Mindfulness and workplace ostracism in the post-pandemic work from home arrangement: moderating the effect of perceived organizational support

• Published in: Evidence-based HRM : a Global Forum for Empirical Scholarship 2024-05, Vol.12 (2), p.353-370
• Main Authors: Al Riyami, Said, Razzak, Mohammad Rezaur, Al-Busaidi, Adil S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Coping; Corporate culture; COVID-19; Emotions; Employee attitude; Employees; Employers; Hypotheses; Mindfulness; Organizational behavior; Ostracism; Pandemics; Perceptions; Social distancing; Stress; Work at home; Work environment
• ISSN: 2049-3983; 2049-3991
• DOI: 10.1108/EBHRM-10-2022-0259

PurposeSweeping changes are underway in the world of work where new work-models such as permanent work-from home mandates are being implemented by many organizations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although cost benefits for organizations are obvious from such measures, little is known about how emotions of employees are affected by such measures. A recent industry survey reveals that some employees feel that they are being ostracized from their normal workplace while others are being allowed to return to their normal office settings. However, there appears to be dearth of empirical studies on how employees are coping with workplace ostracism (WO), and whether such emotions are related to factors such as their levels of mindfulness and perceived organizational support (POS). Therefore, this study deploys the stress and coping theory to suggest that individuals with high levels of mindfulness are less likely to experience WO, and that such a relationship is further moderated by POS.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses developed in this study are tested through survey data collected from 240 employees who work for various large organizations in Oman. Eligible respondents are employees who have been directed by their employers to continue to work from home even after a large portion of their colleagues have returned to their physical offices.FindingsThe data is analyzed with R Core Team software. The findings reveal that employees with high levels of mindfulness reported lower levels of WO. Furthermore, POS moderates the inverse relationship between mindfulness and WO at moderate and high levels of POS but not when organizational support is perceived to be at low levels.Research limitations/implicationsThis study suffers from several limitations. First, the study is cross-sectional in nature and does not capture how the perceptions of workplace ostracism change over time. Considering that majority of the new directives to employees to permanently work from their remote locations are quite recent. Second, this study posits the effect of mindfulness as a trait on WO and does not consider other constructs. Third, the demographic details of the respondents indicates that bulk of the employees that were asked by their employers to continue to work from home even after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted were women (68%).Practical implicationsPractically, the relationships between mindfulness, perceived organizational support and workplace ostraci