Zohar and Luria's (2005) safety climate (SC) scale, measuring organization- and group- level SC each with 16 items, is widely used in research and practice. To improve the utility of the SC scale, we shortened the original full-length SC scales. Item response theory (IRT) analysis was conducted using a sample of 29,179 frontline workers from various industries. Based on graded response models, we shortened the original scales in two ways: (1) selecting items with above-average discriminating ability (i.e. offering more than 6.25% of the original total scale information), resulting in 8-item organization-level and 11-item group-level SC scales; and (2) selecting the most informative items that together retain at least 30% of original scale information, resulting in 4-item organization-level and 4-item group-level SC scales. All four shortened scales had acceptable reliability (≥0.89) and high correlations (≥0.95) with the original scale scores. The shortened scales will be valuable for academic research and practical survey implementation in improving occupational safety.

Workplace supportive supervisor interventions offer an effective, though underutilized mechanism to bolster employee well‐being, which may have important benefits particularly for understudied groups such as military veterans in the civilian workforce. The present study employed a two‐wave daily diary study to test the effectiveness of a supportive supervisor training on positive and negative emotions of veteran employees. Daily diaries are instrumental to understanding well‐being, in that they accurately capture emotions as they are experienced without retrospective biases that reflect more global emotional assessments. Each wave (baseline and 6 months later) comprised emotion reports over 32‐day periods. Thirty‐five organizations were randomized into intervention and control groups; 144 veterans (91% men) participated in the daily diaries at baseline. The training significantly improved well‐being facets including improvements in unactivated positive (i.e., calm) emotions at follow‐up. Two significant moderation effects were also revealed for PTSD screening. For veteran employees with positive PTSD screens, the intervention functioned to reduce negative emotions. For those employees with negative PTSD screens, the intervention enhanced positive emotions. Our work highlights the benefit of workplace supervisor support to positive and negative employee mood. Practitioner points Our supervisor support training represents an evidence‐based programme that improves employee positive emotions. Positive emotions were increased among veterans who did not screen positive for PTSD (i.e., most veterans). Veterans with positive PTSD screens may benefit from enhanced supervisor support resulting in a reduction of negative emotions, providing supportive evidence for supervisor mental health awareness training.

The present study evaluates the effectiveness of a supervisor support training programme on both supervisor attitudes and employee sleep and stress outcomes by drawing on a multi-level rigorous randomized controlled trial in 35 organizations. Utilizing theory from the social support and training literatures, the purpose of the current study was to understand ways to improve the transition, and ultimately the health and well-being, of military veteran employees in the workplace via a supervisor support training intervention. Drawing on a sample of 982 supervisors and a subsample of 189 matched supervisor-employee dyads, the current study demonstrated that supervisor support training led to improved supervisor attitudes towards veteran employees. Additionally, supervisors' attitudes towards veteran employees at baseline significantly moderated the effects of the training on employee sleep and stress outcomes, suggesting that the training was more effective when supervisors started out with more positive attitudes towards veterans. These results demonstrate the importance of training supervisors to support employed veterans and employees more generally, and have implications for research, practice, and theory development. Practitioner pointsThe Veteran Supportive Supervisor Training (VSST) promotes more positive supervisor attitudes towards veteran employees. When supervisor attitudes towards veteran employees are more positive, the supportive supervisor training improves sleep and stress outcomes for veteran employees. The VSST effects suggest that the training has promise to be extended to other leadership support domains, such as supervisor support for health; to other types of vulnerable and underserved workers, such as those with disabilities; and to other employee well-being outcomes, such as engagement and satisfaction at work and at home.With tens of thousands of U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions of international veterans residing worldwide, surprisingly little attention has been concentrated on their post-deployment transition into the civilian workforce.

R esearch has tied work-life stress to a variety of outcomes that are relevant to workers, their families, and their organizations, or what Kossek (2016) referred to as the "triple bottom line." Because of its substantial impact on worker health and well-being, and its broad-reaching effects on organizations and families, work-life stress is an important target for Total Worker Health ® interventions. Unfortunately, few work-life stress interventions have been systematically evaluated using experimental designs that allow for strong scientific conclusions about their effectiveness. Furthermore, few work-life stress interventions have been developed based on theoretically driven intervention targets. In line with the Total Worker Health (TWH) approach, some work-life interventions have focused on integrating a reduction in safety and health hazards with well-being promotion through the prevention of injury, illness, and stress. We believe that these TWH interventions have the most promise for reducing work-life stress. This chapter describes what we currently know about work-life interventions aimed at the reduction of stress and associated risks to the health, safety, and well-being of workers.