Mindfulness buffers the adverse impact of need frustration on employee outcomes: A self‐determination theory perspective

According to the job demands– resources model (JDR model; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti et al., 2001), role conflict is a job demand (or hindrance) that can drain energy and yield physiological and psychological costs by requiring sustained physical and/or mental effort at work. Past research has shown that job demands are associated with higher levels of burnout (Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) and sickness absenteeism (Bakker, Demerouti, de Boer et al., 2003; Bakker, Demerouti, Schaufeli, 2003). Other research has shown that employee health is associated with higher levels of job performance (Wright et al., 2007) and competitive advantage (Grawitch et al., 2006), as well as lower levels of turnover (Wright & Bonett, 2007). To be sure, such consequences are costly for organizations. For instance, estimates suggest that absenteeism costs businesses between $1.41 and $1.64 billion per year in Norway (Solberg, 2013) and $43.70 billion per year in the United States (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014; Circadian, 2005). Hence, the importance of identifying job demands and tempering their salience in the workplace is readily apparent. Nonetheless, certain job demands might be difficult— if not impossible— to avoid. With this reality in mind, it is important to identify psychological factors that can attenuate the adverse impact that job demands can have on employees’ health and workrelated functioning. One such factor is mindfulness, which recently has emerged in the organizational literature and has been associated with workrelated outcomes (Dane & Brummel, 2013; Hülsheger et al., 2013; Leroy et al., 2013). Indeed, recent research has shown that mindfulness can reduce the experience of need frustration among employees who report that their manager is unsupportive of their basic psychological needs (Schultz et al., 2015). Job demands are likely to engender an experience of need frustration at work, and thus it is important to examine whether mindfulness can buffer against the adverse impact that need frustration can have on employees’ health and workrelated functioning. Received: 18 April 2020 | Revised: 5 January 2021 | Accepted: 11 March 2021 DOI: 10.1002/jts5.93