Safety Representatives’ Job Crafting in Organizational Interventions: Driver, Counselor, Watchdog, or Abstainer

Abstract

The Nordic model and organizational research highlight the benefits of employee participation and collaboration between management and employees. Using job crafting theory, this paper studied the roles safety representatives craft for themselves in organizational interventions, the mental models that impact the roles they craft, and the possible consequences these roles have for intervention implementation. The research used a case study design to interview 15 safety representatives of 15 different departments at a university in Norway regarding their role in an organizational intervention. The thematic analysis identified five roles the safety representatives crafted for themselves: 1) Watchdogs safeguarding the work environment, 2) Watchdogs safeguarding the line managers’ implementation, 3) Counsellors to the line manager on how to implement the intervention activities, 4) Drivers who themselves implement the intervention activities, and 5) Abstainers who let the intervention occur without their involvement. The safety representatives’ mental models of their line manager, the work environment, their colleagues, and the intervention itself appeared to affect the roles they crafted. Finally, the different roles safety representatives crafted for themselves seemed to influence the intervention implementation.