The other side of the coin: An integrative review connecting pay and health.

The organizational sciences have long been interested in the effects of various compensation strategies, and on enhancing employee health. Research examining the connection between pay and health, however, remains a relative rarity. The work that has been done is scattered across disparate disciplines and lacks a unified framework for systematically exploring the effects of pay on health. We argue that greater insecurity at work, as well as rising discontent over wages and work conditions, necessitates a richer understanding of the ways in which organizational pay affects employee psychological, physiological, and behavioral health. We first conduct a comprehensive review of existing research across a broad range of disciplines, taking note of the different ways that pay is conceptualized and the impact it has on employee health. We identify critical knowledge gaps in why and when pay is related to health, noting several disciplinary trends. Drawing on prominent theories of occupational health, we then build a theoretical framework that illustrates three mechanisms underlying the effect of pay on health. We further advance prior work by integrating allostatic load theory to explain how pay gets "under the skin" to affect health, while also identifying relevant moderators and boundary conditions. Taken together, our review integrates findings from a variety of disciplines and facilitates knowledge building across these fields to generate a more comprehensive understanding of the connection between pay and health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The costs of insecurity: Pay volatility and health outcomes.

Every day, millions of individuals rely on fluctuating financial rewards in the form of customer tips, commissions, piece-rate, and performance-based pay. While these compensation systems are increasingly common, the volatility in pay that they create may harm employee health. Based on conservation of resource theory assumptions that money is a valued resource, I propose that volatility in pay represents resource insecurity, with costs to health. Across an experience sampling study of tipped workers (Study 1) and longitudinal studies of gig workers (Study 2) and those in sales, marketing, and finance (Study 3), findings demonstrate the harmful effects of pay volatility. Specifically, pay volatility had direct or indirect effects on physical symptoms, insomnia, sleep quality, and sleep quantity. Volatile pay was found to induce a scarcity mindset, where individuals ruminate and direct cognitive resources toward remedying the source of scarcity, with worse health outcomes as a result. Neither mindfulness nor savings rate moderated the effect. Exploratory analyses in Studies 2 and 3 revealed that one's dependence on volatile pay acted as a moderator that strengthened effects. Overall, performance-based pay creates pay volatility, which is linked to psychological threat and poor physical health for employees in a broad range of industries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A perfect storm: Customer sexual harassment as a joint function of financial dependence and emotional labor.

Sexual harassment from customers is prevalent and costly to service employees and organizations, yet little is known about when and why customers harass. Based on a theoretical model of power in organizations, we propose that sexual harassment is a function of employees' financial dependence on customers (i.e., tips) and deference to customers with emotional labor ("service with a smile") jointly activating customer power. With a field survey study of tipped employees who vary in financial dependence and emotional display requirements (Study 1), and an online experiment that manipulates financial dependence and emotional displays from the customer's perspective (Study 2), our results confirm that these contextual factors jointly increase customer power and thus sexual harassment. Our research has important practical implications, suggesting that organizations can reduce customer sexual harassment by changing compensation models or emotional labor expectations in service contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

"A blessing and a curse": Work loss during coronavirus lockdown on short-term health changes via threat and recovery.

The coronavirus pandemic resulted in national lockdown orders, followed by employment changes to reduce labor costs. We assess how health varied for hospitality workers due to the lockdown (i.e., comparing health a month before to a month after), employment change (i.e., comparing those with loss vs. no change), and employee response (i.e., more job threat vs. more personal recovery). Comparing pre- and post-lockdown surveys of 137 U.S. and U.K. hospitality employees, psychological health (i.e., negative and positive affect) worsened but physical health (i.e., symptoms and sleep) improved. We proposed those facing work loss (66% had reduced hours, furloughs, or layoffs) had more job threat but also more personal recovery (i.e., relaxation, mastery, exercise), resulting in opposing pathways to health. Results from a path analysis showed that work loss indirectly linked to higher psychological distress due to job threat, but to lower distress and fewer physical symptoms due to relaxation. Regardless of work loss, mastery (e.g., hobbies) was related to immediate changes in positive affect and sleep, while exercise did not have short-term health benefits. Further, recovery benefits from work loss were short-lived; only job threat carried the effect to psychological distress 2 months later. We offer quotes from the hospitality workers to contextualize the blessing and curse of work loss during the lockdown for these particularly vulnerable employees. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Does sleep help or harm managers' perceived productivity? Trade-offs between affect and time as resources.

Managers often do not get the recommended amount of sleep needed for proper functioning. Based on conservation of resources theory, we suggest that this is a result of sleep having both resource gains (improved affect) and losses (less time) that compete to determine managers' perceived productivity the next day. This trade-off may, in turn, determine the amount of investment in sleep the next night. In a diary study with hotel managers, we found support for sleep as resource loss. After nights with more sleep than usual, managers reported lower perceived productivity due to fewer hours spent at work. In fact, for every hour spent sleeping, managers reported working 31 min, 12 s less. Further, when perceived productivity is reduced managers withdraw and conserve their resources by getting more sleep the next night (12 min, 36 s longer for each scale point decrease in perceived productivity), consistent with loss spirals from conservation of resources theory. Exploratory analyses revealed that sleep has a curvilinear effect on affect, such that too little or too much sleep is not beneficial. Overall, our study demonstrates the often-ignored trade-offs of sleep in terms of affect and work time, which has downstream implications for managers' perceived productivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

From cheery to "cheers"? Regulating emotions at work and alcohol consumption after work.

Emotional labor, or regulating emotions as part of one's work role, is needed for performance yet may come with far-reaching costs to employee health and performance. Based on ego depletion theorizing, we propose that on days employees perform more surface acting (i.e., faking positive and hiding negative emotional expressions), they will consume more alcohol later-due to reduced self-control (i.e., depletion). In 2 studies, public-facing employees completed multiple assessments per day for 2 weeks. Study 1 showed that surface acting had no direct or indirect effect on alcohol use via depletion, nor via negative mood as an alternative measure of depletion. Study 2 demonstrated that surface acting directly increased subsequent drinking only for those with high emotional demands, but not through depletion. Across both studies, daily deep acting (i.e., modifying emotions to feel positive) consistently predicted less alcohol consumption, but this did not occur through depletion. Study 2 provided evidence for an alternative, motivational shift explanation-a reduced motive to detach from work after regulating by deep acting-rather than self-control capacity. These findings contribute to debate on ego depletion theory by providing insightful field evidence, while demonstrating when emotional labor is likely to help or harm employees' health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

When are fakers also drinkers? A self-control view of emotional labor and alcohol consumption among U.S. service workers.

Some employees tend to drink more alcohol than other employees, with costs to personal and organizational well-being. Based on a self-control framework, we propose that emotional labor with customers-effortfully amplifying, faking, and suppressing emotional expressions (i.e., surface acting)-predicts alcohol consumption, and that this relationship varies depending on job expectations for self-control (i.e., autonomy) and personal self-control traits (i.e., impulsivity). We test these predictions with data drawn from a national probability sample of U.S. workers, focusing on employees with daily contact with outsiders (N = 1,592). The alcohol outcomes included heavy drinking and drinking after work. Overall, surface acting was robustly related to heavy drinking, even after controlling for demographics, job demands, and negative affectivity, consistent with an explanation of impaired self-control. Surface acting predicted drinking after work only for employees with low self-control jobs or traits; this effect was exacerbated for those with service encounters (i.e., customers and the public) and buffered for those with service relationships (i.e., patients, students, and clients). We discuss what these results mean for emotional labor and propose directions for helping the large segment of U.S. employees in public facing occupations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).