Qualitative Investigation into the Mental Health of Healthcare Workers in Japan during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the mental health of healthcare workers in many countries including Japan. While many survey-based findings have reported the serious state of their wellbeing among healthcare workers, the first-hand experience of the mental health and coping in this population remains to be evaluated. Accordingly, this study aimed to appraise them using constructionist thematic analysis on semi-structured interviews attended by a purposive and snowball sample of 24 healthcare workers in Japan conducted in December 2020–January 2021. Four themes were identified: (1) increased stress and loneliness, (2) reduced coping strategies, (3) communication and acknowledgement as a mental health resource, and (4) understanding of self-care. Participants noted that the characteristics of Japanese work culture such as long hours, collectivism and hatarakigai (i.e., meaning in work) to explain these themes. These findings suggest that robust support at an organizational and individual level, capturing intrinsic values, are particularly important for this key workforce to cope with increased stress and loneliness, leading to better patient care.

Vulnerability and Resilience Among Older Adults During the COVID Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is particularly challenging for many older adults. They are strongly encouraged to practice social distancing and sheltering in place to decrease morbidity and mortality risks. However, social isolation and loneliness increase the risk of mental and physical health problems. Nonetheless, there are indications that older adults may be more resilient than originally thought. Park et al. present longitudinal findings that younger adults fared worse than middle-aged or older ones, reporting greater distress and less social support, mindfulness, and emotion regulation skills. For older participants, acceptance of negative emotions and social support predicted lower distress. Choun et al. also present longitudinal data, showing that depressive symptoms decreased among older adults during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, but reflected changes in loneliness and physical health symptoms. Stellman et al. found that moderate levels of combat experience were helpful for some older Vietnam veterans coping with the pandemic, although a few found that it made coping more difficult. Turner et al. found that positive, non-familial intergenerational contacts were associated with a higher number of positive pandemic-related changes, such as finding new hobbies and meaning in work. Finally, Aldwin et al. present a social ecological approach to vulnerability and resilience. Using qualitative data, they found that stressors and resources were reported at personal, interpersonal and societal levels. Further, older adults both took comfort from and contributed to community resources during this pandemic. In summary, this symposium identified factors that contribute to older adults’ resilience during this pandemic.

Intergenerational Relationships as a Resource for Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The intergenerational ties that offer support to older adults are likely useful for resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed whether positive and negative intergenerational contact was associated with positive pandemic-related personal change. We utilized data collected from 566 adults aged 50 and older between August 2020 and January 2021 via MTurk and a statewide research registry. Participants reported the quality of their contact with younger adults, and whether they experienced positive changes (i.e. new hobbies, healthier behavior, greater meaning in work) as a result of the pandemic. Higher positive, but not lower negative, non-familial intergenerational contact was associated with a higher number of positive pandemic-related changes (estimate = 0.07, SE = 0.03, p=0.02). The quality of familial intergenerational relationships were not associated with positive pandemic-related changes. Non-familial intergenerational relationships may be especially important for resilience, and should be supported during a time when they may be difficult to maintain.

Implementasi Transformational Leadership Dan Meaning In Work Terhadap Employee Performance Karyawan

Leadership style is one of the factors of employee performance so that a good leadership style will be able to direct and give instructions to the work faced by employees. A good leadership style will also lead to job satisfaction for them, so they will work with feelings of pleasure and joy. Simultaneously, the Transformational Leadership Variable has a significant effect on Employee Performance with a value of Fcount > from Ftable. The result of the Coefficient of Determination (Adjusted R Square) is 0.165, meaning that the Employee Performance variable can be explained by the Transformational Leadership variable and the Meaning in Work variable by 16.5% while the remaining 83.5% is influenced by other variables.

