Employees' Perceptions of Social Norms as a Result of Implementing the Participatory Approach at Supervisor Level: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.
S M Ketelaar, F G Schaafsma, M F Geldof and 6 others
PMID 27557825WHAT IT FOUND
The supervisor-level participatory strategy produced no measurable improvement in employees' perceived social norms or other employee outcomes.
Sick leave fell in the intervention group, but it did not differ from control.
Key findings
01The primary employee outcome, perceived social norms about joint problem-solving with supervisors, did not improve after the intervention.
02No other employee outcome showed a significant between-group difference over time.
03Sick leave days were 4.6 at baseline and 2.4 at follow-up in the intervention group, and 3.8 and 3.6 in the control group, but the between-group difference was not significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The employee analyses were secondary, and the steel factory was not included, so this paper is not a complete test of the workplace strategy. Only 75 employees in the intervention group and 99 in the control group were analysed, and loss to follow-up was 33% in the intervention group and 27% in the control group. Departments were randomized, but the university was represented only in the intervention group, so the groups may not have been comparable. The primary social norm items were self-formulated and not validated. Sick leave was self-reported and could be underreported because participants knew the study aimed to reduce sick leave. Supervisors recruited employees, which may have introduced selection bias.
Declared interests
Funded by ZonMw.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the drop in sick leave days in the intervention group as evidence the strategy works. The primary outcome was null, and the between-group sick leave difference was not statistically significant.