Mindfulness, resilience and the happiness of service employees working from home

What is it about?

The work-from-home scheme (WFH) is increasingly being adopted in service firms. However, the blurred border between employees’ work and life can create work-life conflict (WLC) that negatively affects their well-being. Therefore, identifying factors that help employees overcome WLC and nurture their well-being is imperative. From a Transformative Service Research (TSR) and personal psychology perspective, this study aims to explore the roles of service employee state of mindfulness and resilience in reducing WLC, alleviating its negative effects, and ultimately nurturing their happiness. In so doing, a structural model was proposed. Data were collected from 339 WFH employees in various knowledge-based services such as professional services, information, education and training, financial consulting, and marketing. Direct, indirect, mediating, and moderating effects were estimated using the CB-SEM method. Results show that mindfulness is the overarching capability that helps reduce WLC and raise resilience. It nurtures WFH employee happiness not only directly but also via the mediation of resilience and WLC. Resilience, on the other hand, mediates the effect of mindfulness on happiness and moderates the negative impact of WLC on happiness. This study is among the first empirical studies of mindfulness and resilience in the specific context of service employees working from home. It contributes to the TSR research stream and enriches the concepts of mindfulness and resilience by elucidating different mechanisms by which each of these personal qualities operates to help employees nurture happiness in this specific working condition.

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