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Organizational leaders are essential in implementing, interpreting, and even proactively initiating changes for human resource (HR) functions to enhance workplace productivity and well‐being. However, recent studies have cautioned that providing positive and supportive leadership usually drains these organizational leaders. Although the literature has shed light on how leaders can use self‐care strategies to recharge, researchers and HR professionals know relatively little about (1) what specific self‐care actions leaders can take and (2) how external crises such as COVID‐19 constrain leaders' self‐care actions. To identify specific leaders' self‐care behaviors, which we refer to as oxygen masks, we interviewed 41 healthcare managers in Australia during the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020. We presented a behavioral typology summarizing distinct oxygen masks that leaders used at different points in time. These oxygen masks include improving physical well‐being, improving emotional/spiritual/social well‐being, fulfilling managerial roles, and seeking collegial and organizational support. Moreover, we concluded that the COVID‐19 restrictions made some of these oxygen masks less accessible, negatively impacting leaders' well‐being. Our research conclusions have implications for theory and future studies on extending the literature associated with leadership development, leaders' resilience, and leaders' well‐being. The results also provide HR professionals with practical suggestions about assisting line managers in improving their self‐care and sustaining their leadership effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined the dynamics involved in situations where managers are bullied by subordinates – a phenomenon known as upwards bullying. In this study, we combine interview data from targets and subject matter experts with data from case decision records to advance knowledge of the antecedents, grounded in Salin's model of enabling, motivating, and precipitating factors [Salin, D. (2003). Ways of explaining workplace bullying: A review of enabling, motivating and precipitating structures and processes in the work environment. Human Relations, 56(10), 1213–1232. ]. Our thematic analysis showed that enabling factors establish foundational conditions for upwards bullying by delegitimising a manager's formal power and decreasing the costs to perpetrators; motivators reinforce upwards bullying by fostering desirable outcomes for the subordinates or undesirable outcomes for the target managers, or assisting subordinates to navigate a competitive environment; and precipitators trigger upwards bullying in response to organisational change. Combining these factors, upwards bullying can be viewed as a logical adaptation to stressful or ineffective work environments. Finally, guided by the interviews, our study extends knowledge of the personal impact of upwards bullying for targeted managers, highlighting the detrimental effects when implicit understandings of the self and the world are challenged. Overall, prevention efforts should recognise this form of bullying as a sign of deeper organisational issues, and tackle the unique and shared antecedents as a system of risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is a comprehensive job analysis repository, developed and periodically updated in the U.S. The study aims to validate O*NET in the Australian context and illustrate the potential to use O*NET as a source of robust occupational research data internationally. We first link O*NET data at the occupational level with individual-level data in the Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) database containing a sample of 3,829 individuals working in 209 occupations. We then conceptually replicate the primary hypothesized relationships from nine published studies that used O*NET ratings of four job characteristics (job hazards, emotional labour requirements, job autonomy, and task significance) to predict work-related outcomes. Specifically, we selected the same O*NET job descriptors used in the nine studies and linked them to similar but not identical employee outcomes obtained from the AWB database. Multi-level analyses showed that the hypothesized relationships were predominantly supported at the occupational level, demonstrating the criterion validity of the O*NET job characteristic profiles in the Australian context. Overall, our research highlights the potential to use O*NET in research and policy applications on a broader international scale, predicated on obtaining solid validation evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In two studies, we investigated the effects of workplace bullying on objective measures of cognitive functioning. In Study 1, 47 university employees, self-identified as current targets of bullying (n = 24) or non-targets (n = 23), completed objectively scored cognitive tasks assessing general attention and three components of working memory (central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, and phonological loop). T-test analyses showed that self-identified targets performed more poorly on the suite of tests compared to non-bullied counterparts, primarily driven by deficits in central executive functioning. Study 2 recruited 70 retail and hospitality workers who completed the cognitive tasks plus measures of preoccupying cognitions and exposure to negative acts. As hypothesised, we found significant indirect effects demonstrating that preoccupying cognitions explained the negative relationship between bullying and the three aspects of working memory. The magnitude of the cognitive deficits observed here, and their potential significance for job performance, highlights the importance of primary bullying prevention within organisations. Secondary and tertiary prevention efforts should also consider cognitive impairments experienced by targets and look for opportunities to reduce preoccupying cognitions, which compete for limited cognitive resources, to mitigate the erosive effects of bullying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While job demands have been known to reduce work engagement and job performance, the literature has not investigated uncertainty-based job demands such as job insecurity and role ambiguity. Acknowledging