Challenges related to mental health and staff retention are common in the retail industry and were likely accentuated during COVID-19. This study used questionnaire data from Swedish retail employees (N = 388) to investigate whether job demands and resources differed based on occupational status and a crisis like the pandemic. Mean levels and associations with job satisfaction, turnover intention, and burnout were compared between blue-collar and white-collar employees, before and during the pandemic. Blue-collar employees reported greater physical demands, lower levels of resources, and higher levels of burnout. Job insecurity and emotional demands increased during the pandemic, especially for blue-collar employees. Overall, job demands and resources predicted outcomes in line with previous literature, but job insecurity was particularly salient for blue-collar employees, and autonomy for white-collar employees. Crises like the pandemic affect job demands and resources, potentially exposing lower occupational status employees to a higher risk for negative consequences such as burnout.

The retention of front-line staff in retail has proven challenging. Simultaneously, there are high demands for performance, in a working environment that is often characterized as being detrimental to personal wellbeing. In this paper, we test hindering job demands and job resources as predictors of individual well-being and work-related attitudes and behavior. Retail employees may need to manage their own emotions (emotional dissonance) and can even be exposed to threats and harassment in face-to-face interactions with customers. As a sector with high levels of part-time employment, insecurity around working hours may be an important demand within retail that has not received much attention in previous research. We also consider the role of job resources, namely job control, social support from the supervisor, and possibilities for development. We investigate outcomes related to employees’ well-being (exhaustion), thoughts about leaving the job (turnover intention) and job performance through moderated hierarchical regression analyses with interaction terms. Data was collected cross-sectionally by electronic survey using established measures, in collaboration with a large union that operates in the Swedish retail sector. Emotional dissonance predicted all outcome variables, threats and harassment predicted exhaustion, and worktime insecurity predicted exhaustion and turnover intention. All job resources were significantly and directly related to the outcome variables, but job control showed the strongest negative relation with exhaustion, possibilities for development the strongest negative relation with turnover intention, and supervisory support was a strong positive predictor of job performance. The findings mainly confirm that job demands themselves need to be managed actively, and that job resources have to be present to directly protect wellbeing and performance, and prevent turnover intention. However, evidence for moderating effects of job resources in this sample was weak.

Job insecurity constitutes uncertainty about the future of the current job. Such uncertainty is expected to impact attitudes and behaviors about one’s work and career and how it will progress. The aim of the present study is to meta-analytically consolidate research on the associations between job insecurity and career-related outcomes. A further aim of the study is to explore two methodological moderators: study design (cross-sectional vs. longitudinal) and type of job insecurity measure (cognitive, affective, or combined). Based on a sample of 237 primary studies, our main results show that job insecurity was positively related to occupational and organizational turnover intention, job search behaviors, and knowledge hiding, and negatively related with career satisfaction, career opportunities, employability, and proactive skill development. In terms of the moderators, the associations were generally stronger in cross-sectional studies compared to longitudinal studies, while the impact of the type of job insecurity measure used was mixed. While our results inform research on job insecurity and career-related outcomes, more studies with a longitudinal design are needed on this research topic. Future research should also further examine how different types of job insecurity measures – cognitive, affective, or combined – are associated with career-related outcomes.

Background: The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model describes how job demands and resources associate with work- and health-related outcomes. Job demands refer to those aspects of work that require sustained physical and mental effort (e.g. high workload and time pressure) and that can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Job resources refer to all the aspects of work that can contribute to achieving work-related goals, reducing work demands and stimulating personal development (e.g. control and social support).

The role of personal resources is commonly examined as part of the JD-R model and has been shown to positively relate to work engagement and negatively relate to burnout. Personal resources are individual factors such as self-efficacy and boundary setting strategies that can help individuals to cope successfully with their environment. Thus, personal resources are not job resources but are aspects that can be beneficial in the associations of demands and resources at work with various work- and health-related outcomes.

Still, little is known of the military context. This includes the current situation in the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) where the increased focus on national and collective defense can lead to new conditions regarding job demands. In particular, the ongoing organizational change and expansion highlight the need to attract other groups than men and to retain qualified personnel.

Purpose: The aim of the present study is to investigate the work situation for military officers and specialist officers in the SAF by examining how job demands, job resources, and personal resources relate to work- and health-related outcomes. More specifically, the study examines to what extent qualitative and quantitative job demands, control and social support, and boundary setting strategies and self-efficacy can predict job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout, depression, and well-being.

Method: A cross-sectional survey including questions about personal resources, the psychosocial work environment, work-related attitudes and behaviors, and health is currently being administered to officers and specialist officers in the SAF. So far, 375 responses have been received. Data will be analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression models where demographic variables, job demands, job resources, and personal resources will be entered in separate steps and related to the different work- and health-related outcomes.

Results: Preliminary results show that job demands (qualitative and quantitative) are negatively related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and well-being and positively related to burnout and depression. Job resources (control and social support) are positively related to job satisfaction, organization commitment, and well-being, and negatively related to burnout and depression. Furthermore, boundary setting strategies and self-efficacy are positively related to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and well-being, and negatively related to burnout and depression.

