Impact of nurses' emotional labour on job stress and emotional exhaustion amid COVID‐19: The role of instrumental support and coaching leadership as moderators

Abstract

Aim This study examines Pakistan nurses’ emotional labor and stress in healthcare emergencies on their emotional exhaustion and availability of support at organizational and managerial levels to alleviate the effects. Background As COVID‐19 pandemic has been declared a global outbreak and many countries have enacted medical emergencies, this has increased job demands and expected desired emotional expressions from frontline workers. Such high levels of job demand contribute to various stress reactions among employees. Methodology Authors applied a longitudinal design, using an experimental approach, to collect data from 319 nurses serving in 107 government hospitals in Pakistan. The authors surveyed nurses at two‐time points with the interval of 3 months by using an online questionnaire tool. At one time, they asked nurses to report on emotional labor, stress, and exhaustion. In the second phase, after providing supports (during interval phase) at different levels, the authors repeated the same scales from same participants in addition to instrumental support and coaching leadership. Data were processed using SPSS‐Amos for elementary analysis and Process‐macro for robustness and hypotheses testing. Results Authors find that job stress fully mediates relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion in controlled phase and partially mediates in intervention phase. Furthermore, in intervention phase, authors find that instrumental support moderates and alleviate positive effects of emotional labor on job stress, and coaching leadership moderates and lessens positive effects of job stress on emotional exhaustion. Conclusion This research concludes that healthcare organizations can alleviate emotional exhaustion caused by emotional labor and job stress amid emergencies by providing support at different levels; organizational and managerial. However, the effectiveness of these supports depends on high to low levels. Implications for Nursing Management This study demonstrates that to handle and support emotional labor and job stress to avoid emotional exhaustion in healthcare emergencies, organizational supports matter. Support at organizational level can include instrumental support. At managerial level, holding a coaching leadership style can foster external facets of management while uplifting the internal support qualities of confidence and self‐awareness that improve the individuals’ ability to lead; work with paradox and uncertainty.

The impact of role conflict on turnover intention among faculty members: A moderated mediation model of emotional exhaustion and workplace relational conflict

“…This goal could be achieved by developing more effective job design ( Roczniewska and Bakker, 2021 ; Sahay et al, 2022 ), clearer job descriptions ( Belias et al, 2021 ), and stronger policies and procedures ( Malhotra et al, 2021 ). Second, faculty members’ emotional exhaustion should be reduced by providing training regarding conflict management ( Esbati and Korunka, 2021 ), stress management ( Kumar and Jin, 2022 ), and time management ( Chen et al, 2021 ). Offering similar programs to faculty members could decrease stress resulting from their role conflict and lead to less emotional exhaustion, ultimately resulting in lower turnover intention.…”

Vulnerability on the frontline: systematic review and meta-analysis of frontline employee vulnerability

“…While organizations have spent time investigating ways to mitigate demands such as workload, job attributes and job insecurity, the current results reinforce the important role of creating a service environment that supports an FLE to flourish and protects them from negative customer experiences. A service environment providing employees with autonomy and supporting them through appropriate training, such as anger management courses (Lawrence et al, 2011), cognitive-behavioral training, self-care programs (Kumar and Jin, 2022), and coaching sessions aimed at employees and leaders (Haver et al, 2013;Lawrence et al, 2011), can help minimize the impact of employee demands in the workplace. Continual investments in building emotional intelligence and resilience among staff may also provide organizations with avenues for exploring to support employees, given the dominance of personal demands in these meta-analytical findings.…”

“…A service environment providing employees with autonomy and supporting them through appropriate training, such as anger management courses (Lawrence et al. , 2011), cognitive-behavioral training, self-care programs (Kumar and Jin, 2022), and coaching sessions aimed at employees and leaders (Haver et al. , 2013; Lawrence et al.…”

Prevalence of Perceived Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in HCW in Kosovo during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Survey

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