Research on job crafting has thus far focused on how distinct behaviors (i.e., seeking increase in (structural and social) job resources and challenging job demands, and decrease in hindering job ...demands) relate to employee well-being. However, job crafting behaviors are not necessarily mutually exclusive and can be deployed simultaneously, creating unique associations with job-related well-being, a phenomenon that has remained unexamined in job crafting research. This study extends the job crafting research by examining whether discernable profiles can be identified based on scores on four job crafting behaviors, and if so, whether such profiles differ in relation to work engagement. Study participants were Finnish rehabilitation workers (n=131) who completed day-level measures of job crafting and work engagement twice. At both measurement times, latent profile analysis yielded two job crafting profiles: 1) ‘Active job crafters’ (94%) and 2) ‘Passive job crafters’ (6%). Latent transition analysis revealed that employees maintained their profile membership over time. Moreover, ‘Active job crafters’ reported higher levels of work engagement than ‘Passive job crafters’ at both measurements. These results indicate that employees actively use multiple job crafting strategies simultaneously, and that this facilitates day-specific work engagement. The results also suggest that the strategy of decreasing hindering job demands is less detrimental to work engagement when used together with other job crafting strategies. Overall, the results demonstrate the benefits of investigating combinations of job crafting behaviors.
•Employees use different job crafting strategies simultaneously on a daily basis•Profiles of job crafting strategies possess continuity across measurements•Simultaneous use of all four job crafting strategies facilitate work engagement rather than the use of single strategies
This paper introduces a social identity perspective to job insecurity research. Worrying about becoming jobless, we argue, is detrimental because it implies an anticipated membership of a negatively ...evaluated group—the group of unemployed people. Job insecurity hence threatens a person’s social identity as an employed person. This in turn will affect well-being and job performance. A three-wave survey study amongst 377 British employees supports this perspective. Persons who felt higher levels of job insecurity were more likely to report a weaker social identity as an employed person. This effect was found to be stable over time and also held against a test of reverse causality. Furthermore, social identity as an employed person influenced well-being and in-role job performance and mediated the effect of job insecurity on these two variables over time. Different to the expectations, social identity as an employed person and organisational proactivity were not connected. The findings deliver interesting evidence for the role of social identity as an employed person in the relationships between job insecurity and its consequences. Theoretically, this perspective illustrates the individual and group-related nature of job insecurity and offers a novel way of connecting work situations with individual well-being, behaviour and attitudes.
This study investigates perceived external employability (PEE) as a personal resource in relation to job insecurity and exhaustion. We advance the idea that PEE may reduce feelings of job insecurity ...and, through felt job insecurity, also exhaustion. That is, we probe the paths from PEE to job insecurity and from job insecurity to exhaustion. We furthermore account for possible reversed causality, so that exhaustion → felt job insecurity and felt job insecurity → PEE. This aligns with insights from the Conservation of Resources Theory, which is built on the assumption of resource caravans passageways and associated gain and loss spirals. We based the results on a sample of 1314 workers from two Finnish universities. Respondents participated twice in the study with a time lag of one year. We found that PEE related negatively to felt job insecurity and vice versa. Similarly, there was a reciprocal positive relationship between felt job insecurity and exhaustion. We conclude that PEE may prevent feelings of insecurity and, through reduced job insecurity, also exhaustion.
•The person-oriented approach investigates burnout symptoms holistically within the individual.•Person-oriented findings reveal the individuality of the burnout experience.•The person-oriented ...approach complements variable-oriented burnout knowledge.•The advantages and challenges of a person-oriented approach are discussed.
The variable-oriented approach has dominated empirical burnout research, but during the last 10 years a person-oriented approach to burnout has also become common. The aim of this systematic literature review was to identify, categorize and evaluate the empirical research to date that has adopted a person-oriented approach to burnout. The results of these studies were then compared with those generated by variable-oriented burnout research. An electronic search of seven databases was conducted in spring 2015. Initially 470 publications were identified, 24 of which met the selection criteria. The reviewed articles were categorized into three groups based on their research target(s): (1) intra-individual patterns of burnout symptoms (i.e., types of burnout) (42%), (2) intra-individual development of burnout over time (i.e., burnout trajectories) (33%), and (3) patterns of well-being indicators within individuals (i.e., well-being types) (33%). The typical burnout types and trajectories identified by person-oriented research were largely parallel with the information produced by variable-oriented research, but also brought out the heterogeneity of the burnout experience by revealing atypical burnout and well-being types and individual developmental trajectories. The advantages, along with the challenges, of taking a person-oriented approach are discussed. Based on the study designs, methodologies, and main findings of the reviewed studies, five avenues for future person-oriented burnout studies are proposed.
