The link between organizational support, wellbeing and engagement for emergency service employees: a comparative analysis

IMPACT

Emergency service workers perceived similarly low levels of organizational support compared with professionals and administrative employees. However, both emergency workers and healthcare professionals undertake high levels of emotional labour and therefore are susceptible to high levels of stress and, consequently, require organizational support. Low organizational support contributes to low wellbeing and engagement. If austerity-driven management is the cause of low organizational support, then new management models are required to ensure psychologically safe workplaces. Otherwise, the burden caused by poor management is placed on the community because taxpayers pay for emergency service workers’ stress-related workers’ compensation claims.

ABSTRACT

This article uses conservation of resources (COR) theory to compare the extent to which emergency service employees’ wellbeing and engagement are similar to other employees based on their perception of organizational support from organizational policies and management practices. The results show that the emergency services and professional employees perceived the lowest level of organizational support. The findings provide an explanation for these types of street level bureaucrats having the highest stress-related workers’ compensation claims in Australia.

Keywords:

• Conservation of resources theory
• emotional labour
• employee engagement
• employee wellbeing
• perceived organizational support
• street level bureaucrats (SLB) theory
• workers’ compensation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).