How will the digital era change work design? A research talk by visitor Tanja Schwarzmüller

We currently have a visitor at the Centre for Transformative Work Design – Tanja Schwarzmüller, who is a research associate at the TUM School of Management, Technical University of Munich, Germany. In her research, Tanja focuses on work design and leadership in the digital age, as well as on the influence of emotions in the leadership process.

On March 10th 2017, she gave a talk at UWA Business School to provide insights into the question how the digital transformation changes work design. Results from a qualitative survey with 49 digitalization experts show that the resulting changes in work design can be clustered into five overarching themes:

• Changes in the work-life domain and health, relating to an increasing temporal and spatial flexibility of employees, a blurring of boundaries between work and private life as well as increased job demands such as higher complexity, time pressure and workload

• Changes in the use of information and communication technology, relating to an increased support through, but also automatization of employees by information technology as well as an increased use of new types of communication media and new approaches to teamwork (virtual, project-based, cross-organizational teams)

• Changes relating to performance and talent management, namely increased competency requirements for employees such as a higher need for agility, problem-solving and lifelong learning, as well as an increased transparency and outcome-orientation regarding employees’ performance

• Changes in organizational hierarchies, with non-managerial employees being provided with more responsibility and autonomy and, in result, an overall flattening of organizational hierarchies

• Changes in the structural nature of work, with changes in job profiles, new types of jobs emerging, more employees being employed as freelancers and a generally lower social embeddedness of employees in organizations

Click here to access Tanja’s full presentation and get more information on this topic.

"Psychology at Work" about to re-start!

Want to learn more about motivation, leadership, safety, teams, work design, and related topics?? The next run of our free, openly available online Coursera program, Psychology at Work, is just about to start! For anyone interested to join, please go here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/work-psychology

Here are some sample reviews:

"This course has become so influential in my way of viewing people as a true asset to the world and how to solve it's problems that I am researching further how to best filter out the concept of mastery as a motivator for people in all tasks and writing my dissertation in this area. I am truly excited to find out more about how we operate and how isolating personal wellbeing as a fundamental element of our success might bring about positive change in the world".

"A perfect course to understand a typical workspace psychology and an engaging approach to deliver knowledge. I had a lot of fun learning this course"

"Excellent return on the investment of my time and exceeded my expectations. I wish to thank the academic staff, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students from the School of Psychology and Business School who contributed to this investigative and inspiring course".

#MOOC

Does being proactive at work come at a cost?

This week we received the good news that our publication on potential personal costs of being proactive at work was accepted for publication in the Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Most research shows that when people behave proactively at work, such as by initiating change or taking charge to prevent problems, the effects are positive. For example, research shows that being proactive builds larger social networks, which helps a person's career. And being proactive also boosts job performance, which is good for the initiator's career, as well as being good for the organisation.

But can being proactive have a personal toll? After all, it can take a lot of energy to make change happen, and it can sometimes cause negative reactions from others....

In our study, led by Karoline Strauss (pictured), we show that - for the most part - being proactive is absolutely fine for the initiator. It doesn't cause psychological strain, such as feeling anxious or miserable. But - and there is a but - when a person experiences controlled motivation as well as a lack of autonomous motivation, their proactive behavior then takes a personal toll.

This study suggests that organizations should not 'coerce' people to be proactive as this is not a very sustainable strategy. Rather, organisations should put in place conditions that will motivate an individual to want to be proactive out of genuine interest and/or the desire to make a difference. Such autonomously motivated proactivity will yield benefits both for individuals and for the organisation.

Click here for the paper, and here for a short video presentation about the paper.

#Proactivity #JobStress