Burnout and job performance: a two-wave study on the mediating role of employee cognitive functioning

ABSTRACT

This two-wave study examined whether job burnout relates negatively to employees’ performance in executive functions (i.e., working memory, inhibition capacity, cognitive flexibility, reasoning, problem solving, and planning – assessed through psychometric tests) and positively to everyday cognitive failures (rated by colleagues) over time. Furthermore, based on cognitive reserve and self-regulation theories, we hypothesized that poor cognitive functioning mediates the negative relationship between burnout and job performance (i.e., task and contextual performance), as rated by employees and their close colleagues. The study was conducted among 102 employees and their colleagues, who were followed up over a period of about a year. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that burnout related to lower performance on working memory and inhibition capacity and to more cognitive failures over time, while reduced cognitive flexibility was associated to higher burnout over time. Moreover, results showed that poor working memory and cognitive failures mediated the negative relationship between burnout and task performance. These findings suggest that burnout prevents optimal utilization of cognitive resources limiting cognitive functioning and consequently, job performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Burnout
• cognitive Functioning
• contextual Performance
• task Performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.