In recent years, an important framework in organizational psychological
research has been the idea that we live in a polycrisis period, where the world
around us can be described using the acronym BANI (Brittle, Anxious,
Nonlinear, Incomprehensible). The crises of the last five years (pandemics,
climate crises, wars, etc.) often make employees feel helpless and insecure,
which has led to an increase in the frequency of burnout and the emergence of
another demotivated state known as "quiet quitting." This term describes a
situation where an employee does not leave the organization legally but
disengages psychologically. In our research, we tested whether nature use
during office hours has a preventive effect on the development of quiet quitting
and burnout. According to our results, nature use was associated with a high
level of burnout and quiet quitting; therefore, we realized that there is an inverse
cause-and-effect relationship here. The path analysis showed that while quiet
quitting indirectly influenced nature use through burnout, burnout directly
boosted the frequency of nature use (t = 0.237; p < 0.01).
We conclude that in the case of burnout, natural environments within the office
space can serve as a so-called favorite place (Korpela, 1989), the visitation of
which has an environmental self-regulatory function. We did not find a direct
effect of quiet quitting on nature use, which may strengthen the theory that quiet
quitting in itself may not be dysfunctional but can even be considered a shortterm
coping strategy. The examination of the possible positive effects of the
natural environment in the workplace is still significantly under-researched. In
the BANI world, it would be important for the characteristics of the workplace not
to reinforce the uncertainty described during the polycrisis period but to protect
employees from it as a kind of shield.