American workers who have more flexibility and security in their jobs also have better mental health, according to a study of 2021 survey data from over 18,000 nationally representative working Americans.
The study, published Monday in JAMA Network Open, may not be surprising to those who have faced return-to-office mandates and rounds of layoffs amid the pandemic. But, it offers clear data on just how important job flexibility and security are to the health and well-being of workers.
[...] Overall, the study's findings indicate "the substantive impact that flexible and secure jobs can have on mental health in the short-term and long-term," the researchers conclude.
They do note limitations of the study, the main one being that the study identifies associations and can't determine that job flexibility and security directly caused mental health outcomes and the work absence findings. Still, they suggest that workplace policies could improve the mental health of employees.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday March 27 2024, @11:36PM (2 children)
Uh huh [youtu.be] -- sounds, er, fantastic.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday March 28 2024, @12:06AM (1 child)
See? It's so rare in the workplace you can't even imagine that it's actually a desirable thing.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday March 28 2024, @11:33AM
I understand, Roscoe. I have had two of those. A real pleasure to work there. Actually, I never got off work - what I did was so challenging it literally consumed me.
In both cases, I was working for the guy who either owned the company or was the top guy in the division. No office politics. No middlemen. I understood what I needed to build, and it was a no-hold-barred effort to make it so. And I was pretty good at it.
In one case, I got kicked out of paradise as a result of a buyout, and middlemen with all their egos didn't set well with me and my own ego. Well, gotta admit I am terribly set in my ways, and mostly not complicit with short term goals. I have my own way of doing things, often with my own tools. Kinda like a pro golfer who plays best with his own private set of clubs. Don't issue me a company computer and think I am going to be proficient with it. I have spent decades with my own machines.
The other one was the owner died and I had a strong idea the other owner didn't like the relationship I had and wanted to rein me in to a corporate structure.
I have no intention of becoming someone else's boss. I work with team mates. Not subordinates. Only difference, I have a engineering degree. The guy I was to supervise has 20 years experience building the company's products. I was a consultant. Not an employee. In my mind, he outrankes me. He has been with that company for 20 years. Me: 4. It was challenging work. A lot of control system design for stepper motors driving loads with multiple mechanical resonance phenomena. I cherished working with him, not competing, but working together to make our machine the finest in existence. There were several avenues of exploration to follow...I wanted to use the DSP techniques I worked with in aerospace to track out the resonances ( I had multiple resonances - some magnetic ones in the motors, and some resonances in the positioners ). I was going to implement a transversal filter much like the ones we used to characterize multipath RF commlinks. But that takes time and I need to communicate with other engineering types, not a schedule and charge number accountant guy.
I have had some really unnecessary stressors due to other people trying to force me to do things I don't agree with, yet they want me to assume responsibility for it. This is my equivalent of capping a container of liquid and bringing it to a boil. Something is going to go. And it's not pretty.
For me, it's piles of twisted scrap metal where a useful machine once stood. For the office executive, it's a report with some bullet points .
I saw what those micromanagers did to other companies; I want no part of doing that to anyone else.
Kinda a moot point now. I am now mostly into building solar panel power combiners and 304AH LiFePO4 cell balancers for retirement fun. Hopefully, I will end up with a nice set of 48VDC batteries, and matched sets of 48VDC refrigeration / HVAC compressors which I will use for food, comfort, and thermal energy storage by phase-change of water, as it's far cheaper to bank thermal energy via ice than it is to store it as electrical energy in lithium cells.
I envy you for finding such a thing and not have some outside things wipe it out.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]