Search

Burnout is a phenomenon commonly found in the workplace. When burnout is job-related, it is considered job burnout. Historically, job burnout has been most common among those who work in human services fields and who deal with stressful situations on a regular basis. Job burnout consists of three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of work ineffectiveness. While job burnout may be common, not all workers in stressful fields experience it, which indicates that there must be organizational or individual factors that limit the likelihood of job burnout for some workers. This study examined the impact of four job-related factors (job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) on the three components of job burnout for correctional workers in a large, maximum-security prison in the Southern United States. The findings indicated that the four job-related factors were related strongly and in the predicted direction to two or three of the measures of job burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prisons depend on their employees, and staffing a prison is expensive. Approximately 80% of a prison's budget is for staff wages and benefits. Prisons are not generally viewed as desirable places to work, thus recruiting and retaining correctional officers can be difficult. Work-related stress can negatively affect staff members' home lives, and home stress can make an employee distracted and endangered at work. Time-, strain-, behavior-, and family-based work–family conflicts were hypothesized to impact three work attitudes (job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) negatively. Time-based conflict had no significant effects on any of the work attitudes. Strain-based conflict had significant negative effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment but not job involvement. Behavior-based conflict had significant negative effects on all three work attitudes. Contrary to our hypotheses, family-based conflict had significant positive effects on all three. Work–family conflict is a significant work attitude-associated stressor for correctional staff; therefore, policy recommendations to address it are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the issue of trust is theoretically essential for the effective operation of correctional organizations, few researchers have examined how the different types of trust are related to salient outcomes for staff. In this study, we examined the effects of coworker, supervisor, and management trust on the job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of 322 Southern U.S. correctional staff. The types of workplace trust, however, varied in their effects. Specifically, multivariate analysis indicated only management trust had a significant positive effect on job involvement, but both coworker trust and management trust had significant positive effects on job satisfaction, whereas both supervisor trust and management trust had significant positive effects on organizational commitment. The current findings support the overall contention that workplace trust plays an important role in shaping prison staff job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The results underscore the need for improving perceptions of trust in the workplace, particularly management trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees' positive perceptions of organizational justice are crucial to the successful operation of correctional institutions. Employees who perceive their employer treats them justly and fairly report less job-related stress and happier home lives. Organizational justice has two primary components – procedural and distributive justice – that have been examined relative to job satisfaction and job performance. The current study builds on the existing literature and examines the effects that perceptions of procedural and distributive justice have on the strain-based form of work-family conflict. Specifically, the goal of this study is to determine whether these two forms of justice were related to the strain that correctional employees bring home with them. Data collected from a large Southern correctional institution indicate that perceptions of procedural justice related significantly to reported levels of the strain-based form of work-family conflict and that staff with the highest perceptions of procedural justice reported the lowest levels of strain-based work-family conflict. This did not hold true for distributive justice, however, which was found to be statistically unrelated to work-family strain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The job characteristics model was used to explain job satisfaction at a large southern prison. The effects of job variety, role clarity, views of supervision, views of training, perceived dangerousness of the job, and job autonomy on job satisfaction were studied. Using data from 322 staff members, the study found positive job characteristics (i.e., job variety, supervision, training, and lower perceived dangerousness of job) were associated with greater job satisfaction. Job autonomy was non-significant. Job variety, quality of supervision, and training views were positively associated with job satisfaction for all staff and security officers, whereas dangerousness of job was negatively associated. Role clarity mattered for all staff, but not security officers. Reasons for both significant and non-significant relationships were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job stress is a problem in corrections. Although the very nature of correctional work is stressful, workplace variables also contribute to correctional staff job stress. The job demands-resource model holds that job demands increase negative outcomes (e.g., job stress) and decrease positive outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction), whereas job resources help increase positive outcomes and decrease negative outcomes. An ordinary least squares regression analysis of self-reported survey data from 322 staff at a Southern prison indicated that input into decision-making and quality supervision had statistically significant negative effects on job stress, whereas role overload and fear of victimization had significant positive effects. Instrumental communication, views of training, and role clarity all had nonsignificant associations with stress from the job in the multivariate analysis. The results partially supported the job demands-resources model; however, the specific work environment variables varied in terms of their statistical significance. Correctional administrators need to be aware of the contribution that workplace variables have on job stress and make changes to reduce staff job stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has tested gender differences in perceptions, responses, intentions, and behaviors of correctional staff; however, no published study has tested whether the effects of social supports on work stress and job satisfaction differ by gender. The current study attempts to expand the literature by examining whether supervisor support, peer support, and family support, along with other workplace variables (role problems and dangerousness of the job), differ in their relationships with work stress and job satisfaction according to the gender of 501 correctional officers in Texas. Results of the Equality of Regression Coefficient Test revealed that the different forms of social support and the selected workplace variables had statistically similar associations with work stress and job satisfaction across gender, except for role stress on job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personnel are critical to the success of any security organization, and this is especially true of private prisons. Therefore, it is essential to understand how their organizational commitment is affected by workplace factors. There are two major forms of organizational commitment, continuance and affective. To examine how the salient workplace factors of job stress, job involvement, and job satisfaction were related to the continuance and affective commitment of personnel working for a private prison, data from a survey of personnel at a maximum security private prison were examined. Two ordinary least squares regression equations were run with continuance and affective commitment as the dependent variables. The amount of variance explained between the two regression equations was noticeably different. A larger percentage of the variance was accounted for in the affective commitment regression equation as compared to the continuance commitment multivariate analysis. Moreover, job stress had a positive association with continuance commitment, and a nonsignificant relationship with affective commitment. Job involvement had a nonsignificant effect on continuance commitment and a positive effect on affective commitment. Job satisfaction had a negative impact on continuance commitment and a positive relationship with affective commitment. Overall, the results support the contention that the two commitment measures are not affected similarly by job stress, involvement, and satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]