‘Someone Else’s Problem’: Behaviour in Communal Kitchens as an Expression of Social Support in the Workplace

Introduction: Social support is central to theories about the workplace, with positive interactions buffering work demands and stressors. The current study explored whether active and cheerful involvement in shared workplace kitchens can be considered as distinct forms of social support and further increase the individuals’ own job satisfaction and organisational commitment, over and above more common and general measures of job social support. Methods: Volunteers (N=103, 90.3% female) completed an online survey about interactions with colleagues in communal workplace kitchens, along with measures of work climate and job social support (e.g., ‘if necessary, can you ask your co-workers for support?’), demographics, work locus of control (WLoC), and the outcomes of job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Following exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the kitchen behaviours, hierarchical multiple regressions (HMRs) were used to find if these behaviours first, directly predicted job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and second, predicted the outcomes over and above age, WLoC, job social support, and work climate. Results: Participants ranged from 23 to 65 years (M=41.8, SD=11.0), were mostly married or living with their partner (71.6%), and worked from 7 to 70 hours/week (M=37.6, SD=12.8) in wide variety of occupations (mostly in education (31.4%) or health (29.4%)). Despite the modest sample size, the EFA showed good fit (KMO=.801, explaining 55.7% variance) for four factors; two positive – ‘Collegiality’ (e.g., ‘it feels like a genuine team’) and ‘Participation’ (e.g., ‘I participate in the social activities in my work area’) and two negative – ‘Messy kitchen’ (e.g., ‘kitchen never stays clean long’) and ‘it’s Someone Else’s Problem’ (e.g., ‘the cleaners should be looking after the kitchen’). Correlations were in expected directions. In the first HMR, the four factors explained substantial variance in job satisfaction (35.9%) and organisational commitment (40.9%), and both outcomes were strongly predicted by greater collegiality and where the kitchen was not ‘someone’s else’s problem’. The second HMRs again explained substantial variance (job satisfaction, 68.2%, organisational commitment, 55.9%). Collegiality remained a significant predictor of both outcomes, with the effect of ‘It’s Someone Else’s Problem’ meditated by internal WLoC. Both outcomes were predicted by greater internal WLoC, and where participants reported greater collegiality and a positive work climate, with job satisfaction additionally predicted by older age and more job social support. Discussion: The current study found that social support, specifically as collegiality or more generally as positive work climates and reliable managers and co-workers, and internal work locus of control strongly and positively predicted both satisfaction and commitment to one’s job. The additional items about being pleasantly involved with work colleagues and specifically to be helpful around the communal work kitchen added to the explanation of social support. The items also indicate areas in which interventions could target work cultures, such as fostering team cohesion and collegiality as well as encouraging fun within the work environment. Future research will test the structure of the factors of kitchen behaviours in larger populations, and in samples that include more men, to confirm the factor structure and usefulness of the new scales.

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