How we handle tough situations at work—like disagreements with colleagues or feeling overloaded—can vary from person to person. These events often lead to a drop in motivation and engagement.
But what about our own stash of positive resources, known as PsyCap? Are Polish workers different from Americans in this regard? Researchers at SWPS University in Wroclaw, Poland, dug into this question.
Building our reserves
In psychology, PsyCap (psychological capital) refers to the positive mental resources a person has. It helps us navigate rough patches in both personal and professional life. PsyCap includes things like self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resilience.
To understand PsyCap and its impact on how employees function, let’s break down its parts. Self-efficacy is believing in your ability to handle specific tasks. Optimism means seeing the bright side of current and future situations, which boosts work engagement.
Then there’s hope, which gives you the drive to reach goals and adjust strategies if needed. Mental resilience, the last piece of PsyCap, helps you bounce back when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
Impacting our work
The researchers looked at how PsyCap relates to work engagement. Does it help employees deal with tough times, or does it make them less reliant on emotions when it comes to work engagement?
A study from 2014 found that North Americans tend to have higher PsyCap levels compared to Poles. But are the effects of PsyCap specific to nationality?
For their study, researchers gathered 748 participants from Poland and the U.S., all working in various companies. Each person completed surveys about work engagement, PsyCap, positive and negative work-related feelings, and recent work events.
Fewer negative feelings
The results showed that people with high PsyCap tend to have fewer negative feelings in response to work problems. However, this doesn’t seem to affect their level of work engagement.
When they looked at the data separately for Polish and North American participants, they found some interesting differences. For North Americans, PsyCap helps buffer the effects of a tough work environment on work engagement. But for Polish workers, PsyCap serves more as a reserve of positive energy, making their work engagement less dependent on positive feelings from work events.
“From an international perspective, we have empirically demonstrated that the role of PsyCap in the relationship between work-related events, associated emotions and work engagement is culture-specific,” the researchers explain. “Our findings have confirmed that North Americans have higher levels of PsyCap compared to Poles. They also perceive fewer negative work events and generally experience weaker work-related emotions and engagement at work than Poles.”
Understanding how factors like PsyCap influence work engagement is crucial for HR professionals. By considering these aspects, HR developers can gain valuable insights to customize organizational policies according to employees’ individual needs and traits. This tailored approach can enhance employee satisfaction and productivity, ultimately benefiting the organization as a whole.
“In the context of changes taking place in the labor market, such as intensive digitalization and increased social isolation resulting from remote work, strengthening employees’ psychological resources appears to be one of the most accessible methods of protection against the negative consequences of these threats,” the authors conclude.
