The Restorative Quality of the Work Environments: The Moderation Effect of Environmental Resources between Job Demands and Mindfulness

Abstract

In the work context, employees must cope with everyday demands, which deplete psychological resources (e.g., direct attention and concentration). The environment’s perceived quality (i.e., perceived restorativeness) helps people recover from job demands by restoring the psychological resources depleted during working hours. Therefore, this study examines the possible moderating effect of restorativeness (i.e., fascination and compatibility dimensions) between job demands (i.e., cognitive demands and work overload) and a specific form of attention, such as mindfulness, within the Job Demands–Resources Model. To achieve this aim, a cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 210 Italian employees working in five different sectors. They completed a self-report questionnaire in their work context. The hypotheses were verified with linear regression analyses, including age, gender, and hours per day worked as control variables. The findings show that cognitive demands are significantly and negatively correlated with mindfulness and that the demands–mindfulness relationship is weaker among employees who perceived greater restorative quality regarding “compatibility” with the work context. Conversely, work overload is not significantly correlated with mindfulness. Overall, these findings highlight the importance of considering the levels of restorativeness (i.e., compatibility) in the work context for indirectly enhancing mindfulness. In particular, a work environment with compatible characteristics can help employees recover from job demands.

Why and when does multitasking impair flow and subjective performance? A daily diary study on the role of task appraisals and work engagement

“…Evitable work switches may be reduced also by implementing new ways of working that enable employees to work whenever and wherever they want, in particular when they need time to work on solitary projects, thereby distancing themselves physically from colleagues and clients. Such organizational interventions could enhance the restorativeness of the work environment (see Bellini et al, 2023).…”

The Role of Techno-Stress and Psychological Detachment in the Relationship between Workload and Well-Being in a Sample of Italian Smart Workers: A Moderated Mediated Model

“…In literature, subjective well-being at work is associated with numerous constructs that can predict and positively impact it (i.e., Babic et al 2020;Bobbio et al 2022;Garg and Singh 2020;Kumar 2020;Lee et al 2021). However, other situations may adversely affect subjective well-being and negatively impact it, especially when workers need to adapt to new situations that they have never experienced before (Bellini et al 2022a(Bellini et al , 2022b(Bellini et al , 2023.…”