Organizations are increasingly expecting individuals to engage in task proactivity, that is, to find better ways of doing their job. While prior research has demonstrated the benefits of task ...proactivity, little is known about its cognitive costs. To investigate this issue, we build theory on how task proactivity affects end-of-day cognitive performance. We propose that task proactivity involves deviating from established ways of working and engaging in cognitively demanding activities requiring high levels of mental effort, which manifest as an erosion of end-of-day cognitive performance. In two daily diary studies, we found that individuals engaging in task proactivity experience lower end-of-day cognitive performance (Study 1 over five consecutive workdays:
= 163,
= 701; Study 2 with multiple daily assessments over seven consecutive workdays:
= 93,
= 471), even when controlling for task performance (Study 1) and beginning-of-day cognitive performance (Study 2). In two experiments, we then show that simulating task proactivity results in greater mental effort and lower routineness but not in greater ego depletion (Study 3:
= 318 and Study 4:
= 319) or increased self-control demands, -effort, or -motivation (Study 4). This provides support for our proposed cognitive pathway. Our findings enhance our understanding of the cognitively demanding nature of task proactivity and provide empirical support for its cognitive costs using a mental fatigue lens. They also suggest that the impact of a cognitively demanding activity like task proactivity may persist throughout the day and carry over to other tasks involving cognitive performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
The COVID-19 crisis has compelled many organizations to implement full-time telework for their employees in a bid to prevent a transmission of the virus. At the same time, the volatile COVID-19 ...situation presents unique, unforeseen daily disruptive task setbacks that divert employees' attention from routinized work tasks and require them to respond adaptively and effortfully. Yet, little is known about how telework employees react to such complex demands and regulate their work behaviors while working from home. Drawing on Hobfoll's (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory, we develop a multilevel, two-stage moderated-mediation model arguing that daily COVID-19 task setbacks are stressors that would trigger a resource loss process and will thus be positively related to the employee's end-of-day emotional exhaustion. The emotionally exhausted employee then enters a resource preservation mode that precipitates a positive relationship between end-of-day exhaustion and next-day work withdrawal behaviors. Based on COR, we also predict that the relation between daily COVID-19 task setbacks and exhaustion would be more positive in telework employees who have higher (vs. lower) task interdependence with coworkers, but organizations could alleviate the positive relation between end-of-day exhaustion and next-day work withdrawal behavior by providing employees with higher (vs. lower) telework task support. We collected daily experience-sampling data over 10 workdays from 120 employees (Level 1, n = 1,022) who were teleworking full-time due to the pandemic lockdown. The results generally supported our hypotheses, and their implications for scholars and managers during and beyond the pandemic are discussed.
Regulatory guidance materials for fatigue management typically advise that employees be provided with days or weeks of advance notice of schedules/rosters. However, the scientific evidence ...underpinning this advice is unclear. A systematic search was performed on current peer reviewed literature addressing advance notice periods, which found three relevant studies. A subsequent search of grey literature to determine the quality of evidence for the recommendation for advance notice periods returned 37 relevant documents. This review found that fatigue management guidance materials frequently advocated advance notice for work shifts but did not provide empirical evidence to underpin the advice. Although it is logical to suggest that longer notice periods may result in increased opportunities for pre-work preparations, improved sleep, and reduced worker fatigue, the current guidance appears to be premised on this reasoning rather than empirical evidence. Paradoxically, it is possible that advance notice could be counterproductive, as too much may result in frequent alterations to the schedule, particularly where adjustments to start and end times of the work period are not uncommon (e.g., road transport, rail). To assist organisations in determining the appropriate amount of advance notice to provide, we propose a novel theoretical framework to conceptualise advance notice.
Research on workplace recovery recognizes that employees must restore lost resources after work to improve their subsequent well-being and performance. Scholars have noted that employees' recovery ...experiences-psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control-vary day-to-day, yielding crucial implications for the aforementioned outcomes. Yet, despite these important theoretical and empirical insights, researchers to date have not comprehensively examined multiple daily recovery experiences in conjunction, instead studying the unique effects of only 1 or 2 experiences in isolation. Using a person-centric view of employees' recovery experiences, the current study examines whether profiles of daily recovery experiences occur for employees, and how these profiles (a) vary in membership from one day to the next, (b) are differentiated by daily job demands and resources experienced at work, and (c) predict employee well-being and discretionary behaviors during the subsequent workday. Using experience sampling data from 207 full-time employees, results revealed 5 profiles of daily recovery experiences that exhibited distinct relations with within-person antecedents and outcomes. As such, the current investigation represents a necessary first step in understanding how employees jointly experience recovery in relation to their daily work and well-being.
Although organizations increasingly offer wellness programs that enable employees to work out before or during work, it remains unknown what implications physical activity before or during the ...workday might have for work outcomes. Whereas a workout might be rewarding, especially for those who enjoy exercise, working out might also be draining, especially for those who are less intrinsically motivated to exercise. Integrating the Work-Home Resources model with self-determination theory, we develop and test theory which identifies how physical activity before the end of the workday might exert countervailing effects by impeding work focus through drained personal resources (i.e., ego depletion), while also improving work focus via enhanced personal resources (i.e., self-efficacy). We further theorized that motivation for exercise-whether it is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated-serves as a cross-level moderator of these relations. In a 5-day experience sampling study tracking 74 regularly exercising employees with Fitbit activity monitors, results indicated that physical activity was not significantly related to ego depletion. However, we found that light physical activity was positively related to self-efficacy and self-efficacy positively related to work focus (as rated by coworkers). Further, vigorous physical activity only resulted in better work focus among employees with an intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) motivation for exercise. Finally, moderate physical activity resulted in better work focus via self-efficacy among extrinsically motivated exercises, whereas this relation was negative for intrinsically motivated exercisers. Combined, our results highlight that physical activity can improve work focus when there is a match between physical activity intensity and exercise motivation.
