Towards an increase in employee well-being in warehouses: insights from a qualitative study

Abstract

Humans still play an essential role in performing tasks in warehouses, although automation and dig-italisation are increasing. Academic literature on order picking focuses on optimising processes and increasing production. Yet, human factors are getting more attention in recent literature. Many studies are devoted to the physical human factors, fewer to the psychosocial ones. This study proposes an enlarged range of psychosocial factors, including new and underexposed ones like employee well-being. We also suggest broadening the 'worker health' order picking outcome in the framework of Grosse et al. (2015), going beyond the physical aspect of well-being and introducing warehouse worker well-being. We use semi-structured interviews to explore how various aspects of the order picker job influence employee well-being. We see that multiple antecedents of employee well-being, as described in the literature, are reflected in the interview data. However, we identify new antecedents, such as the example role of the team leader, frustrating interactions on the work floor and the equal level of being controlled and workload. These new insights are not only a contribution to the literature but can also encourage logistics companies to think actively about their employee well-being policy. ARTICLE HISTORY