GRASSP Flexible Work - stress, sleep and private life

GRASSP Group of researchers:  Karen Albertsen  Anne Helene Garde  Katrine Kjøller Neergaard  Roger Persson  Reiner Rugulies   National Institute of Occupational Health, Denmark  Funded by the Danish Work Environment Council

Work without boundaries:  No fixed working place  No fixed working time – work defined by task  No fixed content/organization of work – the job contract/content can be discussed/ influenced by the employee  Requirement of self-regulation, self- evaluation and responsibility

Stress  An individual state characterized by anxiety and discomfort  The problematic stress is the long lasting stress without enough restitution: Cognitive (e.g. memory) Emotional (e.g. irritability) Beavioural (e.g. isolation Somatic (e.g. headache) Physiological (e.g. cortisol)

Introduction  Trend in society rather than specific group of employees  Simultaniously good jobs (influence, variation, high demands, skills descretion) and stressfull jobs  “high to fly and deep to fall” – threath to identity  “An iron-hand in a silk glove”

Aim 1  Explore under which conditions work without boundaries result in: Stress, sleeping problems and lack of balance between work and private  And when it results in Work satisfaction and satisfaction with private life

Areas of importance, aim 1:  Work culture: Degree of trust, respect and justice between management and employees. Degree of individualization of problems. Measurement of results rather than hours  Work environment: Degree of unpredictability in tasks and roles, unsolved tasks and conflicts, social support from managers and colleagues, regularity and length of working hours  Private life: Degree of resources in environment, social network, working status of spouse, economy, gender, number of children at home, personal resources, loss and crises

Aim 2  To which degree are stress, sleeping problems and lack of work-life balance linked together as symptoms of strain?  To which degree are they independently present and independently related to physiological stress reactions?

Research questions, aim 2  To which degree are stress, work-life balance and sleep associated with each other cross sectional and prospectively?  To which degree are the phenomena stable over time?  Is the association between self-reported stress and physiological stress (cortisol level) mediated or moderated by sleep?  Is the association between self-reported stress and work-life balance mediated or moderated by sleep quality?

Aim 3  What are the possibilities for prevention of stress, sleeping problems and lack of work-life balance on worksite level in relation to flexible work?

Research questions, aim 3  How is the psychosocial work environment and individual stress reactions treated and discussed in workplaces with flexible work?  Which efforts, interventions and preventive policies are used at the workplaces?

Design and Methods  Follow-up on existing data (N = appr. 900)  Collecting Cortisol  Measuring sleep pattern  Qualitative interviews with selected couples  Observations and interviews on three selected workplaces (Ph.d project)

3D-II Potentielt grænse- løst arb. Eksisterende dataData indsamling Potentielt grænse- løst arb. Baseline Opfølgning 1 Opfølgning 2

Sample selection: Professionals, physisians, dentists, ingeniers, architects, staff within IT and media, teachers, researchers, managers and leaders, social workers, librarians, accounttants, bank clarks, salesmen Together: 851 persons contacted

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