Reducing work-related burnout among police officers: The impact of job rewards and health-oriented leadership
| Author | Dieter Kleiber,Babette Renneberg,Christine Wolter,Burkhard Gusy,Andreas Santa Maria |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X20946805 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
2021, Vol. 94(3) 406 –421
Article
Reducing work-related
burnout among police
officers: The impact of job
rewards and health-oriented
leadership
Andreas Santa Maria , Christine Wolter,
Burkhard Gusy, Dieter Kleiber
and Babette Renneberg
Department of Education and Psychology,
Freie Universita
¨t Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to examine if work effort is associated with burnout
among police officers and if job rewards and healthoriented leadership can mitigate the
potential adverse effects of high work effort on officers’ mental health. Data were col-
lected in a German police department (n ¼573). The results indicated that high work
effort was associated with higher levels of burnout while job rewards and health-
oriented leadership were associated with lower levels of burnout. Additionally, health-
oriented leadership buffered the effects of work effort on police officers’ burnout levels
while job rewards showed no buffering effect. The results emphasize the importance of
leadership for health promotion in policing.
Keywords
Police, leadership, burnout, work EFFO
Introduction
The job of police officers is regarded as especially stressful and demanding, since it is
characterized by various operational and occupational stressors like confrontation with
Corresponding author:
Andreas Santa Maria, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universita
¨t Berlin, Habelschwerdter
Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Email: a.santamaria@fu-berlin.de
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X20946805
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Santa Maria et al. 407
violence, negative citizen encounters or shift work (Berg et al., 2006; Biggam et al., 1997).
Especially, organizational factors like excessive administrative tasks or inconsistent lead-
ership styles are identified as stressors by police officers (Biggam et al., 1997; Newman
and Rucker-Reed, 2004; Shane, 2010). At the same time, there are significant stressors
related to police operations that commonly refer to the nature of police work. Particularly,
the investigation of homicide is associated with cognitive and emotional stress among
police personnel, like intrusive thoughts, disrupted sleep patterns and low mood (Roach
et al., 2017). Furthermore, a recent survey in the UK found that nearly 90%of 16,857
police officers had been exposed to a work related traumatic event and almost one in five
experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms subsequently (Police Care UK, 2019).
Prolonged exposure to work stress is associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes
and police officers show elevated risks for cardiovascular disease and higher rates psy-
chological distress compared to other working populations (e.g., Violanti et al., 2006).
A syndrome that is triggered by high job demands and chronic work stress is burnout,
which is considered as a serious health threat to police officers (Santa Maria et al., 2018;
Stearns and Moore, 1993). It refers to a state of emotional exhaustion, accompanied by
feelings of ineffectiveness and cynicism about the value of one’s work (Maslach et al.,
2001). High levels of burnout among police officers in turn are associated with a more
positive attitude toward violence and a more frequent use of violence during officers’ duty
(Kop et al., 1999) as well as with work-family conflicts (Mikkelsen and Burke, 2004) and
spouse violence (Johnson et al., 2005). On an organizational level, burnout plays a med-
iating role in the relationship between job demands and counterproductive work behaviors
of police officers (Smoktunowicz et al., 2015) and is associated with job dissatisfaction
and desires to leave the job (Pines and Keinan, 2005). Furthermore, burnout is a risk factor
for developing depression (Hakanen et al., 2008), which is associated with at-work per-
formance deficits (Lerner and Henke, 2008) and an increased risk for police officers to
develop metabolic syndromes (Hartley et al., 2012).
While high work demands and work stress is associated with serious health impair-
ments among police officers, the availability of job resources constitutes a protective
factor against job-related burnout (e.g., Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004) and is capable to
mitigate the negative impact of work demands on police officers’ mental health (Santa
Maria et al., 2018). Due to the highly stressful nature of police work and its negative
consequences for police officers’ health, their social environment and the organization as
a whole, the identification of job resources that are protective against job-related strain
appears to be of particular importance in this occupational group. The aim of the current
study was to examine the link between work effort and burnout among police officers
and if job rewards and health-oriented leadershi p can mitigate the potential adverse
effect of high work effort on officers’ mental health.
Effort-reward imbalance in police work
Accordingto the effort-rewardimbalance (ERI) modelby Siegrist (1996),the availability of
rewardsin the work context is of key importancefor employee health.The model is based on
principles of social reciprocity and claims that an imbalance due to high effort and low
reward at workgenerates strong negative emotions and stress responsesamong employees,
2The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles XX(X)
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