Are anxious workers less productive workers? It depends on the quality of social exchange.

Abstract

In this article, we draw from Conservation of Resources Theory to advance and test a framework which predicts that emotional exhaustion plays an explanatory role underlying the relation between workplace anxiety and job performance. Further, we draw from social exchange theories to predict that leader-member exchange and coworker exchange will mitigate the harmful effects of anxiety on job performance. Findings across a 3-wave study of police officers supported our model. Emotional exhaustion mediated the link between workplace anxiety and job performance, over and above the effect of cognitive interference. Further, coworker exchange mitigated the positive relation between anxiety and emotional exhaustion, while leader-member exchange mitigated the negative relation between emotional exhaustion and job performance. This study elucidates the effects of workplace anxiety on resource depletion via emotional exhaustion and highlights the value of drawing on social resources to offset the potentially harmful effects of workplace anxiety on job performance.

Does interview anxiety predict job performance and does it influence the predictive validity of interviews?

“…These findings suggest that interviewees who are anxious are not necessarily those who will display low job performance once they are on the job. These findings are consistent with McCarthy et al’s () contention that anxiety may not be a damaging factor for day‐to‐day typical job performance. The results further indicate that for jobs like those of residence assistants, which involve facilitation of young adults in individual and group settings in addition to administrative duties (such as community center staff, or recreational service workers), it would appear that anxiety during the job interview should not factor into a decision to hire or not hire a candidate.…”

“…McCarthy, Trougakos, and Cheng () proposed two mechanisms through which anxiety could influence job performance. For maximal performance, anxiety may lead to cognitive interference, which draws employees’ attention away from the task at hand, leading to lower levels of task performance.…”

Too anxious to help? Off‐job affective rumination as a linking mechanism between work anxiety and helping

“…Indeed, work anxiety may be a precursor to affective rumination during leisure time. Work anxiety is a domain‐specific experience characterized by worry and apprehension about one's job performance (McCarthy et al ., ). These feelings of worry and apprehension about work create feelings of tension, which can spillover from work to other domains of life (Krannitz, Grandey, Liu, & Almeida, ).…”

“…Recently, growing theoretical and empirical attention has been paid to work anxiety – nervousness and apprehension connected to the accomplishment of job tasks (McCarthy, Trougakos, & Cheng, ) – as a driving force of negative work outcomes. This attention has yielded investigations of mechanistic pathways between work anxiety and performance, with evidence to link work anxiety to performance via both emotional exhaustion and cognitive interference at work (McCarthy et al ., ). However, this mechanistic search has omitted a key correlate of experienced anxiety: ruminative thought (Hong, ).…”

Bring your understanding of anxiety with you: Employees’ experiences of anxiety in open-plan offices

“…Employees within open-plan offices are exposed to uncontrollable environmental stressors such as noise, poor air quality, temperature and lighting (Hongisto et al, 2016). As a consequence, employees within open-plan offices are susceptible to burnout (McCarthy, Trougakos & Cheng, 2016), mental strain, fatigue, stress and emotional exhaustion (Horney, 1937). These heighten their levels of anxiety (see Michie & Williams, 2003;Jones, Latreille & Sloane, 2016).…”