Improving employee well-being through improving working conditions: A review on how we can make participatory organizational interventions work.

Abstract

P articipatory organizational interventions can be defined as "planned, behavioral, theory-based actions that aim to improve employee well-being through changing the way work is organized, designed and managed" (Nielsen, 2013(Nielsen, , p. 1030. Central to such interventions is the focus on changing work practices, policies, and procedures (Sorensen et al., 2019). Participatory organizational interventions are recommended by key international bodies (European Trade Union Confederation, 2004; International Labor Office, 2001) because they address the causes of poor well-being, rather than the symptoms. Despite being the recommended method, systematic reviews reveal that participatory organizational interventions show inconsistent results in their ability to improve working conditions and employee well-being (Richardson & Rothstein, 2008). In the wake of these findings, a growing body of research has started to explore why such interventions may succeed or fail (Havermans et al., 2016;Nielsen & Randall, 2013) and how we can make such interventions work in order to successfully improve employee well-being (Nielsen & Noblet, 2018;Nielsen, Randall, et al., 2010).Well-being in this context is seen as a broad outcome of interventions covering life and nonwork satisfactions (e.g., with social/family life, spirituality), work and job-related satisfactions (e.g., with pay, promotion opportunities, the job itself, coworkers), as well as general health (e.g., mental/ psychological indicators such as affect, frustration, and anxiety; stress and