Areas of worklife as predictors of occupational health – A validation study in two German samples

Abstract

a b s t r a c tBackground/aim: Occupational health largely depends on the perceived fit between the employee's abilities and workplace demands/factors. The Areas of Worklife Scale (AWS) specifies six areas that are particularly relevant in this respect: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. The current article aimed at investigating the factorial structure and the criterion validity of the German translation of the AWS. Methods: Data were collected in two samples. In study 1, 1455 public service workers were surveyed using the six areas of worklife and well-being. In study 2, to investigate the well-established relationship between the AWS and burnout, the scale was administered to a nursing sample (N = 443). Results: High internal consistencies for all six scales were obtained in both studies. Exploratory as well as confirmatory factor analysis replicated the theoretically assumed six scale structure of the AWS. Evidence of criterion validity was found by multiple linear regression analysis with well-being as dependent measure (study 1). SEM analyses supported the hypothesized relationships between the six AWS dimensions and burnout (study 2). As predicted by Maslach (2004, 2009), only some areas were directly associated with the health-related outcomes (well-being and burnout). In line with previous work, workload and values proved to be the most critical areas of worklife. Conclusions: The six areas of worklife have been shown to be significant predictors of health-related outcomes. Based on the current studies, the German translation of the AWS can be proposed as a reliable and valid instrument to identify and specify critical work-related areas for occupational health.

Burnout Study of Clinical Nurses in Vietnam: Development of Job Burnout Model Based on Leiter and Maslach's Theory

“…The Spanish version supported original version without any eliminated item [18]. The German version [19] has excluded two items in which one item from fairness sub-scale and other item belongs to value sub-scale because of increasing internal consistency for satisfactory and possible explanation was that item content did not differ among the participants. Item 15 of community domain "I am a member of a supportive work group" might confuse Vietnamese nurses as "supportive work group" is not a fully understood concept in the Vietnamese health-care system.…”

The Mediating Effect of Organizational Trust on the Link between the Areas of Work Life and Emotional Exhaustion

“…Managerial and administrative staffs in universities face greater difficulties in recognizing excellent performance (reward), the internal processes for promotion (fairness), or the level of social conflicts within the workplace (community). Since mismatches between employees' expectations and those of their organization might have detrimental long-term effects on both employees and organizations, the Areas of Work Life Scale could be used to identify and to specify whether and where work related problems occur (Brom, Buruck, Horváth, Richter, & Leiter, 2015). More clearly, this study reveals that AW could be used in university settings as a diagnostic tool.…”

“…More specifically, high job demands exhaust employees' physical and mental resources, leading them to experience a complete depletion of energy (Brom, Buruck, Horvath, Richter, & Leiter, 2015). In contrast, high amounts of resources fosters employee engagement (Brom et al, 2015) by providing employees with coping strategies to deal with work stressors. In addition to the JD-R model, some of our propositions are based upon the effort-balance imbalance theory (Siegrist, 1996), which emphasizes the role of effort-outcome imbalance in energy depletion.…”

The Buffering Effect of Workplace Resources on the Relationship between the Areas of Worklife and Burnout

“…The participants are asked to answer 29 items on a 5-point Likert-Scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). One example item for the area of control is “I have professional autonomy/independence in my work” and one example item for the area of values is “My values and the organization’s values are alike.” The German translation by Schulze (see Brom et al, 2015) was used in this study.…”