Bosses take note: employees exposed to difficult or unjust
circumstances may not only become sullen and unproductive workers: they
may get physically sick, as well.
A two-year survey of more than 7,000 workers at 10 Finnish
hospitals rated "justice" in the workplace—evaluating factors such as
workload, social support networks, and relations between supervisors and
subordinates. The researchers, whose study appears in The Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, then measured workers' health
with the number of sick days they logged, as well as a self-evaluation.
All sick days were doctor-certified and included days off for
psychological illness.
Mika Kivimaki, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Helsinki,
found that workplaces rated as having "low justice"—such as those where
supervisors didn't consider workers' viewpoints or had poorly designed
performance reviews—were correlated with a 41 percent higher risk of
absence due to illness for men, and a 12 percent higher risk for women.
Men in the study had higher incomes, and Kivimaki says that high level
workers seemed more affected by workplace injustice, but the researchers
don't know why this might be the case.
Although plenty of research has linked stress to poor health, there
is no comparable study on workplace justice. However, studies about
bullying and psychological violence in corporate culture prove that the
phenomenon exists in the U.S., says Steve M. Jex, Ph.D., an associate
professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Such
situations may be on the rise due to the stagnant economic
climate.
"Organizations are getting more harsh, what with layoffs and people
being escorted off the premises" after they've been let go, says Jex,
noting that studies like Kivimaki's can be useful in a culture where most
workers stifle complaints and put up with whatever the boss dishes
out.
