Reducing Work-Related Stress Through Soft-Skills Training Intervention in the Mining Industry

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to verify if soft-skills training is an effective intervention in reducing work-related stress among miners, that is, people who run the risk of losing health and/or life due to unpredictable natural forces or human error at work.

BACKGROUND

The motivation for the intervention was based on Job Demands-Resources model where soft skills are job resources that help individuals to cope with or prevent high demands of the environment. The needed skills as well as work demands were first investigated and then a custom training was developed. The rationale for introducing soft-skills training into the work environment can be seen as compatible with the Human Capital Model (HCM) which is designed to stimulate positive organizational behaviour by providing an effective approach to ensure employees' adequate coping with work-related stress.

METHOD

96 volunteer employees were assigned to intervention (n = 48) and comparison (n = 48) groups. 16-hour tailored training covered tasks and simulation games related to communication, teambuilding, self-management and conflict resolution skills. Job Content Questionnaire, Occupational Stress Indicator (modified to fit the mining environment) and General Health Questionnaire were used in the study. A MANOVA with effect-size measures was conducted.

RESULTS

Results revealed a significant increase in decision latitude and social support for the trainees. A substantial decrease in stress was also observed, along with a significant decrease in general health problems. There were no such changes in the comparison group.

CONCLUSIONS

A soft-skills training, including communication, teamwork, self-motivation and conflict-resolution skills, helped participants to cope better with the stressful environment and improved their mental health. These effects lasted three months later.

APPLICATION

The intervention improved miners' psychosocial health and the strategies of coping with stress, which increased safety and health in the company. Investigating the effectiveness of such interventions included in the general Human Capital Model, as it was done in the study, might be a step forward towards building an interdisciplinary approach for health and safety and human resources.

Objective Communication Patterns Associated With Team Member Effectiveness in Real-World Virtual Teams

OBJECTIVE

We explore the relationships between objective communication patterns displayed during virtual team meetings and established, qualitative measures of team member effectiveness.

BACKGROUND

A key component of teamwork is communication. Automated measures of objective communication patterns are becoming more feasible and offer the ability to measure and monitor communication in a scalable, consistent and continuous manner. However, their validity in reflecting meaningful measures of teamwork processes are not well established, especially in real-world settings.

METHOD

We studied real-world virtual student teams working on semester-long projects. We captured virtual team meetings using the Zoom video conferencing platform throughout the semester and periodic surveys comprising peer ratings of team member effectiveness. Leveraging audio transcripts, we examined relationships between objective measures of speaking time, silence gap duration and vocal turn-taking and peer ratings of team member effectiveness.

RESULTS

Speaking time, speaking turn count, degree centrality and (marginally) speaking turn duration, but not silence gap duration, were positively related to individual-level team member effectiveness. Time in dyadic interactions and interaction count, but not interaction length, were positively related to dyad-level team member effectiveness.

CONCLUSION

Our study highlights the relevance of objective measures of speaking time and vocal turn-taking to team member effectiveness in virtual project-based teams, supporting the validity of these objective measures and their use in future research.

APPLICATION

Our approach offers a scalable, easy-to-use method for measuring communication patterns and team member effectiveness in virtual teams and opens the opportunity to study these patterns in a more continuous and dynamic manner.

Towards Ethical AI: Empirically Investigating Dimensions of AI Ethics, Trust Repair, and Performance in Human-AI Teaming

OBJECTIVE

Determining the efficacy of two trust repair strategies (apology and denial) for trust violations of an ethical nature by an autonomous teammate.

BACKGROUND

While ethics in human-AI interaction is extensively studied, little research has investigated how decisions with ethical implications impact trust and performance within human-AI teams and their subsequent repair.

METHOD

Forty teams of two participants and one autonomous teammate completed three team missions within a synthetic task environment. The autonomous teammate made an ethical or unethical action during each mission, followed by an apology or denial. Measures of individual team trust, autonomous teammate trust, human teammate trust, perceived autonomous teammate ethicality, and team performance were taken.

