Walking the tightrope between work and home: the role of job/home resources in the relation between job/home demands and employee health and well-being

Abstract

The present study investigated the role of job/home resources in the relation between job/home demands and exhaustion, job satisfaction, work-home interference, and home-work interference during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the prevalence of job/home demands and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, and examined whether working at different locations (i.e., working from home or at the office) affects how both job/home demands and resources are associated with employees' health and well-being. An online crosssectional survey study using self-report questionnaires was carried out among the networks of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) association (N=153). The findings of this study illustrated that (1) cognitive job demands/resources and emotional home demands/resources were crucial in predicting employee health and well-being; (2) a conceptual match was detected between corresponding demands and resources; (3) subgroup analysis showed that employees were not heavily affected by the different working locations during the pandemic. In conclusion, this study confirms the positive role of job/home resources. We suggest that cultivating specific job/home resources and establishing an appropriate match between specific job/home resources and corresponding job/home demands is necessary to ensure employees' health and well-being in times of a pandemic.

Perceived organizational support and occupational commitment: A study among male kindergarten teachers

“…Hence, our study alleviates this shortage. Second, our results showed that perceived organizational support positively predicts occupational well-being and occupational commitment, thus supporting the motivational process of job resources in the JD-R model, that is, job resources contribute to positive job outcomes [ 22 ].…”

“…The first is the energy-driven process (demand-loss for work), and the second is the motivation-driven process (resource-gain for work) [ 21 ]. Job demands refer to job-related tasks that require immediate or long-term efforts, whereas job resources can be defined as job-related means that can be utilized by employees when they must deal with job demands [ 22 ]. Work resources have motivation characteristics that can stimulate individual motivation and improve work engagement.…”

“Are you feeling safe?”: an investigation of psychosocial safety climate in the relations of job characteristics and employee exhaustion and engagement

“…Job demands and Job resources were assessed using the Demand-Induced Strain Questionnaire (DISQ) 4,5 , which has been well-validated in different languages and various occupational sectors. The Chinese version was applied in the present study 20 Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) was assessed with the Chinese version 1 of the PSC-12 scale 21 . An example item is "Senior management acts decisively when a concern over an employee's psychological status is raised".…”

Leading in times of crisis and remote work: perceived consideration leadership behavior and its effect on follower work engagement

“…This idea corresponds to the matching hypothesis (de Jonge and Dormann, 2003), according to which the effectiveness of resources in improving employee wellbeing or protecting employees from experiencing strain is contingent upon their alignment with the specific demands or stressors employees face. For example, a crosssectional study by Ji et al (2023) indicated that resources from the work and home domains were associated with employee health and wellbeing during COVID-19 when they matched with work and home demands, respectively. In our study, we understood personal COVID-19's impact as a demand comprising health concerns, financial threats, social isolation, and difficulties with relationships at home.…”