Occupational Well-Being in Canadian Research Universities: Predictors of Faculty Burnout and Engagement

• In Event: Examining Faculty Burnout, Well-Being, and Job Performance

Abstract

In the past few decades, higher education institutions worldwide have experienced substantial changes including massification, internationalization, and increasing demands for exceptional instructional quality and research quantity in light of heightened competition for students, faculty, and resources (Biron, Brun, & Ivers, 2008; Rothmann & Barkhuizen, 2008). Accordingly, these changes have contributed to a highly demanding academic employment climate having adverse effects on occupational well-being as well as personal and professional development in post-secondary faculty (Blix et al, 1994; Catano et al., 2010; Lackritz, 2004; Zhong et al., 2009).

Burnout and work engagement are two aspects of occupational well-being examined in the present study. Burnout is mainly represented by emotional exhaustion and depersonalization caused by long-term exposure to demanding situations (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), with work engagement defined as an energetic and effective connection with one’s work (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006). The Job Demands- Resources model of burnout and engagement (Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Taris, 2014) is one of the leading models used to predict antecedents and outcomes of burnout and engagement, proposing that job demands and inadequate job resources lead to burnout that, in turn, negatively impacts the well-being and performance of employees. Moreover, job resources are also proposed as the primary antecedent of engagement that, in turn, predicts better personal and professional development outcomes (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014).

The present study was carried out to address the gap in our understanding of burnout and
engagement amongst Canadian academics. An online survey of 648 faculty employed at 13 research-intensive universities across Canada included established measures of workload, perceived control, work-home conflict, university requirements, as well as pressure and support for performing academic activities as antecedents, with burnout and engagement assessed as outcome variables. The results of the structural equation modeling showed good data fit (CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.051, SRMR = 0.06).

Workload (β = 0.17) and work-home conflict (β = 0.50) were revealed as two salient job demands that predicted higher levels of emotional exhaustion, with work-home conflict (β = 0.32) also predicting greater depersonalization. In contrast, the influences of university requirement and academic pressure on engagement and burnout were not significant. Results further showed control (β = -0.11 for emotional exhaustion; β = -0.17 for depersonalization) and academic support (β = -0.11 for emotional exhaustion; β = -0.29 for depersonalization) to be two critical resources for mitigating faculty burnout. Moreover, the influence of control on engagement was positive and significant (β = 0.21 for vigour; β = 0.24 for dedication), whereas academic support did not significantly predict engagement in the present sample. These findings thus shed light on the occupational factors that can impact faculty occupational well-being and can inform the design and implementation of interventions as well as policies that aim to reduce stress, maintain well-being, offset burnout and promote faculty engagement.

Authors

• Zaynab Sabagh, McGill University

• Alenoush Saroyan, McGill University

• Nathan C. Hall, McGill University

• Sarah-Genevieve Trepanier