Fostering engagement among emotionally exhausted frontline employees in financial services sector

Abstract

PurposeThis study investigates the role of personal resource (i.e. psychological empowerment) in reducing the negative impact of emotional exhaustion of frontline employees on their engagement. It also examines the moderating effects of ethical climate and transformational leadership in mitigating the negative influence of emotional exhaustion on engagement among frontline service employees (FLEs).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 671 frontline employees from financial services sector. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical regression analysis (HRA) were used to test the hypothesized relationships.FindingsResults show that the impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement is greatly affected by psychological empowerment. Transformational leadership moderates the negative effects of emotional exhaustion on psychological empowerment, while ethical climate weakens the negative impact of emotional exhaustion on employee engagement.Practical implicationsService firms need to provide enough autonomy to emotionally exhausted frontline employees so that they feel valued. The emotionally exhausted employees can be engaged if they are empowered to discharge their job most effectively and a climate is ensured which can keep them motivated toward accomplishing their targets. A fair and just treatment shall boost their morale to perform better and to strengthen their staying intentions.Originality/valueThe novelty of our study lies in examining and fostering engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs. It shows that job resources at the individual level (i.e. psychological empowerment), team level (i.e. transformational leadership) and organizational level (i.e. ethical climate) can help in encouraging work engagement among emotionally exhausted FLEs.

Humor in the sky: the use of affiliative and aggressive humor in cabin crews facing passenger misconduct

“…Nevertheless, both explanations rely on the protective role of GSE as a personal resource. Similar to the results concerning the protective role of core self-evaluations in service interactions (Yoon, 2022) or distress tolerance as a personal resource (Hongbo et al, 2018) our study shows how the general self-efficacy of the flight attendants can function as a personal resource that buffers the detrimental consequences of emotional job demands (Heuven et al, 2006;Jerusalem and Schwarzer, 1992;Sahi et al, 2022). Highly efficacious cabin attendants report a weaker association between exposure to UPB and the use of aggressive humor in their groups, thus tend to report less negativity in the interpersonal interactions during flights.…”

“…Individuals with high self-efficacy have stronger beliefs in their ability to perform successfully, persist longer, invest more, and are more likely to feel challenged rather than stressed when confronted with difficult situations (Bandura and Walters, 1977). Past research has indicated that positive evaluations of personal resources and competencies of dealing with stress are related to more adaptive coping strategies (Li and Yang, 2009;Saltzman and Holahan, 2002;Hongbo et al, 2018;Sahi et al, 2022). Moreover, in a study on cabin crews, highly efficacious flight attendants were able to better deal with the emotional job demands of their work and use more effective coping strategies and resources (Heuven et al, 2006).…”

Linking environmentally-specific empowering leadership to hotel employees' green creativity: understanding mechanisms and boundary conditions

“…Therefore, in line with similar recent studies (e.g. Quratulain et al ., 2021; Jung et al ., 2022; Sahi et al ., 2022), we tested our hypotheses at individual level.…”

The Effects of Job Insecurity, Emotional Exhaustion, and Met Expectations on Hotel Employees’ Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Test of a Serial Mediation Model

“…Specifically, the findings of an empirical research conducted with nurses in Pakistan illustrated that emotional exhaustion mediated the effect of state anger and job stress on quitting intentions [47]. Sahi et al's [48] recent research in the financial services industry in India showed that psychological empowerment partially mediated the link between emotional exhaustion and employee engagement. Another recent research illustrated that emotional exhaustion partly mediated the influence of qualitative JIS on hotel employees' job embeddedness in Turkey [49].…”