Analysis: Work ability is about assessing if an employee can meet the physical, mental, social and emotional aspects of their job
By Gemma McCarthy, Donald Truxillo and Deirdre O'Shea, University of Limerick
Many people are struggling at work. A recent report found that job stress in Ireland is on the increase. yet 80% of Irish employers do not have an allocated budget to address worker well-being and mental health. At the same time, the workforce is ageing.
This means that it has never been more important for companies to support workers to prevent early retirement, which can lead to talent loss and increased burdens on retirement systems. In short, keeping people healthy and supporting them throughout their working lives needs to be a priority for employers and policy-makers.
While this is not a simple problem, what if there were a relatively simple way to check employees’ well-being and predict whether they will continue to work? Assessing the concept of work ability in employees may be the answer.
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Developed by the Finnish Institute for Occupational Health, work ability is defined as whether a person can meet, or believes they can meet, the physical, cognitive, and interpersonal requirements of their job. Studied for decades in Finland, the work ability concept is gaining traction elsewhere. Work ability offers a simple but valuable way to understand whether people are staying well and able to keep working.
Why does work ability matter?
Research has consistently found that work ability predicts outcomes that are important for workers, employers and society, such as job satisfaction, stress and work motivation. Remarkably, a person’s work ability today can predict whether they will later quit their job. Some measures of work ability may focus on a person’s health conditions. More recent work ability measures ask employees a few simple questions about whether they think they can meet their job requirements.
How do you measure work ability?
In our own research, recently published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, we have defined work ability as having four separate dimensions: physical, mental, social, and emotional work ability. That is, can a person meet the physical, mental, social, and emotional aspects of their job? We believed it was important to include all four of these, including emotional work ability, because the nature of work is changing from physically to psychologically demanding jobs.
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For example, a 2018 ESRI report found that emotional demands at work were by far the highest cause of job stress. By tracking employees' work ability, managers and organisations will be able to act to support employees when they find that they are having difficulty meeting specific job demands.
To measure these four dimensions, we also developed a survey that asks workers how well they think they can meet these four aspects of their work. We found that each of the four dimensions of work ability contribute differently to well-being, motivation, and intentions to quit. This scale allows employers and policy-makers to understand which specific aspects of work may be posing a challenge for workers. It also allows employers to know how best to change the workplace and support their workforce.
What can employers do to improve employees' work ability?
There are several things employers can do to increase their employees’ work ability. First, employers need to assess how their current workforce is doing in terms of work ability. That is, they should periodically check employees’ work ability using a simple work ability measure such as described here.
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Second, employers can provide support to workers. One analysis of hundreds of studies found that support from supervisors and coworkers is one of the most important factors that improve people’s work ability. This means employers need to create a work environment where employees feel that they are supported by those around them.
Consistent with the importance of a supportive interpersonal environment, this analysis also identified fair treatment at work as a top factor that leads to improved work ability. As most people know, being treated unfairly at work has a negative impact on an employee, but over time, it can actually hurt workers’ ability to meet their work demands.
Another way that managers and organisations can support employees’ work ability is by facilitating flexible work arrangements. This is particularly important for those with caring responsibilities who might not have the option to work fixed hours.
Another way that managers and organisations can support employees' work ability is by facilitating flexible work arrangements
Many aspects of work ability, especially in physically demanding jobs, seem to decrease as people age. To support an ageing workforce, companies should develop policies that support workers across the lifespan and allow people to continue working effectively. The Late Life Workplace Index may be a useful framework that companies can use to measure the age-friendliness of their workplaces and identify best practices (e.g., flexible work time).
In short, monitoring the multiple dimensions of work ability is a useful way to see how employees are able to manage their job demands and which aspect of their work might need to be adjusted.
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Gemma McCarthy is a PhD researcher at the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick. She is an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland scholar. Prof Donald M. Truxillo is a Professor at the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick. Prof Deirdre O'Shea is a Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology at the Kemmy Business School at the University of Limerick. She is a former Irish Research Council awardee.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
