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Job demands and burnout

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Do high job demands help employees to stay challenged at work, or do they challenge their well-being? Matej Černe discusses

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 29, 2024

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The study examines the relationship between job demands and employee burnout, questioning whether high job demands help maintain engagement or negatively impact well-being. Burnout is highlighted as a serious workplace concern with numerous negative consequences, including health issues and decreased performance.

The research focuses on the "Job Demands-Resources" (JDR) model, emphasizing the complex interaction of job demands across different organizational levels and the role of contextual factors. It identifies both competitive pressure and collective trust within units as influential factors in moderating the relationship between job demands and burnout.

The findings suggest that job demands can be perceived as either a hindrance or a challenge, with high levels of collective trust serving as a protective resource against burnout in the face of both individual and organizational demands. The study proposes that fostering unit-level trust can help individuals better cope with stressors, thereby mitigating burnout risk.

The research employs a large sample of over 5,000 employees nested within various organizational units to analyze these dynamics. Results indicate that burnout is lowest when there is high collective trust and low competitive pressure.

The study concludes that organizations can effectively manage job demands without necessarily reducing them, as long as supportive resources, like trust, are present. It emphasizes the importance of context and perception in understanding job demands, advocating for management practices that encourage trust and communication to enhance employee resilience and well-being.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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In this study, we basically focus on a key research

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question with regards to the relationship

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between job demands and burnout.

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So basically, we, in the background, is a question

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of whether high job demands actually help employees

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to stay challenged at work,

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or do they actually challenge their wellbeing?

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So burnout obviously is a very pressing matter,

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in workplace.

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So we are, after basically understanding the link

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between job demands and burnout,

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and especially we want to consider a multi-layered nature

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of the context in organizations.

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We saw that in the literature, in the, in theory,

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but also practice the understanding

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of this is quite limited.

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Um, and this is important

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because burnout has been associated with the number

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of potentially negative, issues, health problems,

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decreased work performance, absenteeism, turnover,

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disengagement in, in the, in our workforce,

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social withdrawal.

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From a societal perspective, it's actually, a big issue.

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Um, it's a public health issue pretty much

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with quite high levels of prevalence from, somewhere

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around 4% to 18% we see, in the contemporary workforce

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and the cost of burnout with regards to absenteeism,

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with regards to, people not being as engaged

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and as productive as they could be.

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Uh, these consequences are basically measured

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in, in billions.

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Um, but it's not really clear how at work,

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job demands relate to burnout.

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Um, so for example, specifically competitive pressure,

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it has been described in previous studies as undesirable.

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So in this case, it could be regarded as a hindrance demand.

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However, in some instances, in some studies,

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they have also shown that it's positively related

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to motivation and engagement and performance.

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So we could also, see it as a challenge demand.

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So basically, job demands in themselves represent a

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double-edged sort as, as we called it, in that regards

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that these outcomes need to be examined in more details,

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specifically across different organizational levels

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and in, competitive,

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interactive interplay, role.

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So in this regard, we wanted

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to study the contextual boundary conditions

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of these relationship in the background,

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or we derived mostly on the theoretical framework

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of the job demands resources.

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Uh, JDR, it's been developed by Arnold Barker

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and Ava and Maru.

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Um, let's say one of the most, well-known,

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researchers in the field of organizational psychology,

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organizational behavior,

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and studies supplying this model have done actually a lot in

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explaining how individual level characteristics as well

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as personal factors relate to burnout.

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Uh, because this is one of the two conceptual

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paths in this model.

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Uh, the, so-called health impairment, path.

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The other path is basically, the motivational path.

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So with regards to how the balance of job demands

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and resources leads to motivation

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and engagement, the health impairment,

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path basically says that when demands

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and resources are in misbalance,

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so they're not in alignment, that leads to burnout.

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So the health impairment

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pathway, so this is what we're after.

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Um, and JDR actually also proposes

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or, let's say highlights

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or, indicates a multi-level approach

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that considers nested, that considers factors

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beyond the individual level.

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However, very few studies have, up

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to this point actually included these moderating variables

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across different levels

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and see how they interact

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with job demands at the individual level

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in an interactive manner.

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And this is very important because this is basically

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organizational realities.

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You cannot view an individual, workplace

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or job demands at the individual level in isolation.

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Um, because organizational level job demands

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and resources, they are perceived as such by employees,

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and they interact with demands

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and resources at the individual level,

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and thereby obviously they influence also employee health

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and wellbeing in many ways.

