Abstract
This study examined associations between work-stress, perceived organizational support, supervisor support, staff health (i.e., psychological stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue), and work outcomes (i.e., turnover intentions, organizational commitment, job satisfaction). A heterogeneous sample of 201 office staff recruited via email and snowball sampling completed a short anonymous online survey asking about their recent experiences of the above factors. High work-stress was associated with worse staff health (i.e., anxiety, depression, fatigue) and work outcomes (e.g., greater turnover intentions), and these associations were mediated by high perceived stress. Less workplace support (i.e., supervisor support, perceived organizational support) was associated with adverse work outcomes (i.e., high turnover intentions, less organizational commitment, less job satisfaction), and high depression levels. Neither perceived organizational support nor supervisor support was shown to moderate between high work-stress to the staff health and work outcome associations. Work-stress likely contributed to feelings of high perceived stress in some workers, which then contributed to poor health and higher turnover intentions. However, workplace support did not appear to buffer against the potential to experience ill health or adverse work outcomes (e.g., less job satisfaction). This study examines gaps in the work-stress literature, particularly in relation to adverse work outcomes and the possible impact of organizational support in reducing these and staff health problems.
Highlights
Work-stress is defined as any harmful response occurring in staff when the requirement to get the job done does not match the actual or perceived ability to do the job (Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, & Novacek, 1987)
Regarding Hypothesis 1, the correlation matrix of key variables shows that psychological stress was highly correlated with work-stress, anxiety, and depression and moderately correlated with fatigue and all the work outcomes; see Table 1
Work-stress was related to all adverse staff health outcomes and most adverse work outcomes, except organizational commitment, in this office sample, and most of the associations were mediated by high psychological stress
Summary
Work-stress is defined as any harmful response occurring in staff when the requirement to get the job done does not match the actual or perceived ability to do the job (Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, & Novacek, 1987). Work-stress is strongly correlated with negative staff mental health outcomes. When work-stress (e.g., high demands and low control) is high and/or combined with high job insecurity, staff are at an increased risk of anxiety and depression (Strazdins, D’Souza, Lim, Broom, & Rodgers, 2004), and this is paralleled by higher psychological strain, as indexed by an increase in systolic blood pressure (Capizzi, Allen, Murphy, & Pescatello, 2010). This work-related fatigue is thought to be the result of emotional and mental exhaustion occurring in the context of work-stress and burnout, and it is frequently co-morbid with anxiety, depression, and substance use (e.g., Appels, 2000; Kant et al, 2003)
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