Relationships between professional burnout and job demands, resources among workers in an industrial plant in Lithuania

Vytautas Magnus University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Kaunas, Lithuania

^* Corresponding author: aurelija.stelmokiene@vdu.lt

Abstract

Burnout can negatively affect both workers’ health and safety in an organization [1]. The current study was oriented to identify the main risk and protective factors, which might predict professional burnout among workers in an industrial plant in Lithuania using the Job demands-resources model [2, 3]. 249 industrial and 74 administrative workers from one organization filled out a self-administered questionnaire. Scales from COPSOQ II (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire) were used in a cross-sectional survey. With reference to the research results, there were no significant differences in professional burnout between industrial and administrative workers. However, scores of work pace, safety climate, possibilities for development, influence at work, recognition and organizational justice were higher in a group of administrative employees as compared to their colleagues from the industrial departments. Moreover, different factors were found to predict employees’ physical, emotional and mental exhaustion: emotional demands predicted burnout in administrative workers’ group, while quantitative demands, work-family conflict, possibilities for development- among industrial workers. Organizational justice was the only protective factor to predict lower burnout in both groups of employees.