Life at the Beach: Research on work roles and occupational health psychology in a coastal tourist destination

Prudence M Millear

The Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia is world famous for it's beautiful beaches, lush sub-tropical climate, and laid-back lifestyle. Regardless of the delightful location, the usual responsibilities of the working adult remain - to find interesting and challenging employment with sufficient income to support this lifestyle and provide a future for one's family. The employment market is more fragmented than in Australian cities, with only a few very large employers in the region (e.g., the university, a new teaching hospital). In contrast, more people work in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which operate in the building, service, and tourism industries and new migrants to the area often buy or start their own business to provide an income for themselves and their families. Drawing on a wide range of occupational health psychology (OHP) research (e.g., JD-R, illegitimate tasks, psychosocial safety climate (PSC)), this symposium will showcase research based on the Sunshine Coast. Paper 1 examined the barriers to employment, finding that lack of education and previous unemployment, in addition to young children and ill-health can limit how successful individuals' feel about their careers, lessening the benefits of having self-efficacy and being adaptable in one's approach to developing a career. Paper 2 explored the part-time work of university students and found that younger employees were no more narcissistic than older employees and they benefited from the same types of job conditions (e.g., more skill discretion) valued by full-time employees. In Paper 3, the experiences of people who are working in SMEs were explored, finding that senior management and owners perceived greater PSC and fewer illegitimate tasks than lower tiers of employees, although for all involved, illegitimate tasks, over and above PSC, job demands, and personal and job resources made employees more cynical and exhausted and reduced their job satisfaction and work engagement. Paper 4 examined entrepreneurs running SMEs, to understand how entrepreneurial demands and resources influenced their feelings of financial and social success, findings that greater demands (e.g., difficult clients) increased strain and reduced success, whilst their resources increased work engagement. Finally, Paper 5 considered employee behaviours in communal workplace kitchens as additional sources and markers of social support, focusing on how work colleagues interact in their kitchen environments (e.g., keeping it tidy, welcoming new employees). Exploratory factor analysis found four factors ('Collegiality', 'Messy kitchen', 'Someone else's problem', and 'Participation'). First, 'Collegiality' and 'Someone else's problem' significantly predicted job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and second, with the usual measures of a positive workplace, collegiality, internal work locus of control, positive workplace climate and job social support then predicted these outcomes. These diverse studies showcase OHP research from the perspective of regional Australia and the issues of working in and running business here. The findings highlight the similarities of the constituents of good working conditions to larger workplaces and in different cultures. Life at the beach may be relaxed but working conditions can still be improved by sufficient resources and fewer demands to maintain positive work outcomes for employers and employees alike.

Life at the Beach: Research on work roles and occupational health psychology in a coastal tourist destination

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Details

Metrics