Takumi Iwaasa

Elements of Workforce Diversity in Japanese Nursing Workplace

Movement of diversity management (DM) is gradually spreading in Japanese hospitals. However little has been discussed about the effectiveness of DM in organizational ergonomics domains. Hence, this case report aimed to extract the elements of workforce diversities in Japanese nursing workplace. We conducted a semi-structured interview to four nurses with enough career to response the interview. Three were administrative nurses (male = 1, female = 2) and one was non-administrative nurse (male = 1). As the results, twelve elements of diversities with narrative evidences were extracted; (1) Seniority, (2) Career, (3) Age, (4) Gender, (5) Nationality, (6) Role orientation, (7) Employment pattern, (8) License, (9) Personality, (10) Disability, (11) Family, (12) Benefit package. According to their interviews, their workplace has been received the diversities of seniority, career, age, gender, employment pattern, disability, family and benefit package. On the other hand, they regarded the acceptance of license, personality, nationality and role orientation diversities as future issue. These diversity elements may be key points for the practical DM in Japanese nursing organization.

A Study of the Current Status of Diversity Faultlines in Japanese Work Organizations

Managing people from different backgrounds has brought great benefits to work organizations. However, previous research has shown that diversity may have negative effects on performance because of diversity “faultlines”, hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups. We conducted an empirical study on faultlines for the first time in Japan to investigate the present status of faultlines and to assess the degree to which workers perceive that (certain) attributes (e.g. nationality, ethnicity, age, personality, attitude) may have an impact on the emergence of faultlines in Japanese work organizations. It has been shown that task-related attributes such as specialty and ability/knowledge are great factors affecting faultlines, and that every participant perceives faultlines based on such attributes as specialty, personality, and attitude.

Retention Management of Nurses: A Case of University Hospital in Japan

Retention management is a human resource strategy designed to improve job satisfaction and to reduce voluntary employee turnover by PDCA cycle of benefit programs and work-life balance. This study aimed to ascertain job satisfaction and intention to continue working among nurses, and to determine how their job satisfaction relate to the intention to continue working as nurses. As research methods, a paper-based survey was conducted at a university hospital located in the metropolitan area. The survey consisted of a face sheet and questions to assess the degree of respondents’ job satisfaction and intention to continue working as nurse. It was distributed to 692 registered nurses employed on a permanent basis at a university hospital. As results, valid responses were obtained from 661 nurses (620 females and 41 males) with a mean age of 29.9 years (SD = 8.0) (valid response rate: 95.5%). A high rate of job satisfaction was identified with items such as communication with colleagues, a sense of pride in being a nurse, enjoyment from contact with patients, instructions from superiors, the frequency of nightshifts, working with superiors and colleagues who can be respected, one’s salary and the workplace climate. However, a low rate of job satisfaction was identified with factors such as trust from doctors, their own vital role, appropriate number of nursing staff, the clinical ladder, work outside of nursing duties, break rooms and hospital facilities, break times, and the amount of overtime. Looking at the degree of the intention to continue working, the highest rate was seen in those with more than 5 years’ experience, and the lowest rate was those with 1 year or more to less than 3 years’ experience. As a consideration, the result of the analyses indicated that such satisfactory factors as a sense of pride in being a nurse and recognition as a nurse contributed to increase the pleasure of nursing practice and the intention of working. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully consider “recognition” as a key factor that influence retention management of nurses.

Current Status of Exercise Habits and Job Satisfaction of Nurses in Japan

Nurses’ duties have become more diversified and increasingly complex with Japan’s ultra-aging population and advancements in medical technology. Additionally, the long working hours, the enormous workload, the chronic shortage of human resources, and night shifts place a huge physical burden on nursing staff. These factors have contributed to a job turnover rate of around 11% for nurses in Japan. The rate has been around the same for the last decade. In a bid to retain highly skilled and talented employees for the long-term and to enable them to demonstrate and build on their skills, there is a need to improve job satisfaction. This study aimed to ascertain the exercise habits of nursing staff and determine how their exercise habits relate to their overall job satisfaction.

