Exploring Proactive Behaviors of Employees in the Prevention of Burnout

Madelon C.B. Otto, Nicole Hoefsmit, Joris van Ruysseveldt and Karen van Dam
Additional contact information
Madelon C.B. Otto: Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Valkenburgerweg 177, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands
Nicole Hoefsmit: Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Valkenburgerweg 177, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands
Joris van Ruysseveldt: Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Valkenburgerweg 177, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands
Karen van Dam: Faculty of Psychology, Open University of the Netherlands, Valkenburgerweg 177, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-15

Abstract: Extensive evidence indicates that burnout can have detrimental consequences for individuals as well as organizations; therefore, there is a great need for burnout prevention. While burnout prevention interventions initiated by the employer have previously been studied, the proactive behaviors employees deploy themselves to prevent burnout have received less research attention. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative interview study was to enhance our understanding of the self-initiated actions employees undertake to prevent burnout, using the model of proactive motivation and conservation of resources theory as theoretical frameworks. Findings indicated that most participants reported to engage in specific kinds of proactive burnout prevention behaviors. The reported self-initiated proactive actions were aimed at maintaining and/or increasing resources and/or reducing demands in the work, home, and personal domain. The study contributes to the literature by linking the proactive motivation process to the prevention of burnout and by focusing on both work and non-work factors. Results of this study can be used in further research into the (effectiveness of) employees’ proactive burnout prevention behaviors and serve as a starting point for developing interventions aimed at enhancing proactive burnout prevention.

Keywords: proactive behavior; burnout prevention; conservation of resources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/20/3849/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/20/3849/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:20:p:3849-:d:275510

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().