We conducted this realist evaluation study of an organizational health intervention involving 421 low-skilled workers (50% female), half of whom were immigrants, in three companies over six months. Non-profit agencies implemented peer-mentoring and taught peer-mentors and line managers how to enhance social support in order to improve workers’ work situation in a participative way. We formulated five mechanisms of change: the company management encouragement mechanism, the role model mechanism, the peer-mentor support mechanism, the line manager support mechanism, and the participative work improvement mechanism. We combined realist evaluation with a quasi-experimental design and process evaluation in a multi-methods approach. Results of multiple group latent change models and qualitative research showed that intervention-group workers perceived increases in peer-mentor support but not in line manager support. Peer-mentors managed to initiate high-quality improvements at work. Intervention-group workers showed significant reductions in blood pressure. Control-group workers experienced more psychosomatic complaints over time in significant contrast to intervention-group workers. Our results suggest that peer-mentoring offers an effective way for low-skilled workers and immigrants to achieve better health. To improve such health effects, a greater focus on line managers’ work situations is needed to help them provide support.

In this study, the authors analyze leadership behaviors as potential health-promoting resources for low-skilled workers in a highly culturally diverse work setting. The authors hypothesize that subordinates' and supervisors' individual power distance orientations will moderate the effect of subordinates' perceptions of leadership behavior and the subsequent effects on their well-being. Multilevel modeling is used to analyze a sample of data from 474 low-skilled employees (50% immigrants) and 35 direct supervisors from three German companies. Supporting the hypotheses, social support, task-related communication, and positive feedback, as expressions of esteem, are found to positively impact subordinates' well-being, but individual consideration shows no significant effects. Furthermore, results confirm that supervisors' power distance orientation moderates employees' perceptions about supervisors' positive feedback and the subsequent well-being effects. The moderating effect fails to hold for employees' power distance orientation. Results indicate that supervisors can most effectively promote the health of low-skilled workers by showing esteem through positive feedback, but if the supervisor has high individual power distance orientation, the effect is attenuated.

About 16% of the German workforce is low skilled (Lyly-Yrjänäinen, 2008), including formally qualified employees who work in positions that do not require formal training. These educated employees in the low-skilled workforce are often immigrants with meager German language skills or workers who lack an occupational qualification that is accepted in Germany. Therefore, low-skilled workforces are characterized by a high proportion of immigrant workers (Hoppe, 2011;Seebaß & Siegert, 2011). On the other hand, workers who have completed their vocational educations are also often employed in low-skilled jobs due to poor employment opportunities in their regular professions. Low-skilled jobs have comparatively unfavorable general working conditions such as high physical demands, job insecurity, rotating shift work, and time pressure (e.g.,

The purpose of this article is to present and evaluate a blended couple coaching for smallbusiness owners and their spouses (copreneurs) to help them psychologically detach from work, which is a particularly powerful recovery experience, and ameliorate emotional exhaustion, which is the core dimension of burnout. Blended couple coaching was chosen because of the high workload of small-business owners, the frequent involvement of their spouses in their entrepreneurial venture, and the influence of spouses on behavior change, recovery, and wellbeing. The coaching was based on the neuroscientific Zurich Resource Model (ZRM). We combined realist evaluation with a quasi-experimental design and process evaluation using mixed methods. Copreneurs of small craft businesses (N = 32) were approached through trade guilds in their regional networks. Compared to the control group and after controlling for pretest scores, ANCOVAs showed an effect on detachment of h 2 = .28 (p = .004) 3 weeks after the final coaching session, and effects of h 2 = .13 on detachment (p = .061) and h 2 = .12 on exhaustion (p = .072) 4 months later among the intervention participants. Spousal social support during coaching was the mechanism of change that predicted both coaching satisfaction 3 weeks after the final coaching session (p = .004) and goal attainment 4 months later (p = .007). Somatic markers also predicted goal attainment (p = .004). Working alliance between the coach and client did not play the expected role in this coaching format. What's It Mean? Implications for Consulting PsychologyGiven the growing attention to entrepreneurs' well-being in both research and practice, this paper presents an innovative coaching intervention to foster recovery and ameliorate burnout, and it identifies some elements likely to contribute

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand how experienced copreneurs of small family business (SFB), as the smallest unit and heart of their family business (FB), may create work-life balance (WLB). Copreneurs evince highly intertwined life-domains and often struggle to respite while managing their high business demands.Design/methodology/approachIn this couple interview study with 18 experienced copreneurial couples of SFBs (N = 36), we investigated strategies copreneurs use to create their WLB by merging a resource perspective (Hobfoll, 1989) with the concept of WLB crafting (Sturges, 2012).FindingsA key strategy in copreneurial couples was the structural establishment of microdomains, such as periods of personal resource recreation within a macrodomain (e.g. work) via individual physical and cognitive WLB crafting. Copreneurs used relational WLB crafting with a strong emphasis on seeking support and mainly to protect their microdomains by relying on their spouses as boundary keepers. Women more often expressed the importance of health and time for respite, as cognitive WLB crafting, and they were more active in creating (joint) recovery opportunities. Dyadic WLB crafting strategies were used when goal congruency for work or private activities was high.Originality/valueThis research applies WLB crafting research to the smallest unit of SFBs, namely copreneurs. The study provides in-depth insights into the strategies copreneurs of SFB use to create a satisfying WLB.