Creation of Anti-Burnout Organizational Climate in Russian Enterprises
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ЗАЯВЛЕНИЕ О САМОСТОЯТЕЛЬНОМ ХАРАКТЕРЕ ВЫПОЛНЕНИЯ
ВЫПУСКНОЙ КВАЛИФИКАЦИОННОЙ РАБОТЫ 2
STATEMENT ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT CHARACTER OF
THE MASTER THESIS 2
ABSTRACT 3
АННОТАЦИЯ 3
INTRODUCTION 6
Motivation of the research 6
Aim, objectives and research gap 7
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 8
Theory behind the concepts of organizational climate and burnout 9
Aspects of creating anti-burnout organizational climate 14
Main approaches to preventing employee burnout 20
Conclusion 24
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 25
EXPECTED FINDINGS 25
THE EMPIRICAL STUDY 26
Gathering data on organizational practices for the quantitative study 26
Quantitative study design 35
Quantitative study findings and discussion 36
BIBLIOGRAPHY 51
SOURCES 54
APPENDIX 1 56
APPENDIX 2 59
APPENDIX 3 62
APPENDIX 4 65
APPENDIX 5 68
APPENDIX 6 71
APPENDIX 7 74
APPENDIX 8 77
APPENDIX 9 80
APPENDIX 10 83
APPENDIX 11 86
ВЫПУСКНОЙ КВАЛИФИКАЦИОННОЙ РАБОТЫ 2
STATEMENT ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT CHARACTER OF
THE MASTER THESIS 2
ABSTRACT 3
АННОТАЦИЯ 3
INTRODUCTION 6
Motivation of the research 6
Aim, objectives and research gap 7
CHAPTER 1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 8
Theory behind the concepts of organizational climate and burnout 9
Aspects of creating anti-burnout organizational climate 14
Main approaches to preventing employee burnout 20
Conclusion 24
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 25
EXPECTED FINDINGS 25
THE EMPIRICAL STUDY 26
Gathering data on organizational practices for the quantitative study 26
Quantitative study design 35
Quantitative study findings and discussion 36
BIBLIOGRAPHY 51
SOURCES 54
APPENDIX 1 56
APPENDIX 2 59
APPENDIX 3 62
APPENDIX 4 65
APPENDIX 5 68
APPENDIX 6 71
APPENDIX 7 74
APPENDIX 8 77
APPENDIX 9 80
APPENDIX 10 83
APPENDIX 11 86
As follows from the phrasing of the topic, the main focus of the study and the literature, which will constitute its basis, will be on organizational climate and most effective ways and practices to create it in a way that will prevent the cases of stress, psychological tension and burnout among the employees.
Motivation of the research
Indeed, the issue of creating an organizational climate that will benefit the employees, their psychological state, their productivity and, hence, organization as a whole is arguably among the most topical in the human resource management field in the recent years. Many companies have opted to create special job positions for human resource specialist, who would focus specifically on creating comfortable and stress-free climate inside the organization. Despite this existing trend, the other evidence points to the fact, that many companies still fail to address these issues - for instance, the special Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen Z Study1 came up with the results, which demonstrate more than 40% of the employees feeling like their employers failed to support their psychological well-being during the recent pandemic crisis. Thus, the issue of organizational climate for safety and psychological comfort is definitely among pressing and highly relevant for many employers. This statement is even more truthful when it comes to the case of our country. The events of2022 sparked the higher level of uncertainty and unpredictability of the future, hence, adding more to the psychological pressures for basically all citizens. As a result, we now witness that as the pandemic crisis seems to be coming to an end, at least from the standpoint of psychological pressure, the stress and uncertainty caused by the current political agenda are as strong as ever, affecting the mental well-being of employees. There is a number of studies which demonstrated the negative effect of uncertainty on the mental well-being, coming up with the conclusion that uncertainty increases the intensity of negative emotional states and often decreases the intensity of positive emotional states2 (Morris et al., 2022). This suggests, that the study aiming to point out particular recommendations, which will help organizations adopt new practices and create safer psychological climate for their employees is highly relevant and important at this moment. Moreover, it is my belief that the issue of organizational climate for stress and burnout prevention has not received the level of attention it deserves in our country, especially if we focus on the approach from the organizational point of view - which policies and practices can be introduced to the field of personnel management to enhance the situation. Such a conclusion is a result of both consideration and discussion of the topic with the professionals of the sphere, as well as personal experience with working in the Russian enterprises and communication with the multitude of peers speaking up on their burnout and stress levels.
