The Impact Of Mindfulness Practice On Emotional Exhaustion Of Sales Personnel

Emotional exhaustion could cause lots of negative consequences on employers,such as lower self-esteem and job satisfaction,less work engagement,worse work performance and higher turnover intention.Since its severe undesirable impacts on individuals’ mental health and work life,a great number of studies have been conducted to explore how to alleviate the negative effects of emotional exhaustion.One of them is focusing on the mindfulness training.Mindfulness training is a series of activities through which one can improve his or her mindfulness.Research has demonstrated that mindfulness training can effective increase employers’ levels of mindfulness and decrease emotional exhaustion.Considering the cultural differences between Chinese and the Western countries,however,whether this result would be true in China need to be further explored by more studies.On the other hand,salesmen are at high risk of emotional exhaustion.They work under great intensity and high stress,and their work are always interacting with different kinds of people which make them have to do more emotional labor.All this makes them be more likely to engage in emotional exhaustion.Thus,it is very necessary to explore studies that aimed at reducing salesmen emotional exhaustion.The present research conducted two studies among Chinese employers.Study one analyzed the association between levels of mindfulness and emotional exhaustion through survey design.Study two tested the association between mindfulness training and emotional exhaustion with the pretest/post-test control group experimental design.The present study was expected to provide empirical evidence for the link between mindfulness training and salesmen emotional exhaustion,and offer practical guidance for the intervention and treatment of emotional exhaustion.A sample of 251 salesmen participate in study one.They completed the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the Emotional Exhaustion Scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey.The correlational analysis was conducted to uncover the association between the levels of mindfulness and emotional exhaustion.Then sixty salespeople were selected to participate in study two.They were divided into three groups:mindfulness training group,exercise training group and non-training group.The mindfulness training group completed an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy Program according to the guidance of the Mindful Way Workbook.The exercise training group completed 8-week exercise.The non-training group do not participate in any training.Before and after the 8-week training,the mindfulness and exhaustion scores of the three groups were measured by the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the Emotional Exhaustion Scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey.The data were analyzed the T test.The results showed that:(1)the levels of mindfulness was significantly and negatively associated with salesmen emotional exhaustion(2)for the mindfulness training group,the mindfulness scores of pretest were significantly lower than that of post-test;(3)for the mindfulness training group,the emotional exhaustion scores of pretest were significantly higher than that of post-test;(4)there are significant differences in the scores of mindfulness between mindfulness training group and non-training group,and the mindfulness scores of mindfulness training group were significantly higher than that of non-training group;(5)there are significant differences in the scores of emotional exhaustion between mindfulness training group and non-training group,and the emotional exhaustion scores of mindfulness training group were significantly lower than that of non-training group;(6)there are significant differences in the scores of mindfulness between mindfulness training group and exercise training group,and the mindfulness scores of mindfulness training group were significantly higher than that of exercise training group;(7)there are significant differences in the scores of emotional exhaustion between mindfulness training group and exercise self-training group,the emotional exhaustion scores of mindfulness self-training group were significantly lower than that of exercise self-training group.The above results indicate that salesmen’s mindfulness was strongly correlated with exhaustion,and mindfulness self-training can effectively improve mindfulness and decrease emotional exhaustion among salesmen.The limitations and implications of this study as well as the future research directions are discussed.