The growing diversity of contemporary paid work has provoked increased interest in understanding and evaluating the quality of working lives. This Handbook provides critical reflections on recent research in the field, including examining the inextricable links between working life and well-being.

Work-related stress is costly not only to employees, but also to organizations and society. For example, it is estimated that work-related stress, depression, and anxiety costs British employers £1,035 per employee and that workplace stress costs the US economy up to $300 billion annually. However, elevated levels of stress often cannot be changed, and, if demands were not placed on employees, employee learning, organizational innovation, and societal economic growth would be hindered. Consequently, it is vital that occupational health practitioners, employees, employers and researchers strive to better understand and manage workplace stress, such that employee health and well-being can be improved. This book can assist organizations and individuals as they encounter workplace stress. This edition highlights research done by 25 authors across 12 chapters that challenges how work stress is viewed and assessed. Additionally, a number of social and psychological influences on the stress experience are examined. Our beliefs and expectations of stress and its results, whether helpful or hurtful, can have a profound influence on our stress experiences. Also, the way that we approach our work (e.g., job crafting) or the treatment we receive from others (e.g., with dignity) can either mitigate or exacerbate any harmful or beneficial effects of stress. Moreover, how we assess the psychological (e.g., burnout and well-being) or physiological (e.g., cortisol) outcomes of stress are meaningful, and the proper diagnosis of stress (e.g., stress surveys) underlies our understanding. We hope that the findings reported in these chapters and the insights of these scholars will provide ways for you and/or your organization to improve the health and well-being of employees.

This insightful book draws together expansive international and interdisciplinary evidence to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding and enhancing workplace well-being through the lens of job quality. It analyses how paid work influences the well-being of workers, the organizations for which they complete tasks of employment, and the societies in which we live.

This book was developed for the 2005 International Stress Management Association Conference in Brazil. The original book was recently published in Portuguese, but because of the popularity of the topics and the world-renowned stress scholars who contributed chapters, we are very pleased to have the opportunity to publish this work in English. A book on the subject is intended to be an additional tool containing information on stress and ways of dealing with pressures and demands, because we know that the level of stress will continue to increase. We believe that only through information—and here you will be able to find the experience and opinion of some of the greatest and best professionals of the world in this field—people will manage to live better and more balanced lives. This is what ISMA-BR wishes and hopes for. Have a good reading. This volume provides a series of comprehensive summaries of what is now a fast-growing literature aimed at understanding the causes, effects, and prevention of stress in the workplace. It begins with three chapters on different sources of stress at work, ranging from organizational factors to attributes of workers themselves.

This book provides an understanding and imaging of how a stress-free workplace might be designed and implemented in the context of the ‘new normal.’ Statistics show that more and more people are experiencing an increase in work-related stress, and its impact on individual psychology and well-being as well as organizational performance can be devastating. Globally, the most recent data on work-related illnesses account for 2.4 million deaths. Against this backdrop, and taking stock of how the pandemic is affecting the workplace and employee well-being, this book proposes transformations in work spaces, from implementing effective “greening” features, to more efficient technology-supported spaces. It establishes links between workplace design and creativity, happiness and productivity, confronting related issues such as generation gaps, digital interruptions, collaborative work environments and sustainability, and their respective connections with workspace environment and well-being. The book situates this discussion within a broader discussion on work and quality of life. Furthermore, the book demonstrates how several sustainable development goals might be achieved through transformed work spaces. Through an intersection between organizational psychology, well-being and quality of life studies, sociology, human resources, and ergonomics, this book is a timely examination of work-related stress in relation to work spaces that require rethinking and transformation in the throes, and wake, of the pandemic.

This handbook provides an overview and synthesis of relevant literature related to the issue of the well-being of working women. This focus addresses a gap that currently exists in the quality-of-life and well-being fields. The work of the authors answers the following broad questions: Does gender matter in the well-being of working women? Do prejudices against and stereotypes of women still play a role in inter-personal interactions in the workplace that could hinder women from flourishing professionally? Does the organizational context, such as organizational culture, reward systems, and leadership, contribute to the well-being of working-women? What impact does the national context have on the well-being of working women? And finally, how can public policies help enhance the well-being of working women? These are important issues for academics, researchers, and graduate students interested in gender issues in the fields of management, sociology, psychology, social psychology, economics, and quality of life studies. Policy makers and practitioners will also find this book beneficial. Equitable treatment and outcomes for all, regardless of gender, remains a challenging goal to achieve, with various barriers in different contexts and different cultures, and this book provides strong coverage of this important topic of well-being of working women.

The aim of this encyclopedia is to provide a comprehensive reference work on scientific and other scholarly research on the quality of life, including health-related quality of life research or also called patient-reported outcomes research. Since the 1960s two overlapping but fairly distinct research communities and traditions have developed concerning ideas about the quality of life, individually and collectively, one with a fairly narrow focus on health-related issues and one with a quite broad focus. In many ways, the central issues of these fields have roots extending to the observations and speculations of ancient philosophers, creating a continuous exploration by diverse explorers in diverse historic and cultural circumstances over several centuries of the qualities of human existence. What we have not had so far is a single, multidimensional reference work connecting the most salient and important contributions to the relevant fields. Entries are organized alphabetically and cover basic concepts, relatively well established facts, lawlike and causal relations, theories, methods, standardized tests, biographic entries on significant figures, organizational profiles, indicators and indexes of qualities of individuals and of communities of diverse sizes, including rural areas, towns, cities, counties, provinces, states, regions, countries and groups of countries.

Employees have personal responsibilities as well as responsibilities to their employers. They also have rights. In order to maintain their well-being, employees need opportunities to resolve conflicting obligations. Employees are often torn between the ethical obligations to fulfill both their work and non-work roles, to respect and be respected by their employers and coworkers, to be responsible to the organization while the organization is reciprocally responsible to them, to be afforded some degree of autonomy at work while attending to collaborative goals, to work within a climate of mutual employee-management trust, and to voice opinions about work policies, processes and conditions without fear of retribution. Humanistic organizations can recognize conflicts created by the work environment and provide opportunities to resolve or minimize them. This handbook empirically documents the dilemmas that result from responsibility-based conflicts. The book is organized by sources of dilemmas that fall into three major categories: individual, organizational (internal policies and procedures), and cultural (social forces external to the organization), including an introduction and a final integration of the many ways in which organizations can contribute to positive employee health and well-being. This book is aimed at both academicians and practitioners who are interested in how interventions that stem from industrial and organizational psychology may address ethical dilemmas commonly faced by employees.

Shows the interconnections among the elements of well-being, how they cannot be considered independently, and provides readers with a research-based approach to improving all aspects of their lives.

This book discusses the impact and effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on quality of working life of employees. It describes the changes and the acceleration of processes caused by the widespread use of ICT in a broad range of working areas and in different national contexts. It explores the important role ICT has come to play in nearly all work places in developed societies and the impact it is starting to have on work places in developing countries. The book brings together experts from the fields of ICT and quality of working life and from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, including sociology, psychology, industrial engineering and macro ergonomics. It discusses the range of current positive and negatives effects as well as the possible increase of both kinds of effects in the future. The final chapter of the book integrates the diverse perspectives of the authors and gives recommendations on how to increase the possible positive outcomes and to diminish negative effects of ICT in an accelerated society.