New Challenges for a Healthy Workplace in Human Services

The social and economic dynamics that have been troubling the world for several years are associated with the new challenges that organizations have to face in order to be sustainable, namely, concerning management practices, working conditions, innovation management, and quality of life in the workplace. It is particularly difficult for the human service industry to create and sustain healthy workplaces that mobilize workers for high-productivity and provide high-quality services to people.

A deeper understanding of the new realities and the critical processes that affect workers’ efficiency and effectiveness will help towards designing better interventions and improving human services management. For over a quarter of a century, and with the aim of providing an arena for the analysis and discussion of the consequences of a rapidly changing working life in Europe, the European Network of Organizational Psychologists (ENOP) has held a series of conferences that focus on critical issues in the fields of work and organizational psychology, health care, human services, and occupational health.

The Xith European Conference on Organizational Psychology and Human Service Work was held in Lisbon in October 2009, and was focused on the “new challenges and interventions in psychosocial work environment”. This volume includes ten peer-reviewed contributions from authors of seven European countries. These contributions are organized in two sections. The first section includes studies that focus on the work environment and employee well-being in human services. The second section presents studies that focus on healthy workplace factors and interventions in human services.