Felfe, Jörg

This article in the journal "Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation." investigates whether the quantity and quality of communication between employees and their leaders are related to their leaders’ StaffCare. StaffCare, a key component of the Health-oriented Leadership concept, reflects leaders’ commitment to promoting health and their awareness of employees’ needs. Previous studies have mainly focused on several job demands and resources that may influence leaders’ StaffCare, while the role of communication between leaders and followers has received less attention. This study examines communication factors on a dyadic level. Study 1 was designed as a two-wave study with two measurement points two months apart. The online survey was conducted across various industries and companies in Germany. Hierarchical regression analyses of N = 320 employees show that frequency, communication barriers, and general informal communication are significant predictors of StaffCare. Study 2 was designed as a cross-sectional online survey conducted within an international pharmaceutical company in Germany. It examines informal communication, particularly SmallTalk and DeepTalk, as well as factors such as relationship tenure and stigma toward mental health, defined as negative attitudes and reactions towards psychological strain or illness. For this analysis, only non-leadership employees were considered (N = 199). Results confirm that both SmallTalk and DeepTalk have a significant influence on leaders’ StaffCare. Relationship tenure moderates the relationship, with long-term employees benefiting more from high-quality interactions. Perceived stigma toward mental health is negatively associated with StaffCare; however, the expected interaction effect with DeepTalk was not significant. This study extends the field of Health-oriented Leadership by identifying new antecedents of StaffCare. The findings underscore the importance of reducing workplace stigma toward mental health to create a health-supportive environment and suggest that leaders encourage both casual and in-depth conversations with employees. Additionally, leadership communication strategies should consider employees’ relationship tenure, as long-term employees gain more from these high-quality interactions.

The Special Issue on Health, Well-Being and Sustainability invites research that integrates behavioral, cultural, and systemic approaches to fostering sustainable lifestyles within work environments. This study focuses on the role of leadership in promoting employee health and healthy lifestyles, which are central dimensions of the validated Health-oriented Leadership framework. Although previous research has assumed that high levels of leader StaffCare lead to high levels of employee SelfCare and consequently to better health outcomes, inconsistent dyadic patterns have rarely been examined. In this study, we investigate dyadic relationship patterns between leaders’ StaffCare and employees’ SelfCare jointly creating a sustainable workplace health system in hybrid contexts. Using Latent Profile Analysis on a sample of N = 1104, we identify consistent and inconsistent patterns, their health and motivational outcomes after three months, as well as potential antecedents in terms of working conditions for profile membership. The consistent dyads showed expected results: high StaffCare and high SelfCare led to high health and motivation outcomes, while low StaffCare and low SelfCare resulted in the lowest outcomes. New findings emerged in inconsistent dyads. In the low leaders’ StaffCare and high employees’ SelfCare dyad (Bystanders & Health Proactives), leaders recognized risks but did not actively promote health measures. However, proactive employees who engage in SelfCare behaviorally compensate for insufficient leader support but at a motivational cost. In contrast, the high leaders’ StaffCare and low employees’ SelfCare dyad (Health Sacrificers) included leaders who supported employees’ health but neglected their own, resulting in lower health but higher motivation among employees. Job demands and resources partly predicted group membership and can offer practical implications for building work environments that foster employees’ well-being and health. The findings offer insights into inconsistent leadership behaviors and provide guidance for enhancing employee well-being, particularly in hybrid work environments.

Introduction: Previous longitudinal studies investigated loneliness in general populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Less is known about workplace isolation among employees working from home (WFH). Based on job demands-resources and conservation-of-resources theories, this study aims to analyze workplace isolation of employees WFH in relation to their WFH intensity. Methods: This study examined the change in workplace isolation and WFH intensity over 5 measurement points of 512 employees using multilevel growth curve analysis (GCA), identified groups of participants with distinct trajectories of workplace isolation and WFH intensity using latent profile analysis (LPA), and investigated antecedents and consequences of profile membership. Results: GCA indicated an overall negative linear and quadratic relationship between time and workplace isolation, as well as interaction effects between time and WFH intensity on workplace isolation. LPA identified 3 groups: (1) high WFH intensity and low isolation, (2) low WFH intensity and high isolation, (3) high WFH intensity and high isolation. Subsequent analyses revealed that individuals in profile 1 had high levels of health-oriented self-leadership (SelfCare) and social support by colleagues, and low levels of communication difficulties, health-oriented employee-leadership (StaffCare) and extraversion. Regarding differences, highest commitment was identified among individuals displaying low WFH intensity (profile 2), whereas highest self-rated performance was prevalent among individuals experiencing low workplace isolation (profile 1). Discussion: Applying GCA and LPA in this line of research is novel and adds to the understanding of both between-and within-effects of workplace isolation and WFH intensity. Knowledge about relevant resources (e.g., SelfCare) and demands (e.g., communication difficulties) may inform organizational practices aimed at preventing isolation in remote and hybrid work settings.

