Does Leadership Style and HRM Practices Promote Employee Well-being Post Onset of the New Normal? A Mixed-method Approach

Abstract

The immediate establishment of ‘a new normal’ in response to the present global crisis made leaders relook into the well-being of their employees through a new lens. Hence, promoting empowering leadership in any organisation to attain employee well-being became the key to surviving the detrimental impact of endangered organisational productivity. In line with two promising theories (social exchange and social learning), we proposed to join empowering leadership and employee well-being through activity-enhancing, opportunity-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, work–life balance-enhancing and voice-enhancing related human resources management (HRM) practices. A two-phase exploratory sequential mixed-method process was designed to identify and analyse the role of HRM practices on promoting well-being during the onset of the new normal. Results of the multi-mediation model conducted on 328 executives of private banks in eastern India—demonstrated participative decision-making as a rewarding impact of autonomy and freedom. It highlighted achieving employee well-being as a flow experience. Our findings propose the techno-functionality of empowering leadership in redefining the holistic concept of well-being for socio-tropic continents like India, which may help establish actual well-being as a panacea to evolving work lives.