Enhancing workplace support digitally: evaluating the impact of a job crafting and a wise intervention

Abstract

Building on the well-established link between social support and well-being, this study, published in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation., takes a targeted approach to enhancing workplace support through two distinct interventions. The first intervention, based on job crafting principles, empowers participants to set and implement goals to shape the support they receive at work. The second, a “wise intervention”, prompts individuals to reframe the support they receive. Using a robust randomized controlled design with four measurement points, we evaluated the effectiveness of these interventions compared to a control group. The wise intervention demonstrated significant improvements in perceived social support, particularly for individuals with low self-efficacy, and also enhanced life satisfaction. In contrast, the job crafting intervention did not show significant effects on social support or life satisfaction. Neither of the two intervention significantly reduced exhaustion as initially hypothesized. While our hypotheses were only partially confirmed, the success of the wise intervention underscores the importance of designing interventions that address the unique needs of employees. This nuanced approach offers a more effective strategy for enhancing workplace support, suggesting that a one-size-fits-all model may be insufficient for maximizing the benefits of such programs.