Mental Health of Australian Soldiers

From ABC Online, May 19, 2017

Life in the army could be very tough. To perform their duties, soldiers always have to endure incredible pressures that civilians could barely experience. For instance, they often must endure months or years away from their family and friends, and may often experience tragedies such as the death of a fellow comrade, a serious injury during training, and etc. All these horrible experiences could cause soldiers to suffer from mental illness such as disorder or depression. As such, the mental health of soldiers has long been a critical concern in the army.

Recently, following the sad and tragic suicide of a young soldier from the 5th battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment's (5RAR), a lot of media attention has been paid to the mental illness of soldiers in the Australian Army as well as the factors that are making the already terrible situation even worse.

In one of those related articles, which was posted on ABC Online on May 19, 2017, Eleni Roussos revealed many shocking problems that could be very damaging to the mental health of Australian soldiers and to the effective functioning of the army. As was revealed in this article, a lot of soldiers who are struggling with depression are reluctant or hesitate to talk about their problems or seek help from others, as doing so may render them being denounced or punished by other soldiers. What’s even worse is that it’s common for soldiers to be ridiculed if they are under-performing, which could cause more soldiers to suffer badly from mental illness.

From a work design perspective, many of the revealed ugly facts in the army could be identified as or be attributed to some problems such as lack of social support and organizational support, low levels of psychological safety (which may explain why soldiers don’t speak up), lack of interpersonal trust, violation of workplace ethics, less or no attention to health and well-being, and so forth. The existence of these problems suggests that the army should carefully review the work conducted by soldiers, identify the aspects of work that should be changed, and redesign the work to protect the well-being of soldiers and to promote the army's effective functioning.

For more details, click here to read the article.

Fourth post-doc is here!

Dr. M.K. Ward arrived in May 2017, and is thrilled to join our team. M.K. hails from North Carolina State University where, in 2016, she earned a Ph.D. of Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

M.K.’s work revolves around the themes of measurement, performance, and entrepreneurship. In the theme of measurement, M.K. has two foci: online surveys and organizational neuroscience. She has conducted several studies to investigate ways to prevent careless responding, a pesky problem that often occurs in online surveys. In terms of organizational neuroscience, MK has authored thought articles and book chapters on the topic, and is editor of a TIP column that dives into the most thought-provoking and cutting-edge ideas on this nascent research area.

M.K.’s more recent work has focused on early stages of organizations to improve performance in startups. Her dissertation asked and began to answer the question: how does the way entrepreneurs make decisions impact the performance of their organizations?

M.K.’s role in the centre will involve bringing an organizational neuroscience perspective to develop cutting-edge studies regarding work design. She also is excited by the prospects of helping entrepreneurs succeed by incorporating work design in her research regarding startups and small businesses.

She enjoys interacting with, listening to, and learning from each of you doing work and growing businesses. She had a small business herself, and is looking to connect with fellow entrepreneurs in Western Australia.

Connect with M.K. (here) to learn more about her research, share your work stories, and/or explain to her Australia’s rugby and netball sports. She welcomes the opportunities to interact with locals, and to get to know Perth!

#PostDoc #OrganisationalNeuroscience #Surveys #Stream2 #Performance

Third Post-Doc in!

Fresh from the UK, Dr. Caroline Knight joined the team on 29th May 2017. She completed her PhD in December 2016 from Sheffield University Management School. Her PhD investigated the role and effectiveness of interventions to increase work engagement in organisations in which she conducted a meta-analysis of the effect of interventions on work engagement (published in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour; to read the paper click here).

This paper has been well received, and was featured in a SIOP TIP review as one of the top ten papers of 2016 with significant practical utility (to view the article click here).

During her PhD, Caroline also worked in a team conducting a participatory action research intervention in nursing staff working on acute elderly National Health Service (NHS) wards in the UK. As part of the wider project, which aimed to increase quality of patient care, she investigated the effects of the intervention on the relationships between social support, participation in decision-making and workload on work engagement in nursing staff (to read the early view online version, click here).

Caroline has also worked in a consultative capacity with Sheffield City Council to help increase employee work engagement, and has worked collaboratively on a number of other projects, including a report for Sport England, UK, which investigated the motivations of sports volunteers, and a review of depression in the workplace.

Generally, Caroline is very interested in what motivates people at work, their wellbeing, and the role of job design in relation to positive outcomes. She is also very interested in quantitative methods and enjoys the process of learning and applying different statistical methods within her work.

She is very much looking forward to getting stuck in at the Centre for Transformative Work Design!

#PostDoc #Research #JobDesign #Wellbeing #QuantitativeMethods