Returning employees back to work: developing a measure for Supervisors to Support Return to Work (SSRW)

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health Psychology
• Organizational Behavior
• Human Resources Management

Background:

• Supervisor behaviors significantly impact employee health and well-being.
• Limited research exists on specific supervisor behaviors for managing employees returning from long-term sick leave.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a behavior measure for Supervisors to Support Return to Work (SSRW).
• To provide a tool for assessing supervisor support during employee return-to-work transitions.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative data collected from UK organizational stakeholders, line managers, and employees (N=142, 20, 26).
• Development of a 42-item questionnaire.
• Validation using larger samples of line managers (N=186) and employees (N=359).

Main Results:

• A four-scale measure, SSRW, was developed based on factor structure and reliability.
• The SSRW measure demonstrated good internal reliability, construct, and concurrent validity.
• Longitudinal analyses confirmed test-retest reliability and predictive validity.

Conclusions:

• The SSRW measure is a valuable tool for research and organizational settings.
• It can be used to evaluate supervisor support during and after employee return-to-work periods.