Praise and recognition from supervisors buffers employee psychological strain: A two-sample investigation with tourism workers.

BACKGROUND: Focusing on employees with psychological strain, this research draws on Fredrickson's 'undoing hypothesis' to examine praise and recognition from one's supervisor as an organizational resource. OBJECTIVE: A model is tested in which psychological strain is a mediator in the positive relationship between role demands and employees' intentions to take sick leave and seek medical advice, and positions supervisor praise and recognition as a buffer of psychological strain on such intentions. METHODS: The model was tested using two Australian samples in the tourism sector, consisting of motel workers (n = 104) and museum workers (n = 168). RESULTS: For museum workers, but not motel workers, there was a positive indirect effect of each role demand on sick leave intentions through psychological strain that weakened as a function of supervisor praise and recognition. The proposed moderated mediated model was supported for both samples in regards to intentions to seek medical advice. CONCLUSIONS: This research contributes new evidence regarding the antecedents of employees' intentions to take sick leave and seek medical advice for work stress-related problems. It also contributes to the limited evidence regarding supervisor praise and recognition as a protective factor for employees exhibiting the symptoms of psychological strain.

Employees' perceptions of their own and their supervisor's emotion recognition skills moderate emotional demands on psychological strain.

This research builds on prior studies showing the role of employee emotion recognition in the stress process to be mixed and conflicting. As such, it was proposed that the extent to which employees' emotion recognition skills buffer or exacerbate emotional demands depends on the extent to which employees believe their supervisor also is skilled in emotion recognition. Two samples of Australian employees completed cross-sectional questionnaires. Sample 1 consisted of 149 employees in a medical research institution, and Sample 2 consisted of 161 government employees in an equipment supplies and logistics service. A three-way interaction among emotional demands, employee emotion recognition, and perceived supervisor emotion recognition was found on psychological strain in both samples and on job dissatisfaction in Sample 1. As predicted, when employee emotion recognition was high, those who perceived their supervisor to be high in emotion recognition were buffered from emotional demands. In contrast, stress-exacerbating effects were found when employees were high in emotion recognition, but supervisors were perceived to be low in emotion recognition. Overall, these results highlight the importance of emotion recognition in the stress process, and that the same skill set needs to be perceived in one's supervisor, an interpersonal resource, for this intrapersonal resource to be adaptive for employees.

Interaction effects among multiple job demands: an examination of healthcare workers across different contexts.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Simultaneous exposure to time, cognitive, and emotional demands is a feature of the work environment for healthcare workers, yet effects of these common stressors in combination are not well established. DESIGN: Survey data were collected from 125 hospital employees (Sample 1, Study 1), 93 ambulance service employees (Sample 2, Study 1), and 380 aged care/disability workers (Study 2). METHODS: Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted. RESULTS: In Sample 1, high cognitive demand exacerbated high emotional demand on psychological strain and job burnout, whereas the negative effect of high emotional demand was not present at low cognitive demand. In Sample 2, a similar pattern between emotional demand and time demand on stress-remedial intentions was observed. In Study 2, emotional demand × time demand and time demand × cognitive demand interactions again revealed that high levels of two demands were stress-exacerbating and low levels of one demand neutralized the other. A three-way interaction on job satisfaction showed the negative impact of emotional demand was exacerbated when both time and cognitive demands were high, creating a "triple disadvantage" of job demands. CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that reducing some job demands helps attenuate the stressful effects of other job demands on different employee outcomes.

Change in Psychosocial Work Factors Predicts Follow-up Employee Strain: An Examination of Australian Employees.

OBJECTIVE: This research undertook a time-ordered investigation of Australian employees in regards to their experiences of change in psychosocial work factors across time (decreases, increases, or no change) in the prediction of psychological, physical, attitudinal, and behavioral employee strain. METHODS: Six hundred and ten employees from 17 organizations participated in Time 1 and Time 2 psychosocial risk assessments (average time lag of 16.7 months). Multi-level regressions examined the extent to which change in exposure to six demands and four resources predicted employee strain at follow-up, after controlling for baseline employee strain. RESULTS: Increases in demands and decreases in resources exacerbated employee strain, but even constant moderate demands and resources resulted in poor employee outcomes, not just constant high or low exposure, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These findings can help employers prioritize hazards, and guide tailored psychosocial organizational interventions.