Collaborative Research: Uncovering and Utilizing the Dynamic Interplay between Work Recovery and Resilience

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All employees will, at some point, encounter workplace adversities such as work overload, role ambiguity, interpersonal conflict, abusive supervision, or work-family conflict. Thus, there is a critical need to identify pathways through which employees can achieve work effectiveness and wellbeing, despite facing difficulties. Work resilience -- positive adaptation despite adversity at work -- is an advantageous tool that offers a path to success despite adverse experiences. We propose one unexplored way to increase resilience is through recovery, in which non-work time is used to recuperate from fatigue and negative mood built up during the work day. This project's goal is to understand how psychological (e.g., detachment from work, relaxation) and physical (e.g., sleep, exercise) recovery experiences relate to work resilience. Determining behaviors that improve resilience which are under individuals' control during their non-work time has the potential to benefit individuals, teams, and organizations across every occupation. The goal of this project is to uncover and model the dynamic interrelationship of psychological and physical work recovery experiences with work resilience. This project: 1) assesses potential psychological (fatigue) and physiological (heart rate variability) mechanisms that link work recovery and resilience; 2) examines the differential effects of alternative work recovery experiences (i.e., psychological and physical) on work resilience; and 3) delineates the temporal dynamics between work recovery and resilience, uncovering potential cumulative and reciprocal effects. We will conduct two experience sampling research studies using (a) a sample of traditionally employed participants who work during standard weekly business hours and (b) a sample of shift workers - employees who work alternative shifts that at least partially fall outside the daytime shift range (e.g., night shift and rotating shift employees) - to test the current model. Each study is a four-week daily survey study in a sample of 100 working adults that incorporates both objective behavioral and physiological indicators. By explicating the relative importance of different recovery experiences contributing to work resilience and the dynamic relationship between work recovery and resilience, this project could provide a theoretical foundation to enhance organizational effectiveness and employee wellbeing despite unavoidable adversities. Findings will be shared with research outlets, business practitioners, policy makers, and community members.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.