Do Organizational Health Climates and Leader Health Mindsets Enhance Employees’ Work Engagement and Job Crafting Amid the Pandemic?

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many health- and stress-related symptoms among employees, surprisingly few studies have assessed the effect of a health-promoting organizational climate or leadership on employee work outcomes. To fill this gap, our research proposed and tested a moderated mediation model involving perceived organizational health climate (POHC), leader health mindset (LHM), work engagement, and job crafting. Our propositions were tested using two-wave data collected from 301 South Korean employees. As predicted, POHC was positively related to employees’ job crafting, and this relationship was mediated by work engagement. Moreover, the positive relationship between POHC and work engagement and the indirect effect of POHC on job crafting through work engagement were more pronounced when LHM was high than when it was low. These findings support the job demands–resources model and social exchange theory and have implications for helping employees maintain their work attitudes and behavior in times of crisis.