Gail Kinman

Birkbeck, University of London

Presenteeism has been defined by scholarship as an individual’s decision to attend work while being sick (Johns, 2010; Lohaus and Habermann, 2019), whilst recent research on the impact of Covid-19 on the HE sector suggests the top-down pressure on academic and professional staff to work while being unwell (Kinman and Grant, 2020; Hadjisolomou et al...

There is a growing interest in why some individuals, teams, and organisations appear “resilient” to crises, particularly as a “new normal” emerges in which such events are more frequent. This chapter explores the nature of resilience at multiple levels, particularly individual, team, and organisation. The literature has developed in silos across mu...

There is evidence that presenteeism (working while sick) is commonplace and is increasing, especially among homeworkers. Working while not fully fit can be therapeutic and functional, but growing knowledge of its wide-ranging impact means that it can be a potentially high-risk behaviour. This editorial presents an overview of the factors that encou...

Background Prison officers are at high risk of assault that can impair their mental as well as physical health. Such experiences can also disrupt sleep, with negative implications for well-being and job performance. To manage this risk, insight is needed into the mechanisms by which experiencing aggression from prisoners can affect officers’ sleep...

Aim To use the Delphi technique to identify and prioritize recommendations for research and practice to improve the mental wellbeing of nurses and midwives in the United Kingdom (UK). Background Although there is evidence that self‐reported mental wellbeing among nurses and midwives in the UK is poor, interventions have not adequately considered t...

Sickness presenteeism involves employees continuing to work while unwell. As presenteeism is influenced by contextual and individual difference factors, it is important to assess its prevalence and implications for wellbeing and productivity in different occupational groups. This study examines these issues in a sample of prison officers working in...

Perfectionism refers to a tendency to set unrealistically high standards for oneself and others. Although often seen positively, perfectionism can threaten health, relationships and performance. This study examined the effects of three types of maladaptive perfectionism on burnout in 294 UK social workers: self-oriented (having excessively high sta...

Prison officers experience a number of occupational and organizational stressors, and are at considerable risk of burnout. There has been limited research examining the processes by which the demands officers experience impact on their burnout risk. Drawing on the job demands-resources model, we tested distribu-tive justice perceptions as a mediato...

This document reports the development of a suicide 'postvention' framework to be used when colleagues have died by suicide in primary care organisations

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruption to how people work and how business is conducted. The UK has entered a major recession, meaning there is considerable uncertainty about future employment and business continuity. As organisations are under considerable pressure to remain productive and profitable, reducing the cost of sickness absen...

This document aims to: • provide organisations with guidance on effective mental health and wellbeing strategies • highlight best practice to help employers develop effective and sustainable COVID-19 secure wellbeing strategies.

This report provides an in depth overview of the findings of a study conducted on the work-related wellbeing of prison officers working in the UK

This guide provides organisations and individuals with evidence based guidelines on how to work at home in a safe and sustainable way

This document aims to: • highlight the need for effective policies and practices at the organisational level to help support the wellbeing and mental health of staff during the pandemic and beyond • provide examples of best practice to help employers implement systemic, sustainable interventions.

People of all ages bring a wealth of creativity, talent, and expertise to the workforce. Negative attitudes to age are a risk for businesses, affecting recruitment, development, and retention. This document aims to: • raise awareness of the implications of the pandemic for the ongoing work experiences and wellbeing of workers at different life stag...

The document aims to: • raise awareness of the disproportional impact of the pandemic on marginalised groups and the implications for wellbeing and productivity • highlight the wide-ranging benefits of an inclusive workforce • provide organisations with resources that will help them address inequalities and build and retain a diverse and inclusive...

This document aims to: • highlight the features and implications of poor quality, precarious work • raise awareness of what ‘good work’ looks like and the wide-ranging benefits for the health and productivity of the workforce • provide guidance on how to improve the quality of work.

This document aims to: • highlight the scale of mental health issues in the health and social care sectors • identify the occupational, organisational, and individual risk factors for poor mental wellbeing • raise awareness of the consequences of poor staff wellbeing for patient care, employers and the benefits for employers of taking action to pro...

The document aims to: • provide organisations with guidance on supporting the wellbeing of employees through change and major upheavals such as restructures and redundancies • highlight policies and practices that can help organisations support employees in transitioning to remote working and protect their wellbeing and effectiveness. Who is this f...

Background The use of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in UK prisons is believed to have increased substantially. As well as posing a significant threat to prisoners’ health, NPS use can trigger violent, unpredictable and aggressive behaviour. Dealing with the direct and indirect effects of NPS therefore has the potential to compromise the physica...

