Private life events as antecedents for public employees’ engagement and burnout

K.S. Weissmueller*, Adrian Ritz, A. J. (Bram) Steijn, Kerstin Alfes

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

While it is known that life events are predictive for psychological and physiological illnesses, empirical research on the relationship between private life events and their effect on work-related outcomes in a public sector context is scarce. Based on the extended job demands-resources model, this study argues that experiencing private life events may exercise spillover effects into the sphere of professional life affecting public employees’ work engagement and their risk of burnout. Longitudinal survey data from Switzerland reveals that negative private life events are associated with an increase in burnout but not necessarily lower levels of work engagement. Furthermore, experiencing transformational leadership exerts a mild stabilizing effect on work engagement in the face of private life events while public service motivation has no moderating effect. These findings have important implications for the practice and theory of public personnel management and leadership, employee performance, and well-being.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)85-112
Number of pages28
JournalPublic Personnel Management
Volume53
Issue number1
Early online date21 Jul 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • private life events
  • job demands-resources (JD-R) model
  • work engagement
  • burnout
  • transformational leadership
  • public service motivation (PSM)

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