Learned Helplessness at the Workplace and Its Impact on Work Involvement: An Empirical Analysis

In today’s work environment that is characterized by rapid advancements in technology, globalization, liberalization, workforce diversity and increasing national and global competition, workforces face pressure like never before. In a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, where employees face high work stress, learned helplessness may develop in them, which in turn could have adverse effects on their performance, as well as on organizational outcomes. The purpose is to study the impact of learned helplessness on work involvement. Data were collected from 324 bank employees of Delhi, and 300 responses were considered for analysis. Analysis was done using SPSS 24 and AMOS 24 software. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical multiple regression were performed. Our study found that learned helplessness is negatively related to work involvement. After controlling the impact of demographic factors, all the dimensions of learned helplessness were found to be predictors of work involvement, except for the external–global–unstable (EGU) dimension. The researchers found very few researches that studied the variables at the organizational level, most being limited to individual-level studies. Since the constructs of our study have an important influence on organizations, it is important to understand the impact of learned helplessness on employee work involvement. When employees experience helplessness, their work involvement level is negatively impacted; hence, it is important for managers and supervisors to identify the learned helplessness problem. Human resources (HR) practitioners should focus on developing techniques that aim at changing negative employee thought processes to positive ones and help in converting learned helplessness to learned optimism.