Work & Performance
Lecture notes and knowledge clips notes
2024-2025
Lecture 1
3-9-2024
Which factors ensure that you are motivational and productive in your new job?
Person (the things that you bring to the company)
- Creativity
- Skills and knowledge
- Personality
- Health
Work (working conditions and context; aspects of the work)
- Contribution to the company
- Demands-abilities fit
- Balance work-life
- Autonomy
- Opportunity for changes
- Possibility for personal growth
- Resources in case something goes wrong
- Feeling safe and comfortable
Organisation (social and organisational environment)
- Career opportunities
- Culture
- Fit of culture
- Money
- Relations with colleagues
Tools of the W&O psychologist
1. Method
2. Theory
o A good theory can guide you
3. Practice
o We will focus less on practice
o Being familiar with regulations and rules
Basic principles
1. Mutual relationship between work and health
o Work influences health and health influences work
o Work Health
, o Work in general has a positive influence on health.
o If you’re unhealthy you are much less likely to participate in labour
and you are less likely to be productive.
o Bad working conditions can lead to bad health which in turn can lead
to bad working conditions.
2. Focus on person, work and organisation
o The main focus in occupational health is on three different
objectives:
The maintenance and promotion of workers’ health and
working capacity (person)
The improvement of working environment and work to
become conductive to safety and health (work)
Development of work organisations and working cultures in a
direction which support health and safety at work
(organisation)
o Focus of occupational health; HRM, health promotion
Cure
Prevention
Amplition
Focus on trying to improve the health of the whole
working community
The main goal is trying to improve the person and with that
improve the productivity of the organisation
o Focus of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)
Job content
Working conditions
Change job to fit the person
o Focus of organisation
Policy, culture
Integration of HRM and OSH
Knowledge clips lecture 2
Knowledge clip 1 – intro & DCS
Demand-Control Model
(Karasek, 1979)
Job demands are mostly concerned with quantitative demands
- E.g., work load, role problems, role conflicts and role ambiguity.
Job control is determined by skill discretion and decision latitude.
- Skill discretion: the number of skills they need to use in their job.
- Decision latitude: the extent to which they themselves can decide how
they do their job, so called autonomy.
,Passive job
- Little to do and little control
- Example: porter or receptionist
Active job
- High demands and high control
- Example: professor or medical doctor
Low strain job
- Low strain and high control
- Example: wild life photographer
High strain job
- High demands and low control
- Example: machine-paced assemblers or waiters/waitresses
Two hypotheses in DC model
1. The strain hypothesis
o As job demands get higher, whereas job control gets lower, strain
increases.
2. The active learning hypothesis
o As job demands get higher, but job control gets higher as well, there
is more active learning on the job.
Demand-Control-Support Model (DCS)
This is an extension to the Demand-Control model.
This model states that job demands can not only be buffered by job control but
also by social support.
, The strain hypothesis:
- High job demands can lead to high strain, but this especially the case
when job control is low and there is little social support.
- The combination of high demands, low control and low support is
dangerous.
o These jobs are called iso-strain jobs (iso stands for isolated).
An example of an iso-strain job: psychiatric nurses in the
emergency service.
Knowledge clip 2 – JD-R model
Job Demand Resources model
The original JD-R model
(Demerouti et al., 2001)
The model states that job demands lead to exhaustion, whereas job resources
lower disengagement.
Exhaustion and disengagement are two aspects of burn out.
Job demands
- All kind of characteristics of the work and working conditions that are
negative.
- Examples are physical demands, emotional demands, mental strain, every
characteristic of the job that requires effort.
Job resources
Lecture notes and knowledge clips notes
2024-2025
Lecture 1
3-9-2024
Which factors ensure that you are motivational and productive in your new job?
Person (the things that you bring to the company)
- Creativity
- Skills and knowledge
- Personality
- Health
Work (working conditions and context; aspects of the work)
- Contribution to the company
- Demands-abilities fit
- Balance work-life
- Autonomy
- Opportunity for changes
- Possibility for personal growth
- Resources in case something goes wrong
- Feeling safe and comfortable
Organisation (social and organisational environment)
- Career opportunities
- Culture
- Fit of culture
- Money
- Relations with colleagues
Tools of the W&O psychologist
1. Method
2. Theory
o A good theory can guide you
3. Practice
o We will focus less on practice
o Being familiar with regulations and rules
Basic principles
1. Mutual relationship between work and health
o Work influences health and health influences work
o Work Health
, o Work in general has a positive influence on health.
o If you’re unhealthy you are much less likely to participate in labour
and you are less likely to be productive.
o Bad working conditions can lead to bad health which in turn can lead
to bad working conditions.
2. Focus on person, work and organisation
o The main focus in occupational health is on three different
objectives:
The maintenance and promotion of workers’ health and
working capacity (person)
The improvement of working environment and work to
become conductive to safety and health (work)
Development of work organisations and working cultures in a
direction which support health and safety at work
(organisation)
o Focus of occupational health; HRM, health promotion
Cure
Prevention
Amplition
Focus on trying to improve the health of the whole
working community
The main goal is trying to improve the person and with that
improve the productivity of the organisation
o Focus of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)
Job content
Working conditions
Change job to fit the person
o Focus of organisation
Policy, culture
Integration of HRM and OSH
Knowledge clips lecture 2
Knowledge clip 1 – intro & DCS
Demand-Control Model
(Karasek, 1979)
Job demands are mostly concerned with quantitative demands
- E.g., work load, role problems, role conflicts and role ambiguity.
Job control is determined by skill discretion and decision latitude.
- Skill discretion: the number of skills they need to use in their job.
- Decision latitude: the extent to which they themselves can decide how
they do their job, so called autonomy.
,Passive job
- Little to do and little control
- Example: porter or receptionist
Active job
- High demands and high control
- Example: professor or medical doctor
Low strain job
- Low strain and high control
- Example: wild life photographer
High strain job
- High demands and low control
- Example: machine-paced assemblers or waiters/waitresses
Two hypotheses in DC model
1. The strain hypothesis
o As job demands get higher, whereas job control gets lower, strain
increases.
2. The active learning hypothesis
o As job demands get higher, but job control gets higher as well, there
is more active learning on the job.
Demand-Control-Support Model (DCS)
This is an extension to the Demand-Control model.
This model states that job demands can not only be buffered by job control but
also by social support.
, The strain hypothesis:
- High job demands can lead to high strain, but this especially the case
when job control is low and there is little social support.
- The combination of high demands, low control and low support is
dangerous.
o These jobs are called iso-strain jobs (iso stands for isolated).
An example of an iso-strain job: psychiatric nurses in the
emergency service.
Knowledge clip 2 – JD-R model
Job Demand Resources model
The original JD-R model
(Demerouti et al., 2001)
The model states that job demands lead to exhaustion, whereas job resources
lower disengagement.
Exhaustion and disengagement are two aspects of burn out.
Job demands
- All kind of characteristics of the work and working conditions that are
negative.
- Examples are physical demands, emotional demands, mental strain, every
characteristic of the job that requires effort.
Job resources
