Premium
Employee effort – reward balance and first‐level manager transformational leadership within elderly care
Author(s) -
Keisu BrittInger,
Öhman Ann,
Enberg Birgit
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of caring sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.678
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1471-6712
pISSN - 0283-9318
DOI - 10.1111/scs.12475
Subject(s) - transformational leadership , psychology , psychosocial , elderly care , leadership style , work (physics) , nursing , association (psychology) , balance (ability) , social psychology , medicine , mechanical engineering , neuroscience , psychiatry , engineering , psychotherapist
Background Negative aspects, staff dissatisfaction and problems related to internal organisational factors of working in elderly care are well‐known and documented. Much less is known about positive aspects of working in elderly care, and therefore, this study focuses on such positive factors in Swedish elderly care. We combined two theoretical models, the effort–reward imbalance model and the Transformational Leadership Style model. The aim was to estimate the potential associations between employee‐perceived transformational leadership style of their managers, and employees' ratings of effort and reward within elderly care work. Methods The article is based on questionnaires distributed at on‐site visits to registered nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists (high‐level education) and assistant nurses (low‐level education) in nine Swedish elderly care facilities. In order to grasp the positive factors of work in elderly care, we focused on balance at work, rather than imbalance. Results We found a significant association between employees' effort–reward balance at work and a transformational leadership style among managers. An association was also found between employees' level of education and their assessments of the first‐level managers. Conclusions We conclude that the first‐level manager is an important actor for achieving a good workplace within elderly care, since she/he influences employees' psychosocial working environment. We also conclude that there are differences and inequalities, in terms of well‐being, effort and reward at the work place, between those with academic training and those without, in that the former group to a higher degree evaluated their first‐level manager to perform a transformational leadership style, which in turn is beneficial for their psychosocial work environment. Consequently, this (re)‐produce inequalities in terms of well‐being, effort and reward among the employees at the work place.