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. 2025 Jan 24;63(1):3-13.
doi: 10.2486/indhealth.2024-0027. Epub 2024 May 20.

"Are you feeling safe?": an investigation of psychosocial safety climate in the relations of job characteristics and employee exhaustion and engagement

Tianchang Ji  1 , May Young Loh  2 , Jan DE Jonge  1   2   3 , Maria C W Peeters  1   3 , Toon W Taris  1 , Maureen F Dollard  2
Affiliations

"Are you feeling safe?": an investigation of psychosocial safety climate in the relations of job characteristics and employee exhaustion and engagement

Tianchang Ji et al. Ind Health. .

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is defined as the corporate climate in relation to employees' perceptions of organizational policies, procedures, and practices for the protection of employee psychosocial safety and well-being. The present study was based on the Demand-Induced Strain Compensation (DISC) Model and proposed that the interplay between identical job demands and resources would be conditioned by PSC. Particularly, high levels of PSC would enable employees to optimally perceive and utilize more job resources in dealing with corresponding job demands. A study was conducted among 406 Chinese workers from various occupational sectors. The findings of hierarchical regression analyses suggested that PSC a) mitigates the negative relation between emotional resources and exhaustion, b) enhances the positive relation between emotional resources and work engagement, and c) mitigates the negative relation between emotional demands and work engagement. We also found that PSC is a compensatory factor for low cognitive resources and demands encouraging high work engagement. Although we did not find the proposed three-way interactions, the present findings support the idea that high PSC is a fundamental contextual factor conducive to workers' health and well-being, especially in perceiving and obtaining emotional resources.

Keywords: Employee well-being; Job demands; Job resources; Matching principle; Psychological health; Psychosocial safety climate.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no Conflict of Interests for this article.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Conceptual map.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Emotional resources—psychosocial safety climate (PSC)—exhaustion.
Fig. 3.
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Cognitive demands—psychosocial safety climate (PSC)—work engagement.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Emotional demands—psychosocial safety climate (PSC)—work engagement.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Cognitive resources—psychosocial safety climate (PSC)—work engagement.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 6.
Emotional resources—psychosocial safety climate (PSC)—work engagement.
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