Search

Job resources are known to be key drivers of work engagement, but surprisingly, little is known about the relative importance of specific job resources in comparison to one another. We investigated the relative importance of eight job resources both cross-sectionally and over a 3-year time period. We hypothesized that job resources at the task level are "universally" important and contribute relatively more to work engagement than other types of job resources. We employed dominance analyses to a large cross-sectional data set (N = 11,468 from 87 organizations), focusing specifically on 11 jobs, and to a two-wave data set (N = 2,334). Three job resources emerged as the most important both for concurrent and future work engagement across the jobs and samples: skill discretion, job feedback, and team empowerment. Practically, this study suggests that interventions to enhance work engagement could focus on increasing skill discretion and job feedback and on building team empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job boredom refers to an unpleasant state of passiveness at work that has been found to negatively relate to self‐reported health. To date, however, the relation between job boredom and physiological indicators of health has not been examined. The present study investigates whether job boredom relates to dysfunction in autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity as indicated by reduced heart rate variability (HRV) during night sleep. The sample of this study consisted of Finnish public sector workers (n = 125). Job boredom was assessed with an electronic questionnaire and HRV with an ambulatory monitoring period of two nights of sleep. The results supported the hypothesis by showing a negative relation between job boredom and HRV, after controlling for demographic and lifestyle factors. The findings extend previous knowledge on the detrimental consequences of job boredom by showing that it is related to dysfunction in ANS activity. Consequently, it is important to acknowledge boredom at work as a threat to occupational health and well‐being and pay more attention to how it can be prevented at workplaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What may individuals themselves do to enhance their identification with their employer organization? Does being socially courageous promote such formation of identity? If so, does this process occur because those who are socially courageous also proactively foster positive relationships and collaboration amongst co-workers and thus enhance social resources at work? Answering these questions is essential given that positive relationships and identification at work are essential for employees' motivation and well-being and organizations' success. Using conservation of resources theory, we expected that increases in workplace social courage would strengthen organizational identification via boosting increases in two types of relational job crafting, namely crafting relationships and collaboration, which in turn were expected to increase three social resources at work: meaningful relationships, relational identification, and social support. Findings based on a sample of 2919 employees who participated in the study twice, in late 2019 and late 2020, largely supported our hypotheses. Findings suggest that crafting social aspects of work can increase social resources and help maintain positive attachment with one's workplace, and such relational crafting may be fostered by being socially courageous at work. This applied similarly to those who increasingly teleworked because of the COVID-19 related social restrictions and those who did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job crafting is a concept of increasing interest to human resource management (HRM), as it involves employees re-designing their jobs to maintain and increase their person-job fit. Job crafting is seen as an individual's self-focused approach to his/her work, and the way other people influence and are influenced by these behaviors is understudied. We built on the relational work design theory and used focus group interviews of 44 employees and thematic analysis method to explore how job crafting is shaped by interactions with others at work. Our results show that relational work characteristics, namely contact with other people and impact on other people, shape the way jobs are crafted. Further, we find that jobs are crafted by mobilizing the relational work design and adapting to it. Based on these findings, we present a typology of four general job crafting strategies. We advance theory on how individuals craft their jobs to consider not just themselves but also others. This study has implications for job crafting theory and HRM by highlighting how the relational properties of work shape the way employees craft their jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job crafting is theorized to operate via changes that employees make to their work designs, yet this critical mechanism has remained scarcely tested. This study examined whether job crafting facilitates changes in two types of challenge demands, namely workload and job complexity, and hindrance demands and whether these changes explain why job crafting may have both positive and negative implications for employee well‐being. We utilized a two‐wave sample of 2,453 employees to examine the relationships between job crafting and within‐person changes in job demands, work engagement, and burnout. The findings showed that approach type of job crafting was related to increases in work engagement via increased job complexity. However, approach crafting was also associated with increases in burnout via increased workload. Avoidance type of job crafting, in turn, was related to increases in burnout and decreases in work engagement via decreased job complexity. The findings imply that job crafting may both promote and mitigate employee well‐being depending on how it changes specific features of work design and that also approach crafting may deteriorate well‐being. We discuss the practical implications of different types of job crafting on work design and employee well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present cross-lagged panel study aimed to investigate the energizing power of job resources and related gain spirals. Drawing on Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources (COR) theory's rarely tested assumptions of cumulative resource gains and gain spirals a reciprocal process was expected: (1) job resources lead to work engagement and work engagement leads to personal initiative (PI), which, in turn, has a positive impact on work-unit innovativeness, and (2) work-unit innovativeness leads to PI, which has a positive impact on work engagement, which finally predicts future job resources. The study was based on a two-wave 3-year panel design among 2555 Finnish dentists. Structural equation modeling was employed to study cross-lagged associations. The results mainly confirmed our hypotheses: positive and reciprocal cross-lagged associations were found between job resources and work engagement and between work engagement and PI. In addition, PI had a positive impact on work-unit innovativeness over time. (Contains 4 figures and 2 tables.)

This study of 805 Finnish teachers working in elementary, secondary, and vocational schools tested 2 interaction hypotheses. On the basis of the job demands-resources model, the authors predicted that job resources act as buffers and diminish the negative relationship between pupil misbehavior and work engagement. In addition, using conservation of resources theory, the authors hypothesized that job resources particularly influence work engagement when teachers are confronted with high levels of pupil misconduct. In line with these hypotheses, moderated structural equation modeling analyses resulted in 14 out of 18 possible 2-way interaction effects. In particular, supervisor support, innovativeness, appreciation, and organizational climate were important job resources that helped teachers cope with demanding interactions with students.

The Job Demands-Resources Model was used as the basis of the proposal that there are two parallel processes involved in work-related well-being among teachers, namely an energetical process (i.e., job demands --> burnout --> ill health) and a motivational process (i.e., job resources --> engagement --> organizational commitment). In addition, some cross-links between both processes were hypothesized. Structural equation modeling was used to simultaneously test the hypotheses in a sample of Finnish teachers (N=2038). The results confirmed the existence of both processes, although the energetical process seems to be more prominent. More specifically, (1) burnout mediated the effect of high job demands on ill health, (2) work engagement mediated the effects of job resources on organizational commitment, and (3) burnout mediated the effects of lacking resources on poor engagement. The robustness of these findings is underscored by the fact that they were obtained in one half of the sample (using random selection) and cross-validated in the other half.

We aimed to identify different, both balanced and imbalanced, effort–reward profiles and their relations to several indicators of employee well-being (work engagement, job satisfaction, job boredom, and burnout), mental health (positive functioning, life satisfaction, anxiety, and depression symptoms), and job attitudes (organizational identification and turnover intention). We examined data drawn randomly from Finnish population (n = 1,357) of young adults (23–34 years of age) collected in the summer of 2021 with quantitative methods. Latent profile analysis revealed three emerging groups in the data characterized by different combinations of efforts and rewards: underbenefitting (16%, high effort/low reward), overbenefitting (34%, low effort/high reward), and balanced employees (50%, same levels of efforts and rewards). Underbenefitting employees reported poorest employee well-being and mental health, and more negative job attitudes. In general, balanced employees fared slightly better than overbenefitting employees. Balanced employees experienced higher work engagement, life satisfaction, and less depression symptoms. The findings highlight the importance of balancing work efforts with sufficient rewards so that neither outweighs the other. This study suggests that the current effort–reward model would benefit from conceptualizing the previously ignored perspective of overbenefitting state and from considering professional development as one of the essential rewards at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]