Fulfillment for Whom: Investigations of Workplace Social Capital, Psychological Distress, Work-Life Wellbeing, and Injuries in U.S. Fulfillment Centers

Abstract

Workplaces can improve mental health and wellbeing by reducing job stressors and enhancing job resources, such as schedule control and social support. There is limited evidence on the role of job resources in fulfillment center work – a growing and evolving workforce. To address this gap, this dissertation investigates the relationships between workplace social capital – a relational job resource – and worker mental health and wellbeing, including psychological distress, turnover, and work-life wellbeing among U.S. fulfillment center workers. Additionally, this dissertation assesses the impact of a worker voice intervention on reported workplace injuries in U.S. fulfillment centers. This dissertation relies on data from the Fulfillment Center Intervention Study, a study conducted in an e-commerce firm with fulfillment centers across the United States. In chapters 1 and 2, we use observational data from worker surveys and administrative data on job entries and exits. In chapter 3, we leverage the study’s cluster-randomized intervention design to assess the impact of the worker voice intervention on rates of reported injuries at the fulfillment center level using administrative records of injuries. Chapter 1 investigates the relationships between both individual and supervisor group-level workplace social capital and psychological distress, turnover intent, and actual turnover. Using an open cohort design of all respondents across the 12-month study period, we find that higher individual workplace social capital is cross-sectionally associated with lower psychological distress, lower turnover intent, and lower odds of actual turnover at 3 months across all three survey waves. For group workplace social capital, we find that higher levels are associated with lower levels of psychological distress and turnover intent. In a longitudinal sample with repeat respondents from baseline and six-month follow-up waves, we find that an increase in individual workplace social capital is associated with a decrease in psychological distress and turnover intent. We also find that a within-person increase in group workplace social capital is associated with a decrease in turnover intent and more weakly, psychological distress. However, co-adjusting for both individual and group workplace social capital suggests that, in this sample, associations with group workplace social capital are weaker and no longer significant in the presence of individual workplace social capital. In chapter 2, we use the 3-wave panel sample with repeated observations at baseline, follow-up 1 (6 months), and follow-up 2 (12 months) waves to assess the direct and indirect relationships between baseline workplace social capital and work-life wellbeing at 12 months of follow-up through perceived schedule control at 6 months of follow-up. We find that both higher workplace social capital and higher perceived schedule control are associated with higher work-life wellbeing. We also find that some of the relationship between workplace social capital and work-life wellbeing is mediated by enhanced perceived schedule control. We find that this mediated relationship is moderated by gender with a stronger association observed among women versus men. Finally, in chapter 3, we evaluate the impact of a cluster-randomized worker voice intervention at the fulfillment center building level (N = 16) on rates of reported injuries. We find that overall, the intervention group had higher rates of reported injuries in the post-intervention period. To better understand whether this increase is due to higher injury incidence or less underreporting of injuries, we examined the intervention effect by type of injury – i.e. more severe (designated as workers’ compensation and lost time claims) versus less severe (designated as medical-only claims or record-only) injuries – since less severe injuries are more likely to be underreported. We find that the intervention had no impact on more severe injuries but was associated with higher rates of less severe injuries, suggesting that the worker voice intervention may have empowered workers to report injuries that may have been otherwise underreported. Given the small sample size and low numbers of injuries per site, these observed associations are sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of specific sites and should be treated with caution. Findings across all three chapters suggest that it is important to preserve and enhance the quality and availability of relational job resources and opportunities for connection and cooperation in fulfillment center work, particularly as incoming technologies reshape the workplace social environment.