There is a need for brief and nonintrusive measures to identify common mental disorder (CMD) in worker populations. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether workers reporting CMD symptoms indicative of minor psychiatric morbidity could be reliably identified by a single-item job stressfulness measure (SIJSM). A secondary aim was to de...

Sickness presenteeism refers to the practice of continuing to work during illness. Although not always damaging, working while sick can impair employees' wellbeing and professional functioning. As the causes of presenteeism are multi-faceted, insight into the experiences of different occupational groups is needed. This study examines the prevalence...

Paula Brough’s recent keynote address to the virtual 14th European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology Conference, discussed the ‘enigmatic concept of work-life balance’. Brough noted that 45 years of work-life balance research has produced distinct advancements in the scholarly discussions of work-life balance (i.e., clarity of definition, m...

This chapter critically examines the role of gender in work-life balance research. We contextualise the focal topic by first summarising the changing nature of work and domestic roles and the influence of demographic and social shifts. We revisit the meaning of ‘work-life balance’ in light of the diverse and sometimes conflicting conceptualisations...

The COVID-19 pandemic means that many organizations are under considerable pressure to remain productive and profitable. Although reducing the cost of sickness absence may seem a priority, there is growing evidence that sickness presenteeism (continuing to work when unwell) is far more costly than absenteeism [ 1, 2]. It is therefore crucial to hig...

This paper examines the effectiveness of a peer coaching intervention on aspects of well‐being in students. The study employed a two‐factor mixed design. Two groups of third‐year undergraduate psychology students participated in this study. The coaching group (N = 32) comprised 24 females and eight males (mean age 25.23, SD = 8.07) who were studyin...

This study examines the psychosocial hazards experienced by academic staff working in UK institutions over time. A risk assessment framework developed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was used to measure seven key hazards: demands, control, support from managers and colleagues, relationships, role and change management. Data were obtained f...

Social workers are at high risk of job-related stress that can impair their well-being and professional practice. Although organisational support is a fundamental requirement, it has been argued that social workers need to develop emotional resilience to help them manage the demands of the job. This mixed method study examines the effects of an eig...

Prison officers are at greater risk of work-related stress than most other occupations in the UK (Johnson et al., 2005). The rates of mental health problems and burnout in the profession are also comparatively high (Kinman, Clements, & Hart, 2016; Kunst, 2011). Challenges to the well-being of prison staff include heavy workloads, lack of autonomy a...

Background: Compassion, described as the act of providing care based on empathy, dignity and respect, is intrinsic to effective health and social care. Although delivering compassionate care has wide-ranging benefits for service users, more insight is needed into its effects on health and social care professionals. The emotional demands of 'helpin...

Background: There is evidence that firefighters are at risk of work-related stress and mental health problems, but little is known about the organizational hazards they experience. Insight is needed into the work-related factors that are most likely to threaten or protect their work-related well-being. Aims: To identify levels of job demands and...

Police work presents risks to mental and physical health for officers and civilian staff. We report a project using an innovative method that involved police employees in identifying well-being challenges and potential solutions. We facilitated 'World Café' events in which approximately 180 officers and civilian staff participated. Qualitative data...

Work-related stress has serious consequences for individuals, organisations and society. It can lead to poor health (Li, Zhang, Loerbroks, Angerer, & Siegrist, 2015; Siegrist & Li, 2016), absenteeism (Darr & Johns, 2008) and presenteeism (Johns, 2010), as well as impair job performance (Gilboa, Shirom, Fried, & Cooper, 2008) and increase employee t...

Expecting happier and healthier staff to provide better care may make intuitive sense, but this is not always the case. This chapter highlights the complexity of the relationship between healthcare staff wellbeing and patient care, and we introduce the “happy-productive worker” hypothesis which postulates that happy and healthy workers are more pro...

This study draws on the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model of job stress to predict mental and physical health in academic employees working in United Kingdom universities. It examines the main and interactive effects of extrinsic efforts over time as well as the independent contributions of the three reward systems of the model (i.e., promotion,...

Academic work demands behavioural ambidexterity: the ability to simultaneously demonstrate exploration (creativity in research and/or in innovative teaching and learning practice) and exploitation (compliance with quality assurance). However, little is known about the effects of behavioural ambidexterity on the well-being of individual employees. W...

Presenteeism has negative implications for staff well-being and the safety of prisons, but little is known about its prevalence and causes. This mixed-methods study examines these issues among 1,682 U.K. officers. Most respondents (84%) reported working while sick at least sometimes, with 53% always doing so. Six linked themes were identified that...