Kokoustamisesta on tullut työelämämme uusi megatrendi, ja virtuaaliset kokoukset ovat yleistyneet, kuten myös niihin liittyvä tutkimus. Tässä kirjallisuuskatsauksessa jäsennetään ...virtuaalikokoustutkimuskenttää ja vedetään yhteen erityisesti koronapandemian aikana saatuja tutkimustuloksia virtuaalikokousten, työhyvinvoinnin ja tuottavuuden välisistä yhteyksistä. Katsauksen mukaan hallittu virtuaalikokousten käyttö on yhteydessä parempaan työhyvinvointiin. Tämä tarkoittaa esimerkiksi, että työntekijöiden on voitava vaikuttaa kokousten ajankohtaan. Myös kokousten kestoa, videokameran käyttöä ja mikrofonin käyttöä on rajoitettava. Virtuaalisuudesta johtuva kognitiivisen kuorman lisääntyminen aiheuttaa niin sanottua Zoom-väsymystä, mutta esimerkiksi osallistujien yhteenkuuluvuuden tunne vähentää väsymystä. Alustavasti virtuaalikokouksista on koettu olevan hyötyä henkilöstön pysyvyyden, työn tuottavuuden, innovatiivisuuden sekä ympäristörasituksen vähenemisen kannalta. Toisaalta virtuaalikokoukset vaikeuttavat työn koordinoimista, konfliktien käsittelyä, henkilöstön kehittämistä ja luottamuksen rakentamista. Organisaatioilta vaaditaankin kypsyyttä ja suunnitelmallisuutta virtuaalikokouksien mahdollisuuksien hyödyntämiseksi. Virtuaalikokouksien seurauksia koskeva tutkimus on vielä alkuvaiheessa, ja erityisesti voimavara- ja motivaatiopsykologiselle työhyvinvointitutkimukselle sekä tuottavuus tutkimukselle on tarvetta. Lisäksi vain harvat tutkimukset ovat käsitelleet kokouksia kiinteässä yhteydessä kulloiseenkin työkontekstiin tai pyrkineet määrittelemään virtuaalikokouksen luonnetta.
The present study is aimed at examining the combined effects of effort-reward imbalance (ERI), overcommitment (OVC), and perceived organizational support (POS) on turnover intentions and work ...engagement, among Finnish managers (
n
= 1,301). Consequently, the study contributes to the research literature by examining how the ERI-outcomes relationship was dependent simultaneously on OVC and POS. The results showed that ERI × OVC × POS interaction was significant only for turnover intentions. The ERI-turnover intentions relationship was strongest under conditions of high OVC and low POS. In addition, the relationship between ERI and decreased work engagement, especially dedication, was strengthened among overcommitted managers, compared to their less committed counterparts. Altogether, the results indicate that interventions aimed at reducing turnover intentions and increasing work engagement by increasing ERI should consider OVC and POS.
Objectives
While interventions using mindfulness have been effective in treating burnout, the mechanisms of change need more research. This study investigated which of five mindfulness facets ...(observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reacting) mediated the intervention effects on three burnout dimensions (exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy) during an 8-week mindfulness-, acceptance-, and value-based (MAV) intervention and a 10-month follow-up.
Methods
The participants were a heterogeneous sample of employees suffering from burnout (
n
= 202, 80% women, mean age = 47.5 years). Latent change score modeling was conducted for each combination of the mindfulness facets and the burnout dimensions. Confidence intervals were calculated for the coefficients in the models.
Results
The modeling results showed that mindfulness improvement during the intervention mediated burnout alleviation during both the intervention and the 10-month follow-up. A large spread of mindfulness facets mediated changes in all the burnout dimensions during the intervention (all for cynicism, all except describing for exhaustion, and all except observing for reduced professional efficacy). The improvement in non-judging skills mediated the reductions in all burnout dimensions during the follow-up. For exhaustion, it was the only significant mediator during the follow-up, whereas for cynicism and reduced professional efficacy, describing and observing were additional mediators.
