Roles of effort and reward in well-being for police officers in Singapore: The effort-reward imbalance model

Abstract

Rationale: Despite the growing body of research on the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model, evidence is scarce for the generalizability of the model across various national and occupational contexts. Also, studies that examine a wider variety of health and well-being outcomes of ERI are warranted, especially in vocations in which effort and stress is known to be high and reward is usually limited - such as policing.

Objective: The current study examined the relationship between the ERI perception and four employee well-being outcomes (self-reported physical health, sickness absence, job satisfaction, and work-life effectiveness) among a sample of police officers in Singapore.

Methods: Cross-sectional survey data collected from a large representative sample of uniformed police officers from Singapore were used (N = 8729). Missing data were handled with the multiple imputation method and logistic regression analyses were used to test hypotheses.

Results: In line with the theory, employees characterized by high intrinsic effort and low reward (ERI > 1) reported significantly elevated odds ratios of poor physical health (OR = 1.25), job dissatisfaction (OR = 1.53), and work-life ineffectiveness (OR = 1.31). Contrary to expectations, an unusual relationship was observed such that police officers who were overcommitted exhibited lower odds ratios of the suboptimal outcomes. Interestingly, police officers in the low effort-low reward condition exhibited the worst outcomes, whereas officers in the high effort-high reward condition reported optimal outcomes. Findings were generally consistent across genders and age groups.

Conclusions: This research bolsters the core proposition of the ERI model and emphasizes the importance of social and occupational contexts in the study of ERI.

Keywords: Effort-reward imbalance; Health; Intrinsic efforts; Overcommitment; Police officers; Singapore.