Emergency Service Workers: The Role of Policy and Management in (Re)shaping Wellbeing for Emergency Service Workers

Abstract

This article examines the impact of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) levels and strength on the job stress and psychological distress of emergency services workers within street level bureaucracies (SLBs). The reason for the research is because the nature of their work and organizational context pre-disposes them to elevated level of psychological distress, and places them at a higher risk of subsequent debilitating physical and mental diseases, which is a cost borne by employees, their families, friends, SLBs, and taxpayers. Survey data was obtained from 274 emergency services workers (including police, and paramedics), nested within 43 workgroups, in Australia. Multilevel regression indicated that lower levels of PSC were associated with higher levels of job stress and psychological distress. Also, PSC strength had a partial moderating effect. The findings justify governments intervening legislatively to ensure SLBs’ take responsibility for ensuring a supportive PSC to mitigates the impact of exposure to workplace trauma.

“Nobody wants to be a dead hero”: Coping with precarity at the frontlines of the Brazilian and Mexican pandemic response

“…Mental health problems are common and often remain untreated, as was also found by scholars analyzing other street-level bureaucrats working during the pandemic (e.g. Brunetto et al, 2022;Farr-Wharton et al, 2022;Salehi et al, 2023). In our cases we found that, in response to untreated mental health issues, workers often develop fatalist or cynical attitudes regarding their work.…”

“…This points to the broader importance of analyzing psychological wellbeing and emotional labor as explanatory factors for frontline worker behavior and policy outcomes (cf. Brunetto et al., 2022; Dudau & Brunetto, 2022; Farr‐Wharton et al., 2022; Ogbonnaya et al., 2023; Varela Castro et al., 2022).…”

“…First, our findings underscore the importance of the institutional analysis of frontline conditions to understand variations in workers' coping. A large part of the literature on street-level bureaucracy explains frontline worker behavior by looking at how they use their agency and how this is influenced by their personal beliefs and norms (Evans, 2011;Jilke & Tummers, 2018;Maynard-Moody & Musheno, 2003) or by their behavioral and psychological capabilities (Brunetto et al, 2022;Farr-Wharton et al, 2022;Salehi et al, 2023). However, it is well-documented that frontline workers also respond to their working conditions, as shaped by factors beyond their individual agency (Hupe & Hill, 2016;Møller, 2021;Sandfort, 2000).…”

“…In the literature on street-level bureaucracy, coping is mainly studied as a behavioral strategy for dealing with clients, conflicting demands, and work pressure (Lipsky, 1980). However, compassion, emotional detachment, stress, psychological distress, or cynicism also significantly impact worker-client interactions (Tummers et al, 2015(Tummers et al, , p. 1102Farr-Wharton et al, 2022), just as job motivation and alienation shape policy implementation and service provision (Tummers et al, 2009). Our findings contribute to understanding the less-studied cognitive coping mechanisms by showing how frontline workers experience their interactions with clients and their work environment and how these, in turn, influence their behavior.…”

The role of team compassion in mitigating the impact of hierarchical bullying

“…Healthcare workers make up one of the highest proportions (18%) of Australian serious workers' compensation claims for mental stress (SafeWork, 2021). Hierarchical bullying is a type of deviant and destructive behaviour that occurs when a supervisor targets an individual or a group of subordinates (Caillier, 2020;Demir & Rodwell, 2012;Farr-Wharton et al, 2022;Norton et al, 2017). Victims are often subjected to ridicule, social isolation, professional undermining, an excessive workload, malicious gossip and the assignment of menial tasks by perpetrators with greater perceived workplace power and authority (De Cieri, Sheehan, Donohue, Shea, & Cooper, 2019;Omari & Paull, 2016).…”