RESULTS

Teams with unethical autonomous teammates had significantly lower trust in the team and trust in the autonomous teammate. Unethical autonomous teammates were also perceived as substantially more unethical. Neither trust repair strategy effectively restored trust after an ethical violation, and autonomous teammate ethicality was not related to the team score, but unethical autonomous teammates did have shorter times.

CONCLUSION

Ethical violations significantly harm trust in the overall team and autonomous teammate but do not negatively impact team score. However, current trust repair strategies like apologies and denials appear ineffective in restoring trust after this type of violation.

APPLICATION

This research highlights the need to develop trust repair strategies specific to human-AI teams and trust violations of an ethical nature.

Exploring Internal Conflicts and Collaboration of a Hospital Home Healthcare Team: A Grounded Theory Approach

An aging society is on the rise, leading to a variety of caregiving issues. The Taiwanese government has been implementing a home healthcare integration plan since 2015, aimed at integrating and forming interdisciplinary care teams with medical institutions. This study explores the internal conflict factors among hospital home healthcare team members at a district teaching hospital in Taichung, Taiwan, and it seeks a better collaboration model between them. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with seven hospital home healthcare team members. Data analysis was based on grounded theory, with research quality relying on the triangulation and consistency analysis methods. The results show that "work overload", "resource overuse", "inconsistent assessment", "limited resources", "communication cost", and "lack of incentives" are the major conflicts among the team. This study proposed the following collaboration model, including "identifying the internal stakeholders of a home healthcare team" and "the key stakeholders as referral coordinators", "patient-centered resource allocation", and "teamwork orientation". The study recommends that within a teamwork-oriented home healthcare team, its members should proactively demonstrate their role responsibilities and actively provide support to one another. Only through patient-centered resource allocation and mutual respect can the goal of seamless home healthcare be achieved. The content of the research and samples were approved by the hospital ethics committee (REC108-18).

Organizing for Mars: A Task Management Perspective on Work within Spaceflight Multiteam Systems

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to examine how task, social, and situational factors shape work patterns, information networks, and performance in spaceflight multiteam systems (MTSs).

BACKGROUND

Human factors research has explored the task and individual characteristics that affect decisions regarding when and in what order people complete tasks. We extend this work to understand how the social and situational factors that arise when working in MTSs affect individual work patterns.

METHODS

We conducted a complex multi-site space analog simulation with NASA over the course of 3 years. The MTS task required participants from four teams (Geology, Robotics, Engineering, and Human Factors) to collaborate to design a well on Mars. We manipulated the one-way communication delay between the crew and mission support: no time lag, 60-second lag, and 180-second lag.

RESULTS

The study revealed that team and situational factors exert strong effects: members whose teams have less similar mental models, those whose teams prioritize their team goal over the MTS goal, and those working in social isolation and/or under communication delay engage longer on tasks. Time-on-task positively predicts MTS information networks, which in turn positively predict MTS performance when communication occurs with a delay, but not when it occurs in real-time.

CONCLUSION

Our findings contribute to research on task management in the context of working in teams and multiteam systems. Team and situational factors, along with task factors, shape task management behavior.

APPLICATION

Social and situational factors are important predictors of task management in team contexts such as spaceflight MTSs.

Insights From the Virtual Team Science: Rapid Deployment During COVID-19

OBJECTIVE

To provide insights for organizations that must rapidly deploy teams to remote work.

BACKGROUND

Modern situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are rapidly accelerating the need for organizations to move employee teams to virtual environments, sometimes with little to no opportunities to prepare for the transition. It is likely that organizations will continually have to adapt to evolving conditions in the future.

METHOD

This review synthesizes the literature from several sources on best practices, lessons learned, and strategies for virtual teams. Information from each article deemed relevant was then extracted and de-identified. Over 64 best practices were independently and blindly coded for relevancy for the swift deployment of virtual teams.

RESULTS

As a result of this review, tips for virtual teams undergoing rapid transition to remote work were developed. These tips are organized at the organization, team, and individual levels. They are further categorized under six overarching themes: norm setting, performance monitoring, leadership, supportive mechanisms, communication, and flexibility.

