MUCH has been said about the transboundary haze, which has brought with it complaints of sore throats, itchy eyes and breathing problems.
Worse, data from the World Health Organisation suggests that air pollution accounts for 3.7 million premature deaths annually around the world.
Such health effects of air pollution are apparent, but what is less known is the psychological effect it has on our behaviour, and consequently, our job performance.
Psychological effects, too, exact a cost, one that is rarely factored in when assessing pollution’s economic impact. In October and November last year, I was in a team of researchers who examined the effect of air pollution on workplace behaviour in Wuhan in central China, a country that has some of the most dangerously polluted urban environments in the world.
In China, the sources of pollution are different.
Nonetheless, as the haze is made up of similar particles and the methods for measuring pollutants, too, are similar, we can assume that it has comparable effects in this region.
In our study, we focused on a behavioural theory known as ego depletion, the idea that an individual’s self-control draws upon a limited pool of mental resources, which can be used up and needs opportunities to restore.
Such mental resources, or the ability to hold oneself together, can be affected when air pollution changes physical levels of oxygen and glucose in the blood, or when it causes psychological conditions, such as insomnia, anxiety or even depression.
In particular, our research examined how pollution affected organisational citizenship behaviour, and counterproductive workplace behaviour, through a daily diary-based study of employees.
The first behaviour, organisational citizenship, relates to how an employee might contribute to the functioning of the firm, beyond the call of duty.
This could include the willingness to help others, to engage with one’s team beyond his job scope, or to initiate action that protects or improves the firm’s image.
Counterproductive behaviour is the flipside of this and includes deviances such as dealing with personal matters during work hours, as well as rudeness, hostility or bullying of colleagues.
To test our hypotheses, we followed 161 full-time employees across different industries over two weeks.
In their diary entries, our participants rated their perceptions of pollution levels, their levels of mental resources, as well as organisational citizenship and counterproductive workplace behaviours.
And we found a clear link between high levels of air pollution and decreased levels of organisational citizenship behaviour.
Likewise, the worse the pollution, the more we saw counterproductive workplace behaviour.
In other words, by reducing mental resources and thus, self control, air pollution resulted in more deviance at work and made staff less giving or engaged.
Interestingly, using a formula that rated all the participants’s responses, we found that they reported a reduction of 10 per cent, on average, in such resources.
Of course, how such negative effects manifest themselves can vary between individuals.
A worker may experience little or no health problems while another in the same office may suffer badly from pollution.
However, a key factor in determining how employees react when their resources are drained is the support they receive, or feel they receive, from those around them.
We found that the negative effects of air pollution were mitigated when organisational support was high, for instance, when an employee’s supervisor was concerned about his staff’s health on hazy days.
We also came across firms taking active steps to tackle the effects of pollution, such as installing more effective air filters in their offices.
Such demonstrations of support can increase or replenish an employee’s mental resources.
Supportive firms could provide additional work breaks or the option to work from home when the air is bad, or they may provide easier and better access to healthcare.
However, the worse the pollution gets, the more the costs multiply for business, so at a broader level, the best option would obviously be if there were no pollution at all.
But understanding the impact of air pollution on employee behaviour is an important part of measuring its detrimental effects and financial costs at the company and national level.
Our study adds weight to the financial argument for stronger and more effective policies to tackle pollution at source.
The writer is assistant professor of Management and Organisation at the National University of Singapore Business School, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary