Suddenly Telework: Job Crafting as a Way to Promote Employee Well-Being?

COVID-19 confronted many people with an abrupt shift from their usual working environment to telework. This study explores which job characteristics are perceived as most crucial in this exceptional situation and how they differ from people’s previous working conditions. Additionally, we focus on job crafting as a response to this situation and how it is related to employees’ well-being. We conducted an online survey with N = 599 participants, of which 321 reported that they were telework newcomers. First, we asked participants to indicate the three most important advantages and disadvantages they see in telework. The subsequent questionnaire contained a comprehensive measure of working conditions before and during the pandemic, job crafting behaviors, and indicators of well-being. Based on the qualitative answers, we identified three major advantages and disadvantages. Quantitative results indicate perceived changes in all job characteristics for telework newcomers. Concerning working conditions and well-being, job crafting activities that aim to increase structural and social resources are important mediators. The findings underline the need to design appropriate telework conditions and encourage job crafting activities to foster occupational well-being.

Towards a Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Challenges in Refugee Re-settlement

Upon arrival to a host community, refugees and asylum seekers face immense challenges to rebuild their social capital that is critical in the process of their resettlement. Developing a holistic understanding of these challenges can provide significant opportunities to inform designers and services providers working with this demography. We adopt the lens of social capital coupled with an inquiry into the heterogeneity of refugees and asylum seekers to gain a holistic understanding of various challenges that they with. We accordingly present a conceptual framework that has been iteratively built based on our four years of engagement with refugee communities. The framework highlights three important aspects: cultural backdrops, displacement-related stressors, and social resources in the host community. We offer several implications for technology design, policies, and the theory of social capital that can support members from these communities in their resettlement.

A research framework for the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030)

The mission of UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2020–2030) is to improve the lives of older people, their families and their communities. In this paper, we create a conceptual framework and research agenda for researchers to knowledge to address the Decade action items. The framework builds on the main components of healthy ageing: Environments (highlighting society and community) across life courses (of work and family) toward wellbeing (of individuals, family members and communities). Knowledge gaps are identified within each area as priority research actions. Within societal environments, interrogating beliefs about ageism and about familism are proposed as a way to illustrate how macro approaches to older people influence their experiences. We need to interrogate the extent to which communities are good places to grow old; and whether they have sufficient resources to be supportive to older residents. Further articulation of trajectories and turning points across the full span of work and of family life courses is proposed to better understand their diversities and the extent to which they lead to adequate financial and social resources in later life. Components of wellbeing are proposed to monitor improvement in the lives of older people, their families and communities. Researcher priorities can be informed by regional and national strategies reflecting Decade actions.

Defining Post-Pandemic Work and Organizations: The Need for Team Belongingness and Trust

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forth substantial unrest in the ways in which people work and organize. This had led to disconnection, rapid adaptation, work from home, emergence of a new digital industry, and an opportunity to create anew. This chapter provides a position for the future state of work and organizing, drawing on the belongingness hypothesis, to characterize a revised method of human connection that acknowledges unique differences in online connections. It also explores the role that flexibility and working from home have on organizational outcomes, through changing presenteeism, changes in how people develop trust, and how social resources are deployed. Advancing an understanding of this position creates a possible post-pandemic model of work that acknowledges the current climate and the learnings from before that pandemic. Through genuine acknowledgment of the current and past ways of working, it is possible to build a pathway to heighten employee’s sense of belonging and trust. This will support the return to, and evolution of, a form of normality post-pandemic.

Big Data Optimization and Applications in Running Efficiency of Higher Education

The world is undergoing great changes that have not been seen at present; colleges and universities can only adapt to social development with a more active and open attitude. Meanwhile, colleges and universities strive to obtain more social resources during the process of gradually embedding social funds into the operation system of universities. In such a backdrop, we establish an optimization model for university running efficiency under limited funds, where the objective function is quadratic and restraint condition is linear. With the help of optimization theory, we have obtained the optimal solution of this optimization model and put forward corresponding suggestions to improve the running efficiency of higher education.

Challenging the Surge of IBD: The role of the China Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation in the healthcare landscape of IBD

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic and life-long disease, and patients must ultimately learn to live with and manage the condition. With advances in diagnostics and treatment in IBD, healthcare professionals (HCP) and patients are now concerned with both quality of care (QOC) and quality of life (QOL). China Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCCF) is committed to improving the QOC and QOL for IBD patients by garnering social resources. This paper details how CCCF has worked for better IBD management over the past five years. The foundation has four main projects: education programs for IBD HCPs and patients, support activities, public awareness and advocacy, and research programs. CCCF is an increasingly influential public welfare organization providing advocacy for IBD patients in China. The foundation is now entering the next stage of its development in pursuing professional operations and helping to solve the social problems experienced by IBD patients. CCCF ultimately plans to pioneer reforms in China’s medical system and hopefully provide a successful example of IBD advocacy for developing countries to emulate.

