A Study of the Relationships Among and Between Factors Within the Workplace, Emotional Exhaustion and Turnover Intention in Professional Counselors by Baxlee A. Bynum A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Auburn University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Auburn, Alabama August 3, 2019 Keywords: counselor wellness, emotional exhaustion, turnover intention, work environments Copyright 2019 by Baxlee A. Bynum Approved by Chippewa Thomas, Chair, Associate Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling Malti Tuttle, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling Rebecca Curtis, Associate Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling Jinhee Park, Assistant Professor of Special Education, Rehabilitation, and Counseling Abstract The purpose of the current study was to gain an understanding of the relationships among and between factors within the workplace, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention; specifically in mental health counseling settings. This study sought to discover if and how certain factors within workplace settings, studied through the evaluation of organizational justice perception, impact emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in professional counselors.
This study employed a quantitative design and reported results that identify how factors within the workplace (perception of organizational justice) correlate with emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in professional counselors. With this knowledge, professional counselors and counseling agencies will begin to identify strategies to be employed within mental health workplaces that support counselor wellness and decrease burnout symptoms, such as emotional exhaustion. Further, understanding the aspects of work and organizational culture that are associated with emotional exhaustion is critical if the larger issue of counselor turnover is to be addressed. Additionally, further discussions of the study findings are also presented.
Results have significance for understanding the close correlations among organizational justice, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in professional counselors. Implications of the study for counselor education are also discussed. ii Acknowledgements “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the sound of a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.” I begin my acknowledgements with this quote by Henry David Thoreau to thank anyone in my life that has encouraged or inspired me to step out of my comfort zone to pursue my dreams, regardless of what the path looked like.
Thank you to those people who have encouraged or inspired me to be true to myself, to love myself, and to step to the beat of my own drum, regardless of any contrary messages I received along the way. I have grown to be confident, brave and strong through the love and support of so many individuals. First on the list of names, my family. To my mother, Cheryl and my father, Jerry: Thank you for your love, support and prayers throughout my life.
I cannot imagine what my life would be like without your strong, moral example. You two are truly servant leaders and have shaped me into the strong and resilient helping professional that I am today. To my sister, Brannon: Thank you for showing me what unconditional love looks like and feels like. You are truly one of a kind with a heart of gold.
To my grandparents: Ninie and Coachie. Although Coachie is no longer with us, his wisdom still guides me to this day. Thank you for being a positive example of leadership, citizenship and partnership. I will be forever grateful for the many generous gifts you both leave with me.
To the mentors and professors that I have looked up to and learned so much from. Evans, thank you for believing in me. Thank you for teaching me through example how to be a iii life changing educator and supervisor. I owe my professional and academic success to your mentorship, encouragement, and now friendship.
Thomas, thank you for the phone calls and meetings that helped me navigate through graduate school deadlines and technicalities, PowerPoint presentation development and the finalization of this dissertation. Your cheerful attitude and positive spirit have been so appreciated. Marshall, first, thank you for your survey methods course, which is where I developed the survey for this dissertation. I now model your collaborative teaching style and look up to you in many ways.
Thank you for teaching me to regard you as a colleague and for inviting me to be a part of your life-changing research. I would like to thank my dissertation committee for your willingness to be a part of this study. Thank you for your feedback and guidance that helped me complete this academic accomplishment. I want to thank my friends who have become more like family.
Without this secondary support, I would not be here. Lindsey, you are and will always be my sister from a different mister. Words cannot explain how much your friendship means to me! I love you, I am proud of you, and I cannot wait to continue sharing successes with you! Justin, you have taught me so much in our past three years of our friendship. I am forever grateful for the bond that we have developed and will continue to strengthen! Maegan (PhD momma) and Claudia, thank you for being there to provide comedic relief from the PhD program when needed, an ear to listen to grievances (free counseling), and most importantly, life-long friendship.
I love you both and cannot wait to see where we go next! Jaclyn, thank you for your positive attitude and fun-loving spirit. You and Samford knew just how to cheer me up in years one-two! Andrea, we have grown together since the beginning of our master’s program, being baptized by fire as interns at the Opelika Addictions Center and now as colleagues and friends. Thank you for holding me iv tight in your prayers as we have both lived through unimaginable changes these past two years. You are a daily inspiration to me and I can only hope to develop a heart as pure and as golden as yours.
Jessica, my newest friend that I met in my internship adventure in Cleveland. When an unexpected tragedy ripped through my life, you opened your heart and your arms to me, virtually a complete stranger. You will never know how much your kindness and friendship helped me make it through that time, staying productive and functioning while so far away from family and home. I want to share my own version of an age-old quote here for these special friends: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is gold and the other is gold.” No silver here! Thank you to those who kept me in your prayers when I needed it the most: Dadeville First United Methodist Church family (you know who you are).
