There is considerable evidence that burnout is linked with low job satisfaction ( Lee and Ashforth, 1996).
These symptoms are considered to emerge in response to specific workplace factors: accomplishment is undermined when people feel they do not have the resources to complete their tasks (such as time, training, or tools, and infrastructure), while exhaustion and callousness are associated with ongoing work overload and social stressors ( Maslach et al., 2001). Burnout generally comprises three principle symptoms: exhaustion, perceived lack of accomplishment, and callousness ( Maslach et al., 2001 Haslam and Reicher, 2006 Reicher and Haslam, 2006 Reicher et al., 2008).
Burnout is described as a ‘prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job’, and is linked with a raft of negative consequences for the individual, their clients, and the broader workplace ( Maslach et al., 2001 Maslach, 2003, p. Seeing clients’ pain and suffering can expose workers to vicarious emotional distress, with workers in the human services being particularly at risk ( Maslach and Pines, 1977 Miller et al., 1995 Maslach et al., 2001 Baker et al., 2007 Bride, 2007 Gleichgerrcht and Decety, 2013).Įxposure to distressing human circumstances means workers may be vulnerable to workplace stress, and over time, these stresses can lead to burnout. Over and above the skills necessary to support people to cope with or exit homelessness, workers need the ability to remain resilient in the face of these challenges. Meeting Competing Demands: Care, Burnout, and Emotional DistanceĪ range of traumatic antecedents can catalyze entry into homelessness ( Chigavazira et al., 2013), such as escape from domestic and family violence, or sexual and other forms of abuse financial difficulties, unemployment, and poverty family breakdown or bereavement addiction or substance misuse eviction or blacklisting from the private rental market contact with the criminal justice system mental illness cultural conflict and intergenerational trauma and many other triggers ( Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, 2008 Australian Institute of Health Welfare, 2014). With this sample drawn from the homelessness sector, we provide preliminary evidence for the proposition that recognizing others’ suffering may serve to increase job satisfaction and reduce burnout – by galvanizing organizational identification. We introduce this novel finding as the ‘Florence Nightingale effect’. Qualitative analysis of interview data also resonated with this conceptualization. Mediation analyses revealed a mediating role for identification, such that recognizing suffering predicted greater identification with the organization, which fully mediated the relationship between suffering and job satisfaction, and also between suffering and burnout. Instead, we found that perceiving higher client suffering was linked with higher job satisfaction and lower burnout. We found no relationships between secondary emotion attribution and burnout or satisfaction. Participants were asked to rate the level of client suffering and attribute emotions in a hypothetical client task, and to complete questionnaire measures of burnout, job satisfaction, and organizational identification. The study involved a mixed-methods design comprising interview ( N = 26) and cross-sectional survey data ( N = 60) with a sample of frontline staff working in the homelessness sector. Second, we examined whether emotional distance from clients (i.e., infrahumanization, measured as reduced attribution of secondary emotions) would predict improved workplace functioning (less burnout and greater job satisfaction), particularly when client contact is high. First, we examined whether relationships between suffering and workplace functioning (job satisfaction and burnout) would be mediated by organizational identification. The present study tested two models to understand how frontline workers in the homelessness sector deal with the suffering of their clients. These factors combine to create an environment in which workers are vulnerable to workplace stress and burnout. Frontline employees in the helping professions often perform their duties against a difficult backdrop, including a complex client base and ongoing themes of crisis, suffering, and distress.
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