Frontline employees in the
helping professions often perform their duties against a difficult backdrop,
including a complex client base and ongoing themes of crisis, suffering, and
distress. These factors combine to create an environment in which workers are
vulnerable to workplace stress and burnout.
The present study tested two models
to understand how frontline workers in the homelessness sector deal with the
suffering of their clients. First, we examined whether relationships between
suffering and workplace functioning (job satisfaction and burnout) would be
mediated by organizational identification. Second, we examined whether
emotional distance from clients (i.e., infrahumanization, measured as reduced
attribution of secondary emotions) would predict improved workplace functioning
(less burnout and greater job satisfaction), particularly when client contact
is high.
The study involved a mixed-methods design comprising interview (N =
26) and cross-sectional survey data (N = 60) with a sample of frontline staff
working in the homelessness sector. Participants were asked to rate the level of
client suffering and attribute emotions in a hypothetical client task, and to
complete questionnaire measures of burnout, job satisfaction, and
organizational identification.
We found no relationships between secondary
emotion attribution and burnout or satisfaction. Instead, we found that
perceiving higher client suffering was linked with higher job satisfaction and
lower burnout. Mediation analyses revealed a mediating role for identification,
such that recognizing suffering predicted greater identification with the
organization, which fully mediated the relationship between suffering and job
satisfaction, and also between suffering and burnout. Qualitative analysis of
interview data also resonated with this conceptualization. We introduce this
novel finding as the 'Florence Nightingale effect'.
With this sample drawn from
the homelessness sector, we provide preliminary evidence for the proposition
that recognizing others' suffering may serve to increase job satisfaction and
reduce burnout - by galvanizing organizational identification.
Below: Case history vignettes describing two hypothetical clients experiencing homelessness, ‘Warren’ and ‘Denise’. ‘Centrelink’ and ‘Newstart’ are terms specific to the Australian national welfare system.
Full article at: http://goo.gl/Z4l2xH
- 1School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD, Australia.
- 2Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD, Australia.
- Front Psychol. 2016 Jan 28;7:16. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00016. eCollection 2016.
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