CONCLUSION

There is a significant deficit in the literature for best practices for virtual teams for the purposes of rapid deployment, leaving it to organizations to subjectively determine what advice to adhere to. This manuscript synthesizes relevant practices and provides insights into effective virtual team rapid deployment.

The Effects of Interdisciplinary Bedside Rounds on Patient Centeredness, Quality of Care, and Team Collaboration: A Systematic Review

BACKGROUND

Research indicates that having multiple healthcare professions and disciplines simultaneously at the patient's bedside improves interprofessional communication and collaboration, coordination of care, and patient-centered shared decision-making. So far, no review has been conducted, which included qualitative studies, explores the feasibility of the method, and looks at differences in definitions.

OBJECTIVES

The aim of the study was to explore available evidence on the effects of interdisciplinary bedside rounds (IBRs) on patient centeredness, quality of care and team collaboration; the feasibility of IBRs; and the differences in definitions.

DATA SOURCES

PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases were systematically searched. The reference lists of included articles and gray literature were also screened. Articles in English, Dutch, and French were included. There were no exclusion criteria for publication age or study design.

STUDY APPRAISAL AND SYNTHESIS METHODS

The included (N = 33) articles were critically reviewed and assessed with the Downs and Black checklist. The selection and summarizing of the articles were performed in a 3-step procedure, in which each step was performed by 2 researchers separately with researcher triangulation afterward.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF KEY FINDINGS

Interdisciplinary bedside round has potentially a positive influence on patient centeredness, quality of care, and team collaboration, but because of a substantial variability in definitions, design, outcomes, reporting, and a low quality of evidence, definitive results stay uncertain. Perceived barriers to use IBR are time constraints, lack of shared goals, varied responsibilities of different providers, hierarchy, and coordination challenges. Future research should primarily focus on conceptualizing IBRs, in specific the involvement of patients, before more empiric, multicentered, and longitudinal research is conducted.

An Interprofessional Team-Based Intervention to Address Barriers to Initiating Palliative Care in Pediatric Oncology: A Multiple-Method Evaluation of Feasibility, Acceptability, and Impact

CONTEXT

Many children with advanced cancer are not referred to palliative care despite both professional recommendations to do so and bereaved parental preference for earlier support from sub-specialty palliative care.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of an adaptive intervention to address individual and team-level barriers to specialty palliative care referrals.

METHODS

A multiple-method approach assessed feasibility and acceptability among clinicians from pediatric oncology teams at a single institution. Quantitative measures of comfort with palliative care consultations, team cohesion, and team collaboration were conducted before and after the intervention. Number of palliative care consults were examined before, during, and after sessions. Intervention satisfaction surveys and qualitative interviews were conducted after the intervention.

RESULTS

Twenty-six team members (90% of consented) attended at least one intervention session with 20 (69%) participants completing 75% or more sessions. The intervention was modified in response to participant feedback. After the intervention, participants reported greater team cohesion, comfort discussing palliative care consultation, team collaboration, process satisfaction, and decision satisfaction. Participants agreed that the training was useful, effective, helpful, and worthwhile, that they would use the skills, and that they would recommend the training to other providers. The numbers of palliative care consults increased before intervention sessions were conducted, but did not significantly change during or after the sessions. In the interviews, participants reported overall favorably regarding the intervention with some participants reporting changes in practice.

CONCLUSION

An adaptive intervention to reduce barriers to initiating palliative care for pediatric oncology teams is feasible and acceptable.

Shared Gaze Fails to Improve Team Visual Monitoring

OBJECTIVE

The aim was to test the value of shared gaze as a way to improve team performance in a visual monitoring task.

BACKGROUND

Teams outperform individuals in monitoring tasks, but fall short of achievable levels. Shared-gaze displays offer a potential method of improving team efficiency. Within a shared-gaze arrangement, operators collaborate on a visual task, and each team member's display includes a cursor to represent the other teammates' point of regard. Past work has suggested that shared gaze allows operators to better communicate and coordinate their attentional scanning in a visual search task. The current experiments sought to replicate and extend earlier findings of inefficient team performance in a visual monitoring task, and asked whether shared gaze would improve team efficiency.

