Turbulent companies, turbulent work engagement?

Introduction: Nowadays, many companies are facing large operational challenges. Shrinking revenues contribute to a focus on costs and therefore on work force. By making this work force smaller and more flexible affects employees in a hard way and make them less engaged. Protests against these restructurings led to social upheaval in the Netherlands. That was for the Minister of Social Affairs a reason to commission the executive board of one of the largest companies in the Netherlands to investigate the levels of work stress and harassment/bullying.    

Objectives: The objective of this presentation is to demonstrate that, as hypothesized in the Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R model), job demands and especially a lack of job resources predict work stress. Traditional work stress models are focusing on (diminishing) workload and/or (improving) resilience. The JD-R model, however, helps to focus on resources and engagement what improves the support of stakeholders to implement the recommendations.    

Methods: We gathered quantitative and qualitative data from a random sample of employees working in aforementioned Dutch company. By using the JD-R model also job resources and engagement were measured. Structural Equation Modeling was carried out to test the hypothesis that a lack of job resources are responsible for the work stress (in stead of a overload of demands) and identify relevant determinants for work stress and harassment/bullying.    

Results: As hypothesized especially a lack of job resources predicted work stress and – of course - a lack of engagement. This was the basis for the recommendations towards the executive board, the unions and the politicians. All stakeholders were exited about the non-traditional constructive possibilities these recommendations revealed them to solve the work stress and harassment/bullying problem.      

Conclusion: The JD-R model is a more practical relevant model compared with its predecessors. Improving job resources is more promising than reducing job demands.