Applying the Job Demands-Resources model: A ‘how to’ guide to measuring and tackling work engagement and burnout

There is a great practical need to assess psychosocial factors at work and improve employee well-being. Evidently, poor working conditions and burned-out employees are associated with, for instance, sickness absence, occupational injuries and accidents, poor work performance, and reduced productivity, whereas the opposite is true for good working conditions and employee engagement. So ultimately, psychosocial factors and employee well-being translate into financial business outcomes. Therefore it is in the company’s enlightened self-interest to monitor psychosocial factors at work and employee’s well-being on a regular basis, so that timely and targeted measures can be taken to prevent burnout and to increase work engagement. Apart from this intrinsic reason there is also an extrinsic reason for organizations to monitor the workplace, at least in Europe. Following the EU framework Directive 1989/391/EEC on occupational safety and health, all EU member states have issued legislation on the prevention of psychosocial risks at the workplace. The two most relevant provisions of that directive are that: (1) employers should ensure that all workers receive health surveillance that includes psychosocial risks (Article 15) and; (2) employers are held responsible for preventing ill-health at work, and must take appropriate measures to make work healthier (Article 5). Hence, organizations have a legal obligation to monitor psychosocial risk factors and improve employee’s health and well-being. Although this legal framework only applies to EU memberstates, monitoring risks and improving health and well-being is paramount in other countries as well because of immanent advantages, including financial and business outcomes. But how to achieve that, and what has occupational health psychology to offer?