that leadership and team members are critical for reducing an employee's job demands and increasing an employee's job performance, the current study, drawing on social information processing theory, probes the roles of toxic leadership and team social support in shaping employee job demands (i.e., job insecurity & role ambiguity) and, subsequently, work engagement and job performance. A sample of 265 employees (50.9% males) in 48 teams from various private organizations in Malaysia participated in the study. The results showed that toxic leadership was positively related to job demands and negatively related to job performance, while team social support was negatively related to job demands and positively related to work engagement. Furthermore, work engagement mediated the relationship between job demands and job performance. Role ambiguity only mediated the relationship between toxic leadership and work engagement, while job insecurity only mediated the relationship between team social support and work engagement. The current study highlights the distinctive roles of toxic leadership and team social support in the relationships with employee job demands, work engagement, and job performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research suggests that co-worker social support predicts burnout, but this relationship may be far more complex, with the potential for a reciprocal cycle of loss. Leading research on loss spirals has explicitly called for more research on interindividual factors such as social support and, by extension, how interventions that operate on these interpersonal resources could play a role in primary and secondary prevention (i.e., intervening in cycles of loss). In this study, we explore the reciprocal relationship between burnout and co-worker social support, with psychosocial safety climate (PSC) as an upstream predictor and moderator of this relationship. Using hierarchical linear modelling (N = 380 frontline healthcare workers, nested within N = 63 teams) on longitudinal data, we found a reciprocal relationship between burnout and co-worker support, which was both triggered and moderated by PSC. These findings provide initial evidence for a social support–burnout loss spiral, wherein individuals with poor co-worker support are more likely to become burnt-out, and in this depleted state they are subsequently less likely to reach out for those social supports when available, which would, in turn, lead to further burnout. This social support–burnout loss spiral is exacerbated when working in a low-PSC context, as the environment does not send positive safety signals about resource scarcity and replenishment. Therefore, PSC may be a potential target for intervention both in primary prevention (i.e., stopping the loss spiral in the first instance) and in secondary intervention, as high PSC signals to workers already in the burnout–support loss cycle when it is safe to reinvest resources or engage in recovery behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Customer aggression is a growing concern for service organizations, typically viewed as a chronic work stressor. In this study, we examine an alternative, complementary conceptualization of this stressor: customer aggression in discrete encounters, which can fluctuate from day to day and may trigger momentum in resource loss. To explore dynamic trajectory change, we investigate daily change patterns in negative mood states over 5 successive days following the occurrence of a trigger episode of customer aggression. In addition, we examine the protective effects of two resources—job autonomy (an employee’s perception of freedom, independence, and discretion a job offers to him/her) and customer service self-efficacy (an employee’s belief in their skills and abilities in effectively managing customer service job tasks)—while controlling for baseline negative mood states, the effect of exposure to customer aggression on the trigger day, and the effect of daily exposure to customer aggression following the trigger day. Our analyses support the role of customer service self-efficacy, but not job autonomy, in influencing the initial level of and subsequent changes in negative mood states following customer aggression on the trigger day. These findings suggest that work design may not be sufficient to mitigate the adverse effects of customer aggression; rather, intervention training programs could help by developing customer service self-efficacy and enhancing the quality of daily customer interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model is a well-recognized theoretical framework assessing the impact of job demands and resources on well-being. Though the model conceptualises job demands and resources in terms of how jobs are both objectively designed and subjectively experienced, most studies have relied only on subjective self-reported data. In a comprehensive test of the model, our study investigates how objective job characteristics at the occupation level are associated with employees' perceptions of job demands and resources in their role, and examines the indirect effect of objective characteristics on employee outcomes via perceived characteristics. Multilevel analyses of multisource and lagged data from 2,049 employees in 97 jobs indicated that perceived job characteristics mediate the effects of objective job characteristics on employee outcomes. Specifically, the objective requirement for positive emotional displays is positively related to exhaustion through perceived emotional demands. Second, objective job hazard exposure is positively related to physical health problems through perceived physical demands. Finally, objective job complexity has a significant positive indirect relationship with work engagement through perceived skill discretion. The results suggest that risk identification and enrichment processes should consider the nature of the job itself instead of merely focusing on employees' cognitive appraisals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was conducted to propose and test a comprehensive theory designed to explain seemingly contradictory relations between emotional exhaustion, job demands, and work-family conflict (WFC) reported in the literature. Information about interventions to reduce work demands arising from work pressure is also provided.