▻https://www.tiktok.com/@4dayweek/video/7324346593899990274
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Employee well-being outcomes from individual-level mental health interventions : Cross-sectional evidence from the United Kingdom
Initiatives that promote mental well-being are formally recommended for all British workers, with many practices targeting change in individual workers’ resources. While the existing evidence is generally positive about these interventions, disagreement is increasing because of concerns that individual-level interventions do not engage with working conditions. Contributing to the debate, this article uses survey data (N = 46,336 workers in 233 organisations) to compare participants and nonparticipants in a range of common individual-level well-being interventions, including resilience training, mindfulness and well-being apps. Across multiple subjective well-being indicators, participants appear no better off. Results are interpreted through the job demands–resources theory and selection bias in cross-sectional results is interrogated. Overall, results suggest interventions are not providing additional or appropriate resources in response to job demands.
Quelques passages :
Problématique :
Specific mental well-being interventions either seek change in the individual or in the organisation (LaMontagne et al., 2007). Despite formal recommendations (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2022) and evidence supporting the effectiveness of organisational change and work redesign on improving worker well-being (Fox et al., 2022; Lovejoy et al., 2021), interventions that target the individual worker are most common.
The benefits of individual-level approaches have been extensively researched, as well as increasingly debated. There is a large scholarship of experimental work testing the effects of participation in initiatives, with systematic reviews of controlled trials for stress management (e.g., LaMontagne et al., 2007), resilience training (Joyce et al., 2018), mindfulness (Michaelsen et al., 2023) and more. Despite the apparent scale, there are continual calls for more evidence from practitioners and academic researchers, led in part by technical, methodological limitations, but also a desire for more realist evaluation (Kowalski & Loretto, 2017; Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). Disagreement has risen around the effectiveness of individual-level strategies when compared with organisational change, with suggestions that individual-level interventions are just easier to evaluate, misguided if they do not address working conditions and then take positive change for granted. Alongside these empirical concerns is a strategic and normative critique from sociologists and industrial relations scholars, with many criticisms levelled at such practices’ propagation of, in the words of trade unions (Trade Union Congress, 2018), ‘changing the worker, and not the workplace’. Others go further, arguing individualised well-being initiatives are more interested in social control than with improving well-being (Foster, 2018; Murphy & MacMahon, 2022), with qualitative organisational research substantiating some of these fears (Holmqvist & Maravelias, 2011; Islam et al., 2022; Zoller, 2004). While a management strategy could be a tool of social control and yet still improve subjective well-being outcomes, these criticisms highlight that evaluations are political, not only technical.
conclusion :
The results in this article pose a challenge to the popularity and legitimacy of individual-level mental well-being interventions like mindfulness, resilience and stress management, relaxation classes and well-being apps. I find little evidence in support of any benefits from these interventions with even some small indication of harm that would confirm fears from critics (e.g., Frayne, 2019; Lovejoy et al., 2021). Employee volunteering opportunities do offer one possible exception, but the estimated effects are small, probably selection-biased and these initiatives would not engage with the job demands and resources central to theoretical and empirical understandings of work well-being. Finally, this article also contributes, at a high level through survey data, to the study of ‘what works’, as well as expanding this question to consider ‘for whom and in what circumstances’ (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). Future research ought to evaluate if individual-level interventions are effective alongside organisational change, or whether improvements in working conditions are a superior alternative (Bakker et al., 2023; Kelloway et al., 2023; Lovejoy et al., 2021). A combination of approaches could benefit workers by, if implemented well, enhancing job resources whilst also mitigating job demands.
Beyond research, this article also has important repercussions for policy on workers’ well-being. As it stands, it seems premature to recommend individual-level interventions to all workers (e.g. NICE, 2022). I concur with reviewers of the field that organisational interventions, such as changes to scheduling, management practices, staff resources, performance review or job design (Fox et al., 2022), appear more beneficial for improving well-being (Lovejoy et al., 2021). Recommendations from the likes of NICE (2022) and Stevenson and Farmer (2017) do acknowledge the importance of working conditions, but more emphasis must be placed on the greater benefits of organisational rather than individual change, as well as on the importance of high-quality intervention implementation.
▻https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irj.12418
#bien-être #travail #changements #développement_personnel #organisation #à_écouter #à_lire #well-being #management #relaxation #stress #résilience
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