Measures to Improve the Mental Health of Construction Personnel Based on Expert Opinions
Abstract
Introduction
Literature Review
Types of Interventions
The Research Problem
Theoretical Background
Code | Measures to improve mental health | References | Type of intervention |
---|---|---|---|
Healthy coping and individual resilience focused measures | Secondary | ||
IM01 | Empower staff to be individually more resilient through resilience training programs | Enns et al. (2016) and Tan et al. (2014) | |
IM02 | Introduce wellness programs to workplaces/site offices | Burke (2019) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
IM03 | Promote talks about antistigma (antistigma campaign) | Gullestrup et al. (2011) and Hanisch et al. (2016) | |
IM04 | Stimulate helping behaviors toward people suffering from mental health problems through mental health first aid | LaMontagne et al. (2018) and Gullestrup et al. (2011) | |
IM05 | Put measures in place for exercises such as exercise weekends | Havermans et al. (2018) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
IM06 | Provide employees with competence training | Pignata et al. (2018) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
Stress control focused measures | Secondary, tertiary | ||
IM07 | Promote mental health awareness through literacy programs | LaMontagne et al. (2018) and Gullestrup et al. (2011) | |
IM08 | Provide practical stress management training | Havermans et al. (2018) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
IM09 | Put better education policies in place (e.g., providing subsidies for/encouraging employee career development) | Pignata et al. (2018) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
IM10 | Conduct regular team meetings with supervisors and subordinates focused on addressing work stress | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM11 | Promote communication about work stress from supervisors or subordinates without penalty | Pignata et al. (2018) and Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM12 | Offer assistance to nonwork stressors such as marital challenges | Pignata et al. (2018) and LaMontagne et al. (2014) | |
IM13 | Provide aid for stressors such as financial challenges | Pignata et al. (2018) and LaMontagne et al. (2014) | |
IM14 | Offer a sustainable retirement plan for employees | Pignata et al. (2018) and LaMontagne et al. (2014) | |
Workplace (organizational) justice focused measures | Primary | ||
IM15 | Create policies to eliminate bullying | Pignata et al. (2018) and Gillen et al. (2017) | |
IM16 | Create policies to eliminate harassment | Pignata et al. (2018) | |
IM17 | Promote equality policies irrespective of gender and age | Pignata et al. (2018) and Enns et al. (2016) | |
IM18 | Reduce threatening of staff with disengagement when they make mistakes | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
Employee morale and engagement focused strategies | Primary, secondary | ||
IM19 | Promote employees’ deeply embedded life interest (i.e., job sculpting) | Hlanganipai and Mazanai (2014) and Aguinis et al. (2012) | |
IM20 | Give constructive feedback instead of reprimanding | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM21 | Celebrate employees’ success | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
Job redesign and control focused measures | Primary | ||
IM22 | Employees should be allowed some flexibility to design their job roles and tasks, while human resources approves it, in line with the job position and goals of the organization (i.e., job crafting) | Pignata et al. (2018) and Joyce et al. (2010) | |
IM23 | The workplace should allow site employees to a flexible work schedule, with regards to work time and duration with no intention to reduce productivity or performance (i.e., flexitime) | Pignata et al. (2018) and Joyce et al. (2010) | |
IM24 | Offer employees opportunities to balance work and life using compressed working week arrangements | Pignata et al. (2018) and Lingard et al. (2007) | |
Interpersonal relationship related measures | Primary, secondary | ||
IM25 | Ensure swift conflict resolution | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM26 | Supporting improved relationships at work | Enns et al. (2016) and Ahola et al. (2012) | |
IM27 | Put in place measures that increase cooperation between colleagues | Pignata et al. (2018) and Havermans et al. (2018) | |
Job demand and satisfaction focused measures | Primary | ||
IM28 | Allow the taking of regular breaks to enable rest | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM29 | Better planning of work tasks and shifts | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM30 | Hire more personnel to reduce the workload | Havermans et al. (2018) | |
IM31 | Conduct employee satisfaction surveys | Havermans et al. (2018) |
Code | Stressors of mental health |
---|---|
CS01 | Physical illness |
CS02 | Nature of work causing increased mental demand |
CS03 | Hours worked per day (in excess of 60hrs per week) |
CS04 | Work overload (too much quantity of work) |
CS05 | Increased work speed |
CS06 | Little opportunity/ability to participate in decision-making |
CS07 | Little social support from colleagues/immediate supervisors |
CS08 | Little relationship with colleagues/coworkers |
CS09 | Occupational injury/hazards |
CS10 | Poor working conditions (such as no leave, or leave without allowances, no housing allowances) |
CS11 | Job insecurity (fear and/or uncertainty about the work) |
CS12 | Strict adherence to the time or schedule (you cannot decide the timing for executing a task) |
CS13 | Fatigue resulting from work causing poor sleep and recovery |
CS14 | Criticisms from boss and colleagues |
CS15 | Lack of feedback mechanism in place |
CS16 | Low socioeconomic status (your position relative to your peers) |
CS17 | Over-promotion- the job task is more than your experience with no mentoring |
CS18 | Little task control, responsibility, or authority |
CS19 | Fear of failure |
CS20 | Interpersonal conflict |
CS21 | Musculoskeletal pain and injuries |
CS22 | Poor physical working condition |
CS23 | Lack of respect from subordinates |
CS24 | Workplace harassment |
CS25 | Workplace bullying |
CS26 | Work-home conflict/life imbalance (lack of time for family and other leisure due to work) |
CS27 | Low income causing financial insecurity |
CS28 | Wages not paid on time |
CS29 | Unsatisfactory living condition at home |
CS30 | Marital relationship challenges |
CS31 | Poor family connection/relationships |
CS32 | Increased level of education not relative to getting better jobs & income leading to frustration and worries |
CS33 | Lack of medical subsidies for you or your family |
CS34 | Lack of subsidies for family travel fees |
CS35 | Lack of opportunity for career development while you still work on a particular job (such as furthering your studies) |
CS36 | Lack of opportunity for promotion |
CS37 | Lack of team, departmental, or company social get togethers |
CS38 | Past traumatic experiences (death of a relative,accident, or bad happening) |
Note: CS = cause of stress (i.e., stressor).
