Supervisory Career Support and Workplace Wellbeing in Chinese Healthcare Workers: The Mediating Role of Career Commitment and the Moderating Role of Future Work Self-Salience

Abstract

In the context of the sustainability goals of organizations, there is a dilemma regarding enhancing healthcare workers’ career commitment and wellbeing, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. This study focuses on the underlying mechanism in the relationship between supervisory career support and employee wellbeing. Drawing upon the career motivation perspective, we investigate the mediating role of career commitment and moderating effect of future work self-salience (FWSS) in this relationship. Two-wave data were collected from a sample of 213 full-time healthcare workers from three public hospitals located in Southern China. Results in this study revealed that supervisory career support influences career commitment in health workers, which in turn enhances their wellbeing at the workplace. Moreover, the effect of supervisory career support on career commitment was found to be stronger for individuals with low FWSS compared to those with high FWSS. These findings also enlighten us on how to enhance employees’ career commitment and workplace wellbeing.