests that place characteristics (eg, spatial access to health services) shape vulnerability to drug-related harms among urban residents. Research on the role of place characteristics in shaping these harms among rural residents is nascent, as are methods of gathering place-based data. Objective We (1) analyzed whether young rural adults who used drugs answered self-administered Web-based mapping items about locations where they engaged in risk behaviors and (2) determined the precision of mapped locations. Methods Eligible individuals had to report recently using opioids to get high; be aged between 18 and 35 years; and live in the 5-county rural Appalachian Kentucky study area. We used targeted outreach and peer-referral methods to recruit participants. The survey asked participants to drop a pin in interactive maps to mark where they completed the survey, and where they had slept most; used drugs most; and had sex most in the past 6 months. Precision was assessed by (1) determining whether mapped locations were within 100 m of a structure and (2) calculating the Euclidean distance between the pin-drop home location and the street address where participants reported sleeping most often. Measures of central tendency and dispersion were calculated for all variables; distributions of missingness for mapping items and for the Euclidean distance variable were explored across participant characteristics. Results Of the 151 participants, 88.7% (134/151) completed all mapping items, and ≥92.1% (>139/151) dropped a pin at each of the 4 locations queried. Missingness did not vary across most participant characteristics, except that lower percentages of full-time workers and peer-recruited participants mapped some locations. Two-thirds of the pin-drop sex and drug use locations were less than 100 m from a structure, as were 92.1% (139/151) of pin-drop home locations. The median distance between the pin-drop and street-address home locations was 2.0 miles (25th percentile=0.8 miles; 75th percentile=5.5 miles); distances were shorter for high-school graduates, staff-recruited participants, and participants reporting no technical difficulties completing the survey. Conclusions Missingness for mapping items was low and unlikely to introduce bias, given that it varied across few participant characteristics. Precision results were mixed. In a rural study area of 1378 square miles, most pin-drop home addresses were near a structure; it is unsurprising that fewer drug and sex locations were near structures because most participants reported engaging in these activities outside at times. The error in pin-drop home locations, however, might be too large for some purposes. We offer several recommendations to strengthen future research, including gathering metadata on the extent to which participants zoom in on each map and recruiting participants via trusted staff.

Development and Construct Validation of the German Workplace Trust Survey (G-WTS)

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock ◽  
Simone Kauffeld
Keyword(s):  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Affective Commitment ◽  
Discriminant Validity ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Organizational Trust ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Reliable Assessment ◽  
Workplace Trust

In research on trust in the organizational context, there is some agreement evolving that trust should be measured with respect to various foci. The Workplace Trust Survey (WTS) by Ferres (2002) provides reliable assessment of coworker, supervisor, and organizational trust. By means of a functionally equivalent translation, we developed a German version of the questionnaire (G-WTS) comprising 21 items. A total of 427 employees were surveyed with the G-WTS and questionnaires concerning several work-related attitudes and behaviors and 92 of these completed the survey twice. The hypothesized three-dimensional conceptualization of organizational trust was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The G-WTS showed good internal consistency and retest reliability values. Concerning convergent validity, all of the three G-WTS dimensions positively predicted job satisfaction. In terms of discriminant validity, Coworker Trust enhanced group cohesion; Supervisor Trust fostered innovative behavior, while Organizational Trust was associated with affective commitment. Theoretical and practical contributions as well as opportunities for future research with the G-WTS are discussed.

scholarly journals ‘CTRL’: an online, Dynamic Consent and participant engagement platform working towards solving the complexities of consent in genomic research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilda A. Haas ◽  
Harriet Teare ◽  
Megan Prictor ◽  
Gabi Ceregra ◽  
Miranda E. Vidgen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Genomic Medicine ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
Genomic Research ◽  
Return Of Results ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Design And Development ◽  
Participant Engagement ◽  
Dynamic Consent

AbstractThe complexities of the informed consent process for participating in research in genomic medicine are well-documented. Inspired by the potential for Dynamic Consent to increase participant choice and autonomy in decision-making, as well as the opportunities for ongoing participant engagement it affords, we wanted to trial Dynamic Consent and to do so developed our own web-based application (web app) called CTRL (control). This paper documents the design and development of CTRL, for use in the Australian Genomics study: a health services research project building evidence to inform the integration of genomic medicine into mainstream healthcare. Australian Genomics brought together a multi-disciplinary team to develop CTRL. The design and development process considered user experience; security and privacy; the application of international standards in data sharing; IT, operational and ethical issues. The CTRL tool is now being offered to participants in the study, who can use CTRL to keep personal and contact details up to date; make consent choices (including indicate preferences for return of results and future research use of biological samples, genomic and health data); follow their progress through the study; complete surveys, contact the researchers and access study news and information. While there are remaining challenges to implementing Dynamic Consent in genomic research, this study demonstrates the feasibility of building such a tool, and its ongoing use will provide evidence about the value of Dynamic Consent in large-scale genomic research programs.

In the Moment: Fostering Mindfulness and Reducing Stressors in the Healthcare Workplace

2021 ◽  
pp. 193758672098824
Author(s):  
Shabboo Valipoor ◽  
Sheila J. Bosch
Keyword(s):  
Design Research ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Job Dissatisfaction ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Environmental Interventions ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Healthcare Settings ◽  
The Moment

While healthcare design research has primarily focused on patient outcomes, there is a growing recognition that environmental interventions could do more by promoting the overall quality of care, and this requires expanding the focus to the health and well-being of those who deliver care to patients. Healthcare professionals are under high levels of stress, leading to burnout, job dissatisfaction, and poor patient care. Among other tools, mindfulness is recommended as a way of decreasing stress and helping workers function at higher levels. This article aims to identify potential environmental strategies for reducing work-related stressors and facilitating mindfulness in healthcare settings. By examining existing evidence on workplace mindfulness and stress-reducing design strategies, we highlight the power of the physical environment in not only alleviating stressful conditions but intentionally encouraging a mindful perspective. Strategies like minimizing distractions or avoiding overstimulation in the healthcare environment can be more effective if implemented along with the provision of designated spaces for mindfulness-based programs. Future research may explore optimal methods and hospital workers’ preferences for environments that support mindfulness and stress management. The long-term goal of all these efforts is to enhance healthcare professionals’ well-being, reignite their professional enthusiasm, and help them be resilient in times of stress.

scholarly journals Algorithmic management in a work context

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395172110203
Author(s):  
Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi ◽  
Gemma Newlands ◽  
Min Kyung Lee ◽  
Christine T. Wolf ◽  
Eliscia Kinder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Machine Learning Algorithms ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Work Settings ◽  
Standard Work ◽  
Management Functions

The rapid development of machine-learning algorithms, which underpin contemporary artificial intelligence systems, has created new opportunities for the automation of work processes and management functions. While algorithmic management has been observed primarily within the platform-mediated gig economy, its transformative reach and consequences are also spreading to more standard work settings. Exploring algorithmic management as a sociotechnical concept, which reflects both technological infrastructures and organizational choices, we discuss how algorithmic management may influence existing power and social structures within organizations. We identify three key issues. First, we explore how algorithmic management shapes pre-existing power dynamics between workers and managers. Second, we discuss how algorithmic management demands new roles and competencies while also fostering oppositional attitudes toward algorithms. Third, we explain how algorithmic management impacts knowledge and information exchange within an organization, unpacking the concept of opacity on both a technical and organizational level. We conclude by situating this piece in broader discussions on the future of work, accountability, and identifying future research steps.

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