Identifying and managing psychosocial risks during organizational restructuring: It's what you do and how you do it

摘要

Over the past years, employees have experienced substantial organizational restructuring implicating changes in the design, organization and management of work. Many of these changes have a possible negative impact on engagement, well-being and health. The current study describes how a large oil and gas industry organization, based on research and best practice principles, developed and integrated a method for managing psychosocial risks during change. Furthermore, this study explored the effects of implementing the method on psychosocial factors and health. Two business areas from the organization were included, one going through major restructuring and the other not undergoing major changes. Psychosocial factors and health were measured each year from 2012 to 2015, when the restructuring took place. We hypothesized that the psychosocial work environment as well as health scores would significantly deteriorate during the first period of the reorganization process for the unit going through reorganization as compared with the unit without changes, but thereafter improve after the implementation of the psychosocial risk management methodology. We found general support for the hypotheses, indicating that the implementation of the risk management methodology had beneficial effects on the psychosocial work environment and health. This study also addresses strengths and lessons learned that can be useful for organizations and the research community. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.