Methodology
Survey Instrument
Face and Content Validity
Data Collection
Data Analysis Methods
Consistency Reliability of Experts’ Ranking
Mean Ranking of the Measures
Kruskal-Wallis Test
Structural Equation Modeling
Results
Profile of the Respondents
Description | Number of responses | Percent |
---|---|---|
Countries | ||
South Africa | 19 | — |
Hong Kong SAR | 18 | — |
Singapore | 14 | — |
USA | 11 | — |
Total | 62 | — |
Years of experience | ||
11–20 | 26 | 41.9 |
21–30 | 16 | 25.8 |
Over 30 | 20 | 32.3 |
Total | 62 | 100.0 |
Professional practice | ||
Industry | 56 | 90.3 |
Academia/research institute | 6 | 9.7 |
Total | 62 | 100.0 |
Profession | ||
Architects | 2 | 3.2 |
Civil engineers | 20 | 32.3 |
Quantity and building surveyors | 2 | 3.2 |
Construction managers | 38 | 61.3 |
Total | 62 | 100.0 |
Mean Ranking of the Measures to Improve Psychological Health
Code | Measures to improve mental health | Ranking | Kruskal-Wallis test | Cronbach’s alpha | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mean | SD | Rank | ||||
Healthy coping and individual resilience focused measures | 0.733 | |||||
IM01 | Empower staff to be individually more resilient through resilience training programs | 3.11 | 0.603 | 23 | 0.339 | |
IM02 | Introduce wellness programs to workplaces/site offices | 3.40 | 0.586 | 5 | 0.079 | |
IM03 | Promote talks about antistigma (antistigma campaign) | 3.02 | 0.665 | 25 | 0.335 | |
IM04 | Stimulate helping behaviors toward people suffering from mental health problems through mental health first aid | 3.18 | 0.641 | 21 | 0.112 | |
IM05 | Put measures in place for exercises such as exercise weekends | 3.02 | 0.779 | 26 | 0.288 | |
IM06 | Provide employees with competence training | 3.37 | 0.550 | 7 | 0.506 | |
Stress control focused measures | 0.840 | |||||
IM07 | Promote mental health awareness through literacy programs | 3.31 | 0.715 | 18 | 0.000 | |
IM08 | Provide practical stress management training | 3.32 | 0.594 | 14 | 0.027 | |
IM09 | Put better education policies in place (e.g., providing subsidies for/encouraging employee career development) | 3.32 | 0.594 | 15 | 0.527 | |
IM10 | Conduct regular team meetings with supervisors and subordinates focused on addressing work stress | 3.13 | 0.713 | 22 | 0.027 | |
IM11 | Promote communication about work stress from supervisors or subordinates without penalty | 3.21 | 0.704 | 20 | 0.126 | |
IM12 | Offer assistance to nonwork stressors such as marital challenges | 3.00 | 0.768 | 27 | 0.099 | |
IM13 | Provide aid for stressors such as financial challenges | 2.95 | 0.798 | 29 | 0.023 | |
IM14 | Offer a sustainable retirement plan for employees | 3.31 | 0.667 | 17 | 0.150 | |
Workplace (organizational) justice focused measures | 0.815 | |||||
IM15 | Create policies to eliminate bullying | 3.35 | 0.704 | 10 | 0.231 | |
