Cyberslacking for Coping Stress? Exploring the Role of Mindfulness as Personal Resource

Abstract

There is no doubt that the Internet has made a positive impact on people's lives by enabling connectivity and access to a wealth of information. It has also given rise to cyberslacking behaviours in organisations which influence employees’ behaviours. However, sometimes cyberslacking may become a coping process that may be considered as a way to detach from a stress situation. Thus, cyberslacking rather than being viewed as counterproductive work behaviour may become a means to ‘de-stress’. The current work attempts to explore the relationship between job stress and cyberslacking and how this relationship is affected by mindfulness as a personal resource. To test the relationships, data were collected from employees working in the private sector using a standardised survey instrument. A total of 392 participants took part. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the interlinks and the result indicated that there was a significant positive association between job stress and cyberslacking, and mindfulness acted as a catalyst in mitigating the direct effects of job stress on employees' cyberslacking tendencies. In conclusion, mindful cyberslacking helps in coping with job stress amongst employees. The study is first amongst a few which represents cyberslacking as a coping mechanism for dealing with a stressful work environment. The outcomes provide significant implications for managing employees in digital workspace, and how mindfulness invokes the ability to regulate cyberslacking tendencies arising out of job stress leading to sustainable technology usage.

The Shape of Workbreaks to Come

“…For example, neuroticism, entitlement, and stress are being taken into account when developing some anti-cyberslacking interventions (Andreassen, Torsheim, & Pallesen, 2014;Koay, Soh, & Chew, 2017). Some managerial efforts also include the promotion of employee "mindfulness" as a "personal resource" in countering cyberslacking (Chen et al, 2022;Jarrahi, Blyth, & Goray, 2022;Mishra & Tageja, 2022). These approaches are akin to the US medicalization initiatives of the 1970s and 80s, as organizations developed mental health interventions to deal with perceived employee deviance and to minimize presumed related productivity losses (Roman, 1980), efforts that have recently expanded in response to 2020 pandemic concerns (Carvalho & Grácio, 2022).…”

“…Contino (2016) contends that "medicalization made its way into society as an extension of health systems into healthy life" (p. 45), often including aspects of wellness, mindfulness, and meditation. From an organizational perspective, Mishra and Tageja (2022) state that "Managers are also looking for new strategies for holistic management of employees' growth. It is well noted by the industry experts that employees' well-being should be one of the several priorities" (p. 56).…”