The effects of concurrent changes and events have been shown in numerous studies and highlighted as an important contextual element to document. In keeping with studies such as Olsen et al. (2008), there were three in particular that the researcher was aware of during this intervention project.
The announcement of budget cuts: Five months after the baseline survey, further government cuts were announced. Organisations in several previous intervention studies have been affected by such announcements (e.g. Olsen et al., 2008; Petterson & Arnetz, 1998), confounding the interventions themselves. However, it should be noted that the announcement itself was not unexpected, but the scale of the cuts was seemingly higher than anticipated. This meant the likely loss of over 200 posts in the following 12 months, in addition to those lost since 2010. It is believed that the majority of these posts were accounted for by voluntary redundancies. Contextually, this only brings employee concerns about their job security and change from the baseline survey into sharp relief. Indeed, based on informal discussions with steering group members it was the knowledge
184
that more cuts were imminent, in conjunction with the survey identifying change/change management as an issue that led to the development of ChangeComms.
Restructuring event: Six months into the implementation period, one of PublicOrg’s community-based services, employing approximately 400 staff, became an independent entity and were no longer part of PublicOrg. Detail of this transition are not known to the researcher, but the employment terms and conditions of employees in this service were transferred to the ‘new’ organisation.
Local media reports: Findings from the baseline survey had been obtained and unfavourably reported by local media; however, contrary to concerns from the researcher that PublicOrg may have been reluctant to risk more negative publicity by running the follow-up survey, this was not the case. In fact, these media reports were not unexpected to some steering group members, which makes their willingness to include potentially headline-grabbing questions all the more telling. It also provides a further potential reason why the steering group may have wanted to take particular care with how they reported the survey feedback to staff.
Similarly, although some of the baseline survey findings may have been negative or difficult for PublicOrg to hear, they listened and acted on them. Contrast this with the senior management in Coffey et al. (2009), who closed a project down because the findings from the baseline assessment phase of their intervention study were too contentious. The suppression or avoidance of potentially controversial findings is hardly isolated (e.g. Sedley, 2016), so although there are practical aspects that can be criticised during the project, PublicOrg demonstrated their commitment and support throughout.
185
Introduction of a new policy
Although there were efforts to improve consultation, such as ChangeComms, there was also a new work-related travel policy introduced between the two surveys. There were 21 comments in the T2 survey about a lack of consultation meaningful regarding its introduction, and the apparent impact it had had on their work.
- “The introduction of the [new scheme] has caused me a lot of stress and worry. It is frequently difficult to get cars which puts additional stress and pressure on me to do my role efficiently” (participant T2:339)
- “The scheme makes our job very difficult and adds extra time and stress, but management have not listened to our concerns and we feel that we have been treated as trouble makers and whingers” (participant T2:556)
- “The changes that are made without proper consultation are stressful e.g. the [new scheme] that has been introduced. This has complicated my working week immensely in recent months. Improper consultation has led to a system that was poorly introduced” (participant T2:961)
This serves to highlight the potential for concurrent changes to interfere with intervention outcomes, particularly contrasting the focus on communication and consultation of ChangeComms with the sense that came from employees’ perceptions of the new scheme.
Conclusion
The question of whether intervention activity was addressing the problems of the workplace is an important one (Jordan et al., 2003). Intervention activity was based directly on the baseline survey findings and was tailored, to an extent, but at the organisational-level rather than to departments or job roles. While this can be criticised, it was recognised from the beginning of the project that this would be the case due to the
186
available resources; chiefly, the time and staff resources that were seemingly available to undertake such an approach. It should also be acknowledged that the researcher, too, had some limitations in terms of what was feasible within the project timescale, although this issue was secondary to the aforementioned. Overall, PublicOrg’s actions were based on issues from the baseline survey (e.g. change and communication, recognition, manager support). In terms of implementation, ChangeComms and PDF reached the majority of employees, as intended, although their perceptions of interventions were mixed. However, employees’ awareness of the survey findings was poor, with only a minority having seen them.
The links between survey results and actions could be seen in their communication of findings to employees, which also briefly indicated how PublicOrg were addressing them. The development of a long-term organisational well-being strategy, which the survey findings featured heavily in, was also indicative of how the baseline findings and plans were linked. The communication of survey results to employees did explicitly acknowledge that work-demands was the most cited issue from the survey and was being ‘looked into’, as well as stating that information ‘would follow’ regarding the issue. However, although this issue was acknowledged it was not targeted by any initiatives, and nor did this promised follow-up to staff take place during the intervention period. It appears the lack of intervention activity to address workloads was based on resources; some issues seemed to lend themselves to practical solutions whereas addressing workloads did not seem feasible at such a turbulent time. Nonetheless, the interventions were attempting to address some of the other prominent issues and, based on the researcher’s informal meetings with individual steering group members, it was indicated this selection was influenced by what PublicOrg felt was feasible to target. Ideally, the
187
main stress-risk factors would be addressed, but there was logic to their decision to focus attention where they felt they could make a difference with so much pressure on resources and time.
In terms of implementation, the majority of employees reported having been exposed to PDF and ChangeComms, although approximately a quarter of respondents had not experienced them. The majority of respondents were neutral about these interventions (i.e. rating as ‘neither positive nor negative’), with proportions of positive and negative ratings fairly similar. The following chapter analyses the effects of exposure and ratings in relation to psychosocial conditions and well-being-related outcomes. Baseline survey findings were delayed and poorly communicated to staff, seen by only one-third of the T2 sample. Furthermore, there appeared to be an apparent lack of connection in the eyes of employees between the T1 survey and subsequent actions by PublicOrg.
However, events such as the media story further emphasise that not only to intervention projects not take place on a blank slate, but may also be subject to other externally generated pressures. In summary, although implementation efficacy itself could not be directly observed, the evidence here suggested mixed implementation, which is in line with previous research (e.g. Aust et al., 2010; Hasson et al., 2014; Sørensen & Holman, 2014) and further justifies the need to conduct the analyses in the next chapter based on employees’ reported exposure and perceptions of interventions (Hasson et al., 2014; Randall et al., 2005).
188