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Operational Performance

By Madison Hanscom, PhD The boundaries between work and home can sometimes feel blurry. For instance, it is not uncommon for us to bring work home with us — whether it is psychological or physical. If you have a negative confrontation with a manager, you might come home in an awful mood to your spouse. If you pull your back picking up something heavy on the job, you might not feel well enough to toss the ball with your kids on the weekend. This also happens in the opposite direction of course, too. If you are stressed or hurt at home,

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Research has shown time and time again that when you give employees more control over their work, they are more satisfied, perform at a higher level, and are safer. When it comes to occupational safety, job autonomy is associated with… • Higher safety compliance (1)• Higher safety initiative (1)• Higher safety knowledge (1)• Actively caring for safety (2)• Decrease in lost time to injury frequency (3)• Effective responses to safety-critical situations (4)• Lower accident rates at an organizational level (5) Clearly, autonomy is a beneficial job characteristic — but what does this actually look like in practice? Creating a more

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Covid-19 has contributed to a larger number of individuals working from home than ever before. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark were interested in the experiences of individuals working from home across several European countries. They surveyed over 4,640 employees (mainly knowledge workers and managers) between March and May of 2020. The authors are still analyzing the large amounts of data that were collected, but initial findings were shared. Interesting results included: • 71% of the respondents said they get enough information from their organization to feel well prepared to work at home during the crisis. This

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Recovery and downtime are important for a happy and productive workforce. As a leader, you should consider your role in this process. Reflect on how you contribute to the climate surrounding recovery in your workplace. A study from the American Psychological Association recently showed when companies encourage people to take their vacation time to disconnect, employees come back feeling more refreshed, motivated, and productive than companies that do not encourage taking time off (1). This shows the value of building a culture that allows people to disconnect without feeling guilty or mentally tethered to work at all times.

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. Effective leaders continuously look for ways to increase employee safety commitment. Employees who feel committed to the organization are more likely to work safely, caution others for safety, and get actively involved in safety efforts. Those who aren’t committed rarely go beyond the call of duty for safety or anything else. In fact, they may have more serious issues such as non-compliance, absenteeism/tardiness, and confrontations with others. Organizational commitment consists of (Saal & Knight,1995): Strong support and acceptance of the organization’s values and goals. The willingness to put forward considerable effort for the organization. A strong desire to maintain membership

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Virtual training is becoming more and more common, which begs the question: does it work? Does virtual training work? Researchers have looked into this question and the answer is yes, but it depends. Classroom instruction (traditional training) and web-based instruction (virtual training) can be equally as effective on trainee learning if both programs are developed and implemented using best practices. This conclusion makes sense: good training is good training, and bad training is bad training. The delivery medium is not as important as the content and the instructional method (1). At Propulo Consulting, we partner with you to improve the

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