Effects of a Total Worker Health® leadership intervention on employee well-being and functional impairment.

Abstract

Although evidence has been mounting that supervisor support training interventions promote employee job, health, and well-being outcomes, there is little understanding of the mechanisms by which such interventions operate (e.g., Hammer et al., 2022;Inceoglu et al., 2018), nor about the integration of such organizational-level interventions with individual-level interventions (e.g., Lamontagne et al., 2007). Thus, the present study attempts to unpack the mechanisms through which supervisor support training interventions operate. In addition, the present study examines an integrated Total Worker Health ® intervention that combines health protection in the form of supervisor support training (i.e., family supportive supervisor behaviors and supervisor support for sleep health) with a health promotion approach in the form of feedback to improve sleep health behaviors. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial drawing on a sample of 704 full-time employees, results demonstrate that the Total Worker Health intervention improves employee job well-being (i.e., increased job satisfaction and reduced turnover intentions), personal well-being (i.e., reduced stress before bedtime), and reduces personal and social functional impairment at 9 months postbaseline through employee reports of supervisors' support for sleep at 4 months postbaseline, but not through family supportive supervisor behaviors. Effects were not found for general stress or occupational functional impairment outcomes. Implications are discussed, including theoretical mechanisms by which leadership interventions affect employees, supervisor training, as well as the role of integrated organizational and individual-level interventions.

From microscopic to macroscopic perspectives and back: The study of leadership and health/well-being.

“…This highlights an interesting opportunity for future intervention studies (which are sorely needed) to design studies to not only prove that the intervention works but to also consider why and how exactly the intervention works. Hammer et al (2021) examine processes accounting for change in employee well-being related to the Total Worker Health intervention assessed. Results of their cluster randomized controlled trial show an improvement in several aspects of well-being (e.g., reduced stress before bedtime) and begin to unpack the reasons for those changes.…”

“…Various aspects of health and well-being have been the focus of research in psychology, organizational behavior, and physiology. For example: physical health (e.g., sleep: Litwiller et al, 2017;Hammer et al, 2021), general psychological well-being (e.g., General Health Questionnaire: Goldberg & Hillier, 1979), work-related well-being (e.g., Cooper & Cartwright, 1994;Quick, 1998;Warr et al, 2014), well-being outside of work (e.g., life satisfaction: Zhang & Tu, 2018), This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…The generalizability of findings from one industry sector to other contexts is an important question to address that remains underexplored. For instance, the paper by Hammer et al (2021) examined an intervention in the military, specifically developed for and implemented with leaders and employees operating in this context. Industry sectors also differ in terms of competitiveness, pace of change, and the caring or prosocial motivations of their workforce (e.g., consider working at a multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, a social media start-up, or government social services or health care).…”

“…As our model depicts, work and nonwork are both important spheres that could be considered when parsing out the effects of leadership on the leader's and followers'/ team's well-being. Hammer et al (2021) examine the impact of a health/ well-being intervention on leaders and employees by also considering the extent to which leaders show family supportive behaviors.…”

“…Results of their study reveal that individuals experience tensions at the time of first moving into a leadership role, but that over time, their emotional well-being and self-esteem grow. The intervention studies in this issue by Hammer et al (2021) In summary, research could be more ambitious, uncovering how leadership as a social process and health/well-being unfold over time, embedded in different layers of contextual influences.…”