Leading Well-being and the Psychosocial Working Environment - A Cluster-randomized Waitlist Controlled Trial

The design comprises a two-armed cluster, randomized waitlist controlled design. The goal of the study is to prevent stress and burnout in middle managers and employees in a hospital setting. The study population is middle managers in a hospital setting. These managers are randomized by unit and stratified on number of managers enrolled from each unit to obtain equal numbers in each arm. The intervention comprises five training modules with practice in small groups in between. Training will take place over 5 months. The training will be received in groups of 20 middle managers and the training will be facilitated by 2 facilitators. Themes of training are inspired by the concept of Health Oriented Leadership which takes into account that the well-being of middle managers is important for the well-being of employees. Central themes of the training are: 1) Self-care and well-being of the manager and how to cope with stress as a manager. 2) Employee well-being and reducing risk-factors in the psychosocial working environment of employee mental health problems. 3) Enhancing protective factors social social support and a healthy team climate. 4) Responding to employees at risk and how to handle difficult conversations and procedures on return to work. 5) Managing well-being in employees during changes and pressure. In order to establish commitment for the waitlist control group, the control group will receive an offer of a webinar and some written information. Middle managers in both intervention arms will receive a questionnaire at baseline, after the intervention and at 6 months follow-up. The intervention group will also receive a short questionnaire after each training. The following expectations are hypothesized: The training will improve self-care and perceived staff-care in middle managers and in employees in the intervention group when compared to the control group The training will improve psychological outcomes of stress, well-being, exhaustion and psychological symptoms among middle managers and employees in the intervention group when compared to the control group The training will improve the perceived psychosocial working environment (PSWE) among middle managers and employees in the intervention group when compared to the control group The training will reduce sickness absence and retention among middle managers and employees in the intervention group when compared to the control group Middle managers who adhere more to the training will experience larger improvements in self-care, staff-care and mental outcomes