Wellbeing in Workers during COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of Self-Compassion in the Relationship between Personal Resources and Exhaustion

Italy was the second country to be affected by COVID-19 in early 2020, after China. The confrontation with the pandemic led to great changes in the world of work and, consequently, to the personal world of workers. In such a challenging situation, it is essential to be able to rely on resources that facilitate individual coping. The aim of this study was to understand the association between personal resources (optimism and humor) and exhaustion, and the role of self-compassion in this relationship. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses on a heterogeneous sample of 422 Italian workers during the first lockdown in April-May 2020. The results revealed that optimism and humor were positively associated with self-compassion; optimism and humor also had a negative association with exhaustion; and self-compassion had a mediating role between the two personal resources and exhaustion. These results confirmed the importance of personal resources in maintaining workers' wellbeing during a challenging period such as the pandemic. The present study also contributes to the body of knowledge on self-compassion, a relatively new construct that has been little studied in the organizational field.