METHOD

Participants performed a visual monitoring task framed as a sonar operation. Displays were matrices of luminance patches varying in intensity. The participants' task was to monitor for occasional critical signals, patches of high luminance. In Experiment 1, pairs of participants performed the task independently, or working as teams. In Experiment 2, teams of two participants performed the task with or without shared-gaze displays.

RESULTS

In Experiment 1, teams detected more critical signals than individuals, but were statistically inefficient; detection rates were lower than predicted by a control model that assumed pairs of operators searching in isolation. In Experiment 2, shared gaze failed to increase target detection rates.

CONCLUSION AND APPLICATION

Operators collaborate inefficiently in visual monitoring tasks, and shared gaze does not improve their performance.

Integrating Fetal Therapy Procedures in an Established Labor and Delivery Service

Treating fetal disease in utero is a specialized aspect of obstetric medicine that continues to develop as new technology and better imaging techniques are introduced. Surgical interventions may improve outcomes in fetal diseases such as fetal anemia, spina bifida, and congenital diaphragmatic hernia; however, the addition of a dedicated fetal treatment center to an established busy labor and delivery unit requires facility resources and support. Fetal medicine and labor and delivery leaders can develop a successful fetal therapy service when they partner with fetal medicine specialists, obstetric providers, anesthesia professionals, nursing staff members, and sterile processing department members. By working together, multidisciplinary team members should be able to provide excellent and cost-effective collaborative care while maintaining patient safety. This article provides an overview of key components that should assist perioperative leaders when developing a successful fetal surgery program.

Evaluation of interprofessional health care team communication simulation in geriatric palliative care

An interprofessional education (IPE) simulation-based geriatric palliative care training was developed to educate health professions students in team communication. In health care, interprofessional communication is critical to team collaboration and patient and family caregiver outcomes. Studies suggest that acquiring skills to work on health care teams and communicate with team members should occur during the early stage of professional education. The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC®) competency-based framework was used to inform the training. An evaluation examined attitudes toward health care teams, self-efficacy in communication skills, interprofessional collaboration, and participant satisfaction with the training experience. One-hundred and eleven participants completed pre- and post-training surveys. Overall, a majority of participants (97.3%) were satisfied with the training and reported more positive attitudes toward health care teams and greater self-efficacy in team communication skills. IPE participants had higher collaboration scores compared to observer learners. Further research is needed to explore long-term effects of IPE in clinical practice.

Near Misses in Financial Trading: Skills for Capturing and Averting Error

OBJECTIVE

The aims of this study were (a) to determine whether near-miss incidents in financial trading contain information on the operator skills and systems that detect and prevent near misses and the patterns and trends revealed by these data and (b) to explore if particular operator skills and systems are found as important for avoiding particular types of error on the trading floor.

BACKGROUND

In this study, we examine a cohort of near-miss incidents collected from a financial trading organization using the Financial Incident Analysis System and report on the nontechnical skills and systems that are used to detect and prevent error in this domain.

METHOD

One thousand near-miss incidents are analyzed using distribution, mean, chi-square, and associative analysis to describe the data; reliability is provided.

RESULTS

Slips/lapses (52%) and human-computer interface problems (21%) often occur alone and are the main contributors to error causation, whereas the prevention of error is largely a result of teamwork (65%) and situation awareness (46%) skills. No matter the cause of error, situation awareness and teamwork skills are used most often to detect and prevent the error.

CONCLUSION

Situation awareness and teamwork skills appear universally important as a "last line" of defense for capturing error, and data from incident-monitoring systems can be analyzed in a fashion more consistent with a "Safety-II" approach.

APPLICATION

This research provides data for ameliorating risk within financial trading organizations, with implications for future risk management programs and regulation.

Cooperation in Human-Agent Systems to Support Resilience: A Microworld Experiment

OBJECTIVE

This study uses a dyadic approach to understand human-agent cooperation and system resilience.

BACKGROUND

Increasingly capable technology fundamentally changes human-machine relationships. Rather than reliance on or compliance with more or less reliable automation, we investigate interaction strategies with more or less cooperative agents.

