Acronym: EU-CoWork
Title: Developing Compassionate Workplaces in Europe for the digital and green work environment to protect employees’ mental and physical health and wellbeing
Call: HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02
Evidence-based interventions for promotion of mental and physical health in changing working environments (post-pandemic workplaces)
EU nr: 101137223
Period: 60 months: 1/01/2024-31/12/2028
Budget : 3,871,498,75; VUB : €1,463,500.00
Contact:
Prof. Joachim Cohen (VUB) co-chairs the EAPC Reference Group on Public Health and Palliative Care and leads the public health palliative care research line of the End-of-Life Care Research Group (VUB-UGent)
Dr. Steven Vanderstichelen (VUB) is postdoctoral researcher and research coordinator of the Compassionate Communities Centre of Expertise (COCO) at VUB.
Prof. Deborah De Moortel (VUB) is professor and postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
At ERIS we got the chance to talk to Joachim, Steven and Deborah and ask them 2 questions: What is the EU-CoWork project about? and Why is EU-CoWork important for VUB?
What is the EU-CoWork project? What inspired the EU-CoWork project?
More than 100.000 Belgians die every year, and this affects millions of others close to them. The work force is not spared from these natural life events. Employees can lose loved ones, and their work and/or career is greatly influenced, due to, for instance, concentration difficulties and even physical health problems related to the grief. Research shows that 1 in 4 employees do not return to the previous job, when losing a partner. Grieving employees are, on average, 5 months absent from work. Being professionally supported can significantly reduce absenteeism. Moreover, many employees also take care of loved ones who are seriously ill or dying. These workers’ health is vulnerable to stress-related diseases, because of the double burden of working and caring. Co-workers and supervisors often don’t know how to react and sometimes don’t react in order not to upset anyone, this leads to social isolation and unnecessary suffering. With EU-CoWork we want to eliminate the taboo surrounding serious illness, death and dying at the work floor and protect these workers’ health during vulnerable life events.
How do we need to see twin transitions in relation to end of life (EoL) experiences?
Digitalization (e.g., telework and ICT mobile work) can improve the situation of employees confronted with EoL experiences. Think about improvements in work-life balance, helping employees juggle care and work responsibilities, improving autonomy regarding working time, leading to higher productivity, increasing motivation, reducing absenteeism, turnover, and commuting time.
However, telework and especially digital management tools (such as performance monitoring and digital HR management) can also endanger social connection and support networks which are indispensable for employees with EoL experiences, and can cause work intensification, greater ergonomic risks, and poor relationships with supervisors, which can exacerbate impacts from EoL experiences on health and wellbeing.
On the other hand, workplaces in the green industry are often very remote, attracting labour migrants with no network in the community in which they work. Again, this transition can impede social network building, leading to vulnerable health when confronted with EoL experiences.
So what is the relationship with mental and physical health and well-being?
The mental and physical health of employees with EoL experiences and that of their colleagues is directly influenced by the EoL experience, causing worrying, sadness, grief, etc. Stress and exhaustion from EoL experiences can also increase risk for accidents and injury at work. Yet, workplaces might exacerbate these outcomes by inadequately responding to the reduced (coping) resources of the individuals and the group. Or they could protect their workforce’s health by enhancing their coping resources. One of the preventive tools to counter-balance negative health effects for employees with EoL experiences is a compassionate work culture.
What is a compassionate work culture?
A healthier workplace needs to find space for a compassionate work culture, next to a culture of productivity. It emphasizes the human behind the employee and helps employees to cope with difficult life experiences in the context of changing occupational challenges. The compassionate workplace is a work environment that develops deliberate policy and actions to support employees and coworkers with experiences of serious illness, caregiving, dying and loss; a work environment in which members collectively notice, feel, and respond to the suffering and pain of other employees. Compassionate responses can be changes in job content (reducing task complexity), employment conditions (allowing working time flexibility), work organisation (leadership style and culture), etc.
WHY IS EU-COWORK IMPORTANT FOR VUB?
The project idea emerged from our collaboration in the Compassionate Communities Centre of Expertise (COCO) at VUB. This interdisciplinary research program brings together various VUB research groups, across different faculties. The common interest and ambition is to develop knowledge and know-how on how to build compassionate environments in the places of daily living such as cities, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.
In this respect it is also important to mention the Compassionate VUB project, in which COCO is one of the important drivers together with the Rector’s office, the HR department (M&O), student counceling services, and many other services and organisations at the VUB.
So, with the CoWork project VUB will be able to further emphasize its leading role in mainland Europe regarding Compassionate Community development.
AIM (WHAT)
EU-CoWork has a 2-fold aim:
1) to explore and understand the influence of changing workplace organization due to the twin transitions on well being, performance, job quality, and work culture for employees confronted with serious illness, family caregiving, death, dying and loss (EoL experiences) and their colleagues; and
2) to develop and evaluate tailored Compassionate Workplaces Programs (CWPs) as health promotion strategies to maintain and support employee health and wellbeing in the work environment, across different national and labour contexts in Europe.
METHODOLOGY (HOW)
The core of this project is a 4-country cross-national mixed-methods intervention study with an embedded process and impact evaluation. The project consists of 2 separate studies that feed into each other:
a) an international co-creative and developmental evaluation of tailored CWPs, and
b) an international mixed methods process and impact evaluation combining a timed series of quantitative cross-sectional panel surveys, qualitative interviews and fieldwork, and policy document analysis.
Tailored CWPs will be developed in 12 European workplaces. EU-CoWork will provide findings about workplace compassion and mental and physical health and wellbeing of European employees in several working sectors, and the relationship between workplace characteristics and compassion at work and the health and wellbeing of employees confronted (directly or indirectly) with EoL experiences. The project will collect data about the relationship between employees’ EoL experiences, the company’s responses to these experiences and company and employee performance, and about the variability in workplace policies in Europe that address such risk factors.
IMPACT (WHY)
EU-CoWork will thereby offer insights and building blocks needed to create work environments that ensure adequate support and policy and that are tailored to counter-balance experiences that may otherwise exacerbate the risk for adverse mental health and wellbeing outcomes for employees.