IM16 | Create policies to eliminate harassment | 3.42 | 0.714 | 4 | 0.019 | |
IM17 | Promote equality policies irrespective of gender and age | 3.23 | 0.734 | 19 | 0.051 | |
IM18 | Reduce threatening of staff with disengagement when they make mistakes | 3.34 | 0.723 | 13 | 0.119 | |
Employee morale and engagement focused measures | ||||||
IM19 | Promote employees’ deeply embedded life interest (i.e., job sculpting) | 3.34 | 0.651 | 12 | 0.103 | 0.638 |
IM20 | Give constructive feedback instead of reprimanding | 3.45 | 0.563 | 3 | 0.356 | |
IM21 | Celebrate employees’ success | 3.58 | 0.529 | 1 | 0.148 | |
Job redesign and control focused measures | 0.809 | |||||
IM22 | Employees should be allowed some flexibility to design their job roles and tasks, while human resources approves it, in line with the job position and goals of the organization (i.e., job crafting) | 2.90 | 0.824 | 30 | 0.162 | |
IM23 | The workplace should allow site employees to a flexible work schedule, with regards to work time and duration with no intention to reduce productivity or performance (i.e., flexitime) | 2.95 | 0.777 | 28 | 0.639 | |
IM24 | Offer employees opportunities to balance work and life using compressed working week arrangements | 3.37 | 0.607 | 8 | 0.270 | |
Interpersonal relationship related measures | 0.701 | |||||
IM25 | Ensure swift conflict resolution | 3.40 | 0.586 | 6 | 0.089 | |
IM26 | Supporting improved relationships at work | 3.34 | 0.477 | 11 | 0.029 | |
IM27 | Put in place measures that increase cooperation between colleagues | 3.31 | 0.561 | 16 | 0.031 | |
Job demand and satisfaction focused measures | 0.769 | |||||
IM28 | Allow the taking of regular breaks to enable rest | 3.37 | 0.633 | 9 | 0.470 | |
IM29 | Better planning of work tasks and shifts | 3.56 | 0.562 | 2 | 0.914 | |
IM30 | Hire more personnel to reduce the workload | 2.89 | 0.851 | 31 | 0.658 | |
IM31 | Conduct employee satisfaction surveys | 3.03 | 0.746 | 24 | 0.029 |
Note: SD = standard deviation; bold values are significant at p-value ; and IM = intervention measure.
Measures | Kruskal-Wallis test | Countries | Pairwise comparison | Significance level | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US | HK | SA | SG | ||||
IM16 | 0.019 | 43.05 | 25.17 | 34.08 | 27.07 | HK-US | 0.023 |
IM26 | 0.029 | 29.61 | 29.16 | 43.55 | 27.64 | SA-US | 0.046 |
IM08 | 0.027 | 35.59 | 22.06 | 34.24 | 36.71 | HK-SG | 0.048 |
IM27 | 0.031 | 38.09 | 23.06 | 35.97 | 31.11 | HK-SA | 0.040 |
IM07 | 0.000 | 34.91 | 17.28 | 36.95 | 39.71 | HK-US | 0.032 |
IM10 | 0.027 | 39.23 | 22.33 | 35.82 | 31.36 | HK-US | 0.047 |
IM31 | 0.029 | 37.18 | 22.33 | 36.00 | 32.71 | HK-SA | 0.043 |
IM13 | 0.023 | 40.23 | 22.53 | 30.97 | 36.89 | HK-US | 0.035 |
Note: IM = intervention measure; US = United States of America; SA = South Africa; SG = Singapore; and HK = Hong Kong.
