67-4

41/90

ments in employees’ task performance and contex-tual performance4), psychological and physical health5), and job satisfaction and organisational commitment and a reduction in their intention to leave the company or change jobs3). Research reports a link between work engagement and burnout, as well1).One factor that affects work engagement is job resources, which ‘(1) (are) functional in achieving work goals; (2) reduce job demands and the asso-ciated physiological and psychological costs; or (3) stimulate personal growth and development’6). According to empirical studies7, 8), job resources include supervisory feedback and coaching, social support, an innovative work climate, rewards, recognition, and a value fit between the organisa-tion and individual. One concept that has recently drawn attention is psychological safety, which is defined as ‘the degree to which people view (their) environment as conducive to interpersonally risky behaviours like speaking up or asking for help’9). Edmondson uses “team psychology safety” as a group-level construct and argues that psycholog-ical safety is not a characteristic of a single employee but a property of a small group10). More-over, several studies report that psychological safety is positively associated with work engage-ment11-13), which suggests that employees with high perceived psychological safety achieve high performance9).In recent years, in the context of an increase in citizens’ health consciousness, the fitness market has been growing in Japan; in 2019, the market saw its eighth consecutive year of positive growth and broke all previous growth-based records14). The fitness market comprises diverse types of busi-nesses and services that satisfy various needs of users, as evidenced by online services such as home and mobile fitness and outdoor fitness services to be implemented in parks. Therefore, one of the issues faced by fitness club employees is that the employee turnover rate is higher in fitness clubs than in other occupations. According to data provided by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare15), the turnover rate within three years of university graduation in the ‘Living-Related and Educational Services and Amenity Services’ cate-gory, which includes fitness clubs, is 46.2%, which is the second highest after the rate for ‘Accommo-dation, Eating and Drinking Services’. The main reasons for the high turnover among sports instruc-tors have been identified as health reasons, rela-tionship problems, and dissatisfaction with income or job description16). Although jobs offered by fitness clubs are highly professional and have high social importance, they require hard work and are largely socially unpopular17); further, the high volumes of work done by fitness instructors have been reported to negatively affect their mental health18). Furthermore, in general, the health status of sports club employees is not good, despite their young age19). These findings suggest that fitness club employees in Japan work in a physically and mentally demanding environment, which may be related to the high turnover rate. Furthermore, some other issues affect their well-being, for instance, recent changes in the social environment, such as declining birth rates and an ageing popula-tion; high concentration of population in urban areas; and the rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT), which has increased the level of sophistication and complexity of their work. Measures must be taken urgently to effectively respond to these changes. A study conducted by Park et al.18) suggested that interper-sonal relationships in the workplace affect the mental health of fitness club instructors, whereas job satisfaction affects the mental health of admin-istrators. Therefore, for fitness club employees, increased psychological safety leads to improved interpersonal relationships in the workplace, and a higher level of work engagement leads to greater job satisfaction; together, these two aspects posi-tively influence employees’ professional lives. However, sports facility instructors have different characteristics from the professionals working in other business sectors, since the former perform intense physical activity while providing services to their clients. The factors of work engagement are probably different among the two groups, as well. Hence, the purpose of this study is to reveal the relationship between the psychological safety, job resources, and work engagement of fitness club employees.Procedures and study subjectsWe requested two fitness clubs with nationwide 361Materials and Methods