Pilot Study Testing Associations Between Health Behaviors and Decline in Work Motivation Due to Poor Health Among Japanese Workers

Abstract

For a company to secure sustainable growth and development, managers should be aware of decline in work motivation due to poor health. We investigated the factors associated with the “Decline in work motivation due to poor health.” For those factors, we focused on seven health behaviors (smoking, drinking, eating breakfast, eating between meals, amount of sleep, desirable weight, and physical activity), physical fatigue, and mental fatigue. Because these seven health behaviors can considerably vary over time, surveys on only current health behaviors may not be adequate to investigate the effects of these behaviors. We investigated the health behaviors of workers from the past to the present, and then calculated the average scores for those behaviors by using an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. There were 535 analyzed subjects whose average was 38.4 years old (standard deviation, 10.8). These results indicated that there was no decline in work motivation for those who had good health habits. Workers suffering from mental and physical fatigue were less motivated to work due to poor health. Male workers’ motivation decreased due to poor health more than did that of female workers. It will be necessary to keep a detailed record of workers’ health behaviors and develop other methods to more adequately measure the effects of those behaviors throughout their whole lives.