New publication on Total Worker Health® leadership intervention by Dr. Leslie Hammer and team

We congratulate Dr. Leslie Hammer, Co-Director of the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, and team for their recent publication in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (JOHP). The paper, titled Effects of a Total Worker Health®Leadership Intervention on Employee Well-Being and Functional Impairment, was published late in 2021 in JOHP, a publication of the American Psychological Association. Other paper authors include Jacquelyn Brady, Rebecca Brossoit, Cynthia Mohr, Todd Bodner, Tori Crain and Krista Brockwood.

In recent years, Hammer and other researchers have demonstrated that supervisor support training interventions positively promote employee job, health and well-being outcomes. However, there hasn’t always been full understanding of the mechanisms by which these interventions operate: that is, what makes them effective? Also not well understood is how these organizational-level interventions integrate with interventions on an individual level. This study attempts to better define or “unpack” mechanisms through which supervisor support training works. In this study, an integrated Total Worker Health (TWH) intervention included both supervisor support training together with individual positive sleep behavior feedback.

With growing reports of psychological distress among the general population during the pandemic, our focus on employee well-being has never been so important. Dr. Hammer and team share in their publication and other work, that employee well-being should be a primary focus in mainstream management scholarship and practice. This study goes beyond that published previously on the supervisor support training framework as well as increasing the understanding of successful organizational/individual integrated efforts and interventions. This study was based on a rigorous cluster randomized control trail (RCT) design which has been lacking in some of the prior related research, and provides better evidence to move research to practice.