Mindfulness practice improves managers’ job demands-resources, psychological detachment, work-nonwork boundary control, and work-life balance – a randomized controlled trial

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-07-2021-0146
• Published date: 13 April 2022
• Date: 13 April 2022
• Pages: 493-514
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: Christin Mellner,Walter Osika,Maria Niemi

Mindfulness practice improves

managers’job demands-resources,

psychological detachment,

work-nonwork boundary

control, and work-life balance –

a randomized controlled trial

Christin Mellner

Department of Work- and Organizational Psychology, Stockholm University,

Stockholm, Sweden

Walter Osika

Department of Clinical Neuroscience, and Center for Social Sustainability,

Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden and

Northern Stockholm Psychiatry, Stockholm Health Care Services,

Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and

Maria Niemi

Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract

Purpose –Contemporary workplaces undergo frequent reorganizations in order to stay competitive in a

workinglife characterized by globalization, digitalization,economic uncertainty, and ever-increasedcomplexity.

Managersare in the frontline of these challenges, leading themselves, organizationsand their employees in high

stress environments. This raises questions on how to support managers’work-life sustainability, which is

crucial for organizational sustainability. Mindfulness has been related to enhanced capacities to cope with

challengesthat are associated with organizational change. The authors evaluatedshort- and long-term effects of

an eight-week mindfulness-basedintervention in a company setting, which was going throughreorganization.

Design/methodology/approach –Forty managers (42.5% males), mean age 54.53 (SD 5.13), were

randomized to the mindfulness intervention or a non-active wait-list control. Self-report data were provided on

individual sustainability factors in a work context: job demands and resources, psychological detachment, i.e.

possibilities for letting go of work-related thoughts during leisure, control over work-nonwork boundaries,

work-life balance, and mindfulness at baseline, postintervention, and at 6-month follow-up.

Findings –Linearmixedmodels(LMMs)analysis(allps<0.005 to 0.05) showed that the intervention group had

a larger decrease in job demands and a smaller decrease in job resources, a larger increase in psychological

detachment,work-nonwork boundary control, work-life balance, and mindfulness from baseline to postintervention

when compared with the reference group. These initial effects were sustained at 6-month follow-up.

Originality/value–The study provides evidence that mindfulness practice can enhance managers’long-term

capacity to cope with challenging working conditions, and increase their work-life sustainability in times of

organizational change and disruption.

Keywords Boundary management, Follow-up, JD-R model, Organizational change, Sustainable development

Paper type Research paper

Mindfulness

improves

managersʼ

sustainability

493

© Christin Mellner, Walter Osika and Maria Niemi. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This

article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may

reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-

commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of

this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Funding: This research was funded by NordForsk (no: 74809).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1753-8351.htm

Received 29 July 2021

Revised 15 November 2021

29 December 2021

9 February 2022

Accepted 28 February 2022

InternationalJournal of Workplace

Health Management

Vol. 15 No. 4, 2022

pp. 493-514

Emerald Publishing Limited

1753-8351

DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-07-2021-0146

Introduction

Contemporary working life is characterized by globalization, digitalization, economic

uncertainty, and ever-increased complexity (Mack and Khare, 2016). Corporations undergo

frequent reorganizations with a focus on improvement, in order to stay competitive

(Sikdar and Payyazhi,2014). Such reorganizations most often regard costs, management,and

decision making (van Hoek et al.,2010). However, organizational change has also been

associated with increased stress (Wisse and Sleebos, 2016), turnov er, and reduced

organizational performance (Rusly et al.,2012). Managers are in the frontline of these

challenges (Nielsenand Daniels, 2012) leading themselves, organizationsand their employees

in complex, high-stress environments. These conditions entail psychosocial demands, which

may increase risks for burnout and ill-health (Campbell Quick and Henderson, 2016), and

subsequent productivity loss and societal costs due to increased sickness absenteeism

(Schmidt et al., 2019). In Sweden, between 2014 and 2019, there has been a sharp, five-fold

increase in managers’long-term sickness absenteeism due to stress-related psychological ill-

health, resulting from increased work demands and decreased control over work-nonwork

boundaries (Previa, 2019).These developments raise questions on how to improvemanagers’

work-lifeoutcomes, which are crucial for individual,organizational, and societalsustainability.

Sustainability in a work context has been defined as being able to meet work demands

without putting one’s future health and participation in working life at risk (Carayon, 2006).

Within the emerging field of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development, a

focus has been placed upon how organizations can work in more healthy ways, nurture the

health and motivation of their employees (Manuti and Giancaspro, 2019), and focus on the

management of change and skills (Stern, 2021). The role of managers in this context, beyond

their own work-life sustainability, is vital for sustainable leadership and human resource

practices that will have an impact on the organization (Manzoor et al., 2019). In this respect,

positive relational-leadership approaches (Iqbal et al., 2020), have been put forth as dynamic

ways in which managers may create alignment with the human resource management of

their organizations. According to a recent study, managers’sustainability may be promoted

through the training of soft skills, such as improved interpersonal skills and stress

management (Katic et al., 2019). In this context, a previous review study (Avili and Dent, 2015)

showed that mindfulness facilitates individual and organizational cognition so that they

become more able to efficiently meet the challenges, complexities and uncertainties

associated with organizational change.

The present study aimed to contribute to existing literature by investigating short- and

long-term work-life sustainability effects of a mindfulness-based intervention targeted at

managers during reorganization.

Theoretical background

The job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Demeroutiet al., 2001) postulates that psychosocial

work characteristics, in terms of job demands and resources, have implications for work-

related outcomes through two processes (Bakker et al., 2005). These include the health

impairment process, whichimplies that high job demands predict stress and burnout, and the

motivational process, which implies that high job resources predict work engagement –

energy and mental resilience, enthusiasm and absorption in work. Work stress has

consistently been found to increase due to job demands, i.e. aspects of work that require

sustained mental, physical or emotionalexertion (Demerouti et al., 2001). Job resources, on the

other hand, defined as the physical, psychological, social or organizational aspects of work

that enable the achievementof work goals, reduce work demands, stimulate growth, learning,

and development (Demerouti et al., 2001), have been associated with the fulfilment of

psychologicalneeds and buffer the impact of job demands on burnout (Bakker et al., 2005). For

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