You have been my village of secondary parents; you have supported so many of my goals throughout my life. You have helped my parents raise me from my first christening, to loving me through my identity crisis in my late teens, supporting my educational research trips and school endeavors, and finally being servant leaders that teach me by example how to live in the light. Your love, support and prayers have gotten not only me, but most importantly, my family through the most difficult time of our lives this year. Finally, I want to thank all of the professional mental health counselors who participated in my study.
Together, we are agents for change! v Table of Contents Abstract. iii List of Tables. xi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE .6 Risk for Burnout and Impairment .7 Impact of Burnout on Counseling Agencies .11 Dimensions of Organizational Justice .12 Organizational Justice as a Stressor .13 Summary of the Literature Review .14 Significance of the Study .15 Statement of Purpose .18 vi CHAPTER II.21 Research Questions and Hypotheses .44 Limitations of the Study.46 Future Research Recommendations .50 Introduction and Background of the Problem .54 Risk for Burnout and Impairment .56 Impact of Burnout on Counseling Agencies .60 Dimensions of Organizational Justice .61 Organizational Justice as a Stressor .62 Significance of the Study .63 Statement of Purpose .65 viii Data Analysis .82 Limitations of the Study.84 Future Research Recommendations .87 ix Appendix A: Survey .97 Appendix B: Open Ended Questions and Responses .109 Appendix C: Email Invitation .118 Appendix D: IRB Approval .119 Appendix E: Information Letter.121 x List of Tables Table 1 Measures and Their Associated Variables .21 Table 2 Demographic Profile of the Sample: Percentages for Categorical Data and Means and Standard Deviation for Continuous Variables .25, 68 Table 3 Mean, Standard Deviation and Range for Variables of Interest .33, 72 Table 4 Independent Samples t-test Results: Private practice vs.35, 73 Table 5 Independent Samples t-test Results: Organizational Justice and Turnover Intention .36, 75 Table 6 Independent Samples t-test Results: Organizational Justice and Emotional Exhaustion.37, 75 Table 7 Correlations between Variables of Interest. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Introduction Although counselor wellness and burnout are widely discussed and researched in the field of mental health, diminished wellness, emotional exhaustion, counselor burnout and high turnover rates remain steadily prevalent in counseling agencies (Green, Miller, & Aarons, 2013; Lawson & Venart, 2005; Skovholt, 2001).
Because the consequences of diminished wellness, emotional exhaustion and counselor burnout are harmful for counselors, mental health agencies, and clients, it is important to examine the consequences and factors that contribute to this dangerous phenomenon. Professional mental health counselors are at a particularly high risk for burnout due to the intense and psychologically close work counselors do with clients, which is an occupational hazard that cannot be controlled for or changed as it is in the nature of the work (Skovholt, 2001). With this understanding, identifying work related factors that can be modified and controlled to support counselor wellness is imperative to address counselor burnout and further, support employee retention. Ohrt and Cunningham (2012) shared that counselors’ work environments may influence their levels of wellness and burnout, yet much of the literature notes that environment is a component of wellness that is sometimes overlooked.
Although burnout occurs in the counselor, it is rooted in the environment (Lawson, 2007). If the work environment does not value employee wellness or allow for revitalization, employees (professional mental health counselors) may become distressed and impaired (Maslach, Leiter, & Schaufeli, 2008). Roscoe (2009) stated 1 that an individual’s interaction with physical space, nature, neighborhood, community, and workplace can have enormous impact upon individual wellness, just as an individual can have a positive or negative impact on the environment. Working environments have been identified as a contributing factor in the development of diminished wellness and counselor burnout with symptoms presenting as: poor work performance, irritability, inadequacy, feelings of failure, sleeplessness, and exhaustion among others (Jordan, 2010).
Available literature identifies several work environment factors linked to the contribution of diminished wellness and counselor burnout such as: caseload (heavy and unmanageable), (lack of) available resources, (lack of) autonomy, and unjust role expectations (Broome et al., 2009; Ducharme, Knudsen & Roman, 2008; McNulty et al. Similarly, Maslach (2003) identified environmental factors within the workplace that closely parallel with aforementioned factors that lead to diminished wellness and counselor burnout including: work overload, lack of control in the workplace, unsupportive and unhealthy work peers, and ineffective/punitive supervisors. These environmental factors can all lead to increased risk of or a hastening development of counselor burnout. It is imperative to continue researching the phenomenon of burnout and all factors that may contribute to it, and to develop more effective prevention strategies and interventions to support counselor wellness in order to protect continuity of care for clients, client wellbeing, quality of service, higher productivity of counselors, and to promote accessible mental health care to the public.
Although evidence suggests that the independently employed practices of self-care, optimism and providing colleague to colleague support are crucial for counselor wellness and job satisfaction (Warren et al., 2010), they are not easily maintained with little additional support from counseling agencies and workplaces.