Sustainability, evaluation and industry trends

Sustainability has been defined as “the process of living within the limits of available physical, natural, and social resources in ways that allow the living systems in which humans are embedded to thrive in perpetuity” (Sustain SU, 2010). Hence, in terms of environmental sustainability, there needs to be a focus on the use of renewable rather than non-renewable resources. And even with renewable resources, there needs to be a focus on avoiding over-utilisation and wastage. Sustainability is about more than just ‘being green’. It is about doing things efficiently and effectively, being innovative and creating a positive impact, achieving excellence, and leaving lasting legacies.

Risk Evaluation Study of Urban Rail Transit Network Based on Entropy-TOPSIS-Coupling Coordination Model

As one of the core systems of a city, urban rail transit plays a pivotal role in ensuring the safe, rational, and efficient operation of the city. Therefore, it is of great significance to ensure the safe operation of urban rail transit network to improve the operation efficiency and economic level of the city. The prerequisite to ensure the safety of urban rail transit network is whether the risk situation of urban rail transit network can be reasonably and accurately evaluated. In order to evaluate the risk level of urban rail transit network reasonably and accurately, firstly, with full consideration of the characteristics of urban rail transit, the risk evaluation system of urban rail transit network was established in this paper based on the three levels of regional economy, social resources, and rail transit. Secondly, based on the entropy-TOPSIS-coupling coordination model, the single-factor influence and multifactor coupling influence in the index system are calculated and analyzed, respectively; thus the coupling coordination degree of urban rail transit system is obtained, so as to quantitatively evaluate and analyze the risk situation in urban rail transit network. Finally, based on the actual data of Shanghai from 2000 to 2016, the case simulation and analysis are carried out. The results show that the two indicators of regional economy and social resources are more likely to affect the safety state of urban rail transit. At the same time, the safety factor of urban rail transit coupling system is increasing year by year and gradually develops from disorder to order. This is more in line with current urban rail transit condition, demonstrating the rationality and accuracy of the entropy-TOPSIS-coupling coordination model proposed in this study.

Do workers accumulate resources during continuous employment and lose them during unemployment, and what does that mean for their subjective well-being?

Drawing on cumulative advantage/disadvantage and conservation of resources theories, I investigated changes in economic, social, and personal resources and in subjective well-being (SWB) of workers as they stayed continuously employed or continuously unemployed. I considered age, gender, and SES as potential amplifiers of inequality in resources and SWB. Using 28 yearly waves from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP 1985–2012), I conducted multilevel analysis with observations nested within participants. A longer duration of continuous employment predicted slightly higher economic resources and thereby slightly higher SWB over time. A longer organizational tenure had mixed effects on resources and predicted slight reductions in SWB via lower mastery. A longer duration of continuous unemployment predicted marked reductions mainly in economic but also in social resources, which led to modest SWB decreases. Younger workers, women, and workers with higher SES benefited from longer continuous employment and organizational tenure more. At the between-person level, some evidence for self-selection of less resourceful individuals into long-term or repeated unemployment emerged. The highly regulated German labor market and social security system may both dampen the rewards of a strong labor force attachment and buffer against the losses of long-term unemployment.

MODEL MOCNYCH STRON A DZIAŁANIA POMOCOWE W UCZELNI

The study focuses on the characteristics of strengths-based model in the form of psychological and social resources of the disabled student. The analysis takes into consideration the effects of interpersonal relations in the academic context, as well as the outcomes of the disabled student support system implemented at Siedlce University. The study is based on the assumption that assistance and support elements of the programme are pivotal for the disabled student’s sense of support of the disabled student. According to the premises of positive psychology, the characteristics that constitute the strengths of an individual were singled out. The respondents, who were Siedlce University students, were asked to assess the increase of their competences, the senseof development of potential, as well as the feeling of fulfilment and control over their own lives. The sum of these elements was treated as the total assessment of the psychological and social resources that students have at their disposal. To determine statistically significant differences between the assessment of particular features of the model in the perception of the disabled and able-bodied student, a linear regression analysis and a one-factor analysis of variance were carried out. It was found that students with disabilities obtained higher means with regard to the sense of increase in competence and the feeling of support than those without disabilities, where these differences were statistically significant. The able-bodied respondents significantly assessed the feeling of control over their own lives more than the disabled students. As far as the sense of development of their own potential and the feeling of fulfilment are concerned, the means for both respondent groups did not differ statistically significantly. The evaluation of the inclusion model, i.e. psychological and social resources, was identified to be at the same level in both groups. On the basis of the linear regression analysis, it could be stated that all features of the strengths-based model correlate strongly positively with the feeling of received support. The results of the present study point to the conclusion that the inclusive model integrating disabled students with their able peers, academic teachers, and administration personnel, which has been applied at Siedlce University (Poland) for over 50 years, brings certain positive effects not only for the disabled student but also for the one without any deficits.