Introduction: Presenteeism is defined as continuing to attend work during illness. As a growing health concern, awareness of the factors that encourage presenteeism and the risks of this behaviour is needed. Sources of data: A narrative review of research obtained via several databases, including Medline and Psycinfo, was conducted. Areas of ag...

A new study commissioned and funded by the Louise Tebboth Foundation has revealed that UK doctors are at greater risk of work-related stress, burnout and depression and anxiety than the general population. The incidence of suicide, especially among women doctors and for GPs and trainees, is also comparatively high. The report, entitled ‘What could...

Background There is growing evidence that presenteeism can be damaging for individuals and organizations. It is, therefore, important to identify the prevalence of working while sick in different working environments and the factors that contribute to such behaviour. Aims To examine the prevalence of self-reported presenteeism in academic staff wo...

Six contributions consider how the pace of economic, technological, social and environmental change requires a re-evaluation of how we work now and in the future. Occupational psychologists contribute across a range of areas in the work domain: psychological assessment (including recruitment and selection); learning, training and development; well...

Occupational psychologist Gail Kinman talks about the importance of downtime and explains how even busy teachers can fit it into their busy days.

It is widely recognised that social workers need to increase their emotional resilience to protect their well-being and enhance the quality of their professional practice, but there is little evidence-based guidance on how this might be achieved. This study evaluated a multi-modal intervention that aimed to improve emotional resilience and well-bei...

Purpose Rapid developments in the field of information communication technology (ICT) mean that e-working has become increasingly common and prolonged – the “always-on-culture” potential to enhance work-life balance via increased flexibility in terms of time and location, as well as posing the risk of being “always on” has been identified with pote...

Although she has conducted research in several areas, Christina Maslach is best known for her pioneering work on ‘burnout’. It’s a concept with great academic and popular appeal as it captures a common experience among employees, especially those working within the helping professions. Gail Kinman and Kevin Teoh interviewed Professor Maslach at the...

Background: Research findings indicate that working as a prison officer can be highly stressful, but the aspects of work that predict their mental health status are largely unknown. Aims: To examine, using elements of the demands-resources model, the extent to which work pressure and several potential resources (i.e. control, support from manage...

This case study reports on the use of a mixed-method survey to investigate work-related stress within the UK prison service. This survey was conducted on behalf of a trade union representing workers within this sector. The research was informed by the Health and Safety Executive stress management framework, which utilises a benchmarking approach to...

The present study aimed to examine differences in a range of psychosocial variables and political tendencies across three groups, namely Iranian new-comers (who have lived in the UK for less than two years), bicultural Iranians (born and raised in the UK or raised in the UK since they were under 10 years old), and UK citizens (bicultural participan...

Although compassionate care has wide-ranging benefits for patients, it can be emotionally demanding for healthcare staff. This may be a particular problem for those with little experience in a caring role. This study utilises the job demands-resources model to examine links between “emotional labour” and emotional exhaustion in student nurses. In l...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the well-being of UK prison officers by utilising a benchmarking approach. Design/methodology/approach The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Stress Indicator Tool is widely used in the UK to assess key psychosocial hazards in the workplace encompassing demands, control, support from managers and co-w...

Although prison officers experience working conditions associated with work–life conflict, little research has explored this issue. This study draws upon the work–home resources model to investigate relationships between working conditions (demands and experiences of aggression) and time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based work–life conflict in...

This chapter considers the impact of changes in economic factors on wellbeing and work-life balance [WLB]. As yet, little research has explored any direct effects of austerity measures on WLB, although there is some evidence that work-related stress, mental health problems and work-life conflict have increased over time. This chapter reviews resear...

Research findings indicate that knowledge workers, such as academic employees, may have particular difficulties achieving an effective work-life balance. For several reasons, women academics may find managing the competing demands of work and home-life particularly challenging. This chapter explores women academics’ experiences of the work-home int...

This study utilises the effort–reward imbalance (ERI) model of job stress to predict several indices of well-being in academics in the UK: mental ill health, job satisfaction and leaving intentions. This model posits that (a) employees who believe that their efforts are not counterbalanced by sufficient rewards will experience impaired well-being a...

Human empathy is generally considered to be an extension of more ancient mammalian emotional contagion which enables one person to perceive, understand and share some of the emotional and mental states of another person (Watt, 2007). The demonstration of empathy is a pre-requisite for “helping” professionals, such as nurses, social workers, psychot...