Preventing workers’ need for recovery and turnover intentions: The protective effect of virtuous organizational practices through work ability

AbstractIn the occupational field, the post-COVID-19 era is characterized by a deterioration of employees’ psychological health, and the “Great Resignation,” or “Big Quit,” leading to labor shortages in some activity sectors. In this context, identifying the factors of workers’ psychological health and staff retention on which organizations can act is therefore a crucial issue. The new integrative construct of virtuous organizational practices offers promising prospects to address this issue. The aims of this study were twofold. The first was to explore the relationships between virtuous organizational practices on the one hand, and employees’ need for recovery and turnover intentions on the other. The second was to test the mediating role of work ability between them. We conducted an empirical study with a sample of 521 individuals working in French organizations. Consistent with our assumptions, structural equation modeling revealed that virtuous organizational practices were negatively associated with employees’ need for recovery and turnover intentions. Resampling analyses showed that virtuous organizational practices could provide a protective effect by promoting work ability, which in turn could decrease the need for recovery and turnover intentions. Theoretical contributions, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.Keywords: Virtuous organizational practicesneed for recoveryturnover intentionwork ability Consent statementParticipants then signed an informed consent form. In this way, the study was designed in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration on Research Involving Human Beings (World Medical Association, Citation2013).Disclosure statementThe authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.Ethics approval statementThe study protocol was also approved by the Tours-Poitiers Ethics Committee for Research of University of Tours (CER-TP n° 2019-09-04).Data availability statementDatasets used for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.