Conclusions
Improving mindfulness facets using a MAV intervention had significant long-term effects on burnout in this study. Non-judging is possibly the most important mindfulness facet to improve in burnout interventions, given that it mediated the changes in all burnout dimensions during both the intervention and 10-month follow-up.
This study investigated whether beneficial intervention effects on burnout and mindfulness skills diffuse and facilitate the long-term development of different levels of subjective well-being: ...experiential (perceived stress), eudaimonic (psychological and social well-being), and evaluative (life satisfaction). Participants were Finnish employees with notable burnout (n = 105, 80% women). The study utilized individual profiles of burnout and mindfulness skills identified in a previous study (Kinnunen, Puolakanaho, Tolvanen, Mäkikangas, & Lappalainen, 2019). The profiles were based on levels and changes in burnout and mindfulness skills during an 8-week intervention and 4-month follow-up. In the present study, the same profiles were compared using a χ2 test for changes in the different levels of subjective well-being over 12 months. Although most profiles showed benefits in experiential subjective well-being, achieving a significant increase in eudaimonic or evaluative levels at the 12-month study period required a considerable decrease in burnout and increase in mindfulness skills during the preceding 6 months. Those who initially benefited the most from the intervention, that is, showed a decrease in burnout and increase in mindfulness skills, also showed the most favorable development in all 3 levels of subjective well-being during the 12-month study period. The differences in well-being between those who initially benefited from the intervention and those who did not seemed unlikely to diminish over time. It is thus important to monitor intervention effects on each level of subjective well-being to identify participants who are likely to need additional support to achieve long-term changes in well-being in all levels.
Shaping off-job life is becoming increasingly important for workers to increase and maintain their optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well). Proactively shaping the job domain ...(referred to as job crafting) has been extensively studied, but crafting in the off-job domain has received markedly less research attention. Based on the
Integrative Needs Model of Crafting
, needs-based off-job crafting is defined as workers’ proactive and self-initiated changes in their off-job lives, which target psychological needs satisfaction. Off-job crafting is posited as a possible means for workers to fulfill their needs and enhance well-being and performance over time. We developed a new scale to measure off-job crafting and examined its relationships to optimal functioning in different work contexts in different regions around the world (the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, and the United Kingdom). Furthermore, we examined the criterion, convergent, incremental, discriminant, and structural validity evidence of the Needs-based Off-job Crafting Scale using multiple methods (longitudinal and cross-sectional survey studies, an “example generation”-task). The results showed that off-job crafting was related to optimal functioning over time, especially in the off-job domain but also in the job domain. Moreover, the novel off-job crafting scale had good convergent and discriminant validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability. To conclude, our series of studies in various countries show that off-job crafting can enhance optimal functioning in different life domains and support people in performing their duties sustainably. Therefore, shaping off-job life may be beneficial in an intensified and continually changing and challenging working life.
There are currently two main theoretical perspectives that explain how employees engage in job crafting, namely Wrzesniewski and Dutton's (2001) original theory and the Job Demands-Resources model ...framework by Tims et al. (2012). The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare these two perspectives on job crafting and operationalizations based thereon using a person-centered methodology. We also examined whether the use of different job crafting strategy combinations manifests in differences in work engagement and person-job fit. Study participants were Finnish managers (n = 419) who completed both the Job Crafting Questionnaire (Slemp & Vella-Brodrick, 2013) and the Job Crafting Scale (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012). Latent Profile Analysis yielded four job crafting profiles: 1) Average crafters (47%), 2) Avoidance-oriented crafters (30%), 3) Approach-oriented crafters (19%) and 4) Self-oriented task crafters (4%). Approach-oriented crafters were significantly more engaged and fitted better to their job than those in the other profiles. Furthermore, those in the Average crafters profile were more engaged and had higher person-job fit than Avoidance-oriented crafters or Self-oriented task crafters. Overall, our findings provide new implications for the theoretical categorization of job crafting and knowledge on how the use of different combinations of job crafting strategies is related to work engagement and person-job fit.
•Individuals used combined job crafting strategies in order to tailor their jobs.•Altogether four different job crafting profiles were identified.•Job crafting profiles differed in work engagement and person-job fit.•Our results support the usefulness of the person-centered approach in understanding job crafting behaviors.
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