Valentina V. Barabanshchikova

Background. This article addresses the influence of personal, professional, and organizational factors on procrastination in employees of a modern Russian industrial enterprise. Procrastination has been studied extensively since the 1970s, producing great research material and diagnostic tools that remain relevant to this day. Yet despite the large number of studies, no single point of view has emerged on the causes of this phenomenon. 

Aim. To investigate how personal, professional, and organizational factors influence procrastination in employees of a modern Russian industrial enterprise. 

Design. 120 employees of a Russian industrial enterprise participated in the study, including 70 women and 50 men, mean age 35 years, mean work experience in this enterprise 4.3 years. We used four diagnostic methods to characterize work activity and organizational culture, personal characteristics, and specificity of an occupational stress syndrome. We used correlation and regression analysis to analyze the results. 

Results. The data identified significant personal, professional, and organizational predictors of procrastination in the modern professional, such as being outgoing (the quality of sociability), innovative, detail-conscious, and conscientious. Equally significant are characteristics of the work situation such as its content and the significance of tasks. A significant weight in the predictive value of the regression model lies in the robust consequences of professional stress (anxiety and depression), openness toward change in the organization, and social desirability. 

Conclusion. The level of procrastination among the employees of this enterprise predicts typical behavior patterns in performing professional tasks, subjective appraisal of the job situation, the experience of stress and its consequences, and perception of the organizational culture. 

The paper is devoted to consideration of self-regulation training that can be used in order to prevent a development of negative human functional states (HFS) in work environment. According to the well-developed in Russian work and organizational psychology traditions the effects of practical implementation of various self-regulation methods on job efficiency and worker's well-being are analyzed. The positive patterns of changes in HFS syndromes taken place as a result of prolonged courses of self-regulation training are described. It is shown that a successful acquisition of self-regulation skills strongly depends on (1) specificity of job content and (2) individual sensitivity to various relaxation techniques. These findings are useful for enhancing the quality of work-site stress management and health promotion programs.