Why does using personal strengths at work increase employee engagement, who makes the most out of it, and how?

Engaging in behaviors that take advantage of one's personal strengths at work can promote employee flourishing in the workplace and mental health. Personal strengths use has thus gained increasing attention within occupational psychology and positive organizational scholarship. In this article, we first integrate work on personal strengths use with the latest developments in the job demands-resources theory (and its extensions) to develop a conceptual model explaining how and why personal strengths use on the job increases work engagement. Specifically, we propose that feelings of inspiration and meaningfulness explain the relationship between personal strengths use and work engagement. Second, we identify two mechanisms through which employees can amplify the benefits associated with personal strengths use at work; that is, we propose that the increased engagement associated with strengths use makes employees more likely to capitalize on the positive aspects of their work by engaging in work-family interpersonal capitalization and positive work reflection. Further, our model predicts that employees' psychological capital moderates the effects of personal strengths use. We tested our theoretical predictions in a sample of 160 full-time employees who provided ratings that comprise a three-level data set (person, week, and day) comprising 943 matched weekly ratings and 2,787 daily ratings. Our hypotheses were largely supported by these data. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Sharing is caring: The role of compassionate love for sharing coworker work-family support at home to promote partners' creativity at work.

Integrating the work-family facilitation model with the integrated model of human energy, we advance a process perspective involving both members of a couple (i.e., actor and partner). We examine the effects of coworker work-family support at work onto actor work-family support provision at home (i.e., work-to-family facilitation) as well as the consequences of partner work-family support receipt at home for partner work-related creativity through a resource gain spiral process at work (i.e., positive affect, flow, and need satisfaction at work; family-to-work facilitation). We further test whether actor compassionate love moderates the dynamic mechanisms that connect coworker work-family support to partner's creativity. Results of two experience-sampling studies support our model. We find that on weeks with higher coworker work-family support, couples report greater work-family support provision and receipt, which leads to resource gain spirals at work and higher work-related creativity for partners. Furthermore, actor compassionate love strengthens the positive work-home dynamics that follow from coworker work-family support and promote partner's work-related creativity. We critically discuss our findings and reflect on practical interventions, which may encourage greater work-family support provision at work and at home. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Family supportive supervisor behaviors and organizational culture: Effects on work engagement and performance.

Informed by social information processing (SIP) theory, in this study, we assessed the associations among family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSBs) as perceived by subordinates, subordinate work engagement, and supervisor-rated work performance. Moreover, we explored the role of family supportive organizational culture as a contextual variable influencing our proposed associations. Our findings using matched supervisor-subordinate data collected from a financial credit company in Mexico (654 subordinates; 134 supervisors) showed that FSSBs influenced work performance through subordinate work engagement. Moreover, the positive association between subordinates' perceptions of FSSBs and work engagement was moderated by family supportive organizational culture. Our results contribute to emerging theories on flexible work arrangements, particularly on family supportive work policies. Moreover, our findings carry practical implications for improving employee work engagement and work performance. (PsycINFO Database Record