Objective
This study examined associations between parental precarious work schedules and child behavior problems among a sample of families with low incomes receiving child‐care subsidies and tested ...three hypothesized mediators of these associations: work–family conflict, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability.
Background
As “just‐in‐time,” or on‐call, scheduling practices become more prevalent among low‐paid workers, working parents must balance family demands with precarious work schedules characterized by instability, unpredictability, and lack of control. Precarious work schedules may threaten child well‐being by increasing parents' work–family conflict and stress, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability. Yet, few studies have been able to empirically test these relationships.
Method
This study uses data from a survey of child‐care subsidy recipients to test the associations between five dimensions of parental precarious work schedules—variable work hours and shifts, limited advance notice, unexpected schedule changes, and lack of schedule control—and child externalizing behavior problems via work–care conflict, economic insecurity, and child‐care instability. Analyses use Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and decomposition methods and control for a host of child, parental, and household characteristics.
Results
Variable shifts were indirectly associated with more parent‐reported child behavior problems via work–care conflict, whereas unexpected schedule changes were indirectly associated with more behavior problems via both work–care conflict and material hardship.
Conclusion
These findings add to a growing evidence‐base on the incongruence between precarious employer‐driven scheduling practices and the needs of families with young children.
Despite the growing research on work recovery and its well-being outcomes, surprisingly little attention has been paid to at-work recovery and its job performance outcomes. The current study extends ...the work recovery literature by examining day-level relationships between prototypical microbreaks and job performance as mediated by state positive affect. Furthermore, general work engagement is tested as a cross-level moderator weakening the indirect effects of microbreaks on job performance via positive affect. Using multisource experience sampling method, the authors collected two daily surveys from 71 call center employees and obtained objective records of daily sales performance for two consecutive weeks (n = 632). Multilevel path analysis results showed that relaxation, socialization, and cognitive microbreaks were related to increased positive affect at work which, in turn, predicted greater sales performance. However, breaks for nutrition-intake (having snacks and drinks) did not show significant effects. Importantly, microbreaks had significant indirect effects on job performance via positive affect only for workers who had lower general work engagement, whereas the indirect effects did not exist for workers who had higher general work engagement. Furthermore, Bayesian multilevel analyses confirmed the results. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.
Organizational scholars have examined a number of antecedents of insomnia in a search for ways to prevent insomnia and its negative implications for the workplace. However, most studies have focused ...on the antecedents that are beyond employee control. Therefore, our collective understanding of how employees can modify their workplace behaviors to reduce the symptoms of insomnia and prevent its adverse consequences has remained limited. In this study, we examined whether the expression of voice, as a prosocial yet psychologically costly behavior that is under employee control, affects employee sleep quality, and whether sleep quality affects the expression of voice on the next workday. Having surveyed 113 full-time employees twice a day for 10 workdays, we found that employees who express promotive voice at work experience higher positive affect at the end of the workday, more effectively detach from work in the evening, and are less likely to suffer from insomnia at night. We also found that employees who express prohibitive voice at work experience higher negative affect at the end of the workday, less effectively detach from work in the evening, and are more likely to experience insomnia at night. Our study further demonstrates that, while insomnia is not related to the expression of prohibitive voice on the next day, sleep-deprived employees are less likely to engage in promotive voice because of being psychologically depleted. The results of our study suggest that sleep problems might be mitigated if employees regulate their engagement in costly workplace behaviors, such as voice.
Drawing on conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989) and the model of proactive motivation (Parker, Bindl, & Strauss, 2010), this research employs experience sampling methods to examine how ...employees' off-job experiences during the evening relate to their proactive behavior at work the next day. A multilevel path analysis of data from 183 employees across 10 workdays indicated that various types of off-job experiences in the evening had differential effects on daily proactive behavior during the subsequent workday, and the psychological mechanisms underlying these varied relationships were distinct. Specifically, off-job mastery in the evening related positively to next-morning high-activated positive affect and role breadth self-efficacy, off-job agency in the evening related positively to next-morning role breadth self-efficacy and desire for control, and off-job hassles in the evening related negatively to next-morning high-activated positive affect; next-morning high-activated positive affect, role breadth self-efficacy, and desire for control, in turn, predicted next-day proactive behavior. Off-job relaxation in the evening related positively to next-morning low-activated positive affect, and off-job detachment in the evening had a decreasingly positive curvilinear relationship with next-morning low-activated positive affect. However, as expected, these two types of off-job experiences and low-activated positive affect did not relate to next-day proactive behavior.
Despite empirical findings that have established the dynamic nature of emotional exhaustion (EE), the temporal processes underlying the development of EE over meaningful spans of time have largely ...been ignored in research. Drawing from theories that outline the roles of resources and demands at work (Demerouti et al., 2001; Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll, 1989; ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), the present study developed and tested hypotheses pertaining to the form and predictors of workday EE trajectories. Experience sampling methodology was utilized to assess the momentary EE of 114 employees three times per day over a total of 925 days and 2,808 event-level surveys. Within-day EE growth curves (i.e., intercepts and slopes) were then derived, and the variance of these growth curve terms was partitioned into within-person (i.e., variance in growth curve parameters across days for each person) and between-person (i.e., variance in average growth curve parameters across people) sources. Results supported an increasing pattern of EE across the workday and also demonstrated substantial between- and within-person variance in intercepts (i.e., start) and slopes (i.e., growth) over the workday. In addition, support was found for a set of resource-providing and resource-consuming predictors of EE growth curves, including customer mistreatment, social interactions with coworkers, prior evening psychological detachment, perceived supervisor support, and autonomous and controlled motivations for one's job.
PDF
