Author: vpham30

Network Research Highlight: Are You Successfully Aging at Work?

By: Keaton Fletcher

A recent book chapter by Cort Rudolph and Hannes Zacher highlights the complex and dynamic process of aging in the workplace. Unlike many previous conceptualizations of aging at work, Rudolph and Zacher bring attention to the fact that development occurs across the lifespan, not just during youth. Work is increasingly becoming designed to promote continuous learning. This prospect may excite some workers and frighten others, regardless, it has come to be an expected part of modern work. What does this mean for people as they age?

Rudolph and Zacher argued that in contrast to general sentiment, aging does not necessarily imply decline. As we age, some abilities and personal qualities improve while others decline, and others still remain unchanged. Our motivations may shift as we age, valuing autonomy, social support, and meaning from our work, more than complexity and feedback. Successfully aging, particularly in the workplace, means having a positive ratio of gains to losses. Often, this can be an interplay of previous experiences, individual differences, and organizational policies.

Focusing on organizational policies, Rudolph and Zacher argue for flexibility policies that benefit all workers, not just older workers. Flexibility in when, where, and how to do work can benefit employees at all life stages and may help in the successful aging process. Giving employees, especially as they progress through their career, opportunities to job craft, or to move into positions or tasks that fit their abilities and interests can help promote successful aging as well.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has a newer initiative focused exclusively on productive aging and work. The goal of the initiative is to help individuals progress through life and engage in work in a meaningful and healthy way. Specifically, part of the mission of the initiative is to find ways to create aging-friendly workplaces. The initiative has sponsored research such as the project published by Wilkie, Cifuentes, and Pransky (2011) which found that older adults who experience job lock (needing to continue working for employer benefits like health insurance) typically have more limitations on the work they can do. Following an injury, however, older workers regardless of whether they were job locked, experience significant increases in limitations in their functioning at work, needing more accommodations. Another study supported by the NIOSH initiative on successful aging found that an individual’s health and sense of control were positively related to their beliefs in their ability to continue working. This belief, in turn, was negatively related to outcomes like absence from work, retirement, and disability leave. This suggests that maybe a large aspect of successful aging falls to the worker’s health behaviors and personality. Organizations, however, can try to create accommodating workplaces, and institute policies and programs to promote worker health to help facilitate successful aging.

Overall, what does aging at work mean? Does it mean performing worse or losing ability? Not necessarily. There are certainly benefits associated with aging, and, as long as you take steps to protect your health, you should be able to successfully navigate the aging process at work.

Network Research Highlight: The Benefits of Decent Work

By: Keaton Fletcher

Although most people groan and take a bit longer getting ready for work Monday mornings, lamenting the short weekend, David Blustein, Jonas Masdonati, and Jérôme Rossier, suggest maybe we should count our blessings instead since work is a key component of the human condition. In a recent report, Blustein and colleagues highlight the psychological factors that work plays in the human experience. By calling upon vocational and industrial-organizational psychological foundations, the research team identifies ways in which work can actually better people’s lives.

Blustein and colleagues elaborate on the notion of decent work, the idea that jobs that better individual, family, and community health and well-being are inherently decent. Research has consistently pointed toward the lack of a job as a cause of mental health symptoms and increased domestic violence. Obtaining work, particularly decent work, can help minimize these negative outcomes. In the modern economy, however, Blustein and colleagues suggest that precarious work (i.e., work with no clear long-term trajectory, inadequate benefits, or minimal opportunities for skill development) is becoming more common, and may not carry with it the same benefits of decent work. In fact, evidence suggests that precarious work, too, may be associated with mental and physical health problems.

One of the main psychological phenomena Blustein and colleagues focus on in their report is that of identity and self-concept. In the United States, at least, it is common when meeting someone to be asked “What do you do for a living?” or “What are you?” These questions highlight just how closely tied our work is to our understanding of ourselves, and our own identities. People who are involuntarily excluded from the workforce face a challenge of establishing this identity, and may struggle to maintain a positive global self-concept (overall beliefs about oneself). Those who voluntarily step back from remunerated work find themselves having to explain and justify their choice and new identity to others, and, possibly, to themselves.