Structural Equation Modeling
Evaluation of the Model Measurements
Variable | Construct code | Item code | Loading | Cronbach’s alpha | Composite reliability | Average variance extracted |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Measures | EM-M | IM19 | 0.872 | 0.700 | 0.780 | 0.547 |
IM20 | 0.593 | — | — | — | ||
IM21 | 0.728 | — | — | — | ||
HCIR-M | IM01 | 0.634 | 0.799 | 0.837 | 0.510 | |
IM02 | 0.759 | — | — | — | ||
IM03 | 0.716 | — | — | — | ||
IM04 | 0.614 | — | — | — | ||
IM06 | 0.826 | — | — | — | ||
IR-M | IM26 | 0.800 | 0.633 | 0.842 | 0.727 | |
IM27 | 0.902 | — | — | — | ||
JDS-M | IM28 | 0.932 | 0.775 | 0.855 | 0.665 | |
IM29 | 0.784 | — | — | — | ||
IM30 | 0.715 | — | — | — | ||
JRC-M | IM22 | 0.775 | 0.813 | 0.873 | 0.700 | |
IM23 | 0.963 | — | — | — | ||
IM24 | 0.774 | — | — | — | ||
SC-M | IM11 | 0.774 | 0.863 | 0.893 | 0.627 | |
IM12 | 0.872 | — | — | — | ||
IM13 | 0.774 | — | — | — | ||
IM07 | 0.687 | — | — | — | ||
IM08 | 0.840 | — | — | — | ||
WJ-M | IM15 | 0.751 | 0.816 | 0.855 | 0.599 | |
IM16 | 0.834 | — | — | — | ||
IM17 | 0.868 | — | — | — | ||
IM18 | 0.620 | — | — | — | ||
Stressors | CS11 | 0.648 | 0.816 | 0.855 | 0.599 | |
CS12 | 0.584 | — | — | — | ||
CS14 | 0.531 | — | — | — | ||
CS16 | 0.593 | — | — | — | ||
CS26 | 0.629 | — | — | — | ||
CS27 | 0.626 | — | — | — | ||
CS29 | 0.571 | — | — | — | ||
CS32 | 0.639 | — | — | — | ||
CS33 | 0.598 | — | — | — | ||
CS34 | 0.597 | — | — | — | ||
CS35 | 0.565 | — | — | — | ||
CS36 | 0.623 | — | — | — | ||
CS03 | 0.513 | — | — | — | ||
CS04 | 0.687 | — | — | — | ||
CS05 | 0.573 | — | — | — | ||
CS06 | 0.607 | — | — | — | ||
CS07 | 0.570 | — | — | — | ||
CS08 | 0.520 | — | — | — |
Note: EM-M = employee morale and engagement focused measures; HCIR-M = healthy coping and individual resilience focused measures; IR-M = interpersonal relationship related measures; JDS-M = job demand and satisfaction focused measures; SC-M = stress control focused measures; and WJ-M = workplace (organizational) justice focused measures.
Measures | EM-M | HCIR-M | IR-M | JDS-M | JRC-M | SC-M | Stressors | WJ-M |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EM-M | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
HCIR-M | 0.647 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
IR-M | 0.559 | 0.841 | — | — | — | — | — | |
JDS-M | 0.701 | 0.494 | 0.474 | — | — | — | — | — |
JRC-M | 0.805 | 0.401 | 0.217 | 0.573 | — | — | — | |
SC-M | 0.700 | 0.809 | 0.706 | 0.598 | 0.538 | — | — | — |
Stressors | 0.346 | 0.248 | 0.282 | 0.289 | 0.212 | 0.197 | — | |
WJ-M | 0.965 | 0.583 | 0.460 | 0.375 | 0.778 | 0.563 | 0.266 |
Note: EM-M = employee morale and engagement focused measures; HCIR-M = healthy coping and individual resilience focused measures; IR-M = interpersonal relationship related measures; JDS-M = job demand and satisfaction focused measures; SC-M = stress control focused measures; and WJ-M = workplace (organizational) justice focused measures.
Evaluation of Structural Model
Hypothetical path | Path coefficient | |t-value| | p-value | Level of significance | Hypothesis decision | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H | Relationship | |||||
H1 | EM-M → stressors | 2.666 | 0.004** | Significant | Supported | |
H2 | HCIR-M → stressors | 0.559 | 2.300 | 0.020* | Significant | Not supported |
H3 | IR-M → stressors | 0.347 | 0.880 | Not significant | Not supported | |
H4 | JDS-M → stressors | 3.388 | 0.000** | Significant | Supported | |
H5 | JRC-M → stressors | 0.421 | 0.674 | Not significant | Not supported | |
H6 | SC-M → stressors | 0.294 | 1.279 | 0.578 | Not significant | Not supported |
H7 | WJ-M → stressors | 1.858 | 0.031* | Significant | Supported |
Note: *Significant at p-value ; **significant at p-value ; and H = hypothesis.
Post-Survey Interviews
As one of my organization’s mental health and well-being policies, we created indoor games at the head office held every Thursday by 4 p.m. while Fridays are for workout aerobic dance section. However, most site managers who need it are not always available. It is not enough to have such policies; on-site personnel should be encouraged to join or have the arrangement at the site office (Interviewee #2).
Both IM22 and IM23 need to be adequately planned and subjected to rigorous experimentation, and that is the reason for the lower mean score. In theory, it seems possible; we want it to work like that. However, unlike other construction team members who are seldom on the job site, site engineers or supervisors need to be around for total quality management, so the compressed workweek arrangement is more practical to be adopted than other job redesign measures (Interviewee #4).
Discussion
Construct 1: Stress Control Measures
Construct 2: Healthy Coping and Individual Resilience Focused Measures
Construct 3: Workplace (Organizational) Justice Focused Measures
Construct 4: Job Demand and Satisfaction Focused Measures
Construct 5: Employee Morale and Engagement Focused Measures
Construct 6: Job Redesign and Control Focused Measures
Construct 7: Interpersonal Relationship Related Measures
Limitation of the Study
Conclusions
Appendix. Survey Questionnaire
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
References
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