Unplugging or staying connected? Examining the nature, antecedents, and consequences of profiles of daily recovery experiences

Abstract

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)