It may not only be people outside of the paid workforce that lack the benefits to self-concept and self-esteem that work provides. Individuals in precarious or indecent work may also not reap these benefits. Those who change jobs or occupations frequently (an increasingly common phenomenon), or those who work in occupations that are not socially valued or desirable may not be able to easily identify with their work, or incorporate their work identity into their self-concept. It can be challenging, then, to reap the psychosocial benefits of work. To see improved individual well-being society must find ways to aid in the creation and solidification of identity and self-concept for those in non-traditional, precarious, or indecent work, or perhaps make decent work more accessible.

 
If you are interested in decent work or related initiatives, follow the links below:
UNESCO Chair of Lifelong Guidance and Counseling
International Labour Organization’s Decent Work Agenda
United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (Goal 8)

Reading the IT Leaves: NSF’s ITEST Program & the Future of Work

By: Keaton Fletcher

Technology is clearly changing the entire workforce, but how can workers change to keep up? To help this massive transition, The National Science Foundation sponsored ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers). ITEST works to connect students from prekindergarten through 12th grade with professionals in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers to help students gain the necessary skills and knowledge for a successful career in the modern workforce.

To put the ITEST program into context, Malyn-Smith and colleagues (2017) published a paper reviewing the current workforce trends given the changes in technology. They argue that disruptive technologies and innovations are changing the status quo. Work will look fundamentally different in this new augmented age, when humans are enhanced by working with machines. To be successful, the modern worker, regardless of career path, industry sector, or job, must become knowledgeable about technology.

Malyn-Smith and colleagues point toward multiple technology-driven changes in the modern workforce to which workers will need to adapt. More and more frequently, workers will have to work in interdisciplinary teams of humans, but these teams will also include machine-based teammates as well. Given the technology-based increase in human capacity, workers will now be able to address problems that were beyond the realm of possibility ten years ago. However, these problems cannot be solved by solitary workers, or even teams of workers all with the same knowledge, skills, and abilities. Malyn-Smith and colleagues argue that the types of projects and problems that will become common in the modern workforce will require teams of individuals with unique skillsets and knowledge bases, all of whom will have to interact with machines in order to complete their tasks.

Workers will also have to become comfortable working with massive amounts of data. As machine learning, artificial intelligence, and automation become more common, the role and accessibility of data, especially big data sets, has become great. Modern workers will need, at the very least, to understand the role of data in problem-solving, how to present data, and also how to protect it.

Many organizations, Malyn-Smith and colleagues suggest, are already relying on informal learning in the workplace, and worker-initiated formal learning (e.g., certificate programs or higher education) during personal time to help address these changing demands. As the nature of work continues to change, the modern worker must be driven by personal interest to learn new skills. Malyn-Smith and colleagues argue that organizations may begin to care less about formal degrees or certifications, instead giving more value to evidence of specific skill sets that can be applicable across a variety of contexts.

Enter, ITEST. By exposing children to STEM careers from a young age, the NSF sponsored initiative seeks to not only normalize STEM careers, but also to help the next generation of workers begin thinking in ways that will be necessary in the modern workforce (e.g., data-driven). Since 2003, ITEST has sponsored over 300 projects, working with over 560,000 students and roughly 17,000 educators in the United States. Students learn scientific and technology-based content while being exposed to careers in STEM fields. Through this program, teachers are also given an opportunity to develop their own skill sets to better help prepare their students for the modern workforce. A multitude of scientific papers (e.g., Blustein et al, 2012; Christensen et al., 2014) have been published examining the efficacy of ITEST, all of which point toward its success.

Arguably the main takeaway of the NSF ITEST program and Malyn-Smith and colleagues’ paper is to promote early STEM learning, particularly in the face of the current changes in the workplace, so as to best prepare the next generation of workers for what lies ahead.

