Implementation of an organizational-level intervention on the psychosocial environment of work: comparison of managers' and employees' views.

Abstract

To compare employees' and managers' perceptions of implemented changes in an organizational-level workplace intervention. Nine departments participated in an intervention aimed at reducing adverse psychosocial work environment factors. On the basis of a prior risk evaluation, department managers were responsible for decisions and implementation of the intervention, that is, work changes. These were recorded in logbooks, which were compared to employees' questionnaire ratings of the changes. For half of the changes, proportion of employees reporting that a specific change was implemented did not correspond with the amount of manager-reported changes. Evaluation of employees' and managers' perceptions of an organizational-level intervention is crucial, since these perceptions do not necessarily fully correspond. Employees perceived changes that were not reported by department managers and they also did not perceive exposure to all changes reported by the managers.