Mindfulness for Performance and Wellbeing in the Police: Linking Individual and Organizational Outcomes

• Published date: 01 September 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231155794
• Author: Helen Fitzhugh,George Michaelides,Kevin Daniels,Sara Connolly,Emike Nasamu
• Date: 01 September 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X231155794

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2024, Vol. 44(3) 566 –590

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X231155794

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Article

Mindfulness for Performance

and Wellbeing in the Police:

Linking Individual and

Organizational Outcomes

Helen Fitzhugh1, George Michaelides1,

Kevin Daniels1, Sara Connolly1,

and Emike Nasamu2

Abstract

This article reports on the largest randomized control trial (with followup) to examine

the effects of mindfulness among police officers and staff. The benefits of mindfulness

for wellbeing are established, but less is known about long-term impact on employee

wellbeing and the implications of individual outcomes at organizational level. In

the RCT, both the wellbeing and performance of users of two mindfulness apps

over 24 weeks improved as compared to a control group. In responding to calls for

consideration of relevance alongside rigor in public administration field experiments,

the study also investigated how a large-scale wellbeing intervention was implemented

and applied cost-effectiveness methodology to link individual and organizational

outcomes and demonstrate cost savings. This additional contextualization showed

how to improve implementation of wellbeing interventions for public personnel and

demonstrated a method for rigorously assessing whether interventions deliver on

both an individual and organizational level.

Keywords

mindfulness, wellbeing, productivity, performance, apps, cost-effectiveness analysis,

police, RCT, implementation

1University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

2University of Chester, UK

Corresponding Author:

Helen Fitzhugh, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, University Plain, Norwich NR4 7TJ,

UK.

Email: h.fitzhugh@uea.ac.uk

1155794ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X231155794Review of Public Personnel AdministrationFitzhugh et al.

research-article2023

Fitzhugh et al. 567

Introduction

In public administration research, two growing areas of debate concern effective man-

agement for employee performance and wellbeing (Steijn & Giauque, 2021) and the

usefulness of field experiments (Hansen & Tummers, 2020). Uniting these literatures

is the need to balance experimental rigor with relevance to human resource manage-

ment (HRM) (Boselie, Van Harten & Veld, 2021; Peccei & Van De Voorde, 2019).

Intervention studies must go further than psychological enquiry to bridge the gap

between assessing individual outcomes, discerning their organization-wide implica-

tions, and understanding how they work in context (see Skivington et al., 2021). This

article offers a model for achieving the desired rigor and relevance, by contextualizing

a large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) with process evaluation and cost-effec-

tiveness analysis.

Front-line public sector work involves organizational stressors from how public

services are managed (Purba & Demou, 2019) and cycles of politicized reform

(Brunetto & Beattie, 2020). Burnout and reduced engagement are associated with

demands such as organizational restructuring, dealing with aggression, the increased

complexity of public service leading to pressures on integrity, and demands from tech-

nical innovation (Borst & Knies, 2021). In policing, an area of front-line work with

significant stress, there have been increasing concerns over stress-related absences and

loss to service of experienced staff, due to work intensification from increasing soci-

etal demands (Phythian et al., 2021). Early evidence suggests the coronavirus pan-

demic has further increased psychological distress and burnout for public sector

employees (e.g., Huang et al., 2021; Pérez-Luño et al., 2022). The pandemic, on top of

already high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder in police workforces and the cul-

tural barriers that remain in tackling mental health issues, make the need to understand

police wellbeing timelier than ever (Edwards & Kotera, 2021). When considering how

to address the wellbeing of workers, such contextual factors have implications for

police workforce planning at organizational level, where there are concerns over the

mental and physical health of an ageing workforce (Hales, 2017). To justify reforms in

the workplace and to ensure the relevance of research on wellbeing interventions in

the public sector, producing rigorous evidence on both organizational and individual

effects is important.

Evidence from varied public sector workforces (e.g., Awa et al., 2010; Linos et al.,

2022; West et al., 2016) indicates there are interventions that can improve psychologi-

cal wellbeing. However, this evidence mainly draws on small sample sizes and short

time horizons, therefore limiting inferences regarding widespread implementation and

persistence of effects. The present study addresses these concerns by offering multiple

analyses (of short and longer-term outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and implementation)

around a large-scale intervention targeted at enhancing workers’ capacity to self-

regulate their wellbeing through online mindfulness training.

Training for the development of personal resources—such as mindfulness—can be

effective for individual workplace wellbeing (Watson et al., 2018) and potentially

organizational performance indicators (Guy & Lee, 2015). Public personnel capable of