https://phys.org/news/2018-10-employees-backfire.html

Rather than conducting an experiment of their own, Mathieu and Eschleman pulled together information from the vast scientific literature on the topic. That meant tracking down 142 studies over the course of eight months and translating them all into the same scientific terms to be compared and statistically analyzed in one batch. The team ended up using a wide variety of measurements, from job satisfaction to job performance and even stressors like "role overload" (when an employee's workload is too large to handle).

Offering job-related support—such as new equipment or career counseling—turned out to perform roughly the same role as providing emotional support, like listening to a coworker's problems, the researchers found. They also discovered that simply making support available is often better than overtly discussing it: Extending a helping hand was just as likely to make the situation worse as improve it, while simply making job resources available had a more consistently positive effect. "That finding might be because not all support is good support," Mathieu explained. For instance, reaching out to offer help to a coworker could end up insulting them.