METHOD

A joint-task microworld scenario was developed to explore the effects of agent cooperation on participant cooperation and system resilience. To assess the effects of agent cooperation on participant cooperation, 36 people coordinated with a more or less cooperative agent by requesting resources and responding to requests for resources in a dynamic task environment. Another 36 people were recruited to assess effects following a perturbation in their own hospital.

RESULTS

Experiment 1 shows people reciprocated the cooperative behaviors of the agents; a low-cooperation agent led to less effective interactions and less resource sharing, whereas a high-cooperation agent led to more effective interactions and greater resource sharing. Experiment 2 shows that an initial fast-tempo perturbation undermined proactive cooperation-people tended to not request resources. However, the initial fast tempo had little effect on reactive cooperation-people tended to accept resource requests according to cooperation level.

CONCLUSION

This study complements the supervisory control perspective of human-automation interaction by considering interdependence and cooperation rather than the more common focus on reliability and reliance.

APPLICATION

The cooperativeness of automated agents can influence the cooperativeness of human agents. Design and evaluation for resilience in teams involving increasingly autonomous agents should consider the cooperative behaviors of these agents.

Implicit Coordination Strategies for Effective Team Communication

OBJECTIVE

We investigated implicit communication strategies for anticipatory information sharing during team performance of tasks with varying degrees of complexity. We compared the strategies used by teams with the highest level of performance to those used by the lowest-performing teams to evaluate the frequency and methods of communications used as a function of task structure.

BACKGROUND

High-performing teams share information by anticipating the needs of their teammates rather than explicitly requesting the exchange of information. As the complexity of a task increases to involve more interdependence among teammates, the impact of coordination on team performance also increases. This observation motivated us to conduct a study of anticipatory information sharing as a function of task complexity.

METHOD

We conducted an experiment in which 13 teams of four people performed collaborative search-and-deliver tasks with varying degrees of complexity in a simulation environment. We elaborated upon prior characterizations of communication as implicit versus explicit by dividing implicit communication into two subtypes: (a) deliberative/goal information and (b) reactive status updates. We then characterized relationships between task structure, implicit communication, and team performance.

RESULTS

We found that the five teams with the fastest task completion times and lowest idle times exhibited higher rates of deliberative communication versus reactive communication during high-complexity tasks compared with the five teams with the slowest completion times and longest idle times (p = .039).

CONCLUSION

Teams in which members proactively communicated information about their next goal to teammates exhibited improved team performance.

APPLICATION

The findings from our work can inform the design of communication strategies for team training to improve performance of complex tasks.

Haptic Communication in Collaborative Virtual Environments

OBJECTIVE

To understand the interaction between haptic and verbal communication, we quantified the relative effect of verbal, haptic, and haptic-plus-verbal feedback in a collaborative virtual pointing task.

BACKGROUND

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) provide a medium for interaction among remote participants. Better understanding of the role of haptic feedback as a supplement to verbalization can improve the design of CVEs.

METHODS

Thirty-six participants were randomly paired into 18 dyads to complete a 2-D pointing task in a CVE. In a mixed experimental design, participants completed the task in three communication conditions: haptic only (H), verbal only (V), and haptic plus verbal (HV). The order of the conditions presented to the participants was counterbalanced.

RESULTS

The time to task completion, path length, overshoot, and root mean square error were analyzed. Overall, performance in the V and HV conditions was significantly better than in the H condition. H was the least efficient communication channel but elicited response with the shortest reaction time. When verbalization was not available, the use of the haptic device was more likely to be exaggerated to ensure information transmission. When verbalization was used, participants converged on the use of a Cartesian coordinate system for communicating spatial information.

CONCLUSION

Haptic communication can be used to complete a collaborative virtual task but is less efficient than verbal communication. A training period may help to improve the efficiency of haptic communication.

APPLICATION

These results can be used to design remote collaboration tasks incorporating haptic components and for improving the design of CVEs that support haptic communication.