Relationship Between Acceptance of Workforce Diversity and Mental Health Condition Among Japanese Nurses

Diversity management has been expected not only to progress productive nursing service, but also to promote well-being among Japanese nurses. However, Japanese conventional studies have not shown enough statistical evidences. Hence, this study examined the relationship between perception of workforce diversity and mental health condition among Japanese nurses. Through the internet research, we collected a total of 1,031 valid data (male = 217, female = 814). This study constructed eighteen original items to assess the acceptance levels of diversity elements; seniority, managerial position, clinical experience, employment history, academic background, generation, gender, nationality, role orientation, employment pattern, license, personality, health condition, family situation, work and life priorities, hometown, nursing ability and work motivation. Each diversity element was evaluated by four acceptance levels; (1) refusing diversity (Resistance), (2) ignoring diversity (Assimilation), (3) valuing diversity (Separation) and (4) utilizing diversity (Integration). Mental health condition was assessed by the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12, high-stress ≧ 6 point). As the results of a logistic regression analysis, higher acceptance of the managerial position, personality and work and life priorities were negatively related with high-stress. Higher acceptance of the employment pattern and work motivation were positively related with high-stress. These results indicated that diversity management was one of the effective approaches to improve mental health condition among Japanese working nurses.

The Way to Use the Guidelines for Supporting Resilience Enhancement: From Verifying Effectiveness Using Before-After Comparison Test Design of Two Fitness Centers

The purpose of this study was to verifying effectiveness of the guidelines for supporting resilience enhancement. Moreover, we aimed to discuss the effective way to use the guidelines based statistical data. The two fitness centers of the Metropolitan area joined this research in Japan. The fitness clubs approached to enhance resilience using the guidelines for a month or three months. The samples were 18 employees (Center A: 10, Center B: 8) completing the before-and-after evaluation using a questionnaire about resilience. The effect size (r) of result for paired t-test was pointed as the evaluate index for effectiveness of the activities to enhance resilience with the guidelines. As the result, center A’s resilience increased (r = 0.15 − 0.64), center B’s resilience decreased (r = 0.23 − 0.80). The organizational improvement activities including the improvement organizational process and interaction cause more effective resilience enhancement rather than the activities aiming to individual ability development to strengthen individual weakness.

A Study of Satisfiers and Dissatisfiers for Japanese Students in Extracurricular Activities

In Japan, several study have shown that satisfaction with extracurricular activities for junior and high school students influences satisfaction with their school life. However, there are some possibilities in satisfaction factors between junior and high school students. We conducted a study to clarity the differences in satisfaction factors (satisfiers) and dissatisfaction factors (dissatisfiers) for the students in extracurricular activities. However, there are little theories about their satisfiers and dissatisfiers. Here, we applied Herzberg’s “Motivation-Hygiene theory” to our specific area of extracurricular activities. It has been shown that bad “supervision-technical” is likely to cause junior high school students’ dissatisfaction, whereas not so for high school students.

Association Between Job Insecurity and Perceived Job Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction: A Comparison of Japanese and Korean Regular Office Workers

This study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction, and life satisfaction. We compared two groups of Korean workers (N = 400) and Japanese workers (N = 805). The survey was conducted by an on-line research institute registered monitor that sent questionnaire to workers. As a result, Job insecurity differ significantly by income in Japan, and it differ significantly by length of service in Korea. Multiple regression analyses find that job insecurity relates to job satisfaction in Japan meanwhile life satisfaction relates to job insecurity in both country Japan and Korea. Given these results and trends towards increasing frequency of insecure jobs, attention needs to be paid to the work well-being of job insecurity.

Relationship Between Diversity Faultlines and Turnover Intentions of Nurses in Japan

The importance of promoting diversity in the nursing workforce is broadly acknowledged. Diversity in the nursing workforce is considered to be an essential element of success in the team medical-care and provides opportunities to deliver quality care which promotes patient satisfaction. Recently, diversity “diversity faultlines” has received worldwide attention. Lau and Murnighan [1] proposed the term diversity faultlines refer to hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more attributes. In the present study, we have demonstrated that the current status of faultlines in nurse organization and the relationship between faultlines and turnover intentions among Japanese nurses. This study was carried out in the university hospital in Japan. Through the informed consent procedure, questionnaires were distributed to 692 nurses and responses from 633 female nurses and 42 male nurses were analyzed. The results revealed that nurses in Japan perceived faultlines just like workers did. The fact suggests that it is needed to pay attention to reduce probability of faultlines formation for the success in diversity and retention management of nursing organization.