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Introduction
Employees are faced with the reality of having to deal with various job and life demands on a daily basis and are continuously required to find ways to cope with these demands (Thuynsma & De Beer, 2016). Employees become burnout risks and burned out as a result of high demands that exhaust physical and mental resources and lead to a depletion of energy (Bakker, Demerouti & Sanz-Vergel, 2014), through a process widely referred to in literature as the health impairment process (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014). Burnout in the work context can be described as a psychological syndrome comprising exhaustion, depersonalisation or cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment in response to chronic work-related strains (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001). However, evidence is accumulating that reduced professional accomplishment plays a more divergent role as compared to exhaustion and cynicism (De Beer & Bianchi, 2017), which were previously indicated as the core components of the burnout syndrome (cf. Schaufeli & Taris, 2005). In order to support employees in dealing with the various demands experienced, and to prevent burnout from occurring, organisations should strive towards providing resources that will support employees in delivering upon expectations.
The job demands-resources (JD-R) model is a theoretical framework used to understand the impact of demands and resources on the well-being of employees (Schaufeli, Bakker& Van Rhenen, 2009). The model assumes that employee health and well-being result from a balance between positive (job resources) and negative (inordinate job demands) job characteristics and identify two processes, that is, the health impairment process of burnout (as referred to above) and a motivational process (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The motivational process highlights the availability of job resources that leads to work engagement and organisational commitment (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). However, job resources also have a buffering effect on job demands and the burnout process itself (Bakker et al., 2014). According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), job resources can be explained as the physical, psychological, social or organisational aspects of the job that (1) are functional in achieving work goals, (2) reduce job demands and the psychological and physiological costs associated therewith or (3) encourage personal growth and learning. Previous studies have found job resources to have positive relationships with work engagement (e.g. De Beer, Rothmann &...