Redesigning work may help reduce psychosocial risks in aged care
Work redesign identifies ways to reduce job demands
The aged care sector is facing systematic challenges that contribute to high levels of job demands which pose risk to employee psychosocial health. These job demands include high workload and emotional demands on the worker to fulfill their role effectively.
Innovative and evidenced-based solutions are needed to address complex configurations of job demands and safeguard employees against psychosocial risk. A 2 year research project, completed by The Centre for Transformational Work Design, Curtin University, Perth WA, has demonstrated that work redesign identifies effective and cost-efficient ways to reduce job demands. The key is to tailor a work redesign to the specific needs of the organisation and its employees.
The report outlines key recommendations for future planning.
These include:
- Developing a thorough understanding of the problem space through multiple methods of data collection and analysis.
- Involving workers through participatory processes in all stages of intervention planning, development, and implementation.
- Systematically capturing and monitoring the effectiveness of work redesign solutions to optimise their efficacy (that is, to ensure implementation fidelity, make needed adjustments).
- Maintain and communicate a consistent awareness of the opportunity to modify work design for constant improvements and as a strategy to address potential psychosocial risks for employees.
With increased trends towards work intensification, aged care organisations and other organisations are facing the challenges of managing psychosocial risks in the workplace. Redesign interventions have the potential to help organisations be more effective and efficient, whilst looking after the wellbeing of their people.
The report released by Safe Work Australia can be accessed here.
