TY - JOUR
T1 - Work-Family Conflict and Burnout Amid COVID-19
T2 - Exploring the Mitigating Effects of Instrumental Leadership and Social Belonging
AU - Allgood, Michelle
AU - Jensen, Ulrich Thy
AU - Stritch, Justin M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruptions to government workplaces, including abrupt transitions to remote work for many employees. Remote work can offer a physically distant environment and greater flexibility for individual employees and organizations; remote work also creates or exacerbates potential work-life balance tensions. Drawing on Job-Demands Resources theory, we propose that two organizational resources, instrumental leadership (a vertical organizational resource) and a sense of social belonging (a horizontal organizational resource), help prevent burnout by alleviating conflict between work- and family-life activities. Using survey responses from local government employees collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020), we show that employees with a strong sense of social belonging experience less work-family conflict and, in turn, report lower levels of burnout. We also find that social belonging, as a horizontal organizational resource, appears more important for reducing burnout in a period characterized by disruption than the more formal, vertical resource of instrumental leadership.
AB - The COVID-19 pandemic brought disruptions to government workplaces, including abrupt transitions to remote work for many employees. Remote work can offer a physically distant environment and greater flexibility for individual employees and organizations; remote work also creates or exacerbates potential work-life balance tensions. Drawing on Job-Demands Resources theory, we propose that two organizational resources, instrumental leadership (a vertical organizational resource) and a sense of social belonging (a horizontal organizational resource), help prevent burnout by alleviating conflict between work- and family-life activities. Using survey responses from local government employees collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020), we show that employees with a strong sense of social belonging experience less work-family conflict and, in turn, report lower levels of burnout. We also find that social belonging, as a horizontal organizational resource, appears more important for reducing burnout in a period characterized by disruption than the more formal, vertical resource of instrumental leadership.
KW - COVID-19
KW - burnout
KW - instrumental leadership
KW - job-demands resources theory
KW - sense of social belonging
KW - work-family conflict
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131737247&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85131737247&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0734371X221101308
DO - 10.1177/0734371X221101308
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85131737247
SN - 0734-371X
JO - Review of Public Personnel Administration
JF - Review of Public Personnel Administration
ER -