Burnout and poor perceived health in flexible working time in Japanese employees: the role of self-endangering behavior in relation to workaholism, work engagement, and job stressors

The study aim was to examine whether flexible working time was associated with burnout and poor perceived health in relation to the work-related psychological/behavioral factors of self-endangering work behavior (SEWB), workaholism, work engagement, and job stressors. We analyzed data obtained from an Internet survey of 600 full-time Japanese employees. We also proposed a causal model using path analysis to investigate the overall relationships of burnout and perceived health to psychological/behavioral factors. The results indicated that flexible working time was associated with adverse work-related consequences and factors such as increased burnout, working hours, SEWB, workaholism, and job demands, and with positive factors such as improvement of work engagement. The path analysis suggested that burnout was caused by workaholism both directly and via SEWB, and by low job decision latitude, and was reduced by work engagement. Similarly, it was observed that poor health was caused by workaholism via SEWB, and reduced by work engagement. Thus, SEWB is driven by workaholism and plays a key role in the adverse health consequences of flexible working time. For workers to benefit from flexible working time, it is important to improve workaholism, SEWB, and low job decision latitude, and to develop work engagement in the workplace.

Automated summary

The study found that flexible working time is associated with negative work-related consequences such as increased burnout, working hours, self-endangering work behavior, workaholism, and job demands, but also with positive factors such as improved work engagement. Path analysis revealed that burnout is caused by workaholism both directly and via self-endangering work behavior, and by low job decision latitude, and is reduced by work engagement. Similarly, poor health is caused by workaholism via self-endangering work behavior, and reduced by work engagement. Therefore, self-endangering work behavior plays a key role in the adverse health consequences of flexible working time.