Effects of Autonomous Community Gardening Activities in the Workplace on Job Stress, Organizational Effectiveness and Self-Esteem of Public Officials Working in Shifts

This study was conducted to examine effects of community gardening on job stress and job satisfaction experienced by public officials in general administration working in a 24-hour shift. The subjects were public officials at the Center for Missing Children in the Department of Women and Adolescents at the National Police Agency. The center receives initial reports of disappearance of missing children, the elderly with dementia, and people with intellectual disabilities, sends out the report to each police station, and clears the report after the missing individual is found. Twelve public officials working at the center in a double shift (full day off after a night shift, four-day interval) were grouped into four teams and total 11 of them participated in the experiment. They engaged in autonomous community gardening activities such as sowing seeds, cultivating plants, harvesting, or cooking in the workplace for five weeks from August 19 to September 22, 2018. The findings were as follows. After five weeks of autonomous gardening activities, job stress of the subjects decreased significantly. Their mean scores of job satisfaction and organizational commitment under organizational effectiveness showed a significant increase after the activities. Finally, there were significant differences in their self-esteem after participating in the gardening activities in the workplace. These results suggest that gardening activities in the workplace can help to manage job stress and quality of work life for shift workers.