Organizational environment and professional well-being: mapping the worklife landscape in the construction industry

Abstract

To keep a healthy and energetic workforce in the construction industry is not only economical but also socially sustainable. This paper explores issues of occupational health of construction professionals through building a sustainable organizational worklife by effective management of job stress. Using Leiter and Maslach's (2004) theoretical model of worklife and their relationship with employees' well-being this study made a holistic evaluation of job-person match and staff well-being in a Dutch construction company. The person-job fit is measured with six dimensions: workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values. Staff well-being is indicated by levels of burnout, which is measured in three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy. Respondents from different departments showed diverse patterns of burnout. Of the six areas of worklife, workload and reward are found to be predictors of exhaustion, community and values are predictors of cynicism, and community is predictor of inefficacy. The result is compared with previous studies and discussed in terms of cultural context and social sustainability.