After Automation: Will There Be Enough Jobs?

By: Keaton Fletcher

Will your job be replaced by a robot? A report by McKinsey Global Institute suggests probably not.

Most people in the workforce today have, like those before them, wondered whether they will be replaced by new technology. The concern is so great, that Time Magazine released an article and an associated widget that tells you the odds of your job becoming automated. In a recent podcast, Peter Grumbel interviewed James Manyika, a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, about this very subject.

James Manyika suggests that previously, new technology, rather than replacing workers entirely often simply provided workers with additional support, or removed the need to complete mundane, routinized tasks. He suggests, however, that this may not necessarily be the case with the modern rise of machine learning and other methods of capitalizing on technology at work. Data suggest that computing power may have increased by roughly a 1 trillion-fold since 1956. The ability for modern computers, networks of computers, and cloud computing to rapidly complete complex calculations has added to the growing concern and excitement about what the next few years have in store for the modern workforce. Manyika suggests it is not just the computing power, but the accessibility of data. More than ever before, humans around the world are uploading unique data at unfathomable rates. For example, an estimate in 2012 suggested people upload about 250 million photos to Facebook per day. A similar report in 2014 estimated people upload about 1.8 billion photos per day across all social media platforms. The algorithms behind machine learning and artificial intelligence can use this surge in data points to help become more accurate.

Manyika argues that the unprecedented power and access to data will allow algorithms and AI to boost economic performance for companies and countries. But, what about workers? Based on their research, Manyika suggests that if your job consists primarily of data collection or processing, or if you are completing manual labor in a predictable and stable environment, your job will likely be automated. These three tasks prone to automation make up about 51% of economic activity. The good news, however, is that a mere 5% of occupations are primarily these tasks. A majority of jobs (60%) are a mixture of roughly 1/3 these tasks, 2/3 less easily automated tasks.

What does this mean for workers? Manyika suggests that most people will experience some major change in their jobs, but probably will not have to change occupations entirely. Future-oriented CEOs and organizations have already begun the process of training and developing their employees to be better able to adjust to the coming shifts in their workload and demands. Manyika also suggests that occupations in the care industry, or jobs that require empathy and judgment will be more common and more resistant to automation. By 2030, Manyika predicts about 16% of jobs, globally, will have been automated to some extent (this number rises in more industrialized countries), meaning that big change is coming for a large portion of the population.

So, are robots going to take your job? Probably not, but they will almost certainly change it.

Humans: Predictably Irrational

By: Keaton Fletcher

Humans are predictably irrational, and organizations can capitalize upon this fact to enhance the working experience as well as their own profits. In a recent podcast, Tim Dickson, on behalf of McKinsey & Company, hosted Julia Sperling, Anna Güntner, and Magdalena Smith to talk about a variety of ways organizations can influence the predictably irrational behavior of their employees.

First we must acknowledge that humans are neither rational, nor entirely unpredictable. Part of this fact stems from the process by which the human brain narrows the roughly 11 million unique pieces of input it receives at any given point down to about 50, of which only 7 to 10 are retained in conscious short term memory. This filtration process means a lot of information is either left entirely un-perceived, or is processed at a level below the conscious mind. Organizations can provide information that makes it past the initial mass filtration, but does not find its way into short term memory, and therefore has a subtle influence on behavior, a tactic called nudging. Nudging holds great promise in promoting or inhibiting behaviors (e.g., wearing safety gear) by creating an environment which pushes workers toward this behavior without them feeling as if their choices are being restricted or even influenced. It is, to a degree, the same way theme parks have a subtle way of pushing people in a specific path around the park to minimize congestion without parkgoers noticing they are being manipulated.

