EARTH Day
helps create awareness about how environmental issues affect us. One of the
biggest challenges we face is the health effects brought by airborne pollution.
Every
year, the region’s air is choked by haze. The haze created by forest fires in
Indonesia last year was one of the worst on record. It was severe enough to
extend to Malaysia.
The air
quality crossed into the hazardous range on the Air Pollutant Index at the
height of the haze in Malaysia. The education minister had to close schools in
the city and three states due to health concerns.
The
health effects of air pollution are apparent but less known is the
psychological effect it has on our behaviour, and consequently, our performance
in the workplace.
My
colleagues and I studied how air pollution might affect our workplace behaviour
through a behavioural theory known as ego depletion — the idea that an
individual’s self-control draws upon a limited pool of mental resources, one
that can be used up and needs opportunities to restore.
Not only
does air pollution negatively affect levels of oxygen and glucose in the blood,
both of which affect self-control, it can also drain our self-control resources
psychologically, causing insomnia, anxiety or depression.
Our
research examined how pollution affects two kinds of behaviour: organisational
citizenship behaviour and counterproductive workplace behaviour.
The first
behaviour relates to employee actions that contribute to the functioning of the
firm, but are optional and not part of their job. These might include individuals’
willingness to be helpful to others, to engage with their team beyond their job
scope, or to take action that protects or improves the firm’s image. Some might
label it as going above and beyond the call of duty.
The
second counterproductive behaviour is the flipside of this and includes
negative employee actions. These might include working on personal matters
during work hours, as well as rudeness, hostility or even bullying of
colleagues.
A common
term for this might be deviance at the workplace. In our research, participants
were asked to record daily diary entries rating their perception of pollution
levels, their level of mental resource depletion as well as organisational
citizenship and counterproductive workplace behaviour.
We found
a clear link between high air pollution and decreased levels of organisational
citizenship behaviour.
Likewise,
increased pollution also saw a corresponding and marked increase in
counterproductive workplace behaviour.
Air
pollution leads to a decrease in self-control resource, which in turn leads to
increased counterproductive and decreased organisational citizenship behaviour.
Specifically,
the data gathered showed that the severity of air pollution accounted for
around 10 per cent of an individual’s daily self-control resource depletion.
In other
words, by reducing our pool of mental self-control resources, the impact of air
pollution makes us less engaged at work and more deviant. Moreover, in line
with the ego depletion theory, it is apparent that the direct physiological
impact of air pollution and the individual’s own perception of its severity act
to deplete resources affecting self-control.
Of
course, how this manifests itself can vary considerably. A worker may
experience little or no health effects from pollution while another in the same
office may suffer badly.
Likewise,
one individual’s perception of what constitutes “severe” pollution may be
different from another.
An
essential factor in determining an individual’s ability to manage the effects
of drained self-control resources is the support they receive, or feel they
receive, from those around them.
For
example, demonstrations of active support from the firm can replenish an
employee’s mental resource pool.
We found
that the negative effects of air pollution on employees’ behaviour were
mitigated when organisational support was high, that is when employees
perceived that their supervisor or firm was concerned about their wellbeing.
In our
research, we came across firms tackling the immediate effects of pollution,
such as installing more effective air filters in their offices. Similarly,
supportive firms might provide additional work breaks or the option to work
from home on high pollution days, or they may provide easier and better access
to healthcare.
While
this favours an argument that firms should support employees exposed to severe
air pollution, all of this comes with a cost to the firm.
By
conducting studies like ours, we can better understand the true social and
economic implications of pollution and, in turn, add weight to the finan- cial
argument for stronger and more effective policies to tackle pollution at
source.
Sam Yam
Kai Chi
Sam Yam Kai Chi, Assistant professor of
management and organisation, National University of Singapore’s Business School
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