1. Rachel Nayani
Karina Nielsen
Kevin Daniels Employment Systems and Institutions
Group Norwich Business School
Emma Donaldson-Feilder
Affinity Health at Work
Rachel Lewis
Kingston Business School
Occupational Safety and Health Leadership for Distributed Workers British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Division of Psychology Conference, 6-8 January, 2016.

2. Overview
With thanks to IOSH What is distributed (remote) working? Why is their leadership important? Systematic review methods Systematic review findings Evidence statements Research quality and gaps
16/09/2018

3. Defining distributed work
1: Variable use of information technology
2: Variability in knowledge intensity (KI)
3: Variability in levels of intra- and extra-organizational contact
4: Variability in location – e.g. home, remote office, client’s premises, installations, while travelling
For non-self employed - physical (and temporal) separation from line managers’ location
5: Not fixed and dynamic
From Daniels et al, 2001, Hislop et al, 2008

5. Why leadership?
OSH problems for distributed workers e.g. telework & MSDs, working on others’ premises Limited opportunity for line and OSH managers to observe or directly intervene with distributed workers RQ1. Can current models for (OSH) leadership apply to distributed workers? RQ2. Are other frameworks or models?

6. Systematic review methodology
PubMed, Psycinfo, ScholarGoogle and Web of Science Empirical papers, published from 1995-Feb 2015, English language, peer reviewed journals Example search terms: Distributed, Telework, Telecommute, Mobile work, Digital nomads, Location nomads, Technomads, Road warriors, Plus key sectors (e.g. construction), plus OSH keywords, plus leadership/management keywords, plus keywords to focus on workers Sifting: Checks and issues resolved through discussion Data extraction: Checked 923 identified, 23 papers met the inclusion criteria

7. Evidence statements: RQ1
Evidence statements: RQ1. Can current models for (OSH) leadership apply to distributed workers?
Good leader-worker relationships predict OSH related outcomes. Instrumental support appears important as does knowledge exchange between units.
Communication and access to ICTs (especially video-conferencing etc) may be important for facilitating this.
2. Transformational leadership important for motivating safe behaviours and well-being
(interview study = individualised consideration is key)
3. Leaders’ demonstrating commitment to safety (safety climate) important for safety
4. Motivation (and motivational strategies such as planning, supervisors using motivating language) predicts safety behaviour/well-being indicators

8. Evidence statements: RQ2. Are other frameworks or models?
5. Face-to-face communication and instant messaging related to stress from interruptions for distributed workers lack of interruptions a positive feature of telework 6. Communication/support a challenge for distributed working around OSH ICT mediated communication and asynchronous working 7. Remote workers may benefit in many ways if managers also engage in similar distributed work (perhaps because this enables better understanding of teleworkers context)

9. Conclusions Weak evidence base Cross-sectional self-report
or small qualitative studies
Many studies not OSH specific
Difficult to find samples
Existing frameworks probably applicable
Need modification for context and problems of distributed work
Perhaps some aspects of existing models more important for distributed workers
Difficult to know whether some findings generalise beyond OSH