Work engagement and perceived customer value, the mediating role of meaningfulness through work

Background: Work engagement is considered an important contributor towards the success of any organisation, while finding meaning in work has been proven to enhance productivity and, ultimately, assists in improving the bottom line of an organisation.Aim: The aim of the study is to examine work engagement and meaningfulness through work and at the workplace, and how these factors impact on perceived customer value. More specifically, the researchers were interested in whether meaningfulness could mediate the relationship between work engagement and perceived customer value.Setting: Data were collected from employees at a large South African manufacturing organisation.Methods: Respondents from a manufacturing organisation in South Africa participated in the quantitative cross-sectional study (N = 152). They completed previously validated questionnaires to assess work engagement, meaningfulness through work and perceived customer value from an employee perspective. (Males = 52.21%; Working less than five years in the industry = 54.61%; Non-management = 50%).Results: Correlation results indicate that features of engagement, meaningfulness through work and perceived customer value were positively associated. A simple mediation model indicates that meaning could be considered a mediator in the relationship between work engagement and perceived customer value.Conclusion: Study results indicate that work engagement was not sufficient to improve perceived customer value and that finding meaning in and through work was also required.

The Soft Skills Veterans Bring to the Workforce

One of the benefits of hiring military veterans is the skill set they bring to the civilian workforce. Veterans are keenly aware, through leadership examples and training, of the importance of dealing with other people’s productively and of managing one’s own behavior. Working effectively with others and managing one’s own behavior are examples of nontechnical or “soft” social skills that can be measured by personality assessments. Examples of the types of attributes that personality assessments test for include the “big five factors” of personality (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion) as well as political skill. Taken together, these soft social skills reflect one’s capacity to get along with others and one’s capacity to compete with others; both getting along and getting ahead are empirically related to work success. Veterans have an advantage in civilian organizations in terms of using their soft social skills for personal and team growth by finding meaning in work.

Chunk: an outline platform for flow, play and pattern recognition through "Chunking"

A platform to highlight meaningful work. This paper details the conceptual and initial prototype design of the online platform called Chunk, which aims to highlight personal projects and put passion-driven ideas at the forefront of an individual’s online profile. This paper will define “meaningful work,” and outline how the foundations, characteristics, and triggers of flow, play, and“chunking”connects“meaningful work”. It describes why applying them into an online platform, such as Chunk, can help users use their own projects to find greater intrinsic meaning in work. It addresses the lack of focused attention in current social media platforms, within creative work and productivity, and how chunk is able to provide a solution. This paper presents initial images of Chunk’s interface, and strategies to implement flow, play, and pattern recognition into its architecture. Lastly, this research paper will analyse and compare LinkedIn, Behance, Pinterest, and Climb (online platforms oriented towards work) to Chunk’s platform.

Chunk: an outline platform for flow, play and pattern recognition through "Chunking"

A platform to highlight meaningful work. This paper details the conceptual and initial prototype design of the online platform called Chunk, which aims to highlight personal projects and put passion-driven ideas at the forefront of an individual’s online profile. This paper will define “meaningful work,” and outline how the foundations, characteristics, and triggers of flow, play, and“chunking”connects“meaningful work”. It describes why applying them into an online platform, such as Chunk, can help users use their own projects to find greater intrinsic meaning in work. It addresses the lack of focused attention in current social media platforms, within creative work and productivity, and how chunk is able to provide a solution. This paper presents initial images of Chunk’s interface, and strategies to implement flow, play, and pattern recognition into its architecture. Lastly, this research paper will analyse and compare LinkedIn, Behance, Pinterest, and Climb (online platforms oriented towards work) to Chunk’s platform.

Meaningful moves: A meaning-based view of nurses’ turnover

Nurses’ turnover is a major global problem with significant service and cost implications. Although sizeable research inquiries have been made into the antecedents, the dynamics, and the consequences of nurses’ turnover, there is still a lack of fine-grained understanding of the psychological states that reflect the cumulative impact of different antecedents and immediately precede nurses’ intentions to quit either from their unit/organization and/or their profession. This paper introduces and develops a meaning-based view of nurses’ turnover. This perspective distinguishes between meaning in work (based on the nurses’ relationship with their work) and meaning at work (based on the nurses’ relationship with their work environment) and explain the implications of high/low meaning in and at work on nurses’ turnover. This meaning-based view of nurses’ turnover offers nurses, administrators and policy makers a deeper and a more nuanced understanding of turnover and promises more tailored remedies for the turnover problem.