Evaluation of Workshop II

Fig. 6.25 Evaluation of WS I in Sweden

Most positive perceptions were given on the first item regarding the usefulness of WS I, i.e. the questionnaire feedback (T1) and action plans made.

6.3.5 Evaluation of Workshop II

WS II was evaluated in the same manner as WS I in Germany, using the same scale for satisfaction with the workshop but with different predictors, because the WS II had different elements. Additionally we compared the results of the process evaluation for Germany and Sweden.

Participants

The second workshop was evaluated by all participants (both leaders and employ-ees) at the end of the workshop in both countries. Employees and leaders completed partly similar evaluation-questionnaires in both countries and results were compared.

Number of participants was 88 in Germany and 196 in Sweden. We first will report the results for Germany only.

Germany Measures

We used the satisfaction measure as in WS I. Mean was 4.06 (SD .69, n = 84), alpha equaled .91.

We examined four elements of the WS II as predictors for satisfaction:

Utility of action plans. The utility of action plans, which were an essential part of the team workshop, was measured with two items and a 5-point Likert scale (1 = don´t agree at all to 5 = completely agree).

Teamwork. Due to the fact that in this workshop teamwork and its benefits was fo-cused, it is of special interest how the participants perceived the teamwork elements which were applied in the workshop. When these elements were considered to be not helpful at all it would surely influence the satisfaction with the workshop. A four item scale with a 5-point Likert scale (1 = don´t agree at all to 5 = completely agree) was used to gain information about the perception of these particular exercises of the workshop. Cronbachs alpha (.74) was acceptable.

Amount of time. This predictor aims at the subjective perception of the participants if the amount of time which was intended for the workshop was well-balanced. Two items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = don´t agree at all to 5 = completely agree) for either there was too much or too less time scheduled.

Goal attainment. In WS I one exercise was that each team should invent three goals the particular team wanted to work on. Within the evaluation of WS I the participants rated the extent they think these goals were already achieved. These three items were included in our evaluation questionnaire again while naming the specific goals for each team in the items. Participants rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all attained to 5 = completely attained) in which extent they think this goals are achieved at this point.

Results.

After calculating again a hierarchical regression after the inclusion of several control variables Utility of the action plan and the teamwork elements contributed significant-ly to satisfaction with the workshop.

Comparing Germany and Sweden

Measures

This time we asked employees to evaluate whether the goals decided as part of mak-ing the action plans at WS I had been implemented as planned durmak-ing the period be-tween workshops. Participants rated level of goal attainment on a scale from 1-5.

Employees also evaluated their satisfaction with WS II on a scale from 1 to 5 (“not at all” to “completely”). Three items in this questionnaire were the same in Germany and Sweden evaluating participants’ satisfaction with WS II in terms of content, relevance and implementation. Goal attainment and Satisfaction indexes (the mean of three items) was used for comparing the two countries, correlations and regression anal-yses.

For WS II an observation form developed in Germany for WS I was used in both countries. It was completed during the workshop by trainers in Sweden and by a stu-dent researcher in Germany. The observation form covered different conditions dur-ing the workshop such as team climate, disturbances, and time pressure, which might have an influence on the outcome. A general conclusion was that there seemed to be more variation concerning the conditions in the German workshops due to e.g. more time pressure and difficulties to leave work. In Sweden conditions were more similar in the different teams. Nearly all teams in Sweden could allocate three hours to the workshop and disturbances or time pressure was fairly unusual.

Results

Figure 6.26 shows results comparing Germany and Sweden on the two indices aim-ing to measure Goal attainment and Satisfaction with WS II. The table also shows mean size of teams in the two countries, and finally mean values of a three item measure of team climate based on the observations made during WS II.

Fig. 6.26 Evaluations made by employees and leaders at WS2, Comparing Ger-many and Sweden

Results showed that the level of Goal attainment, referring to goals in action plans made at WS I, did not differ significantly between Germany and Sweden. The Ger-man participants appeared to be more positive about WS II. Team size was signifi-cantly larger in Sweden with 14 as mean level (compared to 9 in Germany) and the variation in team size was also greater compared to Germany. Finally, the team cli-mate observed during WS II was slightly more positive in Sweden. Correlations be-tween these indicators showed that Satisfaction with WS II had a significant associa-tion with perceived goal attainment. Generally, the smaller teams appeared to be more satisfied with WS II.

Variables of the evaluation as predictors of perception of health promoting leadership Finally, multilevel analyses were used to test whether the evaluations of Goal attain-ment and Satisfaction with WS II had any relationship to employees’ responses at T2 as measured in the questionnaire. The aim was to investigate whether group level indicators from the evaluation of the intervention seemed to affect individual percep-tions of their leaders in terms of health promoting leadership behavior. The depend-ent variable was employees’ perceptions of health promoting leadership measured by questionnaires at T2. Level 1 variables (individual level) entered were: working conditions (role clarity, work load and team climate). Individual control variables were age and level of education. On the group level we entered, Goal attainment

Satisfac-tion with workshop 2 and Number of subordinates of leader (Team size). Results are shown in table 6.35.

Tab. 6.35 Perceived health promoting leadership predicted by evaluations of Goal attainment, Satisfaction with WS II and Team size.

Dependent variable:

Health Promoting Lead-ership

Coefficient SE

Intercept 3.91*** .07

Team-level

Goal attainment -.80 .09

Satisfaction .13 .11

Team size -.01* .01

Individual Level

Work load -.21** .07

Role clarity .34*** .06

Education level .11** .04

Results in table 6.35 show that the individual level perceptions of work load and role clarity had significant effects on how employees perceived their leader’s degree of health promoting behavior. However, none of these evaluation measures seemed to be critical. The only significant effect from the group level was number of subordi-nates of the leader (Team size) which indicated that the larger groups generally had lower perceptions of health promoting leadership. ICC was .25. Results were similar when we tested transformational leadership as the outcome variable. We also tested health related outcomes such as work engagement and job exhaustion. Similar re-sults occurred for work engagement where the working conditions had significant ef-fects on the individual level. For job exhaustion however, ICC was non-significant indicating that the group level effects did not explain variation.

6.3.6 Comparing the most satisfied teams to the least satisfied teams