Implications: This study adds to the literature by describing how job demands and resources are experienced by employees in the SAF in times of new strategic directions and organizational growth. In addition to describing levels, this study contributes to the understanding of how job demands, job resources, and personal resources associate with work-related attitudes, behaviors, and health in a military context. This can be used to improve the work situation and work-related health and well-being of employees in the SAF and make the defense sector an attractive and sustainable workplace.

Significant shortages of nursing staff threaten the provision of sustainable and high-quality patient care, which may be partially addressed by encouraging experienced staff to postpone their complete exit from the workforce and extend their careers. This qualitative study explored the transition to retirement, the motivation to engage in post-retirement work, and experiences of working after retirement among retired nursing assistants (aged 67-75 years) working in inpatient psychiatric care in Sweden. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used and allowed for a detailed, in-depth systematic analysis of data from seven individual interviews. Four superordinate themes were identified: (1) Adjustment difficulties to life as fully retired; (2) Good health as a precondition to work and a consequence of working; (3) The intrinsic joy of working and the importance of feeling competent; and (4) Work and organization-related factors contributed to well-being at work and facilitated an extended working life. Post-retirement work was found to facilitate the transition to retirement and contribute to well-being. Furthermore, good health was considered a prerequisite for, and a consequence of, continued working. Intrinsic motivation to work, being competent in performing the job, along with different work and organizational factors were considered important to continuing working after retirement. The findings contribute to informing the design of work environments and tailored HR strategies that facilitate aging-in-workplace and encourage extended working lives.

There is often a gap between what managers perceive they do in terms of fairness (managers’ justice enactment perceptions) and how fairly employees feel treated by their supervisor (employees’ organizational justice perceptions). This study investigates three managerial actions as potential predictors of congruence in managers’ justice enactment and employees’ justice perceptions. Using individual pay setting as context, the authors hypothesize that goal clarity, continuous feedback, and supervisory credibility predict congruence in justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice). Analyses are based on 124 pay-setting managers with their employees from an industrial company in Sweden. Results reveal that goal clarity, continuous feedback, and supervisor credibility reduce the mean-value difference in justice perceptions between managers and employees. This study broadens the organizational justice literature by contributing with a new way of simultaneously studying justice enactment and justice perceptions to further knowledge on how to facilitate and improve fairness in organizations.

Job insecurity, that is, the perceived threat of job loss or of valued job features, is a well-documented stressor with negative consequences for employees. This lead article proposes to advance the field by going both deeper and broader in linking individual job insecurity experiences to their social context on the microlevel (individual characteristics), the mesolevel (the individual's immediate social context such as organizations) and the macrolevel (the wider context such as countries). Going deeper, we discuss theoretical and methodological approaches to investigate how job insecurity affects employees' experience of work but also their identity and life outside work-essentially, how people view themselves and their place in society. Going broader, we review evidence of macrolevel influences as predictors and moderators of job insecurity, as well as the effects of job insecurity on political attitudes and behaviour. Taken together, we discuss these two streams of research as top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in the interplay between individual job insecurity experiences and their socio-political context. We conclude with suggestions for future research and theory development to move the field forward. We hope to provide a fruitful point of departure to delve into the mechanisms between experiences of job insecurity and the broader social context.

Meaningful work is related to the motivation to continue to work in older ages and later retirement. This qualitative study addresses calls for further research on the meaning of working for older workers using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach to explore in-depth the dimensions underlying the subjective experience of meaningful work among 27 nurses and nursing assistants aged 55–75 years. The findings show that work was perceived as a primary source of: (1) personal identity (2) purpose and contribution, (3) competence and accomplishment, (4) social contacts and belongingness, (5) activity, routines and purposeful use of time, and (6) economic security and freedom. These qualitative findings may be applied in interventions aiming to encourage extended working lives in key welfare occupations, which are facing significant staff shortages.

In their article, Alliger and McEachern (Reference Alliger and McEachern2024) advocate for establishing alliances with unions and a better understanding of the psychological character of organized labor. For them, unions are one option to adjust unjust power dynamics in industrial society and to better understand the antiwork perspective that seems to be gaining traction worldwide. In this commentary, we expand on the considerations regarding research and collaborations with unions. In addition, we extend Alliger and McEachern’s argument beyond the US, where the prevalence and nature of labor unions is different. Furthermore, we highlight already existing and missing research and initiatives in this regard and outline some first steps to enhance cooperation among trade unions and I-O psychologists.

This study explored pay-setting managers’ experiences regarding the individualized pay-setting process. Seven semi-structured group-interviews with pay-setting managers (N = 28) from four private companies in Sweden were conducted. A thematic analysis identified three main themes: 1) Prerequisites for pay-setting, which included conditions for pay-setting work and experiences of these conditions; 2) Assessment and feedback, which included experiences of employee performance assessment and feedback provision; 3) Rewards, which covered experiences of different pay incentives and the relationship between performance and pay. The pay-setting process was considered to include many obstacles as well as a few opportunities. Without proper pre-requisites to assess employee performance, the possibilities to adequately reward performance were experienced as limited, which, in turn, hampered possibilities to justify both the assessment and pay raise. Taken together, this study underscores the conflict between intentions relating to how to carry out a pay-setting process and managers’ difficulties to actually accomplish this.