Beyond nudging, organizational leadership and employees alike need to be aware of some of the irrational behaviors and beliefs that are common in the workplace so as to actively avoid them. The podcast briefly describes phenomena such as ingroup bias in which we prefer to interact with, and be surrounded by, individuals from our own group (whatever that might be). As such when making hiring or promotion choices, managers may find that left to their own devices they fail to bring in new ideas or perspectives, instead favoring candidates who are very similar to themselves. When interacting with others we tend to look towards our peers and superiors for information; often, we find our opinions align with what the majority or the high-status individuals suggest. This agreement is not because we initially agreed, but because when we are in ambiguous situations we treat other people’s opinions as helpful information that our brains nonconsciously incorporate into our own beliefs. The guests of the podcast suggest that to combat this, in group meetings, individuals should write their opinions down first or that those of high-status should not be allowed to chime in until others have had a chance to do so.

In one of the greatest predictable irrational choices of the workplace, we consistently find that money is not a great motivator. As long as you are earning a competitive wage, additional money will not necessarily translate into improved performance. Instead, to influence your motivation, organizational leadership should provide you with opportunities to feel accomplished or in control, or give you opportunities to interact with others.

Network Research Highlight: Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Justice

By: Keaton Fletcher

Our very own advisory council member, Dr. Deborah E. Rupp recently published two papers on related topics: corporate social responsibility and organizational justice.

In collaboration with Omer Farooq and Mariam Farooq, Rupp tackles the issue of corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is the notion that an organization has a moral obligation to provide benefits and positive outcomes to society. In other words, CSR is essentially like altruism for companies. The authors argue that CSR can be directed internally, with employees as the primary beneficiaries, or externally with the outside community being the primary beneficiaries. Farooq, Rupp, and Farooq found that, in general, companies that engage in CSR directed externally increase their prestige and companies that engage in CSR internally increase their respect from employees. Both prestige and respect increase the degree to which employees identify with their organization. In other words, if your company gives back to the community and to its employees, you are more likely to respect the leadership and believe that other people think highly of your company. So, when you think of yourself, your role as an employee of that company will be one of the main ways you identify yourself. If you are more of a collectivistic person (i.e., you value community, social harmony, and the in-group), external CSR may be more important to you. If you are someone who looks toward a variety of people in the community outside your organization for recognition and feedback, you will also value external CSR more than internal CSR. 

Rupp also led a research team’s review of the concept of organizational justice. In addition to reviewing different types of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interactional justice ), Rupp and colleagues argued that our modern understanding of organizational justice may be missing the point. Most of our current work is limited to the popular conceptualization of organizational justice and perceived fairness, which misses out on large aspects of the original definition of these topics. We also are basing our measures and understanding of organizational justice on an understanding of work that has been around for at least a hundred years, which may not be the best representation of the construct in the modern workforce where gig work, globalization, and automation are common.

Is Work Killing People?

By: Keaton Fletcher

In a recent interview, Jeffrey Pfeffer author of Dying for a Paycheck, paints a dark picture of the modern workforce that boils down to four words: work is killing people. In his book and subsequent interview, Pfeffer echoes Robert Chapman’s argument that work is the source of stress, and stress causes chronic disease which plays a major role in the current healthcare crisis. Working from this proposed link, Pfeffer highlights a variety of related topics. First, he speaks briefly about social pollution and corporate sustainability with regard to human capital. Specifically, he references a parallel drawn by Nuria Chincilla between how companies are held to regulations regarding environmental pollution, and that in order to be sustainable in the long run, corporations will soon need to be held to similar regulations regarding how they treat their employees. Pfeffer argues that unlike the environment, humans are seen as agentic and able to remove themselves from harmful workplaces, thus we do not see similar regulations regarding social pollution. However, Pfeffer makes the point that it is difficult to change jobs, and this taxing task can be even more daunting if one is already exhausted from work. Pfeffer projects that for things to change, there will be a large class-action lawsuit, similar to those filed against tobacco companies, regarding the negative effects of work environments on health and well-being. He also suggests that issues such as presenteeism (showing up to work despite being ill) in and of themselves should give corporate leaders pause, given that they represent serious threats to organizational bottom lines. Click here for the full interview conducted by Dylan Walsh, published by Stanford Business Insights.