H-WORK Project: Multilevel Interventions to Promote Mental Health in SMEs and Public Workplaces

Abstract

The paper describes the study design, research questions and methods of a large, international intervention project aimed at improving employee mental health and well-being in SMEs and public organisations. The study is innovative in multiple ways. First, it goes beyond the current debate on whether individual- or organisational-level interventions are most effective in improving employee health and well-being and tests the cumulative effects of multilevel interventions, that is, interventions addressing individual, group, leader and organisational levels. Second, it tailors its interventions to address the aftermaths of the Covid-19 pandemic and develop suitable multilevel interventions for dealing with new ways of working. Third, it uses realist evaluation to explore and identify the working ingredients of and the conditions required for each level of intervention, and their outcomes. Finally, an economic evaluation will assess both the cost-effectiveness analysis and the affordability of the interventions from the employer perspective. The study integrates the training transfer and the organisational process evaluation literature to develop toolkits helping end-users to promote mental health and well-being in the workplace.

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Mental Health Between German and South African Employees: Shame, Self-Compassion, Work Engagement, and Work Motivation

“…Future research should evaluate how the degree of self-compassion in the workplace plays a role in creating healthy and strong workforce cross-culturally. For example, a workplace wellbeing project to appraise employee mental health including self-compassion adapted to the COVID-19 work style has been proposed (De Angelis et al, 2020). Such adaptable and robust design should be utilized.…”

New Technologies in the Workplace: Can Personal and Organizational Variables Affect the Employees’ Intention to Use a Work-Stress Management App?

“…We have seen a shift from traditional (face-to-face) to technology-mediated interventions (digital interventions) [6]. Workplace use a broad range of digital health interventions (to help manage mental and physical health), including websites, computer programs, smartphone applications, and others [23]. In particular, mobile health (m-health) can be defined as "medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices" [24] (p. 6).…”

“…Furthermore, smartphone-based applications may help motivate people to adopt lifestyle changes and healthy behaviors [18]. Web and mobile apps for monitoring mental health have displayed potential for managing burnout, stress, anxiety management, and education [21][22][23][24]. However, there is little evidence on digital mental health interventions in the workplace [7,27].…”

Sustainable Leadership, Environmental Turbulence, Resilience, and Employees' Wellbeing in SMEs

“…In China, they create ~80% of jobs (Zeng et al, 2014 ). About 20 years ago, the practices related to health promotion were rarely taken up in SMEs, although today, even international programs are held to promote WB in such enterprises (De Angelis et al, 2020 ). Previous research in SMEs examined employees' WB in the context of absenteeism (Holt and Powell, 2015 ; Rind et al, 2020 ) and determined the antecedents of WB (Maziriri et al, 2019 ) and the level of psychological WB (Zeng et al, 2014 ).…”