Professional Caregivers’ Communicative Resilience and Flourishing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: When Disruption Lasts

Abstract

The pandemic was a prolonged and ongoing work disruption, especially for professional caregivers. This explanatory sequential mixed method study revealed that caregivers’ communicative resilience (CR) was positively associated with their experience of flourishing and negatively associated with burnout and intentions to turnover—indicating that CR is, indeed, predictive of the wellbeing of professionals coping with a lengthy disruption at work. Analysis of professional caregivers’ ( N = 264) survey responses demonstrated that the continuity factor of CR predicted wellbeing outcomes (i.e., flourishing, burnout, and turnover intentions). However, the change factor of CR did not. Then, highly communicatively resilient caregivers ( n = 11) were interviewed to explore their lived experiences of flourishing—experiences characterized by positive emotions while doing meaningful and rewarding work. Implications for positive communication scholarship in organizations conclude the paper.