Aim, objectives and research gap
The aim of the study is to explore the perception of the members of the Russian workforce of organizational practices aimed at creating anti-burnout organizational climate in terms of the importance and relevance of such practices. By achieving that goal, it would be made possible to successfully develop the concrete recommendations for the organizations operating in Russia on how to create such type of organizational climate, so that it would help prevent stress and burnout among the workforce. The path to this goal will include multiple important objectives, which will lead towards its achievement step by step: firstly, it is necessary to review the theoretical approaches to organizational climate, burnout and how the latter can be prevented through organizational climate; secondly, to enrich and deepen the understanding of the organizational climate for mental well-being, for instance, to form a better notion which theoretical approaches are being employed in the real-life circumstances, the practical information about the companies which succeeded in creating safe organizational climates is to be collected, building onto the previously studied theory; finally, the quantitative methods of research will help us explore the attitude of Russian employees towards the identified knowledge on how to create safe organizational climate, pinpointing the practices which are most relevant in general and for different groups of employees. The last objective will constitute the empirical part of the research, which is to be discussed later in the report. Moreover, we should also identify the object and the subject of the study. This can be done as follows: the object of the study is the perception of the organizational practices aimed at creating anti-burnout organizational practices by the Russian employees, while the subject of the study is the particular characteristics of such perception, opinion on which organizational practices are most important and necessary for the companies, and which bear little significance and cannot be considered crucial to the employees.
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Motivation of the research
Indeed, the issue of creating an organizational climate that will benefit the employees, their psychological state, their productivity and, hence, organization as a whole is arguably among the most topical in the human resource management field in the recent years. Many companies have opted to create special job positions for human resource specialist, who would focus specifically on creating comfortable and stress-free climate inside the organization. Despite this existing trend, the other evidence points to the fact, that many companies still fail to address these issues - for instance, the special Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen Z Study1 came up with the results, which demonstrate more than 40% of the employees feeling like their employers failed to support their psychological well-being during the recent pandemic crisis. Thus, the issue of organizational climate for safety and psychological comfort is definitely among pressing and highly relevant for many employers. This statement is even more truthful when it comes to the case of our country. The events of2022 sparked the higher level of uncertainty and unpredictability of the future, hence, adding more to the psychological pressures for basically all citizens. As a result, we now witness that as the pandemic crisis seems to be coming to an end, at least from the standpoint of psychological pressure, the stress and uncertainty caused by the current political agenda are as strong as ever, affecting the mental well-being of employees. There is a number of studies which demonstrated the negative effect of uncertainty on the mental well-being, coming up with the conclusion that uncertainty increases the intensity of negative emotional states and often decreases the intensity of positive emotional states2 (Morris et al., 2022). This suggests, that the study aiming to point out particular recommendations, which will help organizations adopt new practices and create safer psychological climate for their employees is highly relevant and important at this moment. Moreover, it is my belief that the issue of organizational climate for stress and burnout prevention has not received the level of attention it deserves in our country, especially if we focus on the approach from the organizational point of view - which policies and practices can be introduced to the field of personnel management to enhance the situation. Such a conclusion is a result of both consideration and discussion of the topic with the professionals of the sphere, as well as personal experience with working in the Russian enterprises and communication with the multitude of peers speaking up on their burnout and stress levels.
Aim, objectives and research gap
The aim of the study is to explore the perception of the members of the Russian workforce of organizational practices aimed at creating anti-burnout organizational climate in terms of the importance and relevance of such practices. By achieving that goal, it would be made possible to successfully develop the concrete recommendations for the organizations operating in Russia on how to create such type of organizational climate, so that it would help prevent stress and burnout among the workforce. The path to this goal will include multiple important objectives, which will lead towards its achievement step by step: firstly, it is necessary to review the theoretical approaches to organizational climate, burnout and how the latter can be prevented through organizational climate; secondly, to enrich and deepen the understanding of the organizational climate for mental well-being, for instance, to form a better notion which theoretical approaches are being employed in the real-life circumstances, the practical information about the companies which succeeded in creating safe organizational climates is to be collected, building onto the previously studied theory; finally, the quantitative methods of research will help us explore the attitude of Russian employees towards the identified knowledge on how to create safe organizational climate, pinpointing the practices which are most relevant in general and for different groups of employees. The last objective will constitute the empirical part of the research, which is to be discussed later in the report. Moreover, we should also identify the object and the subject of the study. This can be done as follows: the object of the study is the perception of the organizational practices aimed at creating anti-burnout organizational practices by the Russian employees, while the subject of the study is the particular characteristics of such perception, opinion on which organizational practices are most important and necessary for the companies, and which bear little significance and cannot be considered crucial to the employees.
