Associations between psychosocial work environment factors and the well-being of frontline hospital managers: A...

Promoting manager well-being is important for organizations. Failure to do so can harm employees directly through contagion effects on employee well-being and indirectly by hindering managers' leadership efforts. This comes with the risk of reducing employee motivation and job satisfaction, potentially harming organizational performance. Despite its importance, manager well-being remains underexplored in research.

This study aims to enhance the understanding of demands and resources in the psychosocial work environment of frontline hospital managers and how these factors are associated with their well-being.

Using a sample of 514 frontline managers working in Danish hospitals, we analyzed relationships between psychosocial work environment factors and manager well-being through descriptive statistics and OLS regressions. Qualitative insights from an open-ended question were further used to illustrate the investigated dynamics.

We observed substantial variation in the managers' well-being levels, with average levels lower than those in the Danish general population. Frontline hospital managers face substantial demands in their daily work, but they also report having access to important resources. For the associations between factors in the psychosocial work environment and manager well-being, we found particularly strong associations between frontline hospital manager well-being and the organizational climate, possibilities for performing work tasks, and emotional as well as quantitative demands.

This study contributes to knowledge on well-being among frontline managers and highlights critical factors for public organizations to address in their efforts to support well-being among their managers.