At Work with Sustainable Well-Being and Sustainable Performance: Testing the DISC Model Among Office Workers

Abstract

There is increasing interest in sustainable employment throughout employees’ careers, which makes sustainable work environments more and more important. This study investigates key components of sustainable work systems (i.e., job demands and job resources) and their association with employee sustainable well-being and sustainable performance. Specifically, using two prominent theoretical frameworks, the interaction between job demands and job resources was studied on the one hand and sustainable well-being and performance on the other. A cross-sectional survey study using online questionnaires was performed among 154 office workers of a business operations department. Moderated regression analyses revealed that emotional demands were negatively associated with sustainable performance in the case of low emotional resources (−1 SD, b = −0.14, p = 0.025), and this relation was buffered (and even reversed) in the case of high emotional resources (+1 SD, b = 0.11, p = 0.042). Regarding sustainable well-being, results revealed that higher cognitive job resources were associated with higher sustainable well-being (b = 0.13, p = 0.041). It can be concluded that enhancing job resources as key drivers of sustainable well-being and sustainable performance is important. The discussion addresses theoretical and practical implications, adding to the expanding knowledge of sustainable work systems.