The overall goal of this revised proposal is to evaluate the effectiveness of a field-based intervention designed to improve healthy work organization. Healthy work organization is an attractive concept because it assumes that actions taken to improve employee health and well-being also benefit """"""""bottom line"""""""" financial performance. Research has addressed the dimensions of healthy work organization, but virtually no attention has been given to evaluating relevant interventions in real work settings. The proposed intervention uses data-driven problem-solving teams that combine elements from total quality management (TQM), worker involvement, and community engagement. Home Depot, Inc. is the corporate partner for this project. The research has three specific aims: 1) to investigate changes in both health/safety and financial performance as a function of the problem-solving intervention; 2) to investigate how the intervention impacts organizational climate, specifically dimensions related to participation and information exchange; and 3) to explore the impact of the problem-solving intervention on the exogenous and endogenous components of the theoretical model of healthy work organization which undergirds this study. During year 1, baseline data will be collected from employees in all stores in Home Depot's mid-south region, using the healthy organization audit developed on the basis of the theoretical model. At the same time, organizational effectiveness data (both health/safety and financial performance outcomes) will be collected. Ten matched pairs of stores will be randomly assigned to treatment and control conditions. Follow-up organizational effectiveness data will be collected at 8 and 20 months after the start of the intervention. Data will be analyzed using hierarchical linear and structural equation modeling techniques. Qualitative data in the form of focus groups and organizational informant interviews will supplement the quantitative measures. This field validation is pertinent to two NORA priorities, Work Organization and Intervention Effectiveness, and has potentially important implications for encouraging businesses to embrace proactive and comprehensive initiatives in workplace safety and health.