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Hence, we have reached the goal of exploring the attitude of the members of the Russian workforce towards the practices constituting anti-burnout organizational climate. To achieve that goal, we have used the quantitative methods of research and arrived at the results, which serve as a reflection of perception of various respondent and employee groups, outline which practices are considered least and most important and elaborate on the differences between the ranking of the practices stemming from the variation in age, tenure and current organizational climate perception. Should we take a closer look at the results, we should review them in two steps - first, the overall results for all respondents, and second, the results for each of the groups which have been analyzed. The overall results present us with the following findings: the most important practices according to the perception of Russian employees are openness in communication and expression of ideas and thoughts without resistance from management; providing tools for development to temployees, such as special development programs; implementing the cross-functional organizational structure; ensuring the person-organization fit; trusting and empowering employees by involving them in the decision-making processes; checking the employee satisfaction and happiness through available means; holding corporate events. If we proceed to the second step and elaborate on the obtained results for the different respondent groups analyzed, we should point out that younger respondents (18 to 25 years of age group), beyond the practices already mentioned for overall results, also prioritized the practice of internal promotion in the organization, flexiblity of the working conditions, as well as providing recommendations (from the employer) to the employees about ways to enhance their well-being. The priorities for the 25 to 35 years of age group remained the same as the overall results, with the exception of well-being recommendations being more valuable than corporate events. Both the 35-50 and more than 50 years of age groups emphasized communication of mission, vision and values as more important than openness in communication. However, that is pretty much all discrepancies for these two groups from the overall results, as they are limited to 50 or more years group also mentioning internal promotion and leaving out trusting and empowering employees, and 35 to 50 years group not mentiong checking the satisfaction of employees as highly important. As for the groups of tenure at the job, less than a year group respondents preferred both openness in communication and communication of mission, vision and values, help in career management, flexibility of working conditions and recommendations for well-being to the employees. More than a year at the job group also selected openness in communication, internal promotion, person-organization fit and provision of direct psychological help, while more than five years group prioritized communication of mission and values, providing tools for employee development, person-organization fit and checking the happiness and satisfaction of employees. Finally, as for the perception of climate groups, both agreed on the importance of openness in communication and provision of tools for employee development, while negative perception respondents also pointed out internal promotion. In addition, respondents with positive perception of climate emphasized the flexibility of working conditions, trusting and empowering of the employees, checking the satisfaction and holding the corporate events, while the negative perception respondents were primarily voting for personorganization fit, recommendations for employee well-being and, once again, checking the satisfaction and happiness of employees.
With the obtained results, it is now possible to formulate concrete recommendations for different companies about which practices to start with, should they seek to create safe organizational climate. The division of data based on the different characteristics of respondents will make it possible to adjust the set of practices to foster taking into account the composition of the current personnel of the organization. For instance, start-ups with the predominantly young workforce just starting their careers will be able to identify the practices relevant for them and focus on their creation, while the older companies with the employees which have worked there for an extended period of time will also have an ability to do the same. Thus, the study provides the managerial contribution and implications, allowing the human resource managers and other professionals to better navigate the processes and practices of their companies as it begins to create anti-burnout organizational climate. With the data obtained through the study, managers will have a notion of the potential priorities of the employees in their respective organizations, hence giving them the ability to achieve the desired results in terms of organizational climate quicker and more effectively.
With the obtained results, it is now possible to formulate concrete recommendations for different companies about which practices to start with, should they seek to create safe organizational climate. The division of data based on the different characteristics of respondents will make it possible to adjust the set of practices to foster taking into account the composition of the current personnel of the organization. For instance, start-ups with the predominantly young workforce just starting their careers will be able to identify the practices relevant for them and focus on their creation, while the older companies with the employees which have worked there for an extended period of time will also have an ability to do the same. Thus, the study provides the managerial contribution and implications, allowing the human resource managers and other professionals to better navigate the processes and practices of their companies as it begins to create anti-burnout organizational climate. With the data obtained through the study, managers will have a notion of the potential priorities of the employees in their respective organizations, hence giving them the ability to achieve the desired results in terms of organizational climate quicker and more effectively.
