Fear of Missing Out at Work in Times of Career Insecurity: Well-Being Impairments and Affiliation as Buffer

Katharina Ebner^1*Roman Soucek²Thomas Heinrich Steiner¹

• ¹University of Erlangen Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany
• ²Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

This study addresses today’s insecure career context, which entails significant stress for many employees. While career insecurity’s negative effects on well-being have been extensively documented, existing research often overlooks a critical daily concern: employees’ fear of missing out on career-relevant resources at work. To explore this gap, we introduce the concept of Fear of Missing Out at work (FoMO at work) to the career literature, conceptualizing it through a Conservation of Resources Theory lens. We specifically posit that career insecurity triggers the fear of missing out on informational and relational resources at work, thereby undermining psychological well-being. Furthermore, we propose that employees’ affiliation at work can mitigate these detrimental effects. Results from OLS regressions on data from 206 employees across two time points three weeks apart revealed that changes in career insecurity predicts increased fear of informational and relational exclusion. In turn, the fear of relational exclusion promotes irritation and overall stress. Additionally, we found evidence that affiliation at work buffers the effects of career insecurity on the fear of informational exclusion. These findings improve our empirical understanding of FoMO at work as a resource-based fear and provide practical recommendations for mitigating its negative effects within today’s insecure career context.