The health-oriented leadership (HoL) intervention is an innovative leadership and team development measure to promote workplace health. This article outlines the steps of the HoL intervention, the necessary organizational conditions, and the benefits for leaders and teams. The HoL intervention is based on the HoL concept, which distinguishes between health-oriented leadership (staff-care) and health-oriented self-leadership (self-care) and emphasizes four pathways through which leadership affects employee health. The HoL intervention is a structured procedure consisting of the eight steps: 1) coordination meeting with top management, 2) general information event for leaders of an organization, 3) preliminary conversation with interested leader, 4) kick-off workshop with the team and leader, 5) diagnosis of health-oriented leadership using the HoL instrument, 6) intensive coaching session with the leader, 7) workshop with the team and leader, and 8) follow-up with the leader. Previous implementations in various sectors revealed positive evaluation results.

This paper focuses on office worker’s application of character strengths in hybrid working contexts using two diary studies to identify: (1) strength application is effective for positive outcomes in fully remote contexts, and (2) whether the application of strengths differs remote vs. office days. First, we investigated the relationship between strength application and self-efficacy, performance, and strain with a fully remote sample of 63 participants. In a second study with a hybrid sample consisting of 92 participants, we replicated the effects of strength application on the outcomes and added daily work location as a moderator. We found that strength application at work was positively related to self-efficacy and performance in both studies, and also negatively related to job strain in the second study. The relationship between daily strength application and self-efficacy, as well as performance, was moderated by work location, indicating that employees benefit more from strength application in term of their self-efficacy when they worked at the office. We discuss the implications for workers and employers, potential benefits, and challenges of remote work practices.

Background: Organisational and individual factors cause strain in the daily lives of nurses and other healthcare professionals, who have a high prevalence of stress-related disorders. Accordingly, there is a strong need for integrated occupational health promotion interventions that include both work-directed and person-directed interventions. The psychosocial safety climate is seen as an overarching occupational health objective and can potentially be improved by implementing integrated mental health interventions. Objective: Following an integrated approach, we developed an occupational e-mental health platform, Care4Care, which integrates both work- and person-directed interventions for promoting mental health in nurses. We evaluated the effects of the platform compared with those of an extended care-as-usual control condition. Design: Clustered randomised controlled trial. Setting: Healthcare service facilities in Germany nationwide. Participants: 347 nursing staff members (intervention: 211, control: 136) from 33 healthcare service facilities. Methods: The participants received either immediate access to the platform or access to two short subcomponents of the platform plus routine occupational health promotion offerings as well as delayed access to the whole platform after 6 months. The primary outcome was improvement in the psychosocial safety climate after 6 months. The secondary outcomes included perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and other strain-related indicators. Results: Bayesian multilevel analyses revealed an improvement of approximately 2 points (Cohen's d = 0.25) in the psychosocial safety climate in the intervention group compared with the control group. Applying a 95 % credible interval, this effect contained zero (− 0.32, 4.44), which indicated uncertainty about the effectiveness of the intervention on the psychosocial safety climate. The analyses of the secondary outcomes revealed effects in the expected direction with high credibility for a decreasing effect on perceived stress and considerable uncertainty with regard to all other secondary and tertiary outcomes. A total of 85 (40 %) participants in the intervention group used Care4Care, whereas 37 (27 %) participants in the control group used the two subcomponents of the platform. Conclusions: This study highlights the potential of an occupational e-mental health platform that combines work- and person-directed interventions with face-to-face components for nursing staff. The findings emphasise the necessity of conducting more in-depth implementation studies to identify the factors that facilitate the successful implementation and uptake of occupational e-mental health platforms. Registration: German Clinical Trials Register – DRKS (DRKS00027869). Registration date: February 23, 2022. Start of recruitment: June 21, 2022.