Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Organisational Interventions
Date and time
Location
ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute
376 Avenida das Forças Armadas 1600-077 Lisboa PortugalDescription
Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Organisational Interventions
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Background
In recent years, organizational interventions aimed at improving employee well-being through changing the way work is organized, designed and managed has gained popularity. The implementation and evaluation is such complex intervention is challenging for researchers and practitioners. It has been argued that it is crucial to understand what works for whom in which circumstances in order to inform future interventions (Nielsen, 2017). Such an understanding requires researchers to develop their knowledge on how to plan, implement and evaluate such interventions with a view to documenting the intervention processes and the factors that may explain any improvement in health and well-being.
To advance researchers’ understanding of how to plan, implement and evaluate interventions, frameworks have been developed that employ a phased approach to organizational interventions. It is crucial that to develop our understanding of what works for whom in which circumstances, researchers are aware of how to design, implement and evaluate intervention processes and understand how to fit activities to the organizational context. Furthermore, it is important not only to evaluate the process post-intervention but develop methods and tools that may help change agents within the organization (e.g. occupational health and safety practitioners and line managers) to monitor progress and take corrective action if the process is not on track.
The overarching aims of this workshop are to a) share a recent framework for how to design, implement and evaluate organizational interventions, and b) provide the participants with practical insights into the design, implementation and evaluation of organizational interventions by drawing on participants’ own expertise and experiences.
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Session Description:
The first half of the workshop will focus on presenting a recent framework for planning session will involve the presentation of one recent framework for developing interventions developed by Nielsen, Randall and colleagues (2010). This framework outlines five phases of designing, implementing and evaluating organizational interventions. Participants will then engage in group work discussing important tools and considerations of each phase based on their own experiences. A key part of the discussions will be to develop an understanding of how intervention activities may be integrated into existing organizational practices to ensure intervention fit.
The second half of the workshop will focus on the collection, interpretation and use of process evaluation data during each phase of the framework. Evidence about the utility of different data collection methods will be presented to enable participants to formulate and evaluate specific plans for the process evaluation of interventions. The opportunities and challenges associated with the integration, interpretation and use of these data will be presented. New methods will be introduced to participants that show how process evaluation data can be integrated into intervention decision-making. Participants will then explore how process evaluation data from each stage can be used to enhance intervention implementation and reduce the risk of intervention failure.
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Session Outcomes
When this workshop is complete, participants should be able to:
- List and describe the phases an organizational intervention goes through.
- Have an understanding of key elements in each phase, e.g. what needs to be considered when setting up an intervention.
- Have an understanding of the need to tailor intervention activities to the organizational context and the people within the organization.
4) List and evaluate a number of different methods that can be used to collect process evaluation data.
5) Integrate different sources of information about intervention processes to evaluate the fit of the intervention to stakeholder needs and the organizational contexts.
6) Describe how process evaluation data can be used to enhance intervention-related activities and employee well-being outcomes.
Organised by
Karina Nielsen, Ph.D.
Prof. Nielsen earned her Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from the University of Nottingham, UK. She is currently Chair of Work Psychology and Head of the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research interests include the design, implementation and evaluation of organizational interventions aimed at improving employee health and well-being through changing the way work is organized, designed and managed. Her research has been funded by the Nordic Council of ministers, the National Research Fund for the Working Environment, Denmark, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and the European Commission. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journals. Her publications have appeared several journals, including , , and . She is currently the Chair of the Research Forum of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.
Raymond Randall, Ph.D.
Dr. Randall earned his Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from the University of Nottingham, UK. He is currently a senior lecturer in School of Business and Economics at Loughborough University, UK. His research interests focus on the evaluation of organizational intervention processes and how these impact on the outcomes of change. He has been involved in the design, implementation and evaluation of a range of different interventions across a variety of organizational contexts. His recent work focuses on examining the level ‘fit’ between intervention practices and individual workers’ resources and the organizational context. He has published his research on interventions in journals such as He is co-author of the textbook Work Psychology: Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace and is a registered practicing Occupational Psychologist in the UK.