Portland State Magazine Fall 2011

she arrived home safely from school, but his grocery supervisor would not allow personal phone calls. The stress and anxiety he endured throughout hi daily shift rook a visible roll. "He was sick, clearly depressed," says Hammer. This man was part of the first national study to explicitly link conflicts between work and family demands to employee safety and the mental and physical health of workers and their families. Ir also idemified specific ways d1ar supervisors can support workers' efforts to manage those demands. Hammer's study, sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National In titute for Occupational Safety and Health, has established at PSU the Center for Work-Family Stress, Safety and Health, a joint effort with Michigan State University. Hammer is the center director. After supermarket managers in her study completed a training program she developed, their employees perceived them to be more supportive of work– life issues and reported improvements in their overall health as measured by such factors as pain and psychological problems. Hammer is refining the training and measuring its impact on supervisors and employees in long-term care facilities and the telecommunica– tions industry. As for that young grocery worker, the better business decision would have been ro let him rake a daily call from his sister so that he could resolve his concerns and cum his full atteption to his job, says Hammer. Especially at smaller compa– nies without formal programs co help employees manage competing demands, "the supervisor is the linchpin in terms of work-family support," Hammer adds. "We're looking at ways to train manager co understand that being re ponsive and sensitive to work-family issues leads co lower stress," he says. "Higher levels of stress translate into higher absenteeism, higher turnover and lower production." IF BEING SENSITIVE to an employ– ee's personal challenges is one way co improve life at work, so is being fearless about hiring someone who may seem overqualified. The conventional wisdom about hiring overqualified workers is: Don't. They have bad attitudes and are more likely to quit. PSU faculty member Berrin Erdogan was skeptical of this premise-especially after she found scant research to back it up. So Erdogan, with Business Administration FALL 2011 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 9