• Abstract
• Keywords & Concepts
• Learning Demands
• Cognitive Demands
• Other
• Work Is Changing
• Cognitive Demands Of The Changes
• Increased Coping Needs
• Conclusion
• Practical Implications

Abstract

In times of digitalized workplaces the extent of challenging cognitive demands at work is rising and employees increasingly have to manage new and unlearned tasks. Yet, these work characteristics have received little attention on how they relate to the worker’s well-being. Thus, we analyze associations between cognitive work demands—also in interaction with other job characteristics—and indicators of employee well-being. The analyses are based on the BIBB/BAuA Employment Survey 2018, a cross-section that is representative for the German working population and covers approximately 20,000 employed individuals. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions suggest that cognitive demands are associated with a higher probability of feeling fatigued. In contrast, the results with respect to the employees’ self-rated health status and job satisfaction are ambiguous, depending on which cognitive demand is considered. Overall, the findings indicate that cognitive demands might be related to both resource and demand, depending on the individual resources of employees

Keywords & Concepts

Learning Demands

Demands which “require employees to acquire knowledge and skills that are necessary to perform their jobs effectively” [13].

Cognitive Demands

Involve confrontation with new tasks, unpredictable developments, and solving routine problems [28]

Other

• Job Demands Control Model (JDC)
• Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R)
• Action Regulation Theory (ART)

Work Is Changing

• Global
• Faster changing (requires more flexibility and constant evolution, finding niches)
• Reorganization (less hierarchical)
• Unpredictable
• More intense

On the one hand, new technologies—such as information and communication technologies—are introduced as a strategy for adapting to constant market pressure. On the other hand, new technologies are again the basis for fundamental reorganization within organizations

Cognitive Demands Of The Changes

• More intense
• Planning and decision-making demands [9–11]
• Increases in cognitive and learning demands at work are discussed as outcomes of change in the working world [2,12,13].
• Generating new knowledge, as well as problem solving, has become an integral part of employees’ work tasks [14,15].
• Employees have to acquire new skills constantly in order to adapt to rapidly changing demands at work [12].
• Maintaining one ́s skills has become more difficult due to increasing skill variety in recent years [11]
• Employees are more frequently confronted with tasks they have not learned or they are not familiar with. Coping with the new requirements and tasks is becoming increasingly relevant, not only for everyday working life but also for personal development, regarding competencies and skills learned in order to maintain employability [16–18].

Increased Coping Needs

• Work-life balance
• Autonomy

Conclusion

The main result of our study is that cognitive demands play an important role in the workers’ well-being. Our analyses suggest that all cognitive demands considered are associated with a higher probability of feeling fatigued. However, with respect to self-rated overall health status and job satisfaction, the results are ambiguous, depending on the specific cognitive demand considered. On the one hand, improving work is positively related to good health and job satisfaction, while doing unlearned things is negatively associated with these outcomes. Therefore, the results indicate that cognitive demands might be related to both resource and demand—depending on the specific type of cognitive demand. These findings emphasize the immanent assumption of Glaser et al.’s [28] model that a fine-grained distinction of job demands is needed to analyze the associations between working conditions and the employees’ attitudes and health. Furthermore, the results strengthen the theoretical challenge–hindrance framework. Cognitive demands trigger strain, but they can also have a satisfying effect. That is because cognitive demands often involve task variation or learning, which likely improves the employees’ personal development and might thus be health-enhancing in the long run [19]. However, how the cognitive demands are designed seems to be crucial, and whether or not these demands co-occur with other job demands and if employees assess cognitive demands as stressful. While facing new tasks and improving work are to some extent positively related to well-being, doing unlearned things is consistently negatively related to employee well-being. In addition, perception of stress in relation to facing new tasks or to doing unlearned things at work is significantly associated with a higher probability of feeling fatigued, but also with a lower probability of being satisfied with the job. This result strengthens the importance of the challenge and hindrance appraisal as an explanatory mechanism for the relationship between cognitive demands and well-being. The challenge appraisal thus reflects the perception of situations enabling personal development. In contrast, the hindrance appraisal is related to individual frustration due to the prevention of the fulflilment of self-relevant goals [13,38,40]. The interaction analyses further reveal that autonomy might mitigate the negative association between doing unlearned things and well-being to some extent. In line with previous studies and theories, this finding further emphasizes the role of autonomy as an important resource to buffer stressors at work [34,56]. Overall, our findings support the idea that specific working conditions might be related to both demand and resource and that more research based on integrated models of different working conditions, including cognitive demands, are needed. Moreover, our analyses on the determinants of cognitive demands reveal that different groups of employees face cognitive demands at work to varying degrees. A vast majority reported facing new tasks at work, while doing unlearned things during work was less common. This might partly be attributable to the relatively negative wording of this question (see Table 1). Moreover, the three variables are also different from a theoretical perspective; performing new tasks and improving procedures at work also refer to task variation, which might be interpreted as a resource, not only as a stressor. The analyses also indicate that the extent to which individuals perceive cognitive demands as stressful varies across different groups of employees. High-educated employees most frequently report facing cognitive demands as compared to low-educated employees. As expected, this suggests that knowledge-intensive occupations in particular are exposed to cognitive demands. In contrast, the probability of perceiving cognitive demands at work as stressful is significantly higher for low-educated individuals. This is in accordance with the assumptions derived from the P–E fit theories. Cognitive demands are an integral part of the work of high-educated employees and thus probably also a significant part of the satisfaction of needs. It can also be assumed that highly educated individuals are more likely to actively ask for new tasks to reach job satisfaction of needs. In addition, high-educated employees often dispose of more resources at work, such as a higher level of autonomy, as compared to low-educated employees [57]. Our findings emphasize that the match of individual needs and requirements in the workplace is crucial. Future research should focus on this in more depth in order to investigate the impact of different cognitive demands with regard to content and varying degrees of difficulty on the attitudes and health of different employment groups.

Practical Implications

This study adds to the limited research on the relationship between cognitive demands and employee well-being. Our results indicate that cognitive demands are both stressors and resources. Considering the rise of new (communication) technologies [62], cognitive demands at work seem to be an important but widely neglected topic in modern societies. On the one hand, the results underline the beneficial effects of cognitive demands at work. Cognitive demands should be included in work tasks, giving employees the opportunity to improve their personal development. However, the cognitive demands should not over-strain employees. Organizations have the responsibility to design workplaces according to the needs of their employees. To ensure that the employer is informed about the cognitive demands of their employees, cognitive demands should also be included in the risk assessment and be a part of employee appraisals. Furthermore, organizations could create competence teams in which employees could exchange information on new challenges and learn from each other. Finally, organizations should offer additional training in order to support employees in developing individual coping strategies by considering the needs of different groups of employees.