Older workers & psychological contracts: A dynamic perspective. This project aims to track the trajectories of older workers’ psychological contracts that shape their give-and-take with the organisation. Little is understood about how these psychological contracts change as older workers continue to pursue work through their fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth decades of life. This project tracks older workers over intensive, repeated in-depth interviews and a large-scale longitudinal panel study. ....Older workers & psychological contracts: A dynamic perspective. This project aims to track the trajectories of older workers’ psychological contracts that shape their give-and-take with the organisation. Little is understood about how these psychological contracts change as older workers continue to pursue work through their fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth decades of life. This project tracks older workers over intensive, repeated in-depth interviews and a large-scale longitudinal panel study. The outcomes fill significant gaps in our understanding of older workers’ needs and orientation toward work, and identify the age-related changes and organisational practices that spur older workers to sustain a strong trajectory of productive participation in the workforce.Read moreRead less
How leaders integrate safety goals for employees to build adaptive safety capabilities in organisations. How can organisations maintain high levels of safety while adapting to constant technological, social, and economic change? This project will investigate how leaders align complex individual goals to develop adaptive safety capability: the capacity of organisations to successfully modify safety systems in the midst of change.
Advancing occupational stress research: a comprehensive trial of the Healthy Workplaces program. The project will provide a comprehensive controlled trial of an innovative stress management intervention focusing on leadership development, in one police service. Pilot results indicated significant improvements in both leader and subordinate’s health and job performance and produced economic savings.
To use or not to use financial incentives for motivation and performance. For decades, compensation experts have advocated for the use of financial incentives to motivate work performance, yet organisations keep encountering performance issues caused by these incentives. Using agency, expectancy, and self-determination theory to inform a meta-analysis and a series of experiments, this research will help uncover the most important motivational mechanisms that explain how financial incentives infl ....To use or not to use financial incentives for motivation and performance. For decades, compensation experts have advocated for the use of financial incentives to motivate work performance, yet organisations keep encountering performance issues caused by these incentives. Using agency, expectancy, and self-determination theory to inform a meta-analysis and a series of experiments, this research will help uncover the most important motivational mechanisms that explain how financial incentives influence different types of performance. Given that compensation accounts for an important proportion of an organisation's operating expenses and that employee engagement is on the decline around the world, this research will provide a strong empirical basis to develop more effective compensation systems.Read moreRead less
A mental model of remaining lifetime: motivating late-career adjustment and productivity. Motivating late-career workers to maintain employability and peak performance while simultaneously planning their transition to retirement has growing significance in the face of global workforce aging. This longitudinal research seeks to explain late-career motivation using an innovative theoretical framework that captures individuals’ future selves and their subjective life expectancy within a personal me ....A mental model of remaining lifetime: motivating late-career adjustment and productivity. Motivating late-career workers to maintain employability and peak performance while simultaneously planning their transition to retirement has growing significance in the face of global workforce aging. This longitudinal research seeks to explain late-career motivation using an innovative theoretical framework that captures individuals’ future selves and their subjective life expectancy within a personal mental model of remaining lifetime. The projects main focus is on Australia’s burgeoning cohort of older workers, but the framework is also assessed for its generalisability to couples’ decision-making and to the unique late-career context of elite athletes. Outcomes will promote adjustment during the late-career and retirement transition periods. Read moreRead less
Managing key professional transitions in the health sector. This project will examine how health professionals make effective transitions into their roles, and balance the tensions between maximising patient outcomes and managing efficiencies and budgets. Quality healthcare is an important issue for all Australians and the project contributes to improving outcomes for healthcare employees and their patients.
Wise proactivity: making the right things happen in the right way. Little is known about how organisations can motivate their staff to make things happen and at the same time prevent misguided and ineffective proactivity. This project focuses on the concept of wise proactivity. The aim is to develop managers who balance interests beyond their own to make the right things happen in the right way.
Heart rate variability biofeedback coaching in reducing workplace stress: laboratory and field investigations. Targeted and informed intervention in workplace stress is a vital concept in stress management, yet it is often misinformed. Using mobile heart rate monitors we are able to measure the causes and consequences of stress in a controlled and natural environment and design specific biofeedback interventions to attack primary sources of employee strain.
A multi-level approach to the management of demands and resources to minimise the risk of psychosocial injury in the workplace. This project aims to identify ways supervisors can effectively manage workplace stress experienced by team members. Expected outcomes include better management of workplace stress and reduction in the number of employees suffering from the stress-induced ill-health, thereby reducing workers' compensation claims for stress and lowering costs.
Supervisor strategies for managing employee stress and strain: a national approach to psychosocial risk management. This research aims to identify supervisor strategies for managing occupational stress in their work teams. Expected outcomes include reduction in the number of employees reporting that they are exposed to stress and suffering from the effects of ill-health, thereby reducing workers' compensation claims for stress and lowering associated costs.