Effects of workers’ interpersonal helping behavior enhancement program

Yuji Horita, Yasumasa Otsuka

Interpersonal helping behavior in organizational citizenship behavior can enhance social support in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a workers' interpersonal helping behavior enhancement program increased interpersonal helping behavior, social support, and quantitative workload, and reduced psychological stress responses. A total of 72 workers in a manufacturing company in Japan participated in this study. After excluding 24 participants due to incomplete answers to a questionnaire, retirement, or absence from training, a total of 26 participants working in branch B assigned to an intervention group (22 male and 4 female) and a total of 22 participants working in branch C assigned to a control group (19 male and 3 female) were used for per-protocol analyses. In addition, after excluding 10 participants due to incomplete answers at pre-test, a total of 35 participants working in branch B assigned to an intervention group (30 male and 5 female) and a total of 27 participants working in branch C assigned to a control group (23 male and 4 female) were used for intention to treat (ITT) analyses. Interpersonal helping behavior was assessed using the Japanese version of the Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale. The Brief Job Stress Questionnaire was used to measure quantitative workload, psychological stress responses, and social support. Only the intervention group participants attended a seminar on psychological education, performed role-playing, and did four weeks' homework (HW). Both the intervention and control group participants answered pre-test (pre), post-test (post), and follow-up test (follow-up) at the same times. To evaluate the effects of the workers' interpersonal helping behavior enhancement program, two-way analysis of variances were performed for per-protocol analyses. Interpersonal helping behavior, quantitative workload, psychological stress responses, and social support were used as the dependent variables, time (pre, post, follow-up) and group (intervention, control) were used as the independent variables. A linear mixed model was established for ITT analyses. The post and follow-up scores of interpersonal helping behavior and coworker support were significantly higher than the pre scores in per-protocol analyses. However, the follow-up scores of coworker support were not significantly higher than the pre scores in the ITT analyses. The workers' interpersonal helping behavior enhancement program significantly improved interpersonal helping behavior and coworker support. However, the scores of supervisor support, quantitative workload, and psychological stress responses did not change significantly. The workers' interpersonal helping behavior enhancement program may enhance interpersonal helping behavior and coworker support.