Social mindfulness as an institutional arrangement to promote service employee well-being

Purpose Frontline service employees face substantial physical, emotional and social challenges that undermine their well-being and job performance. Existing interventions often adopt a transactional approach, focusing on individual-level solutions rather than systemic changes. This paper aims to introduce social mindfulness – the thoughtful consideration of others’ needs – as an institutional arrangement geared toward improving service employee well-being. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper integrates service-dominant logic (SDL) and its institutional arrangements concept to explore how social mindfulness, when embedded across actor groups (managers, employees and customers), can create improvements in workplace interactions. By positioning social mindfulness as an institutional arrangement, the study examines how its core components – attention, perspective-taking and considerate behavior – address employee challenges at multiple levels. Findings Social mindfulness can aid in promoting psychological safety, reducing emotional labor burdens and enhancing employee well-being through co-created, prosocial interactions. When adopted collectively across actor groups, it can stimulate systemic behavioral change, strengthening the service environment. Social mindfulness represents an adaptable, scalable institutional arrangement that encourages reciprocal engagement across actors. Originality/value This paper extends SDL by introducing social mindfulness as an institutional arrangement. It extends the literature on social mindfulness by considering the construct as an institutional arrangement rather than an individual trait. It contributes to the services marketing and employee well-being literature by demonstrating how prosocial institutional arrangements can enhance value co-creation and workplace resilience.