'Too much for one day': a case study of disclosure in the paediatric HIV/AIDS clinic

BACKGROUND

Despite acknowledgement of the complexity and challenges of the process of disclosure of HIV status to adolescents, little work has been carried out on the communication features which facilitate or hinder the process. This qualitative case study reflects the interactional dynamics of an interaction between caregiver, physician and counsellor around the topic of disclosure in a South African clinic.

METHODS

A 40-minute encounter between a doctor, the grandmother of an adolescent with HIV/AIDS and a counsellor around the process of disclosure was transcribed and examined in detail in relation to its structure, topics, timing and sequence as well as its movement towards a collaborative ending. Analysis was based on elements of conversational and thematic analysis.

RESULTS

The session was characterized by distinct stages and the emergence of multiple voices and perspectives from the participants. The negotiated management of the session sheds light on multiple barriers to care as well as the influence of contextual factors on the process. The important mediating role of the counsellor in the triad emerges. The analysis highlights both unique features of the consultation and common challenges to clinicians when disclosing.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The task of disclosure is complex and intricate. Results suggest team processes are critical, as are temporal and contextual factors and the need for an understanding of communication. Implications for the clinic team are discussed and suggestions made for the development of collaborative partnership based on an understanding of roles and responsibilities, time factors and enhancement of features such as trust and communication.

Measuring team cohesion: observations from the science

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to review literature relevant to cohesion measurement, explore developing measurement approaches, and provide theoretical and practical recommendations for optimizing cohesion measurement.

BACKGROUND

Cohesion is essential for team effectiveness and performance, leading researchers to focus attention on understanding how to enhance it. However, cohesion is inconsistently defined and measured, making it difficult to compare findings across studies and limiting the ability to advance science and practice.

METHOD

We reviewed empirical research through which we uncovered specific information about cohesion's conceptualization, measurement, and relationships with performance, culminating in a set of current trends from which we provide suggestions and possible solutions to guide future efforts and help the field converge toward greater consistency.

RESULTS

Cohesion demonstrates more significant relationships with performance when conceptualized using social and task (but not other) dimensions and when analyses are performed at the team level. Cohesion is inherently temporal, yet researchers rarely measure cohesion at multiple points during the life of a team. Finally, cohesion matters in large, dynamic collectives, complicating measurement. However, innovative and unobtrusive methodologies are being used, which we highlight.

CONCLUSION

Practitioners and researchers are encouraged to define cohesion with task and social subdimensions and to measure with behavioral and attitudinal operationalizations. Individual and team-oriented items are recommended, though team-level analyses are most effective. Innovative/unobtrusive methods should be further researched to enable cohesion measurement longitudinally and in large, dynamic collectives.

APPLICATION

By applying our findings and conclusions, researchers and practitioners will be more likely to find consistent, reliable, and significant cohesion-to-performance relationships.

Team Learning for Healthcare Quality Improvement

In organized healthcare quality improvement collaboratives (QICs), teams of practitioners from different hospitals exchange information on clinical practices with the aim of improving health outcomes at their own institutions. However, what works in one hospital may not work in others with different local contexts because of nonlinear interactions among various demographics, treatments, and practices. In previous studies of collaborations where the goal is a collective problem solving, teams of diverse individuals have been shown to outperform teams of similar individuals. However, when the purpose of collaboration is knowledge diffusion in complex environments, it is not clear whether team diversity will help or hinder effective learning. In this paper, we first use an agent-based model of QICs to show that teams comprising similar individuals outperform those with more diverse individuals under nearly all conditions, and that this advantage increases with the complexity of the landscape and level of noise in assessing performance. Examination of data from a network of real hospitals provides encouraging evidence of a high degree of similarity in clinical practices, especially within teams of hospitals engaging in QIC teams. However, our model also suggests that groups of similar hospitals could benefit from larger teams and more open sharing of details on clinical outcomes than is currently the norm. To facilitate this, we propose a secure virtual collaboration system that would allow hospitals to efficiently identify potentially better practices in use at other institutions similar to theirs without any institutions having to sacrifice the privacy of their own data. Our results may also have implications for other types of data-driven diffusive learning such as in personalized medicine and evolutionary search in noisy, complex combinatorial optimization problems.