Abstract
The military has allocated extensive resources to improve service member resilience in an effort to decrease the impact of stressors on health and well-being. Previous research has linked resilience to various positive outcomes (e.g., physical and mental health, job satisfaction) and has established that service members face unique and challenging work-family experiences. However, the importance of resilience to work-family experiences remains underexplored. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines the relationships between resilience (i.e., the ability to bounce back from stressors) and work-family outcomes, and whether organizational work-family resources of work-family climate perceptions and family-supportive supervisor behavior moderate these relationships. Based on a sample of 417 Army National Guard service members from 10 workgroups, and using a multilevel path model, we found that more resilient service members experience lower family-to-work conflict and greater work-to-family enrichment. Further, the relationship between resilience and family-to-work enrichment was significant and stronger for service members who perceive their work climate as family-supportive compared to the relationship for those who do not. Improving resilience in military personnel may help to facilitate positive work-family experiences, but resilience is likely most beneficial when organizational work-family resources (i.e., a family-supportive work climate) are also available.
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The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 820 Chandler Street, Fort Detrick MD 21702-5014 is the awarding and administering acquisition office. This work was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, through the Psychological Health/Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program under Award No. W81XWH-16-1-0720. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Department of Defense. This research was also supported by the Mountains & Plains Education and Research Center (Grant #: T42OH009229), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Grant #T03OH008435 awarded to Portland State University, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.
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Leslie Hammer, Todd Bodner, Tori Crain, and Jacquelyn Brady contributed to study design and paper development. Jacqueline Wong performed the data analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. Tori Crain and Rebecca Brossoit wrote sections of the manuscript, and all authors commented on multiple versions of the manuscript.
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Leslie Hammer has a financial interest in Work Life Help, LLC., a company that may have a commercial interest in the results of this research and technology. This potential conflict of interest has been reviewed and managed by OHSU. The authors declare no other conflicts of interest.
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Wong, J.R., Crain, T.L., Brossoit, R.M. et al. Beyond Just Resilience: The Important Role of Work-Family Resources for Military Service Members. Occup Health Sci 6, 425–450 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-022-00111-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-022-00111-1