Maureen F. Dollard - Psychosocial Safety Climate: A New Work Stress Theory

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Over the past decades, work has become more time pressured and cognitively demanding. Modern organisations need to deal with global competition and technological breakthroughs, and employees are often exposed to high emotional demands. At least in developed economies, work has become people work, which means that workers need to invest considerable effort to be effective. Every day, employees need to deal with the emotions of themselves, their clients, colleagues and other stakeholders. Moreover, technological advancements including the Internet and smartphones have enabled employees to work anytime, anywhere. This all means that employees are continuously exposed to a wide range of job demands that compete for limited energetic and mental resources. With all these changes, it has become crucial that employees have access to sufficient organisational and job resources. When workers have access to social support, job control, performance feedback and opportunities to grow, they are better equipped to deal with the work pressure and various job demands. This book, edited by Maureen F. Dollard, Christian Dormann and Awang Idris, discusses the important role of Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) in highly demanding work contexts. PSC refers to employees shared perceptions of whether the management has developed and enacts policies, procedures and practices for the protection of employees psychological health, well-being and safety. In organisations where the management fundamentally values the psychological health of workers, managers design motivating jobs and employees know that they can count on their leaders when they have stressful experiences at work. In such organisations, managers regularly communicate about psychological health issues and are involved in structural interventions to protect worker psychological health. Since employees are so crucial for the success of the organisation, management needs to combine concern for production and high-quality services with concern for peopleon a daily basis. The editors have brought together an impressive group of international scholars who discuss antecedents and consequences of PSC, as well as possible underlying processes. The topic of PSC is important and timely because PSC can affect how jobs are designed and resources are allocated. This book discusses the progress made in theory, methods and applications. PSC theory has the potential to explain how management concern for employee well-being can lead to flourishing organisations. It is my conviction that this book will help scholars and practitioners to optimise and apply this valuable psychosocial safety climate approach.

The driving beat for most modern workplaces in capitalist economies is a relentless demand for increased profits, performance and productivity coupled with diminishing resources. These forces predispose workers to poor quality work conditions and counterproductive outcomes. Poor quality work can lead to lack of meaning, alienation, mental and physical ill health with significant costs to organisations such as high rates of sickness absence and reduced performance, and costs to society through workers compensation, healthcare costs, medication, loss of potential labour supply and high rates of unemployment (OECD, 2012). However, organisations characterised by a good Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) offer a point of resistance to these pressures. Psychosocial Safety Climate concerns the value and priority given to worker psychological health in organisations compared to productivity and profit imperatives. Psychosocial Safety Climate valorises the psychological health and wellbeing of workers as a fundamental human right. Far from undermining productivity we expect that pro-social options, embodied in high PSC organisations (that value worker psychological health), will lead to better quality work, increased meaningfulness, increased possibility for creativity and innovation, and reduced productivity costs associated with sickness absence and presenteeism. PSC precedes work quality (manageable demands, adequate resources) and the social-relational aspects of work (such as harassment, bullying). PSC is therefore cause of the causes of work stress, and is the theoretical precursor to many job design-based work stress theories. This book responds to a public health priority (Whiteford et al., 2013) and a call from the WHO, ILO and OECD to prevent and manage mental ill-health and promote health and well-being by drawing attention to the connection between work and mental health. The main objective of this book is to discuss PSC theory in context and evidence-based implications for organisational and national level, policy, practices and procedures for worker psychological health. The book will highlight how PSC affects working conditions, employee health and well-being, and organisational outcomes with evidence from around the globe (Iran, Australia, Canada, Malaysia and Germany).