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This study extends research on work engagement by examining how a short respite and general job involvement contribute to work engagement. We gathered questionnaire data from 156 nurses before and after a short respite. Results indicated an increase of work engagement after the respite. Structural equation modelling showed that nurses who experienced psychological detachment from work during the respite showed a higher increase of work engagement. Moreover, nurses who indicated higher job involvement also showed a higher increase of work engagement. Contradictory to this direct positive effect job involvement had on change in work engagement, job involvement exerted a negative indirect effect on change in work engagement by impaired psychological detachment during the respite. Hence, job involvement acted as a double-edged sword for the increase of work engagement. Practical implications for the organization of short respites and suggestions for future research on recovery processes are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staying vigorous throughout the day is important for work-related behaviour, subjective well-being, and for effective functioning in the family domain. This study examined trait vigour (i.e. a person's general level of vigour), day-specific workload (time pressure, work hours), and recovery resulting from unwinding during leisure time as predictors of day-specific vigour as experienced at the end of the working day. Seventy-five individuals from service and public administration organizations completed one general survey and daily surveys two times per day for five working days. Trait vigour, demographic variables and control variables (e.g. job control, home workload) were assessed in the general survey. Day-specific level of vigour, day-specific workload, and day-specific recovery were measured in the daily survey. Analyses following a hierarchical linear modelling approach showed that trait vigour, day-specific workload and recovery accumulated during the preceding evenings predicted an individual's level of vigour at the end of the working day, after controlling for a range of other variables (gender, age, job control, and home workload). Trait vigour and accumulated recovery experiences interacted significantly to predict vigour at the end of the working day, indicating that individuals high on trait vigour benefit most from recovery experienced over the course of several days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increased flexibilization of work, more and more employees are required to structure their own work and coordinate it with others and thus need to handle the cognitive demands of flexible work. However, research to date has not provided clear results regarding the impact of these cognitive demands on employees. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cognitive demands on psychological detachment and cognitive flexibility in the home domain and to uncover the specific psychological processes that underlie these associations. Specifically, we analyzed whether two types of cognitive demands of flexible work (structuring one’s work and coordinating work with others) were associated with psychological detachment and cognitive flexibility via two distinct processes that involve cognitive load and learning. Using a diary study with two daily measurement points over 10 workdays, we collected data from 54 employees of an IT company who provided 334 day-level datasets. Bayesian multilevel mediation analyses revealed that the two cognitive demands sparked distinct processes. Daily demands for structuring one’s work are linked to an enrichment process that includes daily learning and, subsequently, daily cognitive flexibility at home. In contrast, daily demands for coordinating work with others are linked to a conflict process that encompasses daily cognitive load and subsequently reduced psychological detachment at home. These findings suggest that, depending on the specific cognitive demand, cognitive demands have either beneficial or adverse effects on employees’ functioning at home and therefore lead to either an enrichment or conflict process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recovery from work is highly relevant for employees, yet understanding the interpersonal antecedents of impaired recovery experiences remains unclear. Specifically, because former research neglected supervisor behaviors as a predictor of impaired recovery and abusive supervision is a core stressor, we examine daily abusive supervision as a predictor of subordinates' recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment and relaxation). We draw on research on the recovery paradox and propose that psychological detachment and relaxation will be impaired on days with high abusive supervision, although recovery would have been highly important on those days. We suggest a cognitive mechanism (via rumination) and an affective mechanism (via anger) to explain this paradox. We test coworker reappraisal support as a moderator that buffers the adverse effects of abusive supervision on rumination and anger. In a daily diary study (171 subordinates, 786 days), we found an indirect effect of abusive supervision on psychological detachment via rumination and indirect effects of abusive supervision on psychological detachment and relaxation via anger. Coworker reappraisal support moderated the association of abusive supervision and rumination, such that the relationship was weaker when coworker support was high. Our results suggest that including negative supervisor behaviors, such as abusive supervision, in recovery research is highly relevant. Coworkers can help cognitively process abusive-supervision experiences by providing reappraisal support. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Eating healthily in terms of fruit and vegetable consumption has beneficial effects for employees and their organisations. Yet, we know little about how employees' eating behaviour develops over longer periods of time (trajectories) as well as about how subgroups of employees in these trajectories differ (trajectory classes). Gaining such insights is critical to understand how employees address healthy eating recommendations over time as well as to develop individualised interventions that also consider the development of healthy eating (i.e. improvement versus impairment beyond mean levels). We analysed panel data (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences) from 1054 employees by means of growth mixture modelling. Our analyses revealed three relevant classes of healthy-eating trajectories: a favourable trajectory class, an unfavourable trajectory class and a strongly improving trajectory class. Furthermore, unfavourable healthy-eating trajectories were especially critical with respect to impaired psychological well-being. Specifically, we found robust results for impaired positive and negative affects, but not for self-esteem, in the unfavourable trajectory class. We discuss limitations and implications of these findings, thereby encouraging research and practice to further consider such fine-grained approaches (i.e. focusing on subgroups within a larger population) when addressing healthy-eating promotion over time., (© 2024 The Authors. Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association of Applied Psychology.)

