By Libing Gu, Head of Academic Relations
The rise of automation and ground-breaking technologies, along with globalization and demographic change, has transformed the world of work, leading to a large-scale disruption of the jobs and skills landscape. Upskilling does not include only acquiring relevant knowledge for new types of jobs but also developing transferable skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and above all, a learning mindset to adapt to the changing world of work continually. On the other hand, several personal resources, including work-related attitudes and behaviours, promote proactive response to occupational demands and help maintain our professional wellbeing.
On February 24, in the fifth edition of nexFrontier series, we invited experts from the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives (NCCR LIVES), University of Zurich, University of Lausanne, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and Chinese University of Hong Kong to introduce trends and resources in professional wellbeing and lifelong learning.
To start with, Prof. Alexandra M. Freund, Professor of Psychology, URPP Dynamics of Healthy Aging, University of Zurich, Project Co-Leader of IP7, NCCR LIVES, a set of studies investigating the role of subjective expectations for exhaustion and recovery at work and during leisure. Prof. Freund explained that young adults have more limited energy and older adults have more power based on lay theories of energy. This is also proved by one of her team’s experiments where people of different ages were engaged in a very exhausting workout. Results show that older adults are not more exhausted after strenuous exercise than younger adults, and their recovery is at least equally fast.
Her team then developed a process model of the effect of subjective expectations about exhaustion and recovery. A given activity at work and during leisure triggers expectation on whether it is exhaustion or recovery, which in turn triggers selective attention then determines how much energy people feel that they have already spent, which will lead them unconsciously to a subjective value of the activity. The degree to which people say something is work/leisure determines the degree of exhaustion/recovery and the subjective expectations guide, significantly how much we feel that something is exhausting and recovering.
In another study, Prof. Freund and her team asked 315 working adults how exhausting and recovering a set of activities are during work and leisure. An interesting result is that people expect leisure to be relaxing and work to be exhausting – even for the same activity. For example, if you exercise for work, it’s exhausting but more recovering when you do it for leisure.
Prof. Freund underlined that it is the goal of pursuit that makes the activities work or leisure-related. The following steps of her research will include investigating behavioural consequences (further engagement vs. disengagement from activities) and tracking people in their everyday activities at work and during leisure.
Secondly, Prof. Emily M. David, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), presented her study on help received while working in coworking spaces. Unlike traditional coworkers, coworking space members are not linked to each other and may even work in a different industry. Currently, there is little academic literature on how people interact in these novel spaces. Prof. David started this research in 2019 to understand whether people frequently help each other if being helped differ from small talk interactions in terms of outcome, what benefits of co-work-specific forms of help are and who will benefit from being helped the most.
Employing a daily-diary methodology and applying affective events theory (AET), her team confirmed the propositions that being helped (problem-solving, emotional support, feedback, and network introductions) is invigorating both at the moment and over the week. In addition, aligned with self-verification theory, high self-esteem individuals expect to be liked by others, leading them to interpret help as something they deserve and welcome. However, low self-esteem might view the help as a reflection that they are not competent enough.
The research found that help received positively impacted vigor, and the relationship is stronger in the longer term. Even though everyone benefitted from receiving help, people with high self-esteem had a much stronger positive relationship with vigor than people with low self-esteem. Prof. David suggested that to keep people from leaving; the co-working space owner should encourage people to help each other and create different bonds.
Subsequently, Prof. Koorosh Massoudi, Associate Professor in Life Long Vocational Psychology, University of Lausanne, Project Co-Leader of IP7, NCCR LIVES, focused on his recent research on trends, risks, and resources of contemporary career trajectories. He started the presentation by illustrating the Swiss context based on some contradictory observations: on the one hand, some performance indicators proved that Switzerland has a wealthy economy, resilient labour market with a low rate of unemployment, and a high-performing education system. On the other hand, studies showed that there was a trend towards the deterioration of working conditions (more workload, less opportunity to do quality job or perform meaningful tasks)), an increase of work-related ill-being such as burnouts, stress, or perceived job insecurity as well as a certain level of social inequalities.
For three decades we can observe a destandardization of career course. People can rely less on external landmarks and must strongly accent individual responsibilities and resources. The research project developed by Prof. Massoudi’s team aims to investigate the individual and contextual factors that contribute to career sustainability.
They followed a group of employed and unemployed adults in Switzerland through seven years and identified four different profiles of career progression. The first two are called sustainable careers (part-time and full-time). Women were overrepresented in sustainable part-time career profiles, meaning that they are at risk of underemployment and experience difficulties when trying to reconcile family obligations and tasks at work. The third group, called the “resilient group” is mainly composed of younger adults with a sufficient level of education. Their first steps into the labor market were delicate, but then they were able to get back on track. The last group, called the “vulnerable group” refers to people who have unfavourable career progression with long periods of unemployment. They are mainly older workers with lower education levels. Female was also overrepresented in this profile, with slight personality differences.
There are individual differences in the capacity to make sense of experience and events and the capacity to cope with difficulties and challenges proactively. However, these two resources are not stable traits and are affected by the environment. With a daily-dairy study, Prof. Massoudi’s team asks people through five consecutive workdays at random moments in their work what they are doing and which type of tasks they are performing. Results show that stimulating tasks lead to higher engagement at a daily level, especially for those with higher job autonomy, and that meaningful tasks bring about higher engagement at a daily level, especially for people with higher job variety.
In terms of future challenges, Prof. Massoudi underlined that one of their research focuses will be New Ways of Working (NWW) and how they affect people’s wellbeing and employability. He stressed that actions and measures need to be taken at individual, organizational and structural levels.
Our fourth speaker Prof. Xianmin Gong, Research Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, presented his work in collaboration with Prof. Freund on changes in personal goals across adulthood and discussed the implications for lifelong learning. Prof. Gong underlined that there had been a lot of discussion about how to close the digital divide in the older population. Apart from encouraging and teaching them to use digital devices, increasing the accessibility of the digital services, and the comprehensibility of learning/teaching materials, goal (or motivation) is one of the most critical factors determining success in learning.
Prof. Gong explained that there are three types of personal goals: goals oriented towards gains/growth (e.g., acquisition of knowledge and skills), goals oriented towards maintenance (e.g., maintenance of functions and social networks), and goals oriented towards loss avoidance (e.g., prevention of diseases). Research findings show that younger adults have a stronger goal orientation towards gains and growth, whereas older adults have a stronger orientation towards maintenance and loss avoidance.
In order to investigate the reason why personal goals change from young to late adulthood, Prof Gong and Prof. Freund developed a cognitive evaluation model based on the loss hypothesis, gain hypothesis, and the role of sense of control. In this model, several key evaluation processes determine goal selection, and they can be influenced by factors such as accumulated resources, satisfaction, sense of control, past experiences of gains, and losses. Prof. Gong took the smartphone as an example and gave several general suggestions, including facilitating older adults’ feelings of the want/need for using a smartphone, enhancing the perceived possibility of mastering the new skill, and reducing the risks and threats of losses.
In the Q&A session, topics such as ways to change the narrative around work to make it feel less exhausting, management practices that will facilitate adjustment to new ways of working, and how the research findings could be integrated into the operation of co-working spaces were discussed.
Finally, a great appreciation to our speakers, Prof. Alexandra M. Freund, Prof. Emily M. David, Prof. Koorosh Massoudi, and Prof. Xianmin Gong, for their availability and great insights. We also would like to thank the audience who joined our fifth nexFrontier webinar and participated in the dynamic discussions. Looking forward to meeting you at our next events!