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So basically with these calls in the literature,

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with regards to,

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using JDR in a more systematic multi-level approach,

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this is where we proposed basically

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that organizational level competitive pressure

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and unit level, collective trust together act

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as job demands or resources

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or are actually perceived as such by, mps

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and interplay with job demands at the individual level in,

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predicting burnout.

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This is the gist, of this study.

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Uh, the three-way interaction, well,

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in the background I mentioned the double-edged sword where,

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these hindrance

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and challenge of demands inhibit inconsistent

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relationships with outcomes.

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So we are after these, preventative interplay effects

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that where job resources at,

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different levels in the organization can mitigate job

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demands on strain, stress burnout, right?

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Um, so in this respect,

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we focused on trust in organizational units first,

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and this is specifically important when job demands are,

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high, and we argue that unit level collective trust

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as perceived by,

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employees then change individual perspectives on,

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on highly demanding work tasks

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and basically leverage their effect on, on burnout.

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So we know that in line with the JDR framework,

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these job resources are specifically important when job

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demands at individual level are high.

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So when you see, when the individuals employees see,

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shared, unit level collective trust,

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they are more likely

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to perceive their work goals as attainable.

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Um, they, see their coworkers reciprocal commitments

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to the mutual goal,

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receive cooperation help, support.

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So basically they, that helps this, this is viewed

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as a resource that helps,

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Individuals respond more resiliently to job demands,

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such as work overload.

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Um, because basically the collective atmosphere

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of codependence co reliance collaborative climate,

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emerges in, in this regard even when the job demands

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are, high.

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So that gives individuals kind of a sense of security

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that they can rely on their colleagues, on their coworkers,

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actually reduces the need for monitoring,

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the other party as well.

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And this kind of reduces the negative effects of job demand.

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So that is the first part, the first element kind of

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of the three-way interplay is the moderating role of trust.

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And then the other, element is even higher at the,

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it's at the organizational level,

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and this is competitive pressure that,

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conceptually is actually perceived

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externally from the firms.

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However, we argue in our study, in our paper,

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that this competitive pressure,

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is also perceived internally

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or translated internally as perceived by the employees

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because, to, to sustain this competitive pressure

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that is externally induced, work basically needs

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to be intensified in that regard to keep up

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with the new developments in the industry,

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to maintain the competitive advantage at the firm level.

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And we argue that employees also perceive that.

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And this is also supported by,

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by our study, by our appearance.

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And this actually invokes, employees, fear

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of job loss, fear of

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or say, decreased the perceived job security,

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increased internal competition as well.

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Um, and actually we, propose

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and, also test in our three-way, interaction

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that the remedy for this is, the,

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the externally imposed competitive pressure is trust,

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at the unit level.

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So basically when we see

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that demands are high at the individual level, as well

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as at the organizational level,

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unit level trust can, mitigate that.

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And this is because these strong social ties

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that I've been explaining

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and high levels of internal trust,

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mitigate the escalating, external pressure so

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that there's a collaborative climate.

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Um, and this magnitude of competitive pressure

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by those strong social ties help collaboration

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basically decreases.

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And this is very much in line with JDR, as well

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because this argues

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that employees will feel energized even when they have job

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demands, when those job demands are also being

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accompanied by resources.

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And as we crucially propose in this study, trust

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as the unit level is a key level resource mitigating is

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negative effects of both competitive pressure at the

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organizational level as well

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as job demands at the individual level,

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the proposed three-way interaction, actually,

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conceptualizes four different scenarios with regards

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to the levels of burnout.

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Uh, so we propose that the lowest, con the condition

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with the lowest,

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burnout would be when there is low competitive pressure

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and high collective trust.

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And this is the ideal basically,

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where high job demands are buffered by high,

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trust at the organizational level,

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and there is no need to additional buffer,

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demands at the organizational level With regards

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to competitive pressure.

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On the other hand, we propose,

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which is scenario one in the figure that, the,

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burnout would be highest when we have both high competitive

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pressure as well as low, collective trust.

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So in that regard, collective trust cannot buffer the

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demands imposed by at the individual level as well

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as at the organizational level

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as perceived by the employees.

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In our paper, we did,

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we basically did a multi-level analysis, of,

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quite a huge sample in, in this field.

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Uh, so we had more than 5,000 employees, from Germany,

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that are part of, of this study, collected

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by our colleagues, in Germany and Switzerland.

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Um, the, this sample,

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so these employees are nested into almost 3000 work units,

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where we, ask them, basically about the level

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of their collective trust in these units as well.

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And, that, that all happens in 89 German organizations.

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So there's three levels of nested, in this regard.

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So how employees are nested into work units

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and then into firms.

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And we also had two sources of data, so employees as well

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as human resource managers,

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because they reported on some control variables about their

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firms as well as the competitive pressure that we were

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after, in the study at the organizational level.

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So because we had nest data, we applied, multi-level,

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confirmatory factor analysis,

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then random coefficient modeling with HLM,

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and, the multi-level analysis

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of these three-way cross level interactions.

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Um, first confirmed that at the individual level,

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job demands were related to burnout,

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but then also at the unit level, that collective trust,

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like we proposed moderates this link between job demands

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and burnout, and specifically, we found that in the case

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of high job demands, burnout was lowest in the condition

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of high collective trust

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and low competitive pressure, pretty much as we would,

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expect.

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And that means that this is the context

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that is most suitable to successfully outbalance,

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high levels of job demand.

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So basically that means that, high levels

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of job demands can be strenuous.

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They can contribute to stress and burnout.

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Um, and in from that,

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we can derive many different also

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occupational health issues.

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Um, however, and specifically as the, the other elements

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of our three-way interaction have shown,

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especially when these job demands get accumulated from

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various levels within the organization,

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That may turn into the most harmful, job stressors

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and that can really cause serious issues on the long run.

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Right? Um, such as burnout, and, health impairment.

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I would say that our study basically adds another layer

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of complexity in comprehending the, the interplay,

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that needs to be considered when looking at the

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organizational reality of contextual factors that unfold,

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across different levels

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where we cannot view individual level

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workplace in isolation.

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Um, and we have actually shown that organizations don't need

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to necessarily reduce,

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reduce job demands at the individual level.

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Um, however, this is only possible

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to actually impose job demands at the individual level when

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they're not matched with job resources at the individual

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level when we have high, mutual trust in units.

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Um, and this is, this supports such a condition,

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and that only can take place when this is not also

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reinforced by competitive pressure at the

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organizational level.

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So it's quite complex, right?

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We can, we have to view organizational level competitive

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pressure in combination with job demands at,

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different levels and in certain there cumulative combined

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effects in a more systemic embedded manner.

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And this is something that we propose also kind of

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for the research going forward.

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And this is something that, we see our study kind

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of shifting the logic in,

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organizational behavior research generally.

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Um, so that means practically

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what might be considered an energizing job demand at the

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individual level can actually turn into a hindrance job

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demand when combined with effects at

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and across, multiple levers.

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Hence our notion of the double-edged sword with regards

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to job demands, right?

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Um, and employees

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and organizations can actually do a lot, to proactively

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cope with, such high demands,

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by mobilizing resources in units, specifically

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by keeping demands at higher organizational levels,

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under control, thereby kind of ensuring healthy

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and the most safe work environments.

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Um, so we, we can say that an overload

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of job demands definitely positively predicts burnout, not

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so managers first need to be very careful with regards to,

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distributing demands across jobs.

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Um, management also needs to be mindful how these demands,

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and they can be, mental, physical, emotional work,

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pressure work, ambiguities,

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quick changes in tasks, uncertainty.

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So they need to be adjusted to particular employees

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because they will feel them, perceive them differently.

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So that is very important that the specific employee

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and the specific work situation is considered.

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And then of course, the key implication is

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that these job demands should not be viewed

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in our isolation.

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Contextual cues matter,

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and not necessarily just in an objective manner,

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but how employees at the individual level

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perceive them. And

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Definitely as we have shown mutual trust, in teams

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or in units can help,

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these employees effectively cope with these demands.

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Um, to stimulate that,

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managers should use open communication systems,

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feedback systems,

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stimulate participative decision making,

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do a delegation of control.

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So not to impose control, just top down,

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and specifically facilitate the climate

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of information sharing to facilitate trust.

00:00 - In this study, we basically focus on a key research question with regards to the relationship between job demands and burnout. So basically, we, in the background, is a question of whether high job demands actually help employees to stay challenged at work,

00:14 - or do they actually challenge their wellbeing? So burnout obviously is a very pressing matter, in workplace. So we are, after basically understanding the link between job demands and burnout, and especially we want to consider a multi-layered nature of the context in organizations. We saw that in the literature, in the, in theory, but also practice the understanding of this is quite limited.

00:41 - and this is important because burnout has been associated with the number of potentially negative, issues, health problems, decreased work performance, absenteeism, turnover, disengagement in, in the, in our workforce, social withdrawal. From a societal perspective, it's actually, a big issue. it's a public health issue pretty much with quite high levels of prevalence from, somewhere around 4% to 18% we see, in the contemporary workforce

01:13 - and the cost of burnout with regards to absenteeism, with regards to, people not being as engaged and as productive as they could be. these consequences are basically measured in, in billions. but it's not really clear how at work, job demands relate to burnout. so for example, specifically competitive pressure, it has been described in previous studies as undesirable. So in this case, it could be regarded as a hindrance demand.

01:40 - However, in some instances, in some studies, they have also shown that it's positively related to motivation and engagement and performance. So we could also, see it as a challenge demand. So basically, job demands in themselves represent a double-edged sort as, as we called it, in that regards that these outcomes need to be examined in more details, specifically across different organizational levels and in, competitive, interactive interplay, role.

02:11 - So in this regard, we wanted to study the contextual boundary conditions of these relationship in the background, or we derived mostly on the theoretical framework of the job demands resources. JDR, it's been developed by Arnold Barker and Ava and Maru. let's say one of the most, well-known, researchers in the field of organizational psychology, organizational behavior,

02:35 - and studies supplying this model have done actually a lot in explaining how individual level characteristics as well as personal factors relate to burnout. because this is one of the two conceptual paths in this model. the, so-called health impairment, path. The other path is basically, the motivational path. So with regards to how the balance of job demands and resources leads to motivation and engagement, the health impairment,

03:02 - path basically says that when demands and resources are in misbalance, so they're not in alignment, that leads to burnout. So the health impairment pathway, so this is what we're after. and JDR actually also proposes or, let's say highlights or, indicates a multi-level approach that considers nested, that considers factors beyond the individual level.

03:26 - However, very few studies have, up to this point actually included these moderating variables across different levels and see how they interact with job demands at the individual level in an interactive manner. And this is very important because this is basically organizational realities. You cannot view an individual, workplace or job demands at the individual level in isolation.

03:49 - because organizational level job demands and resources, they are perceived as such by employees, and they interact with demands and resources at the individual level, and thereby obviously they influence also employee health and wellbeing in many ways. So basically with these calls in the literature, with regards to, using JDR in a more systematic multi-level approach, this is where we proposed basically

04:15 - that organizational level competitive pressure and unit level, collective trust together act as job demands or resources or are actually perceived as such by, mps and interplay with job demands at the individual level in, predicting burnout. This is the gist, of this study. the three-way interaction, well, in the background I mentioned the double-edged sword where, these hindrance

04:40 - and challenge of demands inhibit inconsistent relationships with outcomes. So we are after these, preventative interplay effects that where job resources at, different levels in the organization can mitigate job demands on strain, stress burnout, right? so in this respect, we focused on trust in organizational units first, and this is specifically important when job demands are, high, and we argue that unit level collective trust

05:11 - as perceived by, employees then change individual perspectives on, on highly demanding work tasks and basically leverage their effect on, on burnout. So we know that in line with the JDR framework, these job resources are specifically important when job demands at individual level are high. So when you see, when the individuals employees see, shared, unit level collective trust, they are more likely

05:39 - to perceive their work goals as attainable. they, see their coworkers reciprocal commitments to the mutual goal, receive cooperation help, support. So basically they, that helps this, this is viewed as a resource that helps, Individuals respond more resiliently to job demands, such as work overload. because basically the collective atmosphere of codependence co reliance collaborative climate,

06:08 - emerges in, in this regard even when the job demands are, high. So that gives individuals kind of a sense of security that they can rely on their colleagues, on their coworkers, actually reduces the need for monitoring, the other party as well. And this kind of reduces the negative effects of job demand. So that is the first part, the first element kind of of the three-way interplay is the moderating role of trust. And then the other, element is even higher at the,

06:38 - it's at the organizational level, and this is competitive pressure that, conceptually is actually perceived externally from the firms. However, we argue in our study, in our paper, that this competitive pressure, is also perceived internally or translated internally as perceived by the employees because, to, to sustain this competitive pressure that is externally induced, work basically needs

07:05 - to be intensified in that regard to keep up with the new developments in the industry, to maintain the competitive advantage at the firm level. And we argue that employees also perceive that. And this is also supported by, by our study, by our appearance. And this actually invokes, employees, fear of job loss, fear of or say, decreased the perceived job security, increased internal competition as well.

07:32 - and actually we, propose and, also test in our three-way, interaction that the remedy for this is, the, the externally imposed competitive pressure is trust, at the unit level. So basically when we see that demands are high at the individual level, as well as at the organizational level, unit level trust can, mitigate that. And this is because these strong social ties

07:57 - that I've been explaining and high levels of internal trust, mitigate the escalating, external pressure so that there's a collaborative climate. and this magnitude of competitive pressure by those strong social ties help collaboration basically decreases. And this is very much in line with JDR, as well because this argues that employees will feel energized even when they have job

08:23 - demands, when those job demands are also being accompanied by resources. And as we crucially propose in this study, trust as the unit level is a key level resource mitigating is negative effects of both competitive pressure at the organizational level as well as job demands at the individual level, the proposed three-way interaction, actually, conceptualizes four different scenarios with regards to the levels of burnout.

08:52 - so we propose that the lowest, con the condition with the lowest, burnout would be when there is low competitive pressure and high collective trust. And this is the ideal basically, where high job demands are buffered by high, trust at the organizational level, and there is no need to additional buffer, demands at the organizational level With regards to competitive pressure.

09:16 - On the other hand, we propose, which is scenario one in the figure that, the, burnout would be highest when we have both high competitive pressure as well as low, collective trust. So in that regard, collective trust cannot buffer the demands imposed by at the individual level as well as at the organizational level as perceived by the employees. In our paper, we did, we basically did a multi-level analysis, of,

09:45 - quite a huge sample in, in this field. so we had more than 5,000 employees, from Germany, that are part of, of this study, collected by our colleagues, in Germany and Switzerland. the, this sample, so these employees are nested into almost 3000 work units, where we, ask them, basically about the level of their collective trust in these units as well. And, that, that all happens in 89 German organizations. So there's three levels of nested, in this regard.

10:18 - So how employees are nested into work units and then into firms. And we also had two sources of data, so employees as well as human resource managers, because they reported on some control variables about their firms as well as the competitive pressure that we were after, in the study at the organizational level. So because we had nest data, we applied, multi-level, confirmatory factor analysis, then random coefficient modeling with HLM,

10:48 - and, the multi-level analysis of these three-way cross level interactions. first confirmed that at the individual level, job demands were related to burnout, but then also at the unit level, that collective trust, like we proposed moderates this link between job demands and burnout, and specifically, we found that in the case of high job demands, burnout was lowest in the condition of high collective trust and low competitive pressure, pretty much as we would,

11:18 - expect. And that means that this is the context that is most suitable to successfully outbalance, high levels of job demand. So basically that means that, high levels of job demands can be strenuous. They can contribute to stress and burnout. and in from that, we can derive many different also occupational health issues.

11:40 - however, and specifically as the, the other elements of our three-way interaction have shown, especially when these job demands get accumulated from various levels within the organization, That may turn into the most harmful, job stressors and that can really cause serious issues on the long run. Right? such as burnout, and, health impairment. I would say that our study basically adds another layer of complexity in comprehending the, the interplay, that needs to be considered when looking at the

12:13 - organizational reality of contextual factors that unfold, across different levels where we cannot view individual level workplace in isolation. and we have actually shown that organizations don't need to necessarily reduce, reduce job demands at the individual level. however, this is only possible to actually impose job demands at the individual level when they're not matched with job resources at the individual

12:39 - level when we have high, mutual trust in units. and this is, this supports such a condition, and that only can take place when this is not also reinforced by competitive pressure at the organizational level. So it's quite complex, right? We can, we have to view organizational level competitive pressure in combination with job demands at, different levels and in certain there cumulative combined effects in a more systemic embedded manner.

13:07 - And this is something that we propose also kind of for the research going forward. And this is something that, we see our study kind of shifting the logic in, organizational behavior research generally. so that means practically what might be considered an energizing job demand at the individual level can actually turn into a hindrance job demand when combined with effects at and across, multiple levers.

13:34 - Hence our notion of the double-edged sword with regards to job demands, right? and employees and organizations can actually do a lot, to proactively cope with, such high demands, by mobilizing resources in units, specifically by keeping demands at higher organizational levels, under control, thereby kind of ensuring healthy and the most safe work environments. so we, we can say that an overload

14:02 - of job demands definitely positively predicts burnout, not so managers first need to be very careful with regards to, distributing demands across jobs. management also needs to be mindful how these demands, and they can be, mental, physical, emotional work, pressure work, ambiguities, quick changes in tasks, uncertainty. So they need to be adjusted to particular employees because they will feel them, perceive them differently. So that is very important that the specific employee

14:33 - and the specific work situation is considered. And then of course, the key implication is that these job demands should not be viewed in our isolation. Contextual cues matter, and not necessarily just in an objective manner, but how employees at the individual level perceive them. And Definitely as we have shown mutual trust, in teams or in units can help,

14:56 - these employees effectively cope with these demands. to stimulate that, managers should use open communication systems, feedback systems, stimulate participative decision making, do a delegation of control. So not to impose control, just top down, and specifically facilitate the climate of information sharing to facilitate trust.

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