Health behaviors (physical activity and healthy eating) can be an essential part of everyday work life and are relevant for employees' affective states. Many worksite interventions, including goal-striving approaches, have been developed to promote health behavior at work. However, these approaches often neglect that making progress with respect to health-behavior goals necessarily takes place during workday episodes, so that work tasks are accomplished simultaneously. In our study, we aim to advance the understanding of how health-behavior goal progress is facilitated and how reflecting on it evokes affective states-taking into account simultaneous pursuit of work-task progress. We collected daily diary data from 205 employees on 1399 days. Analyses showed that goal importance positively predicted health-behavior goal progress, which in turn positively predicted pride and negatively predicted shame at the end of the workday. The negative relation between health-behavior goal progress and shame was stronger on days with low work-task progress, implying compensatory effects. Work-task progress did not moderate the relation between health-behavior goal progress and pride. We discuss the theoretical and practical relevance of integrating research on multiple goal striving when promoting health behavior in daily work life by means of goal-striving techniques., (© 2023 The Authors. Stress and Health published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Focusing on the definition of recovery as a process, we examined how the four core recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, control, and mastery) develop during the evening. We tested whether the specific developments of recovery experiences are important for next-day favorable mood states-beyond the mean levels of recovery experiences. We collected data from 92 employees who completed daily morning and afternoon surveys over 10 workdays. In the morning surveys, we implemented the day-reconstruction method to assess detailed information about employees' recovery experiences during several episodes of the previous evening. Our final data set included 477 morning surveys with a total of 1,998 episodes and 383 afternoon surveys. Multilevel growth curve analyses showed that, in general, psychological detachment, relaxation, and control follow a positive linear trend and mastery a negative quadratic trend during the evening. Moreover, path analyses showed that the day-level increase of psychological detachment is important for next-day mood. Specifically, we found that after evenings during which employees experienced a higher increase in psychological detachment than they usually did, they had higher favorable mood states in the subsequent afternoon. Further, our results did not support associations between day-level slopes of relaxation, control, and mastery as well as next-day mood. Hence, our study demonstrates that recovery experiences systematically change during an evening and that this change is partially relevant for next-afternoon mood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cohabiting dual-earner couples are increasingly common. However, previous recovery research mainly focused on employees independently of others, thereby overlooking an essential part of their life. Therefore, we take a closer look at dual-earner couples' recovery processes and link this research to a circadian perspective. We assumed that unfinished tasks impede engagement in time with the partner (absorption in joint activities, directing attention toward the partner) as well as recovery experiences (detachment, relaxation), whereas engagement in time with the partner should boost recovery experiences. Integrating a circadian perspective, we proposed that employees from couples with matching circadian preferences (chronotype) benefit more from engagement in time with their partner (i.e., stronger relationships with recovery experiences). Additionally, we explored whether a match between partners' chronotypes buffers the negative relationship between unfinished tasks and engagement in joint time. We conducted a daily diary study with 143 employees from 79 dual-earner couples, providing data on 1,052 days. A three-level path model showed that unfinished tasks were negatively related to absorption in joint activities and detachment, whereas absorption positively predicted recovery experiences. Furthermore, the couples' chronotype match mattered in the interplay with engagement in joint time: for couples with higher (vs. lower) chronotype match, experiencing detachment depended on absorption while for couples with lower (vs. higher) chronotype match, attention was even harmful for experiencing relaxation. Thus, it is crucial to consider employees' partners when investigating their recovery processes because employees cannot act independently if they also need to take their partner's circadian rhythms into account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Sleep affects employees' functioning. In this study, we differentiate biological (chronotype), quantitative (daily sleep duration), and qualitative (daily sleep quality) sleep characteristics and examine their relationship with the trajectory of employees' vigor over the course of the day. Building on the two-process model of sleep regulation and the job demands-resources model, we examine whether sleep characteristics are differentially related to the trajectory of vigor as an energetic state. Furthermore, we expect that favorable sleep characteristics have a protective function during the workday in the interplay with daily job demands (workload) and job resources (autonomy). We conducted an experience-sampling study across ten workdays with three daily measurement occasions (171 employees, 1,631 days, 4,351 measurement occasions). Multilevel growth curve modeling showed that, on average, vigor followed a positive quadratic daily trajectory, mainly characterized by a decrease in vigor over the course of the day-after a slight increase early in the day. The decrease in vigor was particularly strong after nights with high sleep quality and for employees with an early chronotype. However, the relation between sleep quality and decrease in vigor occurred only on days with high workload. These results emphasize the importance of looking at the differential effects of sleep characteristics and on-the-job experiences on employees' energetic state during the day. These findings provide helpful suggestions on how to structure work and leisure time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Inspired by the Conservation of Resource theory (Hobfoll, 1989), this study investigated the role of a broad set of personal vulnerabilities, social, and work-related stressors and resources as predictors of workers' well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak. Participants were 594 workers in Italy. Results showed that personality predispostions, such as positivity, neuroticism and conscientiousness as well as key aspects of the individuals' relationship with their work (such as job insecurity, type of employment contract or trust in the organization) emerged as factors promoting (or hampering) workers' adjustment during the COVID -19 outbreak. Interactions between stressors and resources were also found and discussed., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02408-w., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestAll authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021.)