Process and content in performance management : how consistency and supervisor developmental feedback decrease emotional exhaustion via high-quality LMX

Performance Management (PM) is often criticized for undermining employee emotional exhaustion. To avoid such unintended consequences, this study investigates how PM can be of benefit to employee emotional exhaustion by integrating both process and content aspects of PM. Results show that a consistent PM process, in which the same performance expectations are maintained across the different practices of performance planning, monitoring and evaluation, is negatively related to employees’ emotional exhaustion, indirectly via the development of high-quality Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationships. Second, we found that, in terms of the content, supervisor developmental feedback acts as a moderator, determining the need to implement PM as a consistent process. A consistent PM process was especially important when the feedback provided throughout the PM process involved a lesser developmental content. When employees already received a large amount of developmental feedback, the degree to which the PM process was characterized by consistency made no difference to outcomes

How to foster nurses’ well-being and performance in the face of work pressure? : The role of mindfulness as personal resource

Aim: The aim of this study was to study the simultaneous relationships of work pressure with the performance and well-being of nurses and to explore whether mindfulness moderates these relationships. Design: A cross-sectional survey design. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1,021 nurses from 103 Belgian care homes for older people, in 2017. Data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression and simple slope analyses. Results: Work pressure was positively associated with empathetic care, job performance and emotional exhaustion and negatively associated with work engagement. Mindfulness was positively related to empathetic care, job performance and work engagement and negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Regarding the moderations, mindfulness moderated the relationships between work pressure and both performance outcomes, as well as between work pressure and work engagement. Contrary to what we expected: (a) mindfulness showed no significant buffering effect of work pressure on emotional exhaustion; (b) the relationship between work pressure and both empathic care and job performance was stronger when mindfulness was low (vs. high); and (c) mindfulness strengthened instead of weakened the negative relationship between work pressure and work engagement. However, in high work pressure settings, more mindful individuals still had better job performance and work engagement outcomes than less mindful individuals. Conclusion: Our findings explain conflicting outcomes on the effects of work pressure by suggesting that work pressure can function both as a hindrance and a challenge job demand depending on the outcome. Furthermore, by exploring the role of mindfulness as a personal resource, we add to the literature on the role of personal resources in the job demands–resources (JD-R)-model which is particularly relevant in the context of increasing work pressure. Impact: Nurses are confronted with increasing work pressure. The present findings indicate that the implementation of mindfulness strategies can be beneficial for nurses dealing